King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine - by Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette
Date read: 2023-07-05How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
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A book that men (and boys) of all ages should read. Debunking the myth that mature masculinity is abusive and domineering but instead is creative, empowering, and necessary. The author breaks down four mature male archetypes: King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover.
Contents:
My Notes
The difference between Boy and Man psychology: Boy psychology is charged with the struggle for dominance of others, in some form or another. And it is often caught up in the wounding of self, as well as others. It is sadomasochistic. Man psychology is always the opposite. It is nurturing and generative, not wounding and destructive.
In order for Man psychology to come into being for any particular man, there needs to be a death. Death-symbolic, psychological, or spiritual-is always a vital part of any initiatory ritual.
In most cases, there simply is not a contained ritual process. Ritual process is contained by two things. The first is sacred space and the second is a ritual elder, a "wise old man" or a "wise old woman" who is completely trustworthy for the initiate and can lead the initiate through the process and deliver him (or her) intact and enhanced on the other side.
The Divine Child, modulated and enriched by life's experiences, becomes the King; the Precocious Child becomes the Magician; the Oedipal Child becomes the Lover; and the Hero becomes the Warrior.
The Precocious Child manifests in a boy when he is eager to learn, when his mind is quickened, when he wants to share what he is learning with others. It is the origin of our curiosity and our adventurous impulses.
The Precocious Child in a man keeps his sense of wonder and curiosity alive, stimulates his intellect, and moves him in the direction of the mature magician.
The less a man is in touch with his true talents and abilities, the more he will envy others. If we envy a lot, we are denying our own realistic greatness, our own Divine Child. What we need to do, then, is to get in touch with our own specialness, our own beauty, and our own creativity. Envy blocks creativity.
True humility, we believe, consists of two things. The first is knowing our limitations. And the second is getting the help we need.
Two functions of King energy make this transition from Boy psychology to Man psychology possible. The first of these is ordering; the second is the providing of fertility and blessing.
The King archetype in its fullness possesses the qualities of order, of reasonable and rational patterning, of integration and integrity in the masculine psyche. It stabilizes chaotic emotion and out-of-control behaviors. It gives stability and centeredness. It brings calm. And in its "fertilizing" and centeredness, it mediates vitality, life-force, and joy. It brings maintenance and balance. It defends our own sense of inner order, our own integrity of being and of purpose, our own central calmness about who we are, and our essential unassailability and certainty in our masculine identity. It looks upon the world with a firm but kindly eye. It sees others in all their weakness and in all their talent and worth. It honors them and promotes them. It guides them and nurtures them toward their own fullness of being. It is not envious, because it is secure, as the King, in its own worth. It rewards and encourages creativity in us and in others.
When we are accessing the King energy correctly, as servants of our own inner King, we will manifest in our own lives the qualities of the good and rightful King, the King in his fullness.
We will feel centered, and calm, and hear ourselves speak from an inner authority. We will have the capacity to mirror and to bless ourselves and others. We will have the capacity to care for others deeply and genuinely. We will "recognize" others; we will behold them as the full persons they really are.
How does the man accessing the Warrior know what aggressiveness is appropriate under the circumstances? He knows through clarity of thinking, through discernment. The warrior is always alert. He is always awake. He is never sleeping through life. He knows how to focus his mind and his body. He is what the samurai called "mindful." He is a "hunter" in the Native American tradition. As Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian warrior-sorcerer in Carlos Castañeda's Journey to Ixtlan, says, a warrior knows what he wants, and he knows how to get it. As a function of his clarity of mind he is a strategist and a tactician. He can evaluate his circumstances accurately and then adapt himself to the "situation on the ground," as we say.
Here is a difference between the Warrior and the Hero. The man (or the boy) accessing the Hero, as we've said, does not know his limitations; he is romantic about his invulnerability. The warrior, however, through his clarity of thinking realistically assesses his capacities and his limitations in any given situation.
The Warrior traditions all affirm that, in addition to training, what enables a Warrior to reach clarity of thought is living with the awareness of his own imminent death. The Warrior knows the shortness of life and how fragile it is.
The Warrior energy is concerned with skill, power, and accuracy, and with control, both inner and outer, psychological and physical. The Warrior energy is concerned with training men to be "all that they can be"-in their thoughts, feelings, speech, and actions.
The Warrior never spends more energy than he absolutely has to. And he doesn't talk too much.
That is another aspect of the Warrior's interest in skill, his mastery of the technology that enables him to reach his goal. He has developed skill with the "weapons" he uses to implement his decisions.
His control is, first of all, over his mind and his attitudes; if these are right, the body will follow. A man accessing the Warrior archetype has "a positive mental attitude," as they say in sales training. This means that he has an unconquerable spirit, that he has great courage, that he is fearless, that he takes responsibility for his actions, and that he has self-discipline.
He lives a life exactly the opposite of most human lives. He lives not to gratify his personal needs and wishes or his physical appetites but to hone himself into an efficient spiritual machine, trained to bear the unbearable in the service of the transpersonal goal.
He looks at his tasks, his decisions, and his actions dispassionately and unemotionally. Samurai training involved the following kind of psychological exercise. Whenever, the teaching went, you feel yourself frightened or despairing, don't say to yourself, "I am afraid," or "I am despairing." Say, "There is someone who is afraid," or "There is someone who is despairing. Now, what can he do about this?" This detached way of experiencing a threatening situation objectifies the situation and allows for a clearer and more strategically advantageous view of it.
