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Man &

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The Challenge of Kingship for Contemporary Men

The Generative Man: A vision for us

Your Ego Is Not the Villain

Your Ego Is Not the Villain

The key to Optimal Manhood is not, as some believe, to abolish the Ego. Instead aconscious and effective Ego has a central role to play in reaching mature masculinity.

An initiated man is one who has developed the ego consciousness needed to takemoral responsibility for the great forces in his psyche.

Mature man psychology has perhaps always been a rare thing on our planet. It is

certainly a rare thing today. It is enormously difficult for us males to develop to our

full masculine potential as human beings. The struggle with the infantile within usexerts a tremendous “gravitational” pull against achieving that full adult potential.

Nevertheless, we need to fight gravity by dint of hard labor and to build the

“pyramids,” first of boyhood and then of manhood, that constitute the core structures

of our masculine selves. Each of us needs to build, brick by brick, toward the goal of

mature masculinity, until at last we can stand on the high platform at the top and

survey our realm. Central to this construction project is not only understanding the

building blocks, but developing the mature ego consciousness that can serve as

“project manager.”

Building Blocks of Mature Masculinity

I see every man as having within him four powerful archetypal forces: a King, a

Warrior, Magician, and a Lover. These four major forms of mature masculine

energies fit together like the four sides of a pyramid. They all complement and,ideally, enrich one another – if we learn to regulate them properly to be a whole

person: a good King is always also a Warrior, a Magician, and a Lover. And the

same holds true for the other three.

These four archetypes are mysterious entities or energy flows. They have been

compared to a magnet beneath a sheet of paper. As iron filings are sprinkled over

the top of the paper, they immediately arrange themselves into patterns along the

lines of magnetic force. We can see the patterns of the filing on the paper, but we

can’t see the magnet beneath the paper—or, better, we can never see the magnetic

force itself, only the visible evidence of its existence. The same is true of archetypes.

They remain hidden. But we experience their effects—in art, in poetry, in music, in

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religion, in our scientific discoveries, in our patterns of behavior and of thought andfeeling.

All the products of human creativity and human interaction are like the iron filings.We can see something of the shapes and patterns of the archetypes through these

manifestations. But we can never see the “energies” themselves. They overlap and

interpenetrate one another, yt they can be distinguished from one another for

purposes of clarification. Through our inner work, they can be brought into conscious

dialogue and “remixed” so that we can realize the desired balance among their

influences in our own lives.

The Ego as Chair of the Board

Jean Shinoda Bolen has usefully suggested that we think of this process --untangling

and isolating the archetypes and then remixing them and blending them -- as a well-

run board meeting. The chair asks each of the officers to speak his or her mindhonestly and openly about the question at hand. After all opinions have been heard

and the matter has been thoroughly discussed, the chair calls for a vote, and thedecision is made. Often the chair must cast the deciding vote.

Our Egos are like the chair of the board. And the board members are the powerful

archetypes within us. Each needs to be heard from. The input of each archetype--King, Warrior, Magician, Lover-- must be invited and welcomed. But the whole

person under the supervision of the Ego must make the final decisions in our lives.

How does our Ego consciousness learn to do this? What used to be done for us bysociety through largely unconscious tribal ritual processes, we now have to take on

as our personal moral responsibility. Our Western civilization pushes us to become,as Jung said, “individuated” persons. Any adequate psychology for our time must bea moral psychology that aids us in taking personal accountability for the great (often

grandiose) archetypal energies within us and for consciously building a maturemasculine self.

Construction Project Tools

A number of techniques can help us in this construction project. Analysis of dreams,

active imagination (in which the Ego dialogues with the energy patterns within,thereby achieving both differentiation from and access to them), psychotherapy in a

variety of forms, meditation on the positive aspects of the archetypes, prayer, ritualprocess with a spiritual elder, various forms of spiritual discipline, and other methods

are all important to the difficult process of training our male Egos toward manhood.

King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the MatureMasculine introduces you to these energies within you as well as to these techniques

for learning to regulate them in a balanced way.

This is the challenge facing us as men today. We must step up to the task ofbecoming the kind of man we wish we had had in our lives.

The Challenge of Kingship for Contemporary Men

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Kingship? How much a part of your contemporary concept of the “maturemasculine” has to do with being a king? “Kings” have too often gotten a bad rap.

