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Archetypes
from a talk given by Victor MacGill to the
Dunedin Spiritualist Centre in March 2006
I would like to
begin by asking you to cast your mind back into the past a little bit.
Further back than 9/11, further back the Captain Cook’s discovery of
New Zealand, further back than the builders of stonehenge and the
pyramids, right back about 2 million years to East Africa where small
groups of our ancestors left the trees to walk upright on the Savannah.
One of the species from which we all descended is was called
Australopithecus.
They
dwelt in small family bands, which had to learn quickly how to survive
in a new environment or they would die. There were several things they
had to do. First of all they had to find food, water and shelter. They
had to learn to co-operate amongst themselves, so, they had to care and
nurture each other, especially the young, old or sick. They had to be
able to protect themselves from outside threats and in fact if they
were to not only just survive but thrive, they usually had to try to
take over resources in the environment from other groups. They had to
take over control of food and water sources and have good shelter to
get an edge over their competitors. They had to be able to make
decisions the whole group would follow and to work together as one to
reach their goals whether it was hunting for food, making shelters,
making tools or whatever. Finally they had to be able to develop on a
pool of knowledge which they would then pass on to the next generation.
They needed to know about the weather patterns, animal behaviour,
seasonal changes how to build thing, how to get on with and care for
each.
They
also had to be able to compete well against other groups or they might
well all die out. Even very small advantages could be significant. For
example, if there were two groups of Australopithecus living on an area
of land and their numbers were increasing to put pressure on the
available resources, just one small advantage could make a big
difference. If one group was a little bit stronger physically,
co-operating a little bit better, or even just had slightly better
hearing or eyesight, it would tend to mean that that group would be a
little bit more likely to get food in a hunt, to be efficient at
exploring to find new food sources, or react more quickly to marauding
lions. That group would then become even more physically strong because
it had access to more and better food, or a more protected place to
live or avoided having group numbers reduced by attacking lions. They
would be even more likely to survive and more likely to breed a new
generation evn better adapted to the environment.
This can
start a cycle so the stronger group gets stronger and stronger and the
weaker groups gets weaker and weaker. That continues until the stronger
group dominates the weaker group and could even make it go extinct.
Over many generations, the groups of Australopithecus, or indeed any
animal groups that does not go extinct, become more and more suited to
their environment.
Australopithecus
could not speak, or at most could convey a few ideas by sound or
gesture. That made it much harder for them to co-operate than it is for
us. The most efficient way for them and so many other creatures
in nature to make quick decisions everyone would follow was for the
strongest, most violent group member to take control and force everyone
do things as they commanded or suffer the consequences. We all learned
to be violent from those days, and you and I would not be here now if
those early ancestors of ours had not found out how to be the most
effective violent creatures on the planet at the time. We arguably
still are.
One
strategy that developed was to specialise; to create distinct social
roles. This didn’t really start to happen until humans began farming
and built permanent settlements that needed to be protected far more.
If a particular member of the tribe was particularly skilled at a
certain type of work, it made sense for them to undertake that role
more than others in their group. If a person was a good spear maker,
then it made sense for those who were better at hunting to give the
spear maker some of their food in return for better spears. Having
social roles was more effective than a group where everyone does
everything.
Four
particular roles have developed in all human social groups. First there
is the leader; the one in control who keeps law and order and
discipline. The leader makes decisions on behalf of the group. In
modern times there is a whole parliamentary systems and judiciary that
sets out the laws and makes decisions on how they should be enforced.
Next is the protector and enforcer, protecting the tribe from outside
threats and makes sure everyone obeys the laws of the leader. Today
that might be the Police or the army. The third is the nurturer caring
for the young and old and ensuring that good relationships are
maintained in the group. This is seen in our society as all the caring
organisations and social support structures. Finally comes the
knowledge keepers, who must hold the wisdom gained through the years
and pass it on to the younger generation. In modern times this becomes
our education system, schools and university, Polytechnics etc.
Each
member of the tribe or group had to keep a picture of each of these
roles in their mind so they knew what to expect and what to do when
they met up with someone holding that particular role. Over time shared
mental pictures emerged in the minds of each tribal member. It created
a common understanding, as similar mental patterns spread across the
tribe. Over time, these mental patterns took on a life of their own and
we have come to know them by the name coined by Carl Jung. He called
them archetypes.
Carl
Jung identified four basic human archetypes, which you will see, have
come into being from the collective mental patterns from the four
social roles.
He
leader is the KING
The
protector and enforcer is the WARRIOR
The
knowledge keeper is the MAGICIAN
And the
nurturer is the LOVER
Carl
Jung described these as all male archetypes, but prefer to see the King
and Warrior as male and the lover and magician as female.
