King, Warrior, Magician, Lover

About the book

Book author: Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette

It explains the four main Jungian archetypes for masculinity.

It’s not a book for everybody.

If you’re into Jung, and male, it’s pretty cool. It’s neo-Jungian.

I certainly recognize parts of myself in it. But Jung to most people is completely incomprehensible. So I don’t know if I can recommend this book to anyone.

This book is pre-manosphere era predicting exactly what would happen in our modern era, and what men can do about it to not become what is the stereotypical manosphere man, but a healthy man.

Note: none of this is provable or falsifiable.

Reflection and takeaways

The first part of this book speaks about boys becoming men, and how that is not only physical but a very mental and spiritual event. Every culture had a ritual for that.

But in the western world, we do not have anything like this in the modern era. For the entire history of our species this has been a very important thing. Today, we have culturally “transcended” that… but have we psychologically? I certainly don’t think so. In my personal opinion there are plenty of men who are still boys.

In any case, this book stays close to its title.

We start off by learning about patriarchy. How that is powerful, underdeveloped boy energy. It’s something abusive, grandiose, terrified of women and other men. Real masculinity is not oppressing anyone because it is absent.

We learn about the life giving and inspiring Divine Child, who should become King, but becomes a highchair tyrant who wants the world to revolve around him, or a weakling prince. The curious precocious child should become a magician, but becomes a know-it-all trickster who deflates others and isn’t wise, or just a plain inert dummy. The loving, connecting and warm oedipal child, who should become the lover, becomes a mama’s boy or a dreamer who retreats into their own world. And the courageous, driving hero child, who should become a warrior but becomes a bully that needs an audience and/or enemies or a coward that is afraid of conflict. These are immature forms that should be developed.

The authors argue that you must go through an initiation, and the final step is that the hero must evolve into a different form. The hero is the highest form of boy psychology. The hero’s grandiosity, need for enemies and audience that must vanish so that it can become a warrior – which is the new form that emerges. So the typical manosphere man, is a hero who never died. They want the world to revolve them, they bully, they want things, women, and they cheat to get there.

The book says that most rituals also need a “ritual elder”. If that doesn’t happen, it kind of becomes something else. Hazing

In the second half, we learn the cure to this underdevelopment. We learn about the archetypes of the King, the Warrior, the Magician and the Lover. We also learn about their “passive” and also shadow forms.

For example, how a mature King must be just and wise, centered and calm and blesses people. The King’s passive shadow form is a weakling, or abdicator, who is paranoid and powerless. And it’s active shadow is a tyrant who devours and crushes.

The mature Warrior has aggressive energy that can be harnessed for transpersonal commitment. Decisive, disciplined, skilled and unhesitating. The passive shadow form of warrior is a masochist that can’t set boundaries and is gutless. The active shadow form is a sadist that destroys instead of serves and is cruel.

The mature Magician holds specialized knowledge and guides people. Think of it like a good shaman. The passive shadow of the magician is someone who plays dumb and dodges responsibility. The active shadow form is a master manipulator who hoards insight, uses it to control and extract people.

The mature Lover is connected to everything. To body, senses, beauty and other people. There is a lot of empathy and passion and a general appetite for life. The passive shadow form of the lover is an impotent lover – cut off from body and desire (sounds like low-grade chronic depression). The active shadow form of the lover is an addicted lover that drowns in sensation and chases the next hit.

The book explores all these archetypes, and urges you to connect with yours so that you can turn them into your mature form. They must be in balance. It is easy for a Warrior to just become a machine. A warrior without Lover energy turns into a sadist. Without the Lover, the King turns into some calcified bureaucrat. But the King and the Warrior must keep the lover in check to keep it out of addiction.

Makes sense? It’s a hard sell for most :-D.

Why did I pick it

I’ve always been interested in Jungian stuff. It’s very hard for me to grasp because I am dumb. But I try my best.

Verdict

4.0 /5. It took me almost a year to get through this book, with its mighty 150 pages or so. I felt like I wasn’t in a stage where I needed it, but now I’m glad I’ve read it.