We face a profound crisis in masculine identity, evident in the breakdown of the traditional family structure. But what lies at the heart of this crisis? In King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette point to two important factors: the absence of meaningful rituals and the concept of patriarchy.
Tribal societies use rituals to guide boys into manhood, often in sacred, secluded spaces. Initiates undergo physically and psychologically challenging trials, learning to submit to life’s difficulties and gaining access to the secret wisdom of nature, typically guided by a shaman or ritual elder (the archetype of the Wise Old Man). Through a spiritual death and rebirth, the boy’s ego “dies”, allowing a new, mature self to emerge.
This is a process that can take years. The essence of life can be described as the journey from a lower state of awareness to a higher level of consciousness, evolving from a fragmented self to a more unified identity. Over time, ancient initiation rituals in the West have devolved into "pseudo-initiations" like gang initiation, activist groups, and hazing in universities or the military.
Without true initiation, men remain in what Moore and Gillette call “Boy psychology” or immature masculinity, which is frequently marked by violence and passivity, leading to cycles of abuse and weakness. While military initiation may be an exception, most modern rituals produce a distorted and stunted masculinity that harms both oneself and others. Many men remain boys not because they want to, but because no one has shown them the way towards manhood.
The second factor is patriarchy. meaning “the rule of the father”, which has shaped Western society and much of the world since at least 2000 BC. Feminists point out that patriarchy has been oppressive and abusive of the feminine qualities.
This is because patriarchy is the expression of immature masculinity. It is not just an attack on the fullness of femininity but also on mature masculinity. Those caught up in patriarchal structures seek to dominate not only women but men as well.
Patriarchy is based on fear—the immature masculine’s fear—of women, to be sure, but also of men. Boys fear women. They also fear real men.
Modern movements like the “Red Pill” community, “Men Going Their Own Way”, and Incels, reveal the widespread presence of “Boy psychology”. Radical feminism concludes that masculinity in its roots is essentially abusive, and that qualities like love, relatedness, and gentleness—associated with “eros”—come only from the feminine side of human nature. However, this is a misinterpretation.
Truly deep and rooted masculinity is not abusive. “The more beautiful, competent, and creative we become, the more we seem to invite the hostility of our superiors, or even of our peers. What we are really being attacked by is the immaturity in human beings who are terrified of our advances on the road toward masculine or feminine fullness of being.
” The crisis in mature masculinity is very much upon us. With the lack of ritual process in our society capable of initiating us into manhood, and with a scarcity in our culture of mature men, it goes without saying that ritual elders are in desperately short supply. Men feel anxious, on the verge of feeling impotent, helpless, frustrated, unloved, unappreciated, and often ashamed of being masculine.
Something vital is missing in the many lives of men. We do not need, as some claim, less masculine power. We need more.
But we need more of mature masculinity, or what Moore and Gillette call “Man psychology”, which is nurturing and empowering, unlike the destructive “Boy psychology”. For students of mythology and Jungian psychology, there is hope. The external deficiencies we face—absent fathers, immature role models, a lack of meaningful rituals, and the scarcity of ritual elders—can be overcome if we look within ourselves, and turn towards the archetypes of the mature masculine within our unconscious.
Although those in the outer world may not live up to the positive qualities of the archetypes, they remain nonetheless present. Archetypes are universal and primordial images that reside in the collective unconscious and represent fundamental human experiences and emotions that shape our behaviour. Endless repetition has engraved these experiences in our psyche.
They serve as templates for understanding human behaviour and personality. We often mistake our actual parents for the ideal patterns and potentials within us. If our parents were “good enough”, then we can access these inner patterns positively.
Sadly, many of us, perhaps the majority, did not receive good enough parenting, and we often mistake controlling, hostile behaviour for strength, when it actually reveals the vulnerability of a wounded boy. In a previous video we have explored the archetype of the puer aeternus or eternal boy, which can either infuse adulthood with the energy and creativity of childhood or hinder self-realisation, trapping us in unrealistic fantasies and experiencing life as a prison. Now we will delve deeper into the immature masculine archetypes.
