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A review by asolorio02
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Doug Gillette, Robert Moore
5.0
I picked up "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover" by Robert L. Moore and Douglas Gillette after watching it's ideas used in a film analysis of the movie "The Fall". I didn't really know what to expect as a first time reader of a work from the Jungian school of psychotherapy, archetypes is something I've heard of and read about in other works but never as in depth as was presented in this book. After reading this book my interest in Jung and his ideas is something I will continue exploring in the future. I found myself relating to a lot of what was presented in the book and at times it struck uncomfortably close to home. I've recommended the book to my friends with the assurance that they'll also begin to view their relationships with themselves and others in a new light.
There are a dearth of books that aim to illuminate the things that are wrong and failing within modern society. Some focus on external structures of society and others focus on the internal aspects of people as individuals. This book falls into the latter category. Some people may take issue with a book written about masculinity and say that masculinity is one of the problems with the world today. The patriarchy, toxic masculinity, mansplaining are some obvious and legitimate complaints, however the authors address this in the introduction by laying out the two major factors for the crisis in masculinty today is a lack of ritual processes and the patriarchy itself.
Patriarchy as it's defined in the book, which is a solid definition, is an attack on both masculinity and feminitiy in thier fullness. Because those that abide by the systems of patriarchy seek to dominate. "Patriarchy is based on fear -- the boy's fear, the immature masculine's fear -- of women, but also men. Boys fear women and they also fear real men."
"The patriarchal male doesn't allow for the full development of their sons or daughters... They don't allow their employees to develop for fear, fear of being outshines, outdone, or outclassed. Envy, hate, passive aggressiveness directed at those seeking to unfold who they really are in all their own beauty, maturity, creativity, and generativity."
How close to home does that hit? I'm sure we all know someone like this, for some of us it may be the uncle or father that is constantly trying to put down or downplay the accomplishments of their children or for some of us it's the boss, manager, or supervisor that is like a petty tyrant on the throne ruling their little fiefdom our of paranoia that they will be outclassed and replaced by an underling.
Insights like these come fast and often. These two were taken from the introduction. As the authors lay out their arguments and get into the difference between boy psychology and man psychology, the structure and meaning of the archetypes, the differences between the mature representations of the archetypes and the immature, or shadow representations. An interesting tidbit about structure and self-development, why is that most representations of self-development take the shape of triangles or pyramids? Maslow's hiararchy of needs, John Wooden's Pyramid of success, and Archetypes are all represented as a pyramid of development with the boy (immature) making up the base or foundation, while the full flowering of the masculine man is the peak. Just an interesting thing to think about.
I took issue with a few passages in the book. In the description of "The Warrior" things do get a bit muddy. The authors claim that Warrior energy has been represented at various times by various people, Spartans, Romans, Persians and others as being "Defenders of their people against great foes." Which could be true in some cases, but on the other hand these groups and just about every other have had their moments when they were the aggressors committing atrocities and destroying civilizations and cultures at the behest of their rulers. They do go on to describe the aspects of "The Warrior" in a more or less positive way for the individual though, "The Warrior energy is concerned with skill, power, and accuracy, and with control, both inner and outer, psychological and physical... His loyalty is (transpersonal) to something -- a cause, a god, a people, a task, a nation -- larger than individuals." Meaning that they are committed to higher ideals like justice, democracy, communism and so on.
Overall the book is solid and I think anyone, man or woman, who reads it will gain a new perspective on what it means to be a fully mature person living in the confusing world of today.
There are a dearth of books that aim to illuminate the things that are wrong and failing within modern society. Some focus on external structures of society and others focus on the internal aspects of people as individuals. This book falls into the latter category. Some people may take issue with a book written about masculinity and say that masculinity is one of the problems with the world today. The patriarchy, toxic masculinity, mansplaining are some obvious and legitimate complaints, however the authors address this in the introduction by laying out the two major factors for the crisis in masculinty today is a lack of ritual processes and the patriarchy itself.
Patriarchy as it's defined in the book, which is a solid definition, is an attack on both masculinity and feminitiy in thier fullness. Because those that abide by the systems of patriarchy seek to dominate. "Patriarchy is based on fear -- the boy's fear, the immature masculine's fear -- of women, but also men. Boys fear women and they also fear real men."
"The patriarchal male doesn't allow for the full development of their sons or daughters... They don't allow their employees to develop for fear, fear of being outshines, outdone, or outclassed. Envy, hate, passive aggressiveness directed at those seeking to unfold who they really are in all their own beauty, maturity, creativity, and generativity."
How close to home does that hit? I'm sure we all know someone like this, for some of us it may be the uncle or father that is constantly trying to put down or downplay the accomplishments of their children or for some of us it's the boss, manager, or supervisor that is like a petty tyrant on the throne ruling their little fiefdom our of paranoia that they will be outclassed and replaced by an underling.
Insights like these come fast and often. These two were taken from the introduction. As the authors lay out their arguments and get into the difference between boy psychology and man psychology, the structure and meaning of the archetypes, the differences between the mature representations of the archetypes and the immature, or shadow representations. An interesting tidbit about structure and self-development, why is that most representations of self-development take the shape of triangles or pyramids? Maslow's hiararchy of needs, John Wooden's Pyramid of success, and Archetypes are all represented as a pyramid of development with the boy (immature) making up the base or foundation, while the full flowering of the masculine man is the peak. Just an interesting thing to think about.
I took issue with a few passages in the book. In the description of "The Warrior" things do get a bit muddy. The authors claim that Warrior energy has been represented at various times by various people, Spartans, Romans, Persians and others as being "Defenders of their people against great foes." Which could be true in some cases, but on the other hand these groups and just about every other have had their moments when they were the aggressors committing atrocities and destroying civilizations and cultures at the behest of their rulers. They do go on to describe the aspects of "The Warrior" in a more or less positive way for the individual though, "The Warrior energy is concerned with skill, power, and accuracy, and with control, both inner and outer, psychological and physical... His loyalty is (transpersonal) to something -- a cause, a god, a people, a task, a nation -- larger than individuals." Meaning that they are committed to higher ideals like justice, democracy, communism and so on.
Overall the book is solid and I think anyone, man or woman, who reads it will gain a new perspective on what it means to be a fully mature person living in the confusing world of today.