King, Warrior, Magician, Lover Book Review

by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette
$9.95; 160 pages

Based on a recommendation from the Art of Manliness, I bought King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine from Bookmans. I couldn't find it at my local new bookstores, but you can find it online new or used. Since I bought it used, it took me forever to find the tiny "Men's issues" section. It was only one shelf in a rather large bookstore, but I finally found it tucked underneath the sexual self-help books. It was worth the effort.

The four archetypes show their power from the first. These are not alien ideas forced onto us. Rather, they are us, in a more pure form. The archetypes help us to see what is best in ourselves, as men. The King is the source of order, he is wise and just. The Warrior has boundless energy. He is devoted to a cause greater than himself, and fiercely loyal. The Magician is powerful and crafty, and he has the ability to detach himself from events and see more clearly. The Lover seeks beauty in all its forms, and delights in it. He can break down barriers and empathize with everyone.

This book is valuable for anyone who wants to know what it is to be a man. It is also valuable if you are interested in understanding depictions of masculinity, both positive and negative. I can easily think of people I know, or situations I have found myself in, and immediately see the application of these archetypes of masculinity.

Moore and Gillette are definitely children of their age: the Age of Aquarius. With that in mind, I found the chapter on the Lover the most unbalanced. This is the chapter that is the least burdened with scholarship or historical accuracy. It is also the least aware of the negative side of the archetype. The chapter on the King went into great depth on the bipolar shadow Kings, the Tyrant, and the Weakling. The chapter on the Lover talked about the Addicted Lover and the Impotent Lover, but many of the examples used for the Lover per se were really just as bad as the shadow forms. Given that the Lover is the spirit of the age, it is probably hard to attain critical distance.

I see an interesting parallel between Moore and Gilette's four archetypes and the DiSC model created by William Marston. Each one of the four archetypes has a strong relationship to one of Marston's four mental energies. The King is similar to the Steadfast/Submissive energy. This would have been hard to see, except that the woman who taught me about DiSC mentioned that many Fortune 500 companies have CEOs with S personalities. Under the DiSC system, the Dominant type seems like the natural leader. Driven to succeed, quick to think, quick to work, charismatic. Yet, the D energy can be very harsh and unyielding. This is because it is really like the Warrior.

I think the confusion arises from the name. When we in the Anglosphere think of a King, we think especially of the English kings, men like Richard the Lionhearted or Henry VIII, who had big ideas and big appetites, bundles of energy that got whatever they wanted. However, what we are really talking about here is no mere king, but the Emperor. The Emperor is the still center, the source of order who quells rebellion by the rumor of his imperturbability. Except in the direst of emergencies, the Emperor does not take the field of battle himself.

The Lover is like the Influencer. Always talking, focused on relationships, a great love of life, unconcerned about details.  The Magician is the Conscientious type. Hardworking, knowledgable, focused on facts and results, quiet and reserved.

One needn't look too far to find things that don't match either. The DiSC model attributes empathy especially to the S, while KWML attributes this to the Lover. Nonetheless, the convergence is striking. I am always interested when two separate lines of thought arrive at the same result. I look forward to reading what Brett on the Art of Manliness posts about this book in the future. This is a topic worth revisiting.

My other book reviews

The Four Archetypes of the Masculine

The Art of Manliness has a series starting that is inspired by the book, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine. 

I am looking forward to this. Of the two great forefathers of modern psychology, I find Carl Jung more interesting than Sigmund Freud, although both are well-deserving of their fame. Two of my favorite authors, Tim Powers and John Reilly, have integrated Jungian archetypes into their work. The Jungian archtypes themselves are more interesting than modern derivations like the MBTI, which I continue to find uninteresting.

From Masculinity Movies, here is a brief introduction to the masculine archetypes:

The King

The King is the source of order in the kingdom. If he is a wise and just king, the kingdom prospers, people eat well and are safe from harm. In the kingdom of the wise king, laughter rings through the lands, the crops shoot up high, joyful celebrations keep the woods awake, merchants travel with overflowing carts to lively markets. The king is the harmonizing principle, the subjugator of chaos, the uniter of opposites. He is the channel through which the gods communicate, and he channels divine blessings to his people and the lands (to whom he is «wed»). He is selfless, and puts the good of his people above his own needs. When the King grows weak, darkness threatens the borders of the kingdom, the sun disappears from the sky, and the crops wither and die. When the king dies, he knows, he is merely replaced by another in a lineage of divinely blessed kings, which humbles him Remember the saying «The King is dead, long live the King.»