Before exploring the archetypes of mature masculinity (King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover), it is essential to first examine the immature masculine archetypes we encounter early in life. The first one is the Divine Child, followed by the Precocious Child and the Oedipal Child, and the last stage of boyhood is governed by the Hero. Of course, human development isn’t always linear, and these archetypes influence each other throughout life.
Each archetype of Boy psychology gives rise to its mature counterpart: the Divine Child to the King, the Precocious Child to the Magician, the Oedipal Child to the Lover, and the Hero to the Warrior. Archetypes do not disappear; instead, the mature man transcends the masculine powers of boyhood by building upon them rather than trying to demolish them. It is important not to identify oneself with an archetype, but rather acknowledge that there are forces in our psyche that have their own existence and are beyond our control.
To access the archetype in its fullness, we must ask ourselves two questions. The first one is not if the shadow sides of the archetypes are showing up in our lives, but rather how they are manifesting. The key to maturity is to become humble, which consists of knowing our limitations and getting the help we need.
The second one is how we are honouring or failing to honour the archetype. If we’re not feeling its presence in our personal lives or work, we must reflect on how we might be blocking it. The Divine Child represents the most primal immature masculine archetype.
He is both all-powerful, the centre of the universe, and at the same time totally helpless and weak. In fact, this is the actual experience of infants. The motif of the miraculous birth of the Divine Child is a common theme in mythology and religion.
The Egyptian god Horus was conceived by the goddess Isis after the death of her husband, Osiris, who was revived briefly through magic for this purpose, giving the conception a mystical quality. Similarly, Jesus was conceived by Mary through the Holy Spirit, paralleling the biological concept of parthenogenesis (meaning, “virgin creation”), a natural form of asexual reproduction where an offspring develops directly from an egg without fertilisation. As soon as baby Jesus is born, King Herod immediately seeks to kill him.
The infant Moses, who was born to be the deliverer of his people, was placed in a basket and set adrift on the Nile, a theme also seen in the infancy of the Mesopotamian king Sargon of Akkad. In Hindu mythology, Krishna, prophesied to defeat the tyrant king Kamsa. To prevent this, Kamsa imprisoned Krishna’s parents and killed their first six children.
When Krishna was born, celestial light filled the prison, his father’s chains were loosened, and he was carried to safety across a raging river. The Divine Child archetype symbolises the miraculous yet fragile nature of new life. Drams of a newborn child often signal the emergence of creative and innocent aspects within oneself, indicating a new phase of life.
However, this new life can attract internal and external threats, akin to the tyrant king’s pursuit of the divine child. When we feel this new energy manifesting within us, we need to move to protect it, because it is going to be attacked. For instance, a man in therapy might say, “I may actually be getting better!
” And right away, be answered by an inner voice that says, “Oh no, you’re not. You know you can never be well. ” Some schools of psychology criticise the Divine Child archetype as infantile and pathological, aiming to disconnect patients from it.
Others see the inner child as a source of wholeness and well-being. Both views are valid: the former addresses the shadow side, while the latter emphasises the positive and integrated side. Let us now turn to the shadow side of the Divine Child.
Moore and Gillette describe the shadow as bipolar in nature, consisting both of an active and passive pole. The active pole of the Divine Child’s shadow is the High Chair Tyrant, illustrated by Little Lord Fauntleroy in his high chair, demanding attention and throwing food that doesn't meet his expectations. Characteristics of the High Chair Tyrant include arrogance, negative childishness, and irresponsibility, reflecting pathological narcissism.
This figure must learn that he is not the centre of the universe and that the universe does not exist to fulfil his endless needs or pretensions of godhood. The High Chair Tyrant lives in a delusion expecting perfection and no mistakes. When his high ideals cannot be brought into reality, he manifests as a malignant sociopath.
The ancient Greeks emphasised that hubris is always followed by nemesis or retribution, which is also found in the biblical motif, “Pride comes before a fall. ” The other side of the Divine Child’s shadow is the Weakling Prince, which takes a passive role. This boy demands constant coddling, manipulating those around him with his whining and complaining helplessness.
