Be More Alpha
The Magician
Many a boy goes through a magic phase growing up. He learns a few card tricks, and maybe goes down to the local magic store to browse for more elaborate tricks. Even just entering the store is a little thrilling, as is showing off newly learned tricks to one’s family and friends.
Most men outgrow their magic hobby, although not necessarily their fascination with the art. But even the professional ranks of magicians are dominated by men.
So why are men so drawn to magic?
The masculine attraction to magic can be traced to something much deeper than the ability to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Rather, it is rooted in what the magician’s abilities represent–the power that comes from the mastery of a secret knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge to manipulate tools in order to control certain elements and produce desired outcomes. The yearning to harness and possess that power is what fuels the Magician archetype, an energy that every man should seek, whether or not he ever hopes to saw a lady in half.
The Characteristics of the Magician in His Fullness
Intellectually Curious/The Holder of Hidden Knowledge
As Moore puts it, “The Magician is the knower.” What does he know? “Secret and hidden knowledge of all kinds.” While this kind of knowledge sounds very esoteric, and it can be, Moore is simply referring to any kind of knowledge that is “not immediately apparent or commonsensical.” It is knowledge you learn in degrees, its mastery takes great effort and diligence, and the reward is to be able to dwell in a realm that the average man does not have access to. Moore argues that:
“All knowledge that takes special training to acquire is the province of the Magician energy. Whether you are an apprentice training to become a master electrician and unraveling the mysteries of high voltage; or a medical student, grinding away night and day, studying the secrets of the human body and using available technologies to help your patients; or a would-be stockbroker or a student of high finance; or a trainee in one of the psychoanalytic schools, you are in exactly the same position as the apprentice shaman or witch doctor in tribal societies. You are spending large amounts of time, energy, and money in order to be initiated into rarefied realms of secret power. You are undergoing an ordeal testing your capacities to become a master of this power. And, as is true in all initiations, there is no guarantee of success.”
As you go about your studies or the day-to-day duties of your profession, you probably don’t feel like you’re acting in a “realm of secret power.” But take a step back and consider it—whether it’s how to set a bone or repair a carburetor, you probably can do things that to others are completely obscure and shrouded in mystery.
A Master of Technology
Nikola Tesla
A few months ago I bought an iPad. I love it. The first time I swiped across its screen, I felt like I was using some sort of magic gazing mirror that granted me access to an infinite amount of knowledge right at my fingertips. One minute I can be reading a biography of Winston Churchill and the next I can be watching a free video lecture about Churchill on YouTube. The iPad, along with other tablet devices, are great examples of science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s third rule: “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
And indeed, the Magician is a “master of technology.” When men learn the secret knowledge of how the world works, and use that knowledge to harness its laws, energies, and forces in order to manipulate them into practical tools and systems, they’re accessing Magician energy. Inventors, scientists, and just simple tinkerers are examples of “masters of technology. It’s funny how we often imbue our most famous inventors and creators with almost supernatural qualities. Newspapers dubbed Thomas Edison “The Wizard of Menlo Park,” legends sprouted up about Nikola Tesla and his power over electricity, and recent obituaries about Steve Jobs would often refer to his creations as almost magical.
Becoming a master of technology doesn’t require that we invent a device like the iPad. Instead, we simply need to create. There’s a concept in the Western esoteric tradition of Hermeticism that the goal of man should be to live the principle of: “as above, so below.” It’s sort of similar to Christ’s admonition in the Lord’s prayer to “make on earth as it is in heaven.” Several interpretations exist as to the meaning of “as above, so below,” but the interpretation that I like is that it means making our amorphous thoughts, imaginations, and dreams a reality. In order to accomplish this, we must use all the knowledge and tools at our disposal. In short, we must become masters of technology.
Reflective
The Warrior is the archetype of action. But he gets his marching orders from the Magician. This is the energy that powers healthy introspection. When you’re facing a tough decision, your deliberations on which course to take are powered by the Magician. His power comes from thoughtful reflection and meditation; the Magician is like an excellent chess player; the more he experiences and studies, the more he is able to see life like a chess board, envision all the possible moves, and predict with good accuracy where those moves will lead. This ability also generates a man’s hunches and gut feelings and the spontaneous decisions he makes in a time of crisis.