This archetype may be better known as the Fisher King, forever associated with King Arthur. Last Call by Tim Powers is a powerful embodiment of the Fisher King in modern terms, and of course the masterwork is T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland. Powers based his work on Eliot's, but Last Call is far more accessible.

The Warrior

The warrior is a powerhouse of energy, the source of which is a transpersonal commitment. He is fiercely loyal to his warrior code – which is his honor – and to the king, who mythologically represents his purpose. The warrior is not concerned about his own comfort and security in pursuit of his goal, as his training teaches him to live with death as his constant companion. The domain of the Warrior is the battlefield – be it a battlefield of war, of spirituality, or of moral ethics. The Warrior’s purpose is often to destroy, but the mature warrior destroys only that which is negative and harmful to the world. He is a master tactician, knowing at all times his limitations, and finds creative ways around them. The warrior is not a thinker, he is a doer. Thinking is his enemy, because it inhibits his ability to act swiftly and with force. He trains himself not to think, and becomes a master of his mind, attitudes, and body. The warrior is detached from life, with an almost infinite ability to withstand psychological and physical pain in pursuit of his goal. He is a little «unhuman», always chasing the shadow of the attainment of his next big purpose, always putting emphasis on his mission as opposed to his relationships.

In American society, the warrior is actually an easy archetype to find if you know where to look. All cultures have their military heroes, but in modern America, the military is the one government entity that actually works well.

If you need an example, think Conan the barbarian.

The Magician

The Magician is the wise man, the sage, the knower of secrets. He sees and navigates the inner worlds, he understands the dynamics and energy flows of the outer. He is a master of technology, engineering, mathematics, mysticism, and logic. He reads the stars, navigates the soul, and writes the laws. In the legends, he is the King’s close advisor, who stops the regent’s anger with cool rationality before he acts rashly and channels to him knowledge from hidden sources. The Magician is the thinker, and all knowledge that requires special training is his domain. The Magician has the capacity to detach from events – the chaos of the world – and draw on essential truths and resources deep within him. He thinks clearly in times of crisis, and enables us to take a broader view of things. He governs the observing ego, and is the meditator that reveals the truth of the universe, the shaman who communicates with the ancestors and stars

This is of course Merlin.

The Lover

The lover is finely attuned to the realm of the senses and worships beauty. He is a musician, an artist, and a lover of all things, both inner and outer. He is passionate, and delights in touching and being touched. He wants to always stay connected, and does not recognize boundaries. He wants to experience the world as one ongoing big orgasm of hearts uniting as One. He is the mystic who feels everything as himself, and the source of all intuition. Through his feeling capacity, he is finely attuned to people’s energy, capable of reading them like an open book. His desire for love and connectedness considered, feeling into other people and discovering dark intentions is a painful experience for him. He is opposed to all structures that maintain separateness – of all law and order that keep hearts lonely and isolated. He is, in other words, opposed to all the other archetypes. The Lover is crucial in keeping the other archetypes energized, humane, and in touch with the ultimate purpose of love. The Lover keeps them from sadism.

This is the balancing feminine element.

Manly Hobbies

This week, the Art of Manliness had a good article on 45 Manly Hobbies.

On the list that I do [at least a little]:

• Reading
• Ballroom dancing
• Marksmanship
• Martial arts
• Alcohol/Cigar/Pipe smoking connoisseur
• Learning a foreign language
• Blogging

I especially liked the story about an electrical engineer who took up blacksmithing as a hobby. This story was popular enough that a follow-up article by another blacksmith was posted later. Call it the Office Space effect, many men find white-collar office jobs emasculating and unfulfilling. One way to counter this is not to have that kind of job. Or, if you do, you can take up a hobby to help.

I am fortunate to have the blue-collar white-collar job as a process engineer. Where I work, engineers are expected to be hands on with whatever machine or assembly line they work with. For me, one of the hardest things is to let go of a process and let the techs and operators do their thing, because it means I have to become more isolated from the actual business of making things. There are engineers who never work apart from a desk and monitor, so I am fortunate in this regard.