We use
these archetypes continually. When we make any decision the king as
decision maker needs the right knowledge from the magican and must
consider what is for their their own good and the good of others
from the lover. The King then makes the decision and tells the warrior
who carries it out. If any part of the chain is missing or weak, the
process of decision making will be flawed in our life.
So, each
of these archetypes need to be expressed in ourselves and in our lives.
If any one of these is lacking in our lives, we cannot operate
effectively. If our warrior is weak, we will let other people walk all
over us, if our magician is not wise, our king will make poor
decisions, because he does not have the best information. If we lack
our lover, we will become cold and heartless.
On the
other hand, If our warrior is too strong, we will become a bully. If
our magician misuses her ability, she will use her knowledge against
people and our king would become a dictator. If our lover is too
strong, their love will smother that which they love.
The key
is therefore to have strong archetypes, all kept well in balance.
Next I
identified a quality for each archetype and since these are four
fundamental human archetypes, the four qualities will be four
fundamental qualities we need in our lives.
So we
get, the King - Authority
The
Warrior - Courage
The
Magician – Wisdom
The
Lover - Compassion.
Just as
the archetypes must be strong and in balance, our four qualities must
be strong and in balance.
I would
now like to move on to two more critical collective mental patterns we
all hold on our brains, which are like archetypes, but do not come from
social roles. Every decision we make will either take us closer to our
goals or further away from our goals. When the king, warrior, magician
and lover are all working well, we move closer to our goals, symbolised
by the TREASURE. When they are not working well, we move closer to the
DRAGON. The dragon symbolises all the things in our life that stand
between us as we are now, and us as we could be. It is our obstacles
and our challenges that keep us from our treasure. It is through
approaching our dragons and overcoming them, that we come to know our
true nature, and meet our goals, not by avoiding them. So,in a strange
way our dragons are our allies, because they point us to our truth;
they take us to our treasure, but do beware, because if you take your
eye of the dragon, even for a moment, it will eat you.
I would
like us to just take a few moments to consider these archetypes in our
lives
How does
your King; your sense of authority, control and power over yourself and
others take you towards your treasure, or towards your dragon?
How does
your Warrior, your courage to stand up for yourself and those around
you, to protect everyone and the courage to unflinchingly do what needs
to be done; how does that take you towards your treasure, or towards
your dragon?
How does
your Magician, your sense of wisdom and intuition take you towards your
treasure, or towards your dragon?
And
finally how does your Lover, your compassion for your self and others
take you towards your treasure, or towards your dragon?
You
might like to consider these four questions in more depth later on
The
power of fairy stories is that they work with our archetypes. They work
directly with the shared mental patterns we all have in our mind. You
will find many variations on the four archetypes in fairy stories, so
the dragon might be a goblin, a demon, Darth Vader. Sometime two
archetypes will combine; a bad witch is distortion of the magician and
the dragon, king may be a prince, a Duke, a woodsman or whatever, but
if you look carefully the four archatypes will always be there. Fairy
Stories can be a powerful means of reprogramming our mental patterns
that may have become distorted over time.
Fairy
stories are like maps of our journey of life and just as a map helps us
to find out how to get where we want, so too can fairy stories guide us
on our journey.
Fairy
stories, and life, take us on a journey from order to chaos, and from
chaos back to order again.
The
usual pattern of a fairy story is that everything starts out as normal
for short while. Luke Skywalker lives peacefully on a far off planet
with his uncle and aunt, Sleeping Beauty lives with her parents in a
wonderful castle, Jack lives with his mother. The king, warrior
magician and lover are barely awake, all seems well, but then an event
comes to shatter the apparent peace. The Emperor’s storm troopers
arrive and kill Luke’s uncle and aunt, Sleeping Beauty is pricked by a
needle and Jack buys some magic beans. The hero is thrown into the
world of chaos, where everything is unknown and unpredictable. The
dragon has woken, so the hero must wake the king, magician, warrior and
lover to rise to the challenge thrown down by the dragon. After the
struggle with the dragon, the hero prevails and world returns to the
world of order as “everyone lives happily ever after”. This new order,
however, is not the same as the order at the beginning of the story.
The first order was an order of innocence; it was unconscious, it was
the order of a child, whose every need was met by surrounding adults.
As the story proceeds, the child becomes an adult, becomes conscious
and knowing and can live in peace in a turbulent from their own
strength..
This is
your journey and my journey. That’s what the reading from Joseph
Campbell was about tonight. Every day we all go on our own hero’s
journey, face our own dragons, in order to find our treasure. We do it
by finding our king, warrior, magician and lover and using them
strongly and in balance in all we do in our lives. We then find our
treasure; we find out who we really are, what our life is really about,
and touch the spiritual essence that is at the core of our being.
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