The family revolves around his comfort, as he convinces his parents that he is a helpless victim of life and that others are picking on him, so that when a controversy arises between him and a sibling, his parents tend to punish the sibling and excuse him. As is the case with bipolar disorders, the ego possessed by one pole will, from time to time, jump over to the other pole. Thus, the boy caught in the bipolar shadow of the Divine Child will alternate between tyrannical outbursts and passive depression or shift from explosive rage to feigned weakness.
This kind of oscillation between the active and passive poles of the archetype’s shadow is characteristic of these dysfunctional systems. Connection with the Divine Child keeps us from feeling washed up, bored, and unable recognise the abundance of human potential around us. We live in an age under the curse of normalcy, characterised by the elevation of the mediocre.
It seems likely that therapists who persistently depreciate the “shining” in their patients are themselves split off from their own Divine Child. They are envying the beauty and freshness, the creativity and vitality, of the Child in their patients. A statuette of the ancient Egyptian magician Imhotep as a boy portrays the archetype of the Precocious Child.
Seated on a throne, reading a scroll, his face reflects grace, poise, and concentration, with eyes reverently focused on the words. This archetype embodies a curious, eager-to-learn boy, who wants to know the “why” of everything, and is often a talented and reflective introvert, able to see hidden connections. He is the source of so-called child prodigies.
Though introverted, he often experiences a powerful urge to help others with his knowledge, and friends come to him for advice. This archetype keeps our sense of wonder and curiousity alive, stimulating our intellect, and moving toward the path of the mature magician. The active shadow side of the Precocious Child is the Know-It-All Trickster, representing manipulation and deception.
He creates illusions, tricks others into trusting him, and then betrays them for amusement. A man possessed by this archetype enjoys intimidation and intellectual showmanship, often making enemies through arrogance and verbal abuse. Despite his destructiveness, the Trickster can expose lies and deflate inflated egos, reminding us of our human limitations.
However, if it is left unchecked, this energy becomes toxic, blocking creativity and denying one’s true potential. The Know-It-All Trickster’s underlying motivation comes from envy, often activated by emotional abuse or a lack of validation in childhood. The absence of self-worth drives him to belittle others, reflecting his own unresolved insecurities.
He has no heroes, because to have heroes is to admire others. He feels disconnected from his own uniqueness. The passive shadow side of the Precocious Child is the naïve Dummy.
Like the Weakling Prince, he lacks personality, vigour, and creativity. He seems unresponsive and dull. He is frequently labelled as a slow learner.
The Dummy’s ineptitude, however, is often deceptive. His seemingly clueless behaviour can mask a hidden sense of grandiosity, feeling too important (as well as too vulnerable) to fully engage with the world. In this way, the Dummy is closed linked to the Trickster, concealing a secret Know-It-All within.
All the immature masculine energies are overly tied, one way or another, to the Mother. The Oedipal Child in his fullness is able to access positive qualities such as a deep appreciation for connectedness with his inner depths, with others, and with all things. His sense of the mystic oneness of all things comes out of his deep yearning for the infinitely nurturing, infinitely good, and infinitely beautiful Mother.
This, of course, is not his real mother, who cannot meet these infinite needs, but rather the archetype of the Great Mother. A young man in analysis realised this during an argument with his mother when he accidentally said, “God, All-Mother, Mighty! ” It was a Freudian slip.
He had meant to say, “God Almighty, Mother! ” Both were embarrassed and laughed nervously, because they realised the significance of this statement. From that moment on, he began to direct his spiritual sense toward the Great Mother, who he realised was the Mother of his own mortal mother.
By withdrawing his projections of this archetype from his mother and other women, he relieved them of the burden of god-like expectations, which improved both his relationships and spiritual depth. The Mama’s boy represents the active shadow side of the Oedipal child, where a boy fantasises about marrying his mother, especially in the absence of a strong father figure. Freud’s concept of the Oedipus complex is rooted in the myth of Oedipus, who kills his father, the king, and marries his mother.
Later, this awful truth was discovered and he was cast down. Oedipus was unconsciously inflated and destroyed for the inflation of his unconscious pretension to godhood. For every child, Mother is the goddess and Father is the god.