As I presented a portrait of “The Generative Man” in last month’s column, Iacknowledged that my description of “Optimal Manhood” may have a somewhat

culture-specific coloring, but I have found that the underlying manhood structuresremain trans-cultural.

Indeed, my research has shown that the qualities most cultures identify as

“masculine” in most historical epochs are remarkably consistent. Whether it’s thekings of myth and history, the “big men” of New Guinea, the muy hombres of Spain,

or the “worthy men” of the Samburu -- all are protectors, providers, andprocreators.

Great men manifest a selfless capacity for hard work, risk- taking, courage, and

endurance.

Mature men embrace these roles in order to nurture their families and buildtheir communities.

They are community bulwarks against natural and human foes.Where able to accumulate wealth, they share it liberally.

They are expected to be energetically sexual and to foster the next generation.

While there are local emphases on one or another of the different functions of thistranscultural understanding of manhood--protector, provider, or procreator—DavidGilmore, in his Manhood in the Making, notes that the pattern is consistent.

The evidence from several other fields of study, makes plausible, even compelling,

the idea that these traits of manhood are a transcultural expression of the archetypesof mature masculinity and, ultimately, of the incarnated King.

From Gilmore we can take a transcultural perspective concerning the ideal mature

masculine Self, one we’ll be calling Generative Man. A generative man may be

communist or capitalist

industrialist or peasant.

an animal-rights advocate or a whale hunter

and is as much a poet as a soldier.

While a man’s lifestyle and work, under the best of circumstances, will reflect his

generativity, Generative Man is the foundational aspect of every man in every culture

and the closest parallel that modern psychoanalysis has offered for the archetypalKing.

“Generative Man” is a term coined by the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson. In our

view, Gilmore’s “manhood” and Erikson’s “Generative Man” are two similar ways ofviewing the King. The man appropriately accessing the King is the protector,

provider, and procreator for his people and his world--whoever and wherever they

may be.



Generativity is the true basis for mature human being. Besides procreation in the

biological sense, generativity includes all the products of the human imagination-

cultural, religious, technological, and ecological. For Erikson, as for Jung, there is noinherent conflict between the instinctual drives in human beings and their

psychological and spiritual aspirations. The so-called higher functions of human being

arise out of our animal roots. Erikson calls the archetypes “action patterns,” andwhen they are not distorted by psychopathology of one kind or another, their push is

always toward generativity.

According to Don Browning’s analysis of Erikson, Generative Man’s virtues arelove, care, and wisdom. As Browning says, “The basic trust and hope of the

generative man . . . gives him the trust not only to continue his own existence but to

share in the generation of succeeding generations and to help care for and sustain

their lives with hope.”

All the risks taken by a mature man and all the wealth he accumulates are finally

designed to care for and sustain his family and community. Ultimately, this caring and

sustenance are intended for his children, the world’s inheritors.

Trust and hope are products of strength and maturity. Out of strength and maturity,

Generative Man can draw upon inner resources of autonomy and will. Out of his

autonomy and will, he desires and has the capacity for intimate relationships. Inpersonal relationships, as far as the social hierarchy will allow, he beholds the true

worth of others. He provides what Erikson calls “a confirming face.” In other words,

he mirrors and blesses. This is certainly the case in the male-bonded egalitarianbrotherhoods that Gilmore examines. For Erikson, Generative Man’s relationships

are not only intimate but societal as well--he has the capacity and desire to make

meaningful contributions to the community.

All these qualities give a generative man a viable identity. This identity incorporates

flexibility with integrity as well as with a consolidated style of fidelity. Out of his

consolidated personality, a generative man is able to make commitments to his

family, to his society, and ultimately to his God.

The initiated men of any society have placed their personal concerns beneath those

of the larger social groups, and the social groups are subordinated to a divine reality.

To Gilmore’s way of thinking, manhood can be either tribalistic or universal in itsgeneral outlook and in its visioning of its own tasks and duties. Real men, for him,

can function with a variety of definitions of the greater good, from the most parochial

to the most expansive. However, Erikson goes a step beyond Gilmore here. Eriksonclaims that Generative Man must be a universalist. He must nurture his own progeny,

culture, and religion, as well as the larger world of all human societies, and the

environment as an ecological whole. Generative Man, for Erikson, balances the good

of society with the good of the planet by honoring both technology and nature.