The man under the influence of the Warrior needs urgently to have his mind and his feelings under control-not repressed, but under control. Otherwise, cruelty will sneak in the back door when he's not looking.
They can't, of course, measure up to their own standards, so they mercilessly abuse themselves. If you have to admit to yourself that you really don't take care of yourself, that you don't care for your mental and physical well-being, then very probably the Shadow Warrior has got you.
Any profession that puts a great deal of pressure on a person to perform at his best all the time leaves us vulnerable to the shadow system of the Warrior. If we are not secure enough in our own inner structure, we will rely on our performance in the outer world to bolster our self-confidence. And because the need for this bolstering is so great, our behavior will gravitate toward the compulsive. The man who becomes obsessed with "succeeding" has already failed. He is desperately trying to repress the Masochist within him, yet he is already displaying masochistic and self-punishing behaviors
If we are accessing the Warrior appropriately, we will be energetic, decisive, courageous, enduring, persevering, and loyal to some greater good beyond our own personal gain.
The Magician archetype in a man is his "bullshit detector"; it sees through denial and exercises discernment. He sees evil for what and where it is when it masquerades as goodness, as it so often does.
It is interesting to realize that our modern science, like the work of the ancient magicians, is also divided into two aspects. The first, "theoretical science," is the knowing aspect of the Magician energy. The second, "applied science," is the technological aspect of the Magician energy, the applied knowledge of how to contain and channel power.
This "sacred" space is something men who are guided by the Magician know well. These men may actually put themselves into that "space" deliberately, much like ritual magicians who draw their magic circles and recite their incantations. They enter this space by listening to certain musical pieces, by tending to a hobby, by taking long walks in the woods, by meditating on certain themes and mental pictures, and by many other methods. When they enter this sacred space within they can be in touch with the Magician; they can emerge from the inner space seeing what they need to do about a problem and knowing how to do it.
Whenever we are detached, unrelated, and withholding when what we know could help others, whenever we use our knowledge as a weapon to belittle and control others or to bolster our status or wealth at others' expense, we are identified with the Shadow Magician as Manipulator. We are doing black magic, damaging ourselves as well as those who could benefit from our wisdom.
The Lover is the archetype of play and of "display," of healthy embodiment, of being in the world of sensuous pleasure and in one's own body without shame. Thus, the Lover is deeply sensual-sensually aware and sensitive to the physical world in all its splendor.
What ways of life manifest the Lover most clearly? There are two primary ones-the artist (broadly defined) and the psychic. Painters, musicians, poets, sculptors, and writers are often "mainlining" the Lover. The artist is well known to be sensitive and sensual.
Genuine psychics also live in a world of sensations and "vibrations," of deeply felt intuitions. Their conscious awareness, like that of the artist, is extraordinarily open to invasion from other people's thoughts and feelings and from the murky realm of the collective unconscious.
If we are appropriately accessing the Lover, but keeping our Ego structures strong, we feel related, connected, alive, enthusiastic, compassionate, empathic, energized, and romantic about our lives, our goals, our work, and our achievements.
True humility consists of two things: the first is knowing our limitations, and the second is getting the help we need.
At four important techniques for accessing the positive resources we are missing in our lives.
Technique #1 - Active Imagination Dialogue
An example of an active imagination dialogue exercise: Have a conversation with one of your inner dialogues. You play the part of the Ego. The man who had this dialogue with one of his complexes (the Trickster) had been having a lot of trouble at work because he found himself unable to contain his critical comments-most of which were based on accurate observations-about management's incompetence.
Often, conducting a dialogue with inner "opponents"-usually forms of the immature masculine energies-will defuse much of their power. What they-like all children-really want is to be noticed, honored, and taken seriously. And they have a right to be. Once they are honored, and their feelings validated, they no longer need to act out through our lives.
Technique #2 - Invocation
If active imagination dialogue is a conscious, focused way of talking to yourself, invocation is a conscious, focused way of calling up the images you want to see. Imaging deeply affects our moods, our attitudes, the way we look at things, and what we do.
If possible, find a quiet place and time, clear your mind as best you can and relax-again, as best you can. (We don't recommend long relaxation exercises as a necessary part of this process, although they can be helpful.) Focus on an image that has both mental pictures and spoken words (spoken in your head, at least). It is often useful to spend some time looking for images of the King, the Warrior, the Magician, the Lover. Use those images in your invocations. Let's say you've found an image of a Roman emperor on his throne-a still from a movie, perhaps, or a painting. During this exercise, set that image in front of you. As you relax, talk to the image. Call up the King inside yourself. Seek to merge your deep unconscious with him. Realize that you (as an Ego) are different from him. In your imagination, make your Ego his servant. Feel his calm and his strength, his balanced benevolence toward you, his watching over you. Imagine yourself before his throne, having an audience with him. In effect, "pray" to him. Tell him that you need him, that you need his help-his power, his favor, his orderliness, his manliness. Count on his generosity and his kind disposition.
Technique #3 - Admiring Men
Mature men need to admire other men, living and dead. We need especially to have contact with older men whom we can look up to.
Technique #4 - Acting "As If"
It relies on the time-validated technology of the actor trying to "get into character" when he doesn't feel the character. We call this acting "as if." In this process, if you can't feel the character portrayed in your script, you begin by acting like the character. You move and talk as this character would move and talk. You act "as if." On the stage, you act kingly, even if you've just been fired from your job and your wife has left you! "The show must go on," and others are depending on you to play your part well. So you pick up your script; you read the king's lines; you sit on the throne; and you act like the king. Pretty soon, believe it or not, you will start to feel like a king.