Reticent
In today’s society, information has been greatly democratized, and people expect everything there is to be known to be available to every person. If you tell someone that certain knowledge is sacred, secret, or just too advanced for them to understand, they’re typically deeply offended and automatically assume that you’re up to something suspicious. But great teachers throughout history understood that knowledge and truth must be taught “precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” Effective learning must be done in degrees–each advancement is earned by the mastery of the previous step. Each concept builds on the other, until a person has acquired perfect knowledge.
Those who try to jump into the deep end without first learning to swim can drown. For that reason, men accessing Magician energy are reticent about the knowledge they possess, only sharing it with the earnest student who continually proves he is a worthy of the knowledge he seeks.
Alchemist of Life
The alchemists of antiquity sought to find a way to turn the baser elements into gold. And this inclination to turn a sow’s ear into a purse is a vital current in the Magician’s stream of energy. When the Magician archetype is integrated into a man, he looks for ways to turn disappointing situations and setbacks into opportunities to learn, grow, and become a better man.
Spiritual Mediator
As Moore puts it, the Magician “understands the link between the unseen world of the spirits–the Divine World–and the world of human beings and nature.” As the mediator between these worlds, the Magician has the ability to explain complicated spiritual ideas in ways others can easily grasp. If you’ve ever talked to a friend who used a simple metaphor to resolve your doubts, that was the Magician energy at work.
Initiation and the Modern Obstacle to Accessing Magician Energy
There are two main roles that the energy of the Magician flow through—the initiate and the initiator. Or in the other words, the mentee and the mentor.
As we just discussed, Magician energy drives us to obtain hidden knowledge. But contrary to the popular adage about professional magicians—that they never reveal their tricks—a man truly animated by the mature Magician archetype is eager to turn around and share what he has learned with others. He desires to elevate the serious and earnest seeker to his level.
This is why the lack of magician energy in modern culture is really at the heart of the issues many men are having today. There is a lack of mature men who have made a rite-of-passage themselves available to initiate other men into the “secret knowledge” of manhood. Dads and granddads, uncles and cousins, used to teach their sons and other young men how to act, dress, and behave like a man. But a lot of men have grown up without such a mentor these days and thus feel lost, directionless, and adrift.
This is not only true when it comes to being initiated into manhood, however, but also applies to a man’s professional path as well. For the most part, gone are the days of guilds and intimate apprenticeships, and trade schools have fallen in popularity. Men are in fierce competition with each other and are looking out only for themselves, thus there is often no one willing to initiate a man into his vocation. It is telling that apprenticeships have been replaced by internships; instead of getting initiated into the job, interns are made to do the undesirable grunt work of others and then cut loose when their temporary stint is up.
That many men have an unfulfilled hunger for initiation into some kind of secret knowledge can be evidenced by the soaring popularity of pick-up and seduction artists who promise, for a few hundred or thousand dollars, to teach initiates the secrets to scoring lots of ladies. And a lot of guys who can’t find mentors otherwise are willing to pony up big time dough to hire them. On the surface, the popularity of the PUA movement is due simply to the desire to want to be great at picking up chicks, but I think it’s really a manifestation of this deeper hunger to be initiated into a secret realm, to have knowledge that others don’t. And actually you see this kind of language used in a lot of PUA forums—people talk about the different levels of knowledge you gain, and how only 10% of people who study the subject ever really understand it, etc.
I know a few guys that have gotten something out of some of these classes and books. Mainly, they’re learning basic social skills they just didn’t pick up as kids. However, I don’t think young men can fully satiate their hunger for initiation into manhood in the pick-up artist scene for a few reasons.
First, most PUA gurus are nothing more than internet marketing hucksters that prey on a young man’s sexual insecurity in order to make a buck. Instead of being in touch with positive Magician energy, many PUA coaches are possessed with the Magician’s shadow, the Manipulator. The initiation into manhood that these gurus offer lacks the gravitas and depth of an initiation from men who have fully developed the mature masculine within themselves.
Second, the manliness of PUA devotees is constantly defined in the context of women–they are consumed with thinking about women– how they think, how they can be manipulated, how to talk to them, where to meet them, and so on. But manhood is not about women. Look at any great man of the past–none of them made women their main focus. Instead, they concentrated on mastering a more significant subject of hidden knowledge, one which created a real and lasting legacy for them. Their success then naturally attracted women to them, without the need for any special gimmicks.