As Browning says, “To generate and maintain a world, but in such a way as to

include and yet transcend one’s own issue, one’s own family, tribe, nation and race -

- this is the essence of the generative man . . .”

A man who has accessed the King properly demonstrates Gilmore’s “manhood” and



Erikson’s Generative Man. The King calls every man into an Ego-archetypal axialrelationship. Men who can achieve such a relationship are modern-day embodiments

of sacred kingship.

When a man’s Ego is in the proper alignment with the King, he achieves the humilityof the creature before its transpersonal source, its God. At the same time he comes

to realize that God is within.

“If you knew me, you would know my Father also,” said Jesus. Jesus’ statementillustrates an Ego in an integral relationship with the inner King.

I will be talking more about the role of the Ego, in partnership with the Great King,

as we struggle toward developing a balanced kingship in our lives as contemporarymen.

For more of the challenge of kingship for men today see the newly released The King

Within: Revised and Expanded Text.

The Generative Man: A vision for us

As you read these words, all over planet earth the forces of death, domination, and

despair are led by males of our species who are immature emotionally, spiritually,

and ethically.

Political and spiritual leaders constantly try to understand why narcissism, sociopathic

behavior, and political corruption seem to become worse rather than improving.

They have sought almost everywhere for the answer but have not looked in the placewhere it can be found--in the masculine soul and in our dismal failure to help the boys

of today to become initiated, mature, and responsible men.

While no traditional culture should be romanticized or idealized, we must awaken tothe fact that the ancient indigenous cultures of the planet did a better job than

Western colonialist culture in finding ways to limit a narcissistic, malignantly

aggressive masculinity and to harness its energies for the community. The challengenow facing us is to learn from our forebears the importance of male maturation and

that mature, responsible men are made--and not the result of chronological aging.

Yet even our ancestors could not see beyond their tribal visions to imagine thepossibilities of a vision of masculine maturity for our species as a whole.

If the world is not soon to be ruled by heavily armed "monster boys" in physically

mature bodies, then we must have an awakening of a new "EarthMan." This newhuman man must be one who is conscious, mature, and wise: one who --

does not abuse women and children

stands against tyranny in any formcan show the way to the stewardship of masculine power, aggression,

wisdom, and love for a democratic, just, peaceful, and compassionate future

for our grandchildren throughout the world community--in order to secure the



well-being of the "seventh generation" into our future.

What does this have to do with you? It is my belief that men, women, and

children of every ethnic group and nation have suffered greatly throughout thecenturies through the abuse of power by emotionally and spiritually uninitiated,

immature "monster boys" both foreign and domestic.

It is my belief that a conscious and wise response to this experience of domination by

immature males may enable Earth's Spirit Men to become leaders in a worldwide

movement to call for a new and responsible masculinity at this critical time in history.

Many men around the world are now beginning to awaken, not just to the enormity

of our challenge but to their immense potential for spiritual and ethical leadership in

the wider world.

In this critical time I call on you and other faithful and committed Spirit Men of your

tradition to bring your gifts to a pan-tribal coalition for transformative leadership in

what it means to be a responsible and mature man in today's EarthCommunity. It is

my hope that you may be the key vanguard in turning the tide against the reign of the

"monster boys" of Earth--and in the advent of the mature EarthMan.

I am writing this column to invite your partnership in visioning and embodying a newand better Way for the human male. In my work I have lifted up a comprehensive

new vision for the mature 21st century male. We have already embarked on this part

of the Great Work of our time, but we have barely begun embodying/incarnating this

vision in history. This incarnation will not occur without your help.

In today¹s column I want to summarize the vision of the new Generative Man that is

actually possible today. In subsequent columns I will offer other reflections onachieving Optimal Manhood and stewarding those powers for the human future.

What is an ideal generative man? Though the portrait I suggest may have a

somewhat culture-specific coloring, the underlying manhood structures remain trans-

cultural. No man can fully embody all of these qualities. However, psychologists

often will describe at length what is wrong with us without providing us with an image

of what it would be like to be healthy and whole. We’d like to address this

imbalance here, for “without a vision the people perish.”

The generative man, drawing on the characteristics of the archetypal King, accesses

the Center, Transformer, Procreator, and Structurer functions in an integrated way.