The Mama’s boy, seeking the immortal Goddess, can never be satisfied with a real woman and endlessly seeks one woman after another (the Don Juan syndrome). He avoids responsibility and intimate relationships. Moreover, he is what is called autoerotic, seeking sexual gratification from his own body without the involvement of a partner.
The passive shadow side of the Oedipal Child is the Dramer, who retreats into passive fantasy, causing him to feel isolated from the world and cut off from all human relationships. Underlying his depression is his grandiosity in seeking to possess the archetypal Mother. He appears withdrawn and unproductive, with dreams that are either idealistic or melancholic.
This is the boy who seeks to escape reality, much like Peter Pan, retreating to Neverland—a place where people never grow up and remain forever young. The Hero represents an advanced stage of boy psychology—the pinnacle of masculine energy in adolescence, explored in-depth in Joseph Campbell’s work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, where he popularised the concept of the Hero’s Journey. It is an archetype that exists in our psyche as part of our personal development towards independence and responsibility, breaking away from the Devouring Mother and facing the challenges of adulthood.
By establishing his identity, the Hero defends himself against the overpowering feminine unconscious. “Against enormous odds, the Hero picks up his sword and charges into the heart of the abyss, into the mouth of the dragon. ” Society often diminishes the hero within men.
Those who strive to stand out, to rise above the ordinary, are frequently pulled back down by their uninspired and self-proclaimed “peers. ” We need a great rebirth of the heroic in our world. Only the heroic consciousness, exerting all its might, will be able to pull us out of unconscious chaos.
There is much confusion about the archetype of the Hero. Many believe the heroic approach to life is the highest ideal, but this is only partly accurate. According to Moore and Gillette, the Hero archetype remains immature.
If it dominates a man’s life into adulthood, it prevents him from reaching full maturity. In the medieval legends about heroes, we are seldom told what happens once the hero has slain the dragon and married the princess. Once the Hero’s adventure is finished, he does not know what to do with the princess (the anima or female soul within man).
Although he has successfully evaded the overwhelming influence of the feminine, he has yet to learn how to integrate it into his life. As the Hero’s journey culminates in a symbolic “death”, he confronts his limitations and acknowledges that the enemy has always been himself, his dark, unheroic side. He has escaped the grasp of the feminine unconscious and realised his incapacity to integrate his anima.
This leads to true humility, marking the transition from Boy psychology to Man psychology. The Hero’s downfall lies in his inability to acknowledge his limitations and mortality. The active pole of the Hero’s shadow is the Grandstander Bully who seeks to impress others and dominate, viewing centre stage as his birthright.
The Hero’s inflated sense of self-importance and belief in his invulnerability leads him to resort to verbal and physical attacks against those who challenge him, masking his underlying cowardice. He overcomes his mother by asserting his masculinity, and ultimately risks self-destruction through his arrogance. The boy possessed by the Coward, the passive pole of the Hero’s bipolar shadow, shows an extreme reluctance to stand up for himself in physical or psychological confrontations.
The Coward will usually run away from conflict. He will tend to allow himself to be bullied emotionally and intellectually as well. When he has had enough of this, however, the hidden grandiosity of the Grandstander Bully within him will erupt and launch a violent verbal and/or physical assault upon his “enemy”, an assault for which the other is totally unprepared.
We now turn to the mature masculine archetypes, built upon the foundations of boyhood. We have to take responsibility for what we’re not responsible for. While we are not responsible for the events that stunted our growth in our early years leading to immature levels of masculinity in adulthood, rebelling against society and leaving things at that does us no good.
Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you. The goal of individuation is for us to become an individual, fulfilling our inner essence or soul, which represents the meaning and purpose of our life. The King is the fundamental archetype of masculinity, serving as the foundation for the other mature masculine archetypes: Warrior, Magician and Lover.
It is considered “the central archetype” around which the psyche is organised, also known as what Jung calls the archetype of the Self. The King has two functions that make the transition from Boy psychology to Man psychology possible. The first one is ordering, and the second is fertility and blessing.
The King represents the order that arises from chaos, a theme prevalent in many mythologies and religions. He symbolises the Sun, the king of the gods in many cultures, a supreme symbol of the light of masculine consciousness, that triumphs over the darkness of unconsciousness. Historically, kings were seen as sacred figures because they embodied this ordering principle.