The Shadows of the Magician Archetype
The Detached Manipulator
The Magician in his fullness desires to initiate other men into his knowledge, bringing them up from degree to degree so that they can become better and happier men. The Manipulator Shadow poses as the Magician in his fullness–he teases would-be initiates with the prospect of learning his secrets, but he does not give them all his knowledge. He withholds things from them in order to feed both his pride and his pocketbook. Shadow Manipulators charge their seekers a ton of money with the promise that the student can become just like them, but don’t give away the real secrets to doing that, and especially the secret that they often can’t become just like them, because their own success was due to x,y, or z factor that won’t happen to anyone else.
The internet has created an army of Shadow Manipulators. Everywhere you look there are hucksters promising you the secrets to bedding women, losing weight, making money online…if you’ll only buy their $200 eBook.
Shadow manipulators play a prominent role on our cultural stage as well. Wall Street bankers, politicians, ad agencies, and media pundits are all absolute experts in getting a following by sharing some of the story, but not all of it.
Another aspect of the Manipulator is his cynical detachment from other people. I see this Shadow in guys too often. They’re the ones who, when confronted with their inability to commit to anything, be passionate about anything, or enjoy any pleasures in life, will retort with “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Moore summarizes this man’s issues very well:
“This is the man who thinks too much, who stands back from his life and never lives it. He is caught in a web of pros and cons about his decisions and lost in a labyrinth of reflective meanderings from which he cannot extricate himself. He is afraid to live, to ‘leap into battle.’ He can only sit on his rock and think. The years pass. He wonders where the time has gone. And he ends by regretting a life of sterility. He is a voyeur, an armchair adventurer. In the world of academia, he is a hairsplitter. In the fear of making the wrong decision, he makes none. In his fear of living, he also cannot participate in the joy and pleasure that other people experience in their lived lives. If he is withholding from others, and not sharing what he knows, he eventually feels isolated and lonely. To the extent that he has hurt others with his knowledge and technology—in whatever field and in whatever way—by cutting himself off from living relatedness with other human beings, he has cut off his own soul.”
The Innocent One
The Innocent One is the passive pole of the bi-polar shadow. A man possessed by the Innocent One shadow wants all the power, glory, and status that comes with harnessing the Magician archetype in his fullness, but he isn’t willing to put in the work or take on the responsibility that said power, glory, and status requires. They see another man doing something really cool, and decide they want to do it too. These are guys who get super excited about a new hobby, or faith, or career path–their excitement is absolutely coursing through them–but after the easy part has passed (coming up with the name of the band, buying a skateboard, designing the start-up’s logo), they realize how much “dead work” is required to get really good at the cool thing, and they give up. Men haunted by the shadow of the Innocent One want to be millionaires, but aren’t willing to toil and work years to achieve it. They want to play guitar like Django Reinhardt, but they give up guitar lessons after just a few weeks. They want to be spiritual, but without all that prayer, meditation, and scripture study business.
But the Innocent One’s shadow behavior doesn’t stop there. Because a man in touch with the Innocent One can never attain or achieve his goals because of laziness, he doesn’t want others to achieve their goals and ambitions either. He becomes a stumbling block to others simply out of envy. A man possessed by the Innocent One begrudges the success of others and does all that he can to diminish it. Theodore Roosevelt despised this type of man. To him, a man possessed by the Innocent One was “one of those cold and timid souls, who know neither victory nor defeat.”
How to Access the Magician Archetype
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Commit to lifelong learning
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Join a Fraternal organization like the Freemasons or Knights of Columbus
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Carve out a sacred space in your life. This is, in my opinion, the biggest key to accessing the Magician archetype. In the life of the modern man, there is no line between the sacred and the profane. But if you want access to the insights, energies, and ideas that exist on a plane above that of your ordinary, day-to-day life, then you need an entryway to that higher realm. Sacred space is that gateway. Carve out a ritual for yourself, a time or a physical space where you are not interrupted, where others are not privy to what you think about. Maybe it’s listening to Bach in your study after the kids go to bed. Maybe it’s finding a special, secluded grove in the park where you go to think. Maybe it’s a morning walk in the woods. Maybe it’s going to morning weekday Mass without your family. Whatever it is, draw a line around it and make it sacred in your life.
The Warrior
Every great civilization has a great warrior tradition and accompanying warrior myths. The Old Testament recounts the stories of a warrior people and a warrior God. In the ancient Mediterranean, the Spartans had perhaps the most legendary warrior tradition. From birth, Spartan society nurtured and trained their boys to become warriors, and that rigorous training created men like Leonidas and his 300 men of unconquerable spirit. Japan had their fearless samurai warriors whose undaunted courage came from living life as if they were already dead.
