Joseph Campbell discussion group discussion
I don't really know what to say
message 51:
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Leslie
(new)
Jan 24, 2009 09:22PM
Yes, I don't believe in luck, just as a chance happening that might have come about or just as likely, might not. I believe more in some kind of force that makes things happen in mysterious ways, but then that raises all kinds of questions of morality, like if there is some force or being that can make things happen or not happen, why do the most horrible, horrendous things, like genocide happen without that force intervening? There's just so many sides to the same question, it's like it encompasses the whole universe.
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Leslie,That's true. I don't know why genocides happen, or what sort of weird force goes along with those circumstances. I suspect, though that there are at least two different forces. The first is the energy of following one's bliss, which is aligned with the energy of the universe. This does not lead to genocide. The second is the energy of the ego, which goes against everything in the universe. Genocides are about one side feeling the other side is not human. It's a lack of compassion (and sanity) that is fueled only by the ego. It's about 'me' and how important the 'I' wants to feel. It demands that we divide the world into 'I' and 'other' - which truly is crazy, since we're all linked. In contrast, Bliss is about the bliss, not about what the individual wants to 'get' from the world.....
So you are writing your memoir in order to make the world aware of certain things so there can be more real compassion and understanding in everyone concerned. That's Bliss. If you did things, instead, like James Frey and wrote a bogus, overblown memoir that was designed to hurt people, misrepresent the truth and make the writer wealthy at others' expense, then that would be ego.
That makes a lot of sense. At times I have felt-not so much now, but I had to really battle this feeling--that it was so ridiculous and conceited to even write a book about my life. I know that goes back for me, way back to feeling inferior, etc, and all kinds of hang ups I have, and it isn't true. I'm not writing to say look how great I am, etc. In fact, there are a lot of things in the book that I do that are embarrassing and I wish I had never done, and one really immoral thing that I did when I was 15. I keep telling myself I was only 15, but I still wish I would have never done it. And I write about it in detali in the book. The whole thing with James Frey and other people who write books they call memoirs and end up being more fiction than anything else makes me angry, because then it casts doubt on people like me who are writing memoirs that are my memories. They might not all be objectively accurate, but it's how I remember it. I really wish people would be more honest in calling a book a memoir or a novel. What you said about genocide it so true. To even contemplate such a thing is about saying those people are other and not human, shouldn't live, should be destroyed. I think it's interesting too, that some people have said that a lot of times it's the part of us that we can't admit is part of us that we try to destroy in others. I don't know how true that is on a genocide level, but wasn't it true that Hitler had some Jewish ancestory? I think it's true on a personal level, like when people are homohobic or the preacher who preaches so vehemently against certain sins and then it comes out that he is doing those very things. If we aren't conscious of what our motives are, we can try to destroy what we hate about ourselves when we see it in other people. They come to embody the very thing we hate and we try to destroy it--that's the thing, first they have to make a person an "it".
It's sad that people don't do things like therapy and self-examination and at least try to find out what's really going on and then, because of blindness, ignorance, whatever, start destroying, in one sense of another, other people.
Yes indeed. We hate in another those things we can't quite deal with in ourselves, and so it is truly a duty to see into ourselves, accept that we have a few uneven patches, and love others because they are just like ourselves, at bottom. Hitler is a good example, of course. What he did was project his inner anxiety onto others - the part of himself he couldn't face. It's an easy way out. But it's dishonest.....and destructive, too.
It's very destructive, then combine that with this strange charisma some truly evil people seem to have, with the opportunity to get real power and you end up with genocide and world wars. Even on a personal level, for instance, in my old church, the men had all the power, and some men, my ex-husband among them, would set up something similiar to a mini-dictatorship and it was as destructive and oppressive as anything on a national level, but it just included the people in that family. It's sad and scary what can happen.
Large or small, the destructiveness of that ego- serving is immense. Funnily enough it's often men who give in to it. I suppose they can compensate for their own sense of anxiety/inadequacy without having to look at it. It's a short cut, therefore, instead of real understanding; a patching up of wounds rather than a healing.