The mortal king embodied King energy; when he lived it fully, the kingdom thrived in harmony. If he had sexual vigour, the land would flourish; if he remained healthy and mentally alert, crops would grow, livestock would reproduce, merchants would prosper, and more children would be born. This is an old form of magic known as sympathetic magic, where like affects like.
It also mirrors the microcosm-macrocosm of the law of correspondence: as above, so below; as within, so without. On the contrary, when the King grew old, became sick, weak or impotent, the kingdom suffered. Crops failed to grow, the people did not reproduce, and chaos ensued.
Similarly, in families where there is an immature, a weak, or an absent father and the King energy is not sufficiently present, the family is very often given over to chaos. Thus, in many alchemical manuscripts we see the old King being ritually killed, as his ability to live out the King archetype began to fail. Apart from fertility there is blessing.
The good king always affirmed those who deserved it, delighting in noticing and promoting good men to positions of responsibility in his kingdom. He held audience, primarily, not to be seen (although this was important to the extent that he carried the people’s own projected inner King energy), but to see, admire, and delight in his people, rewarding them and bestowing honours upon them. Being blessed has significant psychological consequences for us.
Young men today yearn for recognition and validation from older male figures, seeking the King’s blessing to bring order to their chaotic lives. However, many ancient kings like many contemporary leaders, often fell short of embodying the King archetype. The unfortunate reality is that the positive energy of the King is often missing in most men’s lives, leaving them to confront the bipolar shadow side of the archetype.
The active shadow side of the King is the Tyrant. As seen with King Herod’s attempt to kill the newborn Christ, the Tyrant attacks whenever new life emerges, viewing fresh vitality as a threat to his fragile kingship. He embodies destructive behaviour, often manifesting in fathers who supress their children’s joy and talents through criticism, neglect, or abuse.
The Tyrant is common among narcissistic individuals who seek constant attention and admiration, reacting negatively to criticism and exhibiting pride, arrogance, and a lack of empathy. But under the rage is a sense of worthlessness, and vulnerability, for behind the Tyrant lies the other pole of the King’s shadow, the Weakling. The man controlled by this passive pole seeks admiration from others.
When this need is unmet, it leads to angry outbursts toward those he sees as weak, projecting his own inner Weakling. He lacks inner calm and security, often becoming paranoid. The Tyrant has no transpersonal commitment.
He considers himself as God. It is the mythological rebellion in heaven (the usurpation syndrome). The Weakling, on the other hand, has lost touch with the life-giving King altogether, and depends on others, projecting the King energy onto some person (the abdication syndrome).
The King in his fullness has a transpersonal devotion and a spirituality based on the truth, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God [“the King”] with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And thy neighbour as thyself. ” The King energy is the calm and reassuring force that stays composed when others panic.
It is the clear, decisive voice that brings order in chaos, striving for peace, stability, and growth for all, including nature. Today, people are often uncomfortable with the Warrior form of masculine energy, associating it with violence and aggression—for good reasons, as many have suffered from its shadow side. However, like all archetypes, the Warrior persists despite our conscious discomfort.
When repressed, it goes underground and eventually resurfaces in neurotic forms. A man accessing the Warrior archetype knows what level of aggressiveness is appropriate by maintaining discipline, focus, and purpose. His actions are guided by a clear sense of duty and ethics, ensuring his aggressiveness is in service to a higher cause, not driven by impulsive or destructive instincts.
The Warrior destroys only what is necessary—corruption, tyranny, oppression, injustice—so that something new, fresh, and more virtuous can emerge. The characteristics of the Warrior in his fullness amount to a total way of life, what the samurai called do (the way). The Japanese warrior tradition claimed that there is only one position in which to face the battle of life: frontally.
And it also proclaimed that there was only one direction: forward. “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. ”” The Warrior differs from the Hero in that he knows his limits and realistically assesses his capacities, while the Hero is romantically unaware of his own vulnerability. The Warrior, aware of life’s fragility, acts decisively, with each deed performed as if it were his last.