Today the Warrior archetype lives on in our reverence for those who serve in the armed forces and in modern books and movies. William Wallace from Braveheart and General Maximus from Gladiator embody the Warrior archetype.
But in general, modern culture is not comfortable with Warrior energy. The advent of mechanized warfare during the first half of the 20th century dampened the romantic ideal of martial courage. Since the social and cultural revolutions of the 60s and 70s, we’ve generally taught boys and men to avoid confrontation and conflict and to instead nurture their “feminine side.” The result is the Nice Guy; the man who will avoid confrontation and aggression even when confrontation and aggression are justified.
Society pushes men to be sweet and sensitive, because they fear them becoming coldly stoic, abusive, and destructively angry. But society’s perception of the Warrior archetype is not based on the Warrior energy in its full, healthy manifestation, but on the archetype’s shadows. The problem is not Warrior energy itself, but Warrior energy that is not used in harmony with the other masculine archetypes and directed by empathy, contemplation, and order. Fighting itself is not bad, the question is simply: What is a man fighting for? The Warrior’s energy is needed not only in times of war, but on all the battlefields of life.
Properly tapping into the Warrior’s energy provides a man with an unsurpassable power source which will fuel him to reach his goals, fight for worthy causes, achieve greatness, and leave a lasting legacy.
The Warrior in His Fullness
Moore says that “The characteristics of the Warrior in his fullness amount to a total way of life, what the samurai called a do (pronounced ‘do’). These characteristics constitute the Warrior Dharma, Ma’at, or Tao, a spiritual or psychological path through life.”
What are these characteristics? Let’s take a look.
Note: While here we use the language of the martial warrior, the characteristics can be applied to any man’s life mission, whether civilian or true solider.
Aggressive
If you look up the word “aggressive” in the dictionary, these are the definitions you’ll find:
1. characterized by or tending toward unprovoked offensives, attacks, invasions, or the like; militantly forward or menacing
2. making an all-out effort to win or succeed; competitive
3. vigorously energetic, especially in the use of initiative and forcefulness
Of the three definitions, the first is most popular in modern culture. Something unprovoked, out of line. Notice how often “overly” precedes “aggressive” in common parlance. Aggression may also bring to mind military policies a person does not agree with. In general it has a negative connotation.
But true aggression should be thought of in the context of the second two dictionary entries.Effort. Energy. Initiative. Force. Aggression is a neutral tool that can be harnessed for either ill or good. How it is channeled makes all the difference. A man who does not harness his aggression at all picks a fight with everyone and about everything; his relationships fail and he is stunted in his personal development. The man who reins in his aggression too much becomes the stereotypical weenie Nice Guy–proper aggression turns into passive aggression. He is too “polite” to go after what he wants, and he’s seething inside because of it. A man who has successfully integrated the Warrior archetype harnesses his aggression as the force that pushes him to compete to be the best and moves him ever forward towards his goals.
Purpose
Of course that proper use of aggression presupposes that a man has goals that he’s striving towards in the first place. A man has to have a clear and definite purpose in life, or he will feel lost and restless, like he is drifting along instead of marching ahead.
Mindful
The mindfulness of the Warrior is two-fold. First, he is always alert and awake, ever vigilant. He has keen situational awareness. He never lets complacency lull him to sleep; instead, he is always watching, observing, studying, and planning. Secondly, the Warrior is mindful of the finiteness of life and the inevitably of death, and he purposefully contemplates that death. His courage is rooted in the fact that he is not afraid to die. Life’s shortness brings clarity to his mind. He knows that any minute could be his last so he makes every day and decision count.Carpe diem! becomes his battle cry.
Adaptable
During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army knew that it could not match the man and fire power of the British. So instead of facing them down on a field for a traditional battle, the minutemen took to the woods and launched surprise hit and run attacks on the enemy. This is the way of the Warrior; he is a guerrilla fighter. When he’s up against great odds, he bucks convention and uses his cleverness and his strategic intelligence to find creative ways to turn the tide in his favor. He is an efficient fighter–he studies the weaknesses of his opponents and concentrates his strikes there. He is flexible and able to respond to change by shifting tactics on the fly.
Minimalist
The key to successful guerrilla warfare is the fighter’s ability to travel light. While the traditional force has power in its superior resources, those resources also weigh and slow them down. The guerrilla fighter strips away all superfluities and excess baggage; he carries only what he needs and is thus quick and nimble, able to be two steps ahead of the enemy.