I've seen some women "rule" pretty harshly--my mother-in-law is the first one I think about in that category. She was a Southern matriarch and she called herself the Queen Bee. Not only was she queen, she was mean, too. But in general, when someone does that power-trip thing, it's a man, I agree. I wonder if it's something cultural or biological--probably both. Most gender based things are, I think, to a degree that it's almost impossible to tease it apart and figure out what is what.I got your book in the mail!!! Finally--WOW--it looks so good! I am going to start reading it as soon as I finish Angela's Ashes, which I think will be tonight. I'm excited--I can't wait to read it!
Leslie,
Colin Wilson writes a lot about this subject in many of his philosphy books; 'The Outsider' is one example.
Allan,
I too recieved your book yesterday. I'm looking forward to reading it...actually, I've already finished the first chpter. The anecdote about the parents not wanting their son to travel was telling.
Colin Wilson writes a lot about this subject in many of his philosphy books; 'The Outsider' is one example.
Allan,
I too recieved your book yesterday. I'm looking forward to reading it...actually, I've already finished the first chpter. The anecdote about the parents not wanting their son to travel was telling.
Hello Daveh, and Leslie,I'm so pleased you both have my book now - because I value your feedback! And yes, all the anecdotes in the book are true, even if I changed a few names here and there to protect the innocent.....
I'm looking forward to starting it tonight!! It's looks so good--I love the cover!
It gets better once you get beyond the cover!!
I'm hoping to start it properly tomorrow, the last week has been a nightmare, I need to get my thoughts moving again.
I know how it is. January often seems to be a scrambled time in my life, too. But perhaps it's just my body telling me that this truly is the season to hibernate....Actually I've been reading Joseph Campbell instead, and that's always exciting. January is a good reading month.
Hi!I started your book last night and it is so good!! Very readable--I like that especially. Some of the writing I've tried to wade through about myth is not really reader friendly, but yours is! I really identify with the Innocent and the Orphan. I'm reading now about the Pilgrim. I think it was the Ophan identity that made me so desperate to find a home, that I joined the church I did and got married when I did. I like what you said too, about how kids have to turn away from parents and what they represent to find out who they really are--it's so true!
You are a very wise person.
Dear Leslie,I'm so glad you're finding things to think about in the book. I've worked with archetypes for decades, and they definitely exist in all of us - but sometimes we need a little help in finding them.... And you are absolutely right: Churches, and organized religions that demand strict obedience are, usually, very attractive to Orphans. But there's more to life than being an Orphan. As you know, so well!!
Now I'm reading about the Warrior/Lover. Very interesting. I'm glad you brought out the point of how a person can be say, an Orphan, in one aspect of life and a Pilgrim or Warrior/Lover in another. I can really see that in my own life. I was wondering, do you think that when people treat a person, an adult, like they are younger than the person actually is, are they responding to the Innocent? People usually act like I'm younger than I am, and since it's all different people in different setting and I am the only common denominator, I know they are responding to something in me. I wonder if it's the Innocent? I don't think I act so immature as to cause that respone--I hope not. I've wondered about that. I'd love to know your opinion.
All these archetypes are so interesting in explaining why people do what we do--join cults, fight wars, anything.
I like too, how you bring our sort of the shadow side and light side of each archetype.
Thank you so much for writing this wonderful book, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it!
I was wondering something along the same lines, although Allan mentions that the Innocent also has three different ways of approaching problems or situations. Maybe we actually keep something of each for moments where they are going to obtain what we want?
Leslie and Daveh,This is a really good question and to some extent it'll depend upon the situations. What we have to watch for is whether we are being respected (in which case it's very likely that the other person is responding to the Innocent within us) or disrespected, in which case it's a 'put down'. And put-downs are what Orphans do when they want to establish superiority. The thing is, though, that Orphans always judge by Orphan standards, so if one is a Pilgrim, say, and an Orphan tries to be patronizing to us in some way, then the criticism just bounces off.
Of course some Orphans see us as younger than our actual age because they want to protect us. That's a very lovely trait, but it still diminishes us, doesn't it?