Samurai were taught to live with death as “their eternal companion”, allowing no room for hesitation. This sense of death’s imminence drives the Warrior to act without overthinking, as doubt leads to hesitation. His actions, refined through self-discipline, become second nature.
The Warrior avoids dramatic displays or wasted energy. His control is, first of all, over his mind and his attitudes; if these are right, the body will follow. His characteristics include: courage, decisiveness, clarity, taking responsibility for his actions, self-discipline, strength, and skill.
The Hero's loyalty is to himself, while the Warrior's loyalty is to something greater—his master, nation, or God, even unto death. This transpersonal commitment aligns the ego with the Self, the centre of the personality. Unlike most, the Warrior lives not to gratify personal desires but to refine himself into a spiritual force, trained to endure in service of a higher goal.
The founders of Christianity and Buddhism were spiritual warriors, with Jesus resisting Satan’s temptations and the Buddha facing his under the Bo Tree. Following the way of the Warrior requires emotional detachment. Samurai training taught a psychological exercise: instead of saying, “I am afraid” or “I am despairing”, say “There is someone who is afraid, or “There is someone who is despairing.
What can he do about it? ” This practice helps us “step back” from situations to gain perspective and not be paralysed by emotion, but act effectively. When the Warrior is operating on his own, unrelated to the other archetypes, the results can be disastrous.
As he is, in his pure form, emotionally detached. The Warrior’s loved ones often feel alienated and rejected, competing hopelessly with his “true love”: his work. The active pole of the Warrior’s shadow is the Sadist, who derives pleasure from inflicting pain.
While detachment isn’t inherently bad, it can lead to cruelty—either without passion or with passion. Those who became the killing machines in death camps were trained in unfeeling sadism, viewing themselves as “the good guys. ” Often, we become what we hate.
Revolutionaries may eventually become the new tyrants. The Sadist brings the Bully of boyhood into adulthood, fighting against everything deemed “soft” or relational. The passive pole of the Warrior’s shadow is the Masochist, who exhibits self-punishing behaviours and projects Warrior energy onto others, causing himself to feel powerless.
This archetype carries the Coward of boyhood into adulthood. If we are under the power of the cowardly Masochist, we will take too much abuse for far too long and then explode in a sadistic outburst of verbal and physical violence. Compulsive personalities are particularly vulnerable to the Shadow Warrior.
Workaholics often endure pain and achieve a lot, but their relentless drive stems from deep anxiety. If you neglect your mental and physical well-being, you are probably under the Shadow Warrior’s influence. Lacking self-security, you might rely on external achievements for confidence.
The man obsessed with “succeeding" has already failed, he falls into compulsive work patterns, leading to inner fatigue and burnout. If we are accessing the Warrior in the right way, we will, at the same time that we are “detached”, be warm, compassionate, and generative. We will care for ourselves and others.
We will fight good fights in order to make the world a better and more fulfilling place for everyone and everything. Our war-making will be for the creation of the new, the just, and the free. The Magician is an initiate of esoteric knowledge.
Knowledge requiring special training belongs to the Magician archetype. If you have invested considerable time, energy, and money to gain access to secret powers, you become like the apprentice shaman in tribal societies, where people turn to you for guidance on their problems and ailments of the body and mind. The Magician archetype sees through denial and exercises discernment.
In ancient times, when a king was consumed by anger and sought to punish others unjustly, the magician would calmly awaken the king’s conscience, helping him regain control. Essentially, the court magician served as the king’s psychotherapist. As the archetype of insight and thoughtfulness, the Magician is closely related to the Wise Old Man archetype.
The Magician is the “ritual elder” who guides others through transformation by entering a sacred space. He knows how to handle the raw archetypal power within that space, using hymns, prayer, invocations, and blessings to invoke the numinous or divine power, while shielding initiates from its intensity, granting them access to it. The concept of containment and sacred space is illustrated by the Ark of the Covenant in the Bible, representing God’s presence among the Israelites.
When the oxen pulling the cart stumbled, a soldier tried to steady the Ark and was immediately killed. Only the priests, as trained magicians in divine knowledge, could touch it. A similar phenomenon occurs in psychotherapy.