Decisive
In times of peace or crisis, whether for big things or small, the Warrior is able to boldly make decisions. He doesn’t stand there shilly-shally, wondering what he should do, scared of choosing the wrong option. He is calm and cool under pressure. Once he makes a decision, he unhesitatingly moves on it because he does not live in regret. The Warrior is able to be so decisive because he trains so thoroughly for these moments; he is prepared. He thinks about all possible contingencies and what he would do in each situation before the crisis arrives. When the crisis does come, his mind and body already instinctively know what to do.
Skillful
Part of the Warrior’s confidence in his decisions is rooted in his supreme competence. Accordingly to Moore, “The Warrior’s energy is concerned with skill, power, and accuracy.” The Warrior “has absolute mastery of the technology of his trade…the technology that enables him to reach his goal. He has developed skill with the ‘weapons’ he uses to implement his decisions.”
Loyal
If you remember, the Hero is the boyhood archetype which matures into the Warrior archetype. Part of this maturation process centers on a shift in a man’s loyalties. Moore argues that “The Hero’s loyalty…is really to himself–to impressing himself with himself and to impressing others.” The Warrior’s loyalties, on the other hand, “are to something beyond and other than himself and his own concerns.” The Warrior’s loyalty centers on “a cause, a god, a people, a task, a nation–larger than individuals.” The Warrior has a “central commitment” around which he organizes his life. His life’s purpose is rooted in ideals and principles, which naturally strips away superfluities and pettiness and brings his life great meaning.
Disciplined
The Warrior has mastered himself in body and mind. His power is rooted in self-control. He knows when to be aggressive and how aggressive to be. He is the master of his energies, releasing them and pulling them back as he chooses. He decides the attitude he will take in a certain situation, instead of letting the situation dictate how he feels. Unlike the boyhood Hero archetype, the Warrior understands his limits; he takes calculated instead of unnecessary risks. His discipline also frees him of a fear of pain. Feeble, mediocre men believe all pain is bad. The Warrior knows there is bad pain and good pain. He is willing, even eager to withstand psychological and physical pain on the path to his goals. He’s the kind of man who subscribes to the “pain is just weakness leaving the body” philosophy; he relishes difficulty because it makes him stronger.
Emotionally Detached
Not all the time, but when he is in Warrior mode. To complete his mission, the Warrior must be emotionally detached–from the fear and doubt generated by his own feelings, from the intimidation emanating from his enemy, and from the “shoulds” and demands put on him by friends and family. The Warrior needs the kind of mental clarity that only comes from single-minded purpose, or as Moore puts it, “The Warrior needs room to swing his sword.”
Switching off that emotional detachment when away from the mission represents the great challenge for the Warrior. The inability to do so can result in one of the Warrior’s shadows.
Creative Destroyer
The Warrior is the archetype of destruction. However, the Warrior in his fullness only destroys in order to “make room for something new and fresh and more alive.” His is an act of creative destruction–he doesn’t tear things down simply for the pleasure of doing so. We call upon the Warrior archetype when we quit bad habits and replace them with better ones or when we get rid of people in our lives who bring us down and surround ourselves with people who edify.
The Shadows
The Sadist. As just discussed, men in touch with the Warrior archetype have the ability to detach themselves from emotions and human relationships. While detachment provides a man with much needed focus on important tasks, when it becomes a man’s permanent state, the Sadist shadow controls a man’s psyche.
This is why soldiers, who have a mission-minded attitude while on deployment, can find it very difficult to adjust to life back home and find their place in their families, which are based on emotional needs and currents–the stuff the solider has been used to setting aside. The mission-focused life freed him from human pettiness–and returning to it can be grating. This is also true of lawyers, ministers, doctors, politicians, and other men who may be married to their job–shifting from mission-mode to domestic-mode can be difficult for them.
As the name implies, the Sadist can be cruel, even to those most vulnerable. He disdains the weak. A commanding officer in the Army may try to rigidly run his family in the same way that he led his troops. The Sadist creates unattainably high standards for himself and those around him. When a child comes home with a less than perfect grade, a father influenced by the Sadist will put her down and berate her mercilessly. A man with positive Warrior energy would have kindly shown disappointment, but then offered to help his daughter study for the next exam so she could ace it.