Ideally, in a balanced relationship at any archetypal level, we feel empowered, not belittled or under-regarded.
Daveh is right, too, that we can access different levels of ourselves when we need to get what we want. The question we have to ask is whether that's a form of manipulating the other (in which case it is close to Orphan thinking, again).... We access our highest self when we aim not for what we want but for what is good for everyone, and when that happens we are Magicians. As we know, the Magician is the Innocent re-imagined: the purity is added to the sagacity of experience, and that's a wonderful thing to see!
I hope this is comprehensible?
Daveh, I just responded to you and Leslie together (above). Great questions - the really go into the core of the archetypal issues.
That's interesting. I don't feel put down when other people treat me as younger, I don't sense any patronizing or condescension. It's pretty usual for me, and I've known for a long time it was something in me that people were responding to, now I think I'm starting to understand more.Thank you!
I haven't read about the Magician yet. I wonder if life could be a little bit like an EKG reading, if we put it on paper--spikes and dips, depending on the contexts, situations, what we rise to or sometiime, sink to.
I feel like you're giving me a new framework to think about life and myself and others. I really like that--it's important. Another way of comprehending life.
You're absolutely right - we can choose which archetypal level to be on at any time. Most of us don't know that, and so we react into a level that is not necessarily our best self. But if we know what's likely to happen we can select how best to respond... That's when the Magician has a chance to appear.I'm glad you feel this gives you another framework for looking at life. That is what I hope for with all my readers, and it seems to work. That knowledge, in turn, allows them to have better lives. I've seen it often enough to know this is true, and so I feel my efforts count for something, after all.
I've really been thinking in terms of the archetypes you talk about. I told a friend of mine about it today and she immediatly said, Which one am I? And we talked about what you said about how most people just stay stuck at orphan. I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want to stay stuck anyplace! It's so neat how life is so complicated and multi-dimensional that we can have all different frameworks to look at it with and each is true, even though they may be very different from one another.
I'm looking forward to reading about the Monarch and the Magician. I've also been telling Emily about it and about how you have a chapter on Harry Potter. That caught her attention. I love how you bring things into here and now, not just from a long time ago. It makes it a lot easier to understand and think about what it has to do with a person like me who has the life I have.
That's exactly the problem. We all have to fit in to the world we live in so to some extent we have to adopt Orphan standards (pay our taxes, be good citizens, like to be liked by others, and so on). The thing is not to get stuck in that thinking. That takes being alert to those Orphan mind-sets and refusing them.... On the whole, accepting easy answers and conventional thinking (which we all recognize) are the hallmarks of the Orphan, as is being in the 'popular' group.Harry Potter, of course, is a series that deal with the six archetypes in an intuitive way. Rowling felt them, as an artist will, without analyzing them into stages. The Dursleys are Orphans - they want to fit in with everybody else. And look what they turn into. Malfoy is also an Orphan, looking for shortcuts and trying to feel important, and that's the essence of the bully. Dumbledore, in his infinite wisdom, is the true magician. He doesn't try to force anything. he relies on inherent human decency (in Harry) and his faith in that is proved right, for decency cannot be compelled..... And there's lots more!
That's neat--that artists incorporate the archetypes without doing so consciously. I think it shows that it's part of the univeral unconcious. It seems like the Ophan is the one that is the most negative and where we don't want to stay at. I know each archetype has its dark and light side, but am I wrong in picking up that the ophan is the one we most don't want to live as? Which is a little scary, since you said that most people get stuck as orphans. What about the Innocent? Does anyone, except maybe devolpmentally disabled people, live his or her life as an Innocent and not move on? Is that even possible?
Leslie,Your points are accurate - with one addition. To some extent we all keep the good parts of the previous archetypes in us. We all have the Innocent in us all the time - it's the part of us that loves and trusts unconditionally. Yet we know that we have to find places where that innocent self will be valued, so we keep it sheltered. The Magician is the person who can trust, love, and nurture love even in 'dangerous' circumstances, allowing the Innocent archetype to emerge in a fuller form.