He is creative himself, and he welcomes creativity in others. He provides a safe,

containing space where the people around him can flourish. He offers encouragement

by taking care to really see others. In beholding his fellows he mirrors and affirmsthem. He confirms their individuality and the reality of their suffering and their joy. He

is conscious of and sensitive to their underlying feelings and motives. He blesses their

lives by sanctifying the fruits of their inner and outer labors.

Because he is himself secure and centered, the generative man can allow others to be

themselves. He does not experience them as extensions of himself, but recognizes

when he is confusing his own motives and values, his own hopes or fears, with those



of others. He is not easily thrown off balance by others. Even hostile and aggressive

people cannot easily get to him. His integrity is such that sarcasm, innuendo,

accusation, and confrontation have little effect upon him. He can manage in most

situations to defend his legitimate personal boundaries firmly, and without hostility.

Yet when a wrathful response is called for, he is able to act aggressively. There are

situations that present clear and present dangers. The generative man, drawing upon

his Warrior-King reserves, responds with vigor in these situations to neutralize hisfoes.

A generative man seeks to free himself of envy. Possessing all the power he needs

for his own life, he can dispense to those who need and deserve it the affirming

energy of admiration. He confers deserved riches-- symbolic and material--upon

members of his family, his friends, his business associates, and others. Rather than

belittle others, he supports them in their attempts to contribute something of value to

society.

In a leadership role the generative man evaluates his subordinates’ ideas and

performances objectively and with compassion. If others have good ideas, he

celebrates them, implements them, and gives credit where credit is due.

At home, he lavishes deserved praise upon his children when they come to him for

mirroring; however, he never exaggerates his praise. He speaks the truth, and the

truth he speaks gives every member of his family a firm basis for self-evaluation andself-affirmation. His truthful words and actions help others feel their own reality and

get a sense of their own authentic being. He deflates grandiosity and enables others

to discover their realistic greatness.

A generative man may be a mediator between the archetypal King and his fellow

human beings. He may be further along than others in accessing the King and the

other mature masculine archetypes without being overwhelmed by them. He is aseasoned veteran of the dialogue between Ego-consciousness and the depths of the

unconscious. He is familiar with the inner landscape we all share--its dangers and

pleasures, its angels and demons, its illusions and truths. With the wisdom of this

familiarity, the generative man can help others in their efforts to integrate. He can

reflect back to others what he hears their inner adversaries and allies saying, because

at one time or another he’s heard the same voices himself.

A faithful steward of the creative life-force, a generative man never engages inwanton destruction. He is not indifferent to the plight of the oppressed. He is vitally

concerned about the rights, safety, health, and material prosperity of all human

beings. Beyond this he is interested in the welfare of the ecosystem as a whole.

Though he may be a master at utilizing the physical environment for the benefit of his

family, his nation, or all humankind, he honors both technology and the environment

in a balanced way. He encourages the harmonious interaction between society andnature. He is neither the enemy of science and industry nor an irresponsible dumper

of toxic wastes. He seeks a middle path which is responsible to both immediate and

long-range human needs -- and to his planetary home.

The generative man vigorously pursues the extension of the created order against the

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forces of destruction and death. There are many facets of these forces--drugs,

racism, classism, nationalism, religionism, poverty, child abuse, spouse abuse, pettyquarreling, ignorance, egoistic power-grabbing, environmental pollution, political and

economic depression--and all are expressions of human chaos. Their ultimate effect

is always the destruction of global well-being. A generative man is concerned with

law and order wherever that law and order contribute to the flourishing of human

beings. He is a protector of the weak and disempowered. He does what he can in

order to assure justice and equality of opportunity for all people.

The man who adequately can access the archetypal King is a reconciler of opposites.He listens for what truths are spoken on all sides of a dispute. He looks beneath the

surface arguments to the fear and anguish of the child within. He addresses this

deeper reality when he speaks to each of the opposing sides. While he prefers

diplomatic solutions, when destructive impulses need subduing, he acts swiftly and

decisively to reestablish order out of his own sense of integrity. Even though others

grumble about his severity, they know that he is just. Everyone knows the difference

between men in leadership positions who are firm because they are genuinelyinterested in our welfare, and men who are severe out of their own grandiosity. A

generative man is able to help us subdue our own self-destructiveness, and for this

we deeply appreciate him.

Self-sacrifice is an inescapable part of world building, something this man realizes.

The generative man gives his life’s blood for the people and causes entrusted to him.