The Sadist’s disgust at weakness is linked to the boyhood Hero archetype. The Hero tries to break away from his mother and from feminine energy in general as he seeks to become his own man. But adult men who are still insecure about being “man enough” project this insecurity onto others. He hates what he fears is within himself.
According to Moore, men possessed by the Sadist also tend to be workaholics. They’re the men who take pride in working all night at the office and coming home at 7AM, only to leave for the office again an hour later. They’ll choose work at the expense of health and even family. They take the Warrior’s comfort with pain to an extreme and grind it out to get to the top. But they’re doing it because they really don’t know what they want out of life, and constantly working distracts them from this fact. Once they do reach the top, they often feel empty, lost, and bitter. But many Sadists simply burn out before they even get there.
The Masochist. The Masochist is the passive shadow in the tripartite Warrior archetype, and its attributes closely parallel those of the boyhood Hero archetype’s cowardly shadow. A man possessed by the Masochist feels he is powerless. He is a push-over who has no personal boundaries and will let others walk all over him. He may hate his job or the relationship he’s in and complain about it, but instead of quitting, cutting his losses and moving on, he digs in and tries harder to be who his boss or girlfriend wants him to be and takes even more abuse. Because while he might complain about the pain, he really likes it. This is the man who enjoys being the martyr.
An archetype’s bi-polar shadows often work together against a man. Men under the Masochist’s influence will take the disrespect others dish out without fighting back or asserting themselves. Then one day something, maybe a criticism from his wife, pushes him over the edge and he “explodes with sadistic verbal [and sometimes even] physical abuse.”
How to Access the Warrior Archetype
Many men today lack Warrior energy. They’ve been told all their lives that aggression is bad and they should just work on being be “nice guys.” But if there’s anything the world needs today, it’s men in touch with the Warrior archetype. It’s the energy that propels men to dare greatly and to fight for a worthy cause. So what can we do to access this positive Warrior energy?
Watch movies about great warriors. Yeah, it’s cliche, but it works. They don’t necessarily have to be war movies. Any film that showcases men with the warrior spirit will do. Here are a few of my favorite warrior movies. I’d love to read yours:
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Braveheart
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Gladiator
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The Seven Samurai
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Last of the Mohicans
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Shane
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Glory
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Patton
Read biographies about great warriors. Also, dig into writings like those of Marcus Aurelius (the ultimate philosopher-warrior).
Take up boxing or another martial art.
Work on becoming more decisive.
Meditate. Especially on death.
Quit shoulding on yourself. The Warrior is able to detach himself from the opinions of others in order to carry out his mission.
Have a plan and purpose for your life.
Boost your adaptability by strengthening your resilience.
Study and practice the skills necessary for completing your goals. Whether that’s marksmanship, computer programming, or being charismatic, become a master of your trade.
Find the principles that you’re loyal to.
Establish some non-negotiable, unalterable terms (or N.U.Ts) and live by them.
Compete in a race like the Warrior Dash. It’s got the word warrior right in the name!
Strengthen your discipline by establishing habits and daily routines.
Adopt a minimalist philosophy. Declutter your life. Simplify your diet. Get out of debt.
The King
The King archetype is the most important of the four mature masculine archetypes. Just as a good king in mythological stories is often something of a Renaissance man–a good warrior, magician, and lover–the King archetype incorporates the other three mature masculine archetypes in perfect harmony. A man who accesses the King archetype in its fullness will also have accessed the Warrior, Magician, and Lover archetypes. For this reason, the King archetype is typically the last of the mature masculine archetypes to power up in a man’s life. In this way, it is truly the crown of the other archetypes, the energy that gives a man a sense of his full, godlike potential.
The Characteristics of the King in His Fullness
He is centered.
Throughout history, cultures have often placed the king at the center of the universe. From him radiated all of existence. If you look at how ancient civilizations laid out their cities, we often see that the dwelling place of the king or leader sat at the center.
In addition to serving as the geographic center of his realm, the ancient king also represented its spiritual center as well. He was the intermediary between heaven and earth. Through his divine powers, the king brought order to the universe by reconciling opposite forces. Myths abound of kings battling evil demonic creatures and establishing order in chaos.
When a man is living the King archetype in its fullness, he feels that same centering power within himself. Not that he believes the world revolves around him, but rather that his confidence, purpose, and well-being give him a supreme sense of balance. Even when the world around him becomes chaotic, he remains cool, calm, and collected. He acts, rather than reacts. He’s the rock in crisis. A man fully engaged with positive King energy is completely present as a man. Because of his position at the center of things, he can survey everything that is going on, soak it all in, and then take a broad view of things. This overarching perspective allows him to remain immovable in the face of the passing and superficial.