That said, the Innocent archetype does exist in some of the developmentally disabled. I've seen it.
Most of the rest of the time we all go to Orphan phase, but specifically to balanced Orphan phase, where we fit in and conform to some extent willingly, knowing that we have more to offer. When the time comes, we know we can stand up for what is right.
It's the unbalanced Orphans who cause the trouble! These are the 'followers' of the world, and they are very dangerous. We want to try to avoid that unquestioning submissiveness. These unbalanced Orphans are the ones who think 'their' leader or 'their' god is the only god, and will destroy anyone else who thinks otherwise.
Scary stuff, and very common. We call them bigots.
Well - that's my take on things.....
Interesting. I was thinking about it, wondering, would it be possible for a person to live their whole life as the Innocent and never progress even to the Orphan. Then I thought of all the times in stores and places I see people with Down's Syndrome in their 30's and 40's following their parents, around. I thought of them when I thought of anyone who might possibly stay an Innocent.I'm looking forward to reading about the Monarch and especially the Magician. I haven't read that chapter yet, but I picture the Magician as a Shaman or some really special wise person. I wonder how many people actually reach the Magician stage in any area of life. Do you think it's rare? It sounds like it would be.
Leslie,I think a lot of people reach the Magician stage, for a while. The trouble is staying at that point. We all have flashes when we connect with the purity of the Innocent in a way that is perfectly in tune with everything, which is what the Magician does. But most of us get that only in flashes. The time we said exactly the right thing, without thinking, or we did the right action, without hesitation... Inspiration comes from the Magician archetype, yet, alas, we don't all live in that mind space.
I know what you mean because when you look back at that moment, it feels like something magic happened and you know you never could have made it happen--that would be impossible. Wow--neat!! It makes me feel like life is exciting, which sometimes, in the midst of just trying to do everything that has to be done, it feels more tiring than exciting. I wonder if an amazing piece of art or poem that just comes out is like a flash of magic?
Yes, you've got it. Art, though, rarely pops out of no where. It takes time for the artist to let the Magician archetype into the work, and then it requires the artist to let go of all ego so the magic can happen through him or her. The Greeks talked about the 'muse' descending to guide the artist. That's not a bad way to describe what happens when we stop trying too hard and get out of our own way.....
Thats very interesting and very true. Allan, where do you see the connecting points between that kind of invention and invention that comes from chaos and necessity?
Or is there a relationship between them at all?
Or is there a relationship between them at all?
Yes, it is interesting. When I write a poem, it feels like the muse has visited and it "just came out", but of course it came out of all that is inside me. When I write prose, it's not like that. I hope it's inspired, but I decide what to write and I do it. I can't write poems like that, they just come, like divine visitors. The process is so different. And yet, like you said, getting out of the way, when I write prose and it really flows, I feel like I'm getting out of the way, which isn't too easy to do a lot of times. And then like Daveh said, inventing an umbrella because I'm sick of getting rained on or somehow bringing order out of chaos--that's creativity too.
Daveh,Good question - I think all invention comes from the same place. I think we have to remain open to possibilities and let whatever is inside us bubble up, and then we have to stop worry about what anyone else thinks. The inventor of the umbrella was escorted by a mob to the local magistrate who were alarmed at his 'invention' even though sun umbrellas had existed for a while. He was the first one to think of using it in the way that is now so familiar. We have to let inventiveness arise and not worry too much.
The impulse is the same in each case. James Joyce wrote Ulysses as a form of necessity (he felt the novel needed a radical make-over) and at first everyone was aghast. Yet his invention came from the same place as the desire for an umbrella, except on a higher conceptual level. I think that's what Leslie is saying, too. Those 'ah ha' moments can be little or large, yet they are essentially not different, I feel.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. For me, one of the hardest parts is just what you said--not worrying what other people think. It's so hard not to let that get in my way!! Do you think that's the Orphan part manifesting, that I'm afraid of alienating my "home" in a sense? It kind of feels like it.I never knew that about the umbrella--very interesting. It reminds me of a story about Isaac Singer--he has the sewing machine pretty much invented, but it didn't work yet because he couldn't figure out what kind of needle to use, none of the ones he thought of worked. So one night he dreamed he was in a jungle and he was being attacked by natives with spears, and all the spears had a hole in the middle of the point of the spear. He woke up and made a needle like the spears in his dream and it worked! The final piece! I think of poems and paintings and art type things coming from dream, but anything can! That creative impulse comes out so many different ways with so many different applications!