His hard work and personal sacrifice both provision others and advance the

generativity of the world. He spends as much of his life energy as he can to helpothers build their worlds. At the same time he is no martyr or masochist. He cares for

his own welfare, choosing to sacrifice himself only because of his sense of an

abundant and replenishable self-worth. He volunteers in causes that awaken both his

compassion and his just anger. In these and other ways a generative man provisions

the world.

Like the sacred kings of the Far East, the generative man works toward harmonyand order in his own inner life. He views setting his own house in order as a

prerequisite for helping others order their own lives. He is relentlessly honest with

himself about his failings. He takes his share of responsibility when things go badly,

but no more and no less than his share. Out of this empowering stance he is able to

do something positive and concrete about the problem that confronts him. He may

be involved in some form of psychotherapeutic process. He knows that where his

own integrity is at stake, one way or another he must work to develop his own

psychological and spiritual life. He is open to criticisms, for he realizes that they willusually hold some truths. He is not, however, a misguided moral perfectionist. Rather

he urgently engages himself in a quest for wholeness and moral seriousness.

Out of his deep loyalty to himself the generative man is able to be loyal to others--his

family and friends, his company, any voluntary organizations he may be fostering, his

community and his nation, and ultimately his world. These loyalties may at times be at

odds with each other and set up intense conflicts within him. To the extent, however,that a man can be generative, his loyalty will be to the greatest good for the greatest

number. His loyalty in the end will be to a Transpersonal Other that is deeply



compatible with his own sense of self.

Finally, the generative man has achieved a rich masculine identity both by building his

inner masculine structures and by valuing his inner feminine characteristics. He has

come to know the mystery that his masculinity is enhanced to the extent that he isappreciative of his Anima. He has experienced within himself the sacred marriage of

the King with his Queen. Full generativity, he realizes, in psychospiritual affairs just as

surely as in biological ones, is possible only where the masculine and feminine

energies are united. He is almost certainly sexually active and eager for intimate

relationship with a partner as capable of intimacy as he is. Together they may

generate and nurture children; if not, their energies combine in more subtle but still

tangibly creative ways.

Protector, provider, procreator--the generative man is a Center for world

building, an axis mundi around which others may rally.

At his Center he is unassailable. He provides stability to his inner world, and to

others who come to him looking for order in themselves. His own opposite impulses

are reconciled at his Center, and through his experience of this, he helps others to do

the same.

As a Transformer, he makes usable the creative life-force he carries within him.

Others draw from him a sense of their own empowerment.

He may be a Procreator in the specific sense of fathering the children he cares for

and teaches. Certainly he is a Procreator in the broad sense of initiating creative

advance in the world he has been given to steward.

He is also a Structurer, establishing calm in the midst of chaos and facilitating order

through determined action. He is committed to the preservation and the extension of

a civilized, yet vigorously instinctual, way of life. In these ways he incarnates the

potential in the actual, the sacred in the profane.

He is an image of mature masculinity toward which all men may strive.

In the columns to come I will talk further about this image of Optimal Manhood and

using its powers for the human future.

For more of the Generative Man described here, see the newly released The King

Within: Revised and Expanded Text, Chapter 5.

© 2010, Robert L. Moore

* * *

Contemporary man has rationalized the myths, but he has not been able to destroy

them. - Octavio Paz

Dr. Robert Moore is an internationally recognized Jungian psychoanalyst and consultant in

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private practice in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is the Distinguished Service Professor ofPsychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality in the Graduate Center of the Chicago TheologicalSeminary, where he recently founded and become director of the new Institute for AdvancedStudies in Spirituality and Wellness. He is a Training Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute ofChicago and Director of Research for the Institute for the Science of Psychoanalysis. Authorand editor of numerous books in psychology and spirituality, he lectures internationally on hisformulation of a Neo-Jungian paradigm for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. He is the authorof, among other books, The Warrior Within, The Magician Within, The Lover Within, TheWithin Quartet: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover; The Archetype of Inintiation: Sacred space,ritual process and personal transformation; The Magician and the Analyst: The archetype ofthe magus in occult spirituality and Jungian analysis; and Facing the Dragon: ConfrontingPersonal and Spiritual Grandiosity. Also an audio with Malidoma Some, John Lee and RobertBly called Who Welcomes the Newborn to this World? African and Western Perspectives. Hismost recent book is The King Within: A revised and expanded edition Accessing the King in

the Male Psyche. www.robertmoore-phd.com

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