He is decisive.
The King is the executive of the other archetypes, and as such, is charged with making decisions. His ability to be decisive is rooted in two things. First, who he is and what he stands for; the King’s core values are centered on firm and unchanging principles. So when a crisis comes, he does not waver because he has already determined the course he will take. Secondly, the King seasons his decisions with experience. His experiences provide him withpractical wisdom: the knowledge of how to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons.
He lives with integrity.
The word integrity is related to the roots of words like “integrate” and “entire.” In Spanish it is rendered “integro,” meaning whole. Integrity thus implies the state of being complete, undivided, intact, and unbroken. Integrity is really the bond that holds a man’s other virtues together; it is the mark of a man who has successfully integrated all good principles. His life is a unified whole.
The King has not only integrated all the other archetypes, but seeks this wholeness in other areas of his life as well. He mends broken relationships, keeps his word, acts with honesty, and takes responsibility for his actions. He is who he says he is; he doesn’t have one set of principles for Sundays and one for the rest of the week.
He protects his realm.
Historically, one of the king’s primary functions was to protect his dominion. When enemy forces encroached on his territory, a king would act with wrathful aggressiveness. Even today, we look to our leaders as protectors. The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, charged with the responsibility of protecting our nation’s security.
While a man might not be a leader of a country, he certainly has his own realms he’s responsible for protecting–whether that protection be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. If you’re married with children, your home is a realm, a place you want to make a refuge from negative influences. The department you’re responsible for at work is another sphere where you work to protect your employees from in-fighting, mediocrity, and layoffs. And your own psyche and personal boundaries are sovereignties that you must protect and defend with zeal.
Whatever your realms may be, when you’re accessing the King archetype in its fullness, you do what you have to in order to protect them, and this often requires accessing the aggressiveness of the Warrior archetype.
He provides order.
Throughout history, Kings have been lawgivers. The first, and perhaps most famous of these king/lawgivers was the ancient Babylonian king, Hammurabi. His code represents one of history’s first written sets of laws. These laws touched on all areas of life for ancient Mesopotamians, including trade, religion, and military service. Other famous king/lawgivers include Solon of ancient Athens, Lycurgus of ancient Sparta, and Moses (while technically not a king, Moses was a leader of the ancient Hebrews).
Just as these ancient kings provided order to their respective societies, so too does a man accessing the King archetype establish order in his own life and in the lives of those around him. We see the King manifest itself in us when we establish rules, guidelines, and principles for others to follow. A man accessing positive King energy doesn’t create rules just so he can reap the satisfaction of watching people obey him. Rather, his rules provide the structure that allows other people to flourish. Figuring out how to create rules that help instead of hinder people’s progress requires the kind of thoughtful reflection that comes from accessing the Magician archetype.
To completely integrate the King archetype into our lives, it isn’t enough to tell others how they should live; a man must also live by those same edicts himself. Before we can provide order for others, we ourselves must become men of discipline. As General George S. Patton told his son:
“Soldiers, all men in fact, are natural hero worshipers. Officers with a flare for command realize this and emphasize in their conduct, dress and deportment the qualities they seek to produce in their men. When I was a second lieutenant I had a captain who was very sloppy and usually late yet he got after the men for just those faults; he was a failure.”
He creates and inspires creativity in others.
According to Moore, mythological kings were often associated with fertility and creation. Many ancient cultures believed that their king’s ability to procreate determined the fate of their crops. If the king was lusty, virile, and siring numerous progeny, the harvest would be bountiful.
But we don’t have to father an entire football team in order to access the King archetype. Whenever we take part in any act of creation, whether it be writing a song, starting a business, or yes, becoming a dad, the King archetype is manifesting itself in our lives.
To fully integrate the King in our lives, however, we must inspire creativity in others as well. A man who is accessing the King archetype understands that his power and influence in the world increases as he empowers others to live to their fullest potential.
He blesses the lives of others.
“The good king delighted in noticing and promoting good men to positions of responsibility in his kingdom. He held audience, primarily, not to be seen, but to see, admire, and delight in his subjects, to reward them and to bestow honors upon them.” – Moore, KWML
One of the functions of ancient kings was to bless those whom they led. As intermediaries between the gods and earth, the king had the power to bless his people so that they might prosper. In the Bible, we can read several accounts of the great patriarchs leaving a father’s blessing on their posterity before dying.