Leslie,What a lovely example about Isaac Singer! Because that's exactly how it works - the Unconscious mind has to get the conscious mind out of the way (as in sleep) so the real genius can slip through. We have to get round that cautious Orphan mind set (which is always ego, always the conscious mind) and let the real energy come forward. That's easy to say, but not always easy to do.....
Allan, apart from becoming more aware of ones actions and how they affect people do you think other practices (like meditation) can help lead us through the archetypes?
I'm becoming more aware that I'm a bit of a 'gate-keeper' (I think thats the term that you use in the book!) in that I sometimes put people off doing something that I feel may threaten who they are. I feel I'm doing it for the right reasons (which are still obviously wrong) but was thinking about doing a yoga course just to help still my mind and, hopefully, help me accept decisions that others make that might leave me picking up the pieces for them.
I sound pretty selfish even writing that but...part of the process.
I'm becoming more aware that I'm a bit of a 'gate-keeper' (I think thats the term that you use in the book!) in that I sometimes put people off doing something that I feel may threaten who they are. I feel I'm doing it for the right reasons (which are still obviously wrong) but was thinking about doing a yoga course just to help still my mind and, hopefully, help me accept decisions that others make that might leave me picking up the pieces for them.
I sound pretty selfish even writing that but...part of the process.
Dave,Interesting question. When you put people off doing something 'that may threaten who they are' is that because you don't want them to change? There's a fine line between protecting someone and inhibiting someone, isn't there? Often we 'protect' others because we are seeking to protect ourselves, and we project that on to the other. Then we can also over-protect children, which isn't good either. They have to be free to make mistakes.
Of course, if someone is going to do something that will leave you in a worse situation then by all means protest! On the whole, being mindful will let us let go of thinking we 'ought' to control things. Meditation is usually about stilling the internal chatter, so perhaps it would help (we're all different, after all) to allow you to see things differently.
But, after all, circumstances dictate so much. If you could give a specific situation I might be able to be more helpful.
You're right about getting the conscious mind out of the way. 18 months after I started therapy, I wrote a poem about something my therapist said to me, and it opened this big door inside me and poems just started pouring out, sometimes 5 in one day, and we used them in my therapy and started making so much progress, and I actually got to the feelings, really felt them, the ones I had just been talking about before. It was a huge catharsis, but it also seemed to somehow bypass the inner censor and critic, and whatever it was that was keeping all that so tightly controlled inside me and not letting it out. It was an amazing experience. I still write poetry, but not very often--because now I can actually talk, I don't have to write a poem to express something. And I write prose and do art. I wasn't doing any of that back when I wrote that first poem. That was a real turning point for me, and it was, like dreaming, a way to circumvent the barriers my conscious mind had erected to keep it all inside and locked up.
Leslie,That's exactly it. And isn't it great when it happens? That's the deep center of who we are, telling us to live from that space of truth. Of course, we still have to live in the world and pay the bills, but we have to honor that inner core....
It is great when it happens!! Sometimes I have fantasize about going away for several months and being on sort of an inner pilgrimage--without the distractions and demands of life. But I don't think that will ever happen, I'm with Emily and the people in my life, live in my house, pay bills, make money. It seems like one of the most important things to learn to live from that inner core of truth while living and functioning in this world. It keeps going back to balance. I'm on the chapter in your book about the path to the Magician. That chart is very interesting.
Yes, balance is everything. As Joseph Campbell pointed out, the inner spiritual world can come into conflict with the outer world because they are so very different and simply don't see things the same way. So we have to transcend the world of ego, but not ignore it, and certainly we can't make it the center of our lives.