A therapist who is not adequately trained or skilled—essentially still an “apprentice”—can trigger powerful emotions in the patient that neither of them can contain, resulting in disastrous outcomes. This theme is echoed in Goethe’s sorcerer apprentice archetype and the Greek myth of Pandora’s box. The active pole of the Shadow Magician is the Manipulator.
These men use their secret knowledge for their own purposes, usually for power over others. In psychotherapy, sometimes the therapist will withhold information that the patient needs in order to get better, subtly conveying the message, “I possess the great wisdom you require to get better. Seek it from me, and don’t forget to leave your payment with my secretary on the way out.
” Whenever we are detached, unrelated, and withhold knowledge that could help others, whenever we use our knowledge as a weapon to belittle or control others for our own status or wealth, we are identified with the Shadow Magician as Manipulator, a carryover from childhood into adulthood of the Know-It-All Trickster. The passive pole of the Magician’s Shadow is called the Naïve or “Innocent” One. This man desires the power and status typically associated with a magician but is unwilling to accept the responsibilities that come with being a true magician.
The man embodying the "Innocent One" feels envious of life and fears that others will uncover his lack of vitality, and throw him off his shaky pedestal. Moore and Gillette describe a young man who accessed his inner Magician after being terrorised by dreams of tornadoes, symbolising his repressed rage from growing up with alcoholic parents and enduring physical abuse. This turmoil disrupted his life and led to deep depression.
His therapist encouraged him to draw the tornadoes inside a lead-shielded container. Then, he was to illustrate power lines and transformers connecting the container to streetlights, houses, and factories, symbolising the harnessing of that energy. As he brought his unconscious contents into consciousness through his drawing, his life began to transform.
He found the courage to quit his job and pursue his dream of working in children’s theatre, and soon, job offers in that field started coming in. The “black magic” of his chaotic anger was transformed into the “white magic” of electricity, illuminating his new path, allowing him to channel his primal emotions. The Lover archetype is what keeps us alive and passionate.
There are many forms of love. The ancient Greeks described agape as the highest form of love, embodying a profound sacrificial love for God and others. They also identified philia (friendship), storge (familial love), and eros (romantic love).
Jung viewed libido as encompassing more than sexual desire; it includes all psychic energy and bodily needs like hunger, thirst, sleep, and sex, along with various emotional states. The Lover embodies the sensation function, focused on sensory experiences—colours, sounds, tastes, smells and tactile sensations. The Lover engages in play, healthy embodiment, and has a deep connection with the physical world.
He sees the “World in a Grain of Sand”, as William Blake puts it. The Lover’s connectedness is not through intellect but rather feeling. This archetype is the source of what we call spirituality or mysticism which is present in all the world’s religions.
As a mystic, the Lover intuits the ultimate Oneness of all existence and seeks to experience it in daily life. The Lover feels the joy and satisfaction of the animal and plant world, along with their pain and suffering. He must endure the painfulness of being alive—for himself and others.
Here we have the image of Jesus weeping for humanity as the “man of sorrows, one acquainted with grief,” as the Bible states. The Lover is primarily present in the artist, whose personal life is often stormy, messy, and labyrinthine—full of ups and downs, failed marriages, and substance abuse. Artists live close to the fiery power of the creative unconscious.
As Jung wrote, “A person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire. ” Many men literally live for the thrill of “falling in love”—that is, falling into the power of the Lover. The active pole of the shadow Lover is the Addicted Lover, who asks, “Why should I impose limits on my sensual and sexual experiences in a world of endless pleasures?
” The Addict lives only for the pleasure of the moment, trapped in a cycle of pleasure and pain. This state prevents us from “coming to ourselves”, making it difficult to detach and gain distance on our feelings. When we find ourselves in an addictive relationship, it often signals that we have fallen victim to the shadow Lover.
The Addicted Lover is eternally restless, always seeking for something he cannot define. This behaviour carries over from boyhood into adulthood, stemming from the dependency on the Mother seen in the Mama’s Boy. What the Addict is unconsciously seeking is the ultimate and continuous “high”.
He struggles with “boundary issues” as he does not want to be limited. However, what he needs most is self-control, creating boundaries with heroic effort. When we are out of touch with the Lover in his fullness, we are possessed by the passive pole, the Impotent Lover.