We often associate “blessing” with a religious act. While a man certainly accesses the King archetype by giving a father’s blessing to his children, just like Jacob and Isaac did, he can also bless others around him in other ways that aren’t necessarily religious.
Simply recognizing and honoring others for their achievements is a way we can bless others. As we get older, I think we take for granted the power that a kind word can have on a young person’s life. But think back on your own experience. Remember when you were a young man? How did you feel when an older person, especially a man you admired, gave you a compliment or went out of his way to recognize an achievement? If you were like me, it made you feel awesome. You might have stuck out your chest a bit more or walked with a spring in your step. You probably still remember exactly what they said to you. That’s the power of blessing in action. It uplifts and edifies others.
We can also bless others by becoming a mentor. We’ve talked about the importance of mentorship on the site many times before, but one of the reasons so many young men are struggling today is because they lack positive mentoring from older men. Moore argues that:
“Young men today are starving for blessing from older men, starving for blessing from the King energy. This is why they cannot, as we say, “get it together.” They shouldn’t have to. They need to be blessed. They need to be seen by the King, because if they are, something inside will come together for them. That is the effect of blessing; it heals and makes whole. That’s what happens when we are seen and valued and concretely rewarded for our legitimate talents and abilities.”
As we grow older, wiser, and more in touch with the King archetype, it is our responsibility as men to bless and assist younger men on their path to mature masculinity.
He leaves a legacy.
Kings throughout history were obsessed with legacy. In creating empires, building edifices, writing laws, and changing the culture, they sought to become immortal and to leave behind something that would remind subsequent generations of their lives and their greatness.
No matter the size of your principality, the desire to leave a legacy is a switch of manliness that cannot be ignored. Happily, creating a legacy need not involve the construction of great pyramids, but can come from any idea, business, tradition, relationship, or thought…anythingthat changes a person, the world, just a little and gets passed on, anything that lasts.
The Shadows of the King Archetype
The Tyrant
Unlike the King archetype which creates and blesses others, the Tyrant seeks to destroy and tear down. Plagued by narcissism, he really does think that he sits at the center of the universe. The Tyrant wrongly believes that power is finite; he has a scarcity mentality. He doesn’t understand the truth–that power and influence actually increase the more you share it with others. Thus the burden of maintaining his fragile illusion of absolute power makes him very insecure; any threat to his authority and supremacy enrages him and causes him to lash out with abuse–physically, emotionally, or mentally.
When the Tyrant isn’t viewing others as a threat and putting them in their place, he sees them as objects to exploit for his own gain; he is willing to push his friends, family, and employees under the bus in order to further his goals. We see the Tyrant manifest itself in this manner when businessmen or politicians further their own career at the expense of the people under their stewardship.
The Weakling
The Weakling is the passive shadow of the King archetype. Instead of taking control of his life and resolutely making decisions, a man possessed by the Weakling often abdicates his throne to others, handing over power, responsibility, and control of his life to them. This is the man who, though grown up, still lets his mother or father make his decisions for him. This is the man who kowtows to his boss’ or his wife’s every whim.
This is also the man who was abused in some way as a child, and when he becomes an adult and ascends into a position of power, relishes the opportunity to turn the tables and become the bully himself. “Now that I’m in charge, things are going to change around here!” But even in a position of power, the Weakling’s insecurity gets the best of him; he becomes paranoid that people are out to get him–and they often are because he’s such a jerk. This paranoia leads him to become even more controlling and cruel.
Moore believes that the Weakling and Tyrant shadows work in tandem with each other. It’s very rare that a man is ruled by one and not the other. Underneath every blustering Tyrant is a scared Weakling. And underneath every cowering Weakling is a Tyrant waiting to explode.
How to Access the King Archetype
The King seeks to integrate all the other archetypes and all good principles in order to reach his full potential–so that he may use this energy for a higher purpose and to bless the lives of others.
Series Conclusion
This concludes our series on the archetypes of the mature masculine. I hope you got something out of the articles.
So how much credence and focus should you give to these archetypes? Well obviously their existence cannot be proven–only speculated about. And I do believe that the main focus of a man’s life should be on practical ways to take action. But pondering the more esoteric stuff is what guides you in determining what those actions should be. These archetypes represent one way–a very helpful way–of organizing those meditations and can lead you to a more productive exploration of who you are and what kind of man you want to become.