I think when a person learns to live in the world, and yet still live from that inner core, that might be getting flashes of the Magician!I really enjoyed the chapter about the sub-sets of the archetypes. It clarified a lot for me because we're all so not one thing. We're all so many things. I especially loved the example of the child who was the Innocent Magician when he said that to his teacher. It's amazing when stuff like that happens. It also really struck me about what you said that it's very hard to get a traumatized child to learn from new experiences. I think that's what happened to me, because after what happened when I was 5 with my uncle, I was scared of new experiences, I didn't want to have them, much less learn from them. I think I got stuck as a passive Innocent-Orphan for a long time. I thought of myself as a Pilgrim when I was in my church, but looking back, I wasn't. I was a scared Orphan clinging to a life raft I hoped would save me.
There is a line in The Doors song, Universal Mind, it says something about "Now I'm looking for a home in every face I see. I'm the freedom man, look how lucky I am." It's so expressive of the Orphan. Also, the irony of being the "freedom man" and being the orphan looking for a home is really moving. Do you like the Doors? I do!
Leslie,Yes, the Doors do put so many things well, don't they? They knew about feeling lost and reaching for freedom (and perhaps not getting it).
You're really seeing yourself in the archetype descriptions, I notice. Good! Once we know what happened to us we can see that we now have other, perhaps much better, options....
The Church was necessary to you when you were hurt and an Orphan. but now you need something more, don't you? Good!
I think so many of the lyrics of The Doors songs are profound, and I listen to them at work a lot, and now I'm applying the archetypes to their music, and I am seeing that. It's really neat learning about a new lens to look at the world through--the more of those I have, the better. Now I am reading the chapter about the Winnabago system, which is interesting, especially because I was wondering about the Trickster. It's such a common theme in myth and stories, I was wondering if it was going to come up in your book. And there is was!Yes, I am finding myself in the archetypes and I do find it very helpful. It helps me put my life and actions, especially those actions that puzzle me, like, Why did I do that?, in perspective.
Oh, there it is - the 'why did I do it?' questions! Usually they have a lot to do with not being at the highest level we're capable of living, archetypally, it seems to me. Sometimes we all slip down to act from a level that is less than we are capable of being. Usually it's because the ego has pulled us down, it seems.
Hello,I'm in the section about the literature--very interesting, I was looking forward to getting to that part. I really like it.
One thing I've been wondering about is the Orphan. When we do things like pay bills and function in our jobs and homes, that's like the Orphan, right? I think that is because we are not following our passion when we are devoting all that time and energy to the mundane, but important, things of life. But at the same time, it puzzles me, because if we are functioning adults, doing what we have to do, that doesn't seem orphan-like, it seems like something else, not the Warrior-Lover or Pilgrim, either, it seems like being a competent adult. That puzzles me.
I think the Warrior/lover stage is the stage I understand least. I feel like I have a good grasp on the first three, I feel like I've lived them. The last three, less so, but the Warrior/Lover, of all of them, I feel like I don't understand more than the others. Maybe I'm making that one more complicated than it is, I'm not sure.
Leslie,Yes, when we go through the archetypes we have to take the best aspects of each archetype and continue to use them. So we all have to hold onto the idealism of the Innocent, but with practical wisdom. We all have to pay the bills and be good citizens, like the Orphan, but not simply be that person ONLY. We have to learn how to seek after what we need, like the Pilgrim, and be comfortable in that uncertainty, but eventually we have to choose what we are going to believe. We can't remain just as Pilgrims all the time, since that would be getting stuck in a role. Put another way - even the rulers of nations have to allow themselves to be looked after, sometimes, but they can't allow themselves to become Orphans for very long!
The Warrior-Lover is the person who decides to devote his or her life path to something and someone. This is a major moment of commitment, different entirely from the other stages that went before. Notice, it's not blind, dumb commitment to someone else's ideas. That's Orphan thinking. The Warrior-Lover is characterized by thoughtful commitment. Now, we can be Warrior-Lovers in small ways (I decide to get a mortgage so I can buy a house for my family to live in) or large ways (I opt to become a devoted environmentalist to try and save the planet we live on). Ideally we can do both.