This goes beyond having “performance issues”. One feels a general lack of enthusiasm and aliveness, resulting in boredom and listlessness. Getting up in the morning or falling asleep can become difficult, and our speech may turn monotone.
Everything may begin to feel like the passage in Ecclesiastes which declares, “All is vanity, and a chasing after the wind”, and “There is nothing new under the sun. ” People possessed by the Impotent Lover are often chronically depressed. A therapist may notice something trying to express itself in the patient’s expression or body language, yet when asked about their feelings, the client might say, “I don’t know.
There’s just this fog. Everything is hazy. ” When we are depressed, we just don’t have the motivation to do the things we either want to do or have to do.
Many have repressed their inner Lover so much that it becomes difficult to feel passionate about anything. The issue for most is not feeling too much passion, but rather feeling little to none at all. We struggle to experience joy and often find it hard to live the lives we envisioned when we began our journeys.
When we appropriately access the Lover, we feel connected, alive, enthusiastic, compassionate, energised, and romantic about our lives, work, goals, and achievements. The Lover provides a sense of meaning and keeps the other mature masculine archetypes humane and connected to the struggles of life. Without the Lover, these archetypes risk becoming detached from love and purpose.
Conversely, the Lover needs the other archetypes. The chaotic Lover requires the King to set boundaries, providing structure and order. The Lover needs the Warrior to act decisively and break free from immobilising sensuality, and he needs the Magician to gain objectivity and distance from overwhelming emotions.
Paul the Apostle wrote, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ” In psychological terms, we are possessed by a complex, behind which is the archetypal shadow.
It is important to confront these negative energy forms before they lead us to actions, we might regret. Since we don’t care about them, they do not care about us. There are a few techniques that can help us to integrate our mature masculine archetypes.
The first one is what Jung calls active imagination, where one actively engages with one’s inner figures, which manifest themselves in either their negative or positive side. In these inner dialogues, we frequently see that all these forces really want is to be noticed, taken seriously, and honoured. And they have a right to be.
Once they are honoured, and their feelings validated, they no longer need to act out through our lives. Thus, a figure who started out as an inner persecutor may become a lifelong friend. A second technique is known as invocation.
This time we access the masculine archetypes in their fullness as positive energy forms. If active imagination dialogue is a conscious, focused way of interacting with your inner figures, invocation is a conscious, focused way of calling up the images you want to see. For this, it is often useful to spend some time looking for images of the King, the Warrior, the Magician, and the Lover.
Use these images in your invocations, and as you relax and stick with the image, realise that you, as an ego, are different from the figure. A third technique is acting “as if” you are embodying the qualities of the archetype, much like portraying a character on stage. If you are playing a King, act as the calm leader of his people, if you need to access the Lover, go out and really look at a sunset, even if it doesn’t initially interest you—act as if you appreciate its colours and beauty.
If you need the access the Warrior. Get up with courage, and get things done. For the Magician, act as if you have something insightful to say.
Embrace the silence, taking a moment to reflect, and then share the depth of your life experiences and wisdom. We all possess more of this than we often realise. There may never have been a time when mature masculine or feminine archetypes truly dominated human life.
Instead, we seem to live under the curse of infantilism, thus patriarchy becomes “puerarchy”—the rule of boys. It is clear that the world is overpopulated with not only immature men but also tyrannical and abusive women who pretend to be mature. The real enemy for both sexes lies not in each other but in the shadow forms of their archetypes.
Historically, structures and rituals helped evoke a higher level of masculine maturity, but today’s anti-ritual world emphasises personal wealth and self-aggrandisement. Yet, our world urgently needs mature masculine energies more than ever. How effectively we transition from Boy psychology to Man psychology will significantly impact not only ourselves, but also others and the world.
Mature men need not to resent other men, but admire them. A changed inner world will greatly enhance our capacity to deal with difficult circumstances. The much-touted concept of positive thinking has more depth than we might realise.
Let us then nurture and welcome great individuals—those who will, with the benevolence of kings, the courage of ancient warriors, the wisdom of magicians, and the passion of lovers, serve as beacons of light in these dark and chaotic times.