I hope that clarifies things?
Yes, it does, very much so. It sounds like getting married, having kids, making commitments of different types that are for a good cause, is being a Warrior/Lover. Do you think there are people like shamans and holy men and women who live in the Magician realm all the time? It sounds like, from the book, that we can get flashes of it, but it isn't somewhere we can live much of the time. But what about those unique individuals? Maybe even a shaman, since he or she is human, still slips back to Orphan from time to time. It makes sense. Maybe I am romanticizing the ideal.
When you mention ego, do you mean in the sense of the ego Freud taught about, or in another sense? I'm getting the idea that it's not the Freudian thing, that it's more our lower selves pulling us down, tempting us to take the easy way out, cop out.
I've been thinking about how the "easy" way can seem like the "hard" way. Like my old church.
we dressed different, we abstained from lots of things people think of as normal, we lived a different way than most people, and told ourselves it was the harder path, the one god required. But, now it's seeming like the easy way out, a side-door that allowed me to by-pass learning important things I needed to learn at that age. Everything can get very complicated if I think about it enough--or too much! Which is something I'm a little too good at doing.
Just thinking about what you've written, Leslie, and it seems to me that it IS very easy for people with good intentions to become side-tracked, believing that they are on the right path. Like you say, when something is difficult we instinctively think that it must be the right way (guilt maybe?) but the difficult path can also be the wrong one. Hmmm, it is difficult to work this one out; which path is a genuine 'warrior-lover' higher calling and which is just the wrong path for us?
Also, it's interesting what you write about the warrior-lover' Allan, and the idea of looking out for others. I was thinking about the highest magician level and comparing that to the idea of compassion in Buddhism. Do you think that some people deliberately leave the magician path because they can help others more as warrior-lovers?
And, if so, does this sacrifice then elevate a lower archetype to a higher level through selfless intent?
Also, it's interesting what you write about the warrior-lover' Allan, and the idea of looking out for others. I was thinking about the highest magician level and comparing that to the idea of compassion in Buddhism. Do you think that some people deliberately leave the magician path because they can help others more as warrior-lovers?
And, if so, does this sacrifice then elevate a lower archetype to a higher level through selfless intent?
Leslie, The Shaman is the person who has a personal connection to the divine, and that makes living in this world rather problematic for him or her. Being a Magician means having that connection to the Transcendent. Ideally a person in such a situation has a community who values him/her and takes care of the more basic needs. In fact, a Shaman or a Magician has to walk the knife edge of being in the world (paying the bills) and never losing sight of the divine. So, for example, you, as you write your memoir, are in the world of the transcendent truths, but you still have to eat dinner...The lure of organized religions is that they claim to tell you how to achieve this balance so you don't have to worry about it. And so we have religions that perhaps allow us to be thoroughly worldly six days a week and then sit in church on the seventh and feel we've done our 'duty'. The really clever religions make the six days seem like hard work so that we feel we're doing 'the right thing' and that we've 'earned' our place in this particular belief system they want us to conform to. But it's only a religion, and spirituality is something very different.
The task of getting back to one's inner spiritual truth is not so regimented, and we each have our own ways towards it. It usually involves doing less and being more. And simply being fully present in the moment is not that easy....
Dave,Your question is a good one, and hard to answer because lives are so individual, but I can answer it. The Buddha was the compassionate figure who achieved release from the wheel of life because of his great purity. And, on the threshold of attaining nirvana (the release from all earthly things) he opted NOT to leave, but to stay and help others achieve release. So, as ultimate magician he decided to be less than that for the sake of others. This is paralleled in the Jesus story, where Jesus offers himself as a willing sacrifice so that others may get to heaven through his example. The Boddhisattvas (enlightened followers of Buddha) described themselves the same way, as willing participants in the sorrows of life, so they could help others escape the sorrows. So, yes, the magician has to become 'less' in order to achieve the compassionate ends. Saviors and saints have to be human, or they can't guide us...
