The Magician logic behind this reaction is easy to understand. If you can catch yourself before you do something “bad”, and then stop yourself doing it, you’ll be safe from fear, shame, punishment, disconnection, humiliation or something else equally painful.
However, the problem is that although stepping out of yourself in this way can be an effective strategy for staying safe, it often leads to a child (or an adult) being told he is cool or detached. The boy is then being shamed for the very strategy that was supposed to keep him safe from shame.
He may then take another step out of himself, his thinking being that if he can observe his own behaviour from a higher or more distant vantage point, he’ll be able to pre-empt the thoughts which lead to his behaviour being labelled as bad, and so avoid the fear or shame that would otherwise come his way.
Of course he’s then even more detached and the reaction he gets to that is being told he’s manipulative, detached and unfeeling, which in some sense he is, of course.
Eventually, if this process continues, he may have stepped out of himself so much that somewhere along the way he lost connection with his feelings and his sense of self. Such parenting is a good way to grow a sociopath, or at least to raise a child who spends the rest of his life trying to regulate others’ feelings in an attempt to stay safe by creating an element of predictability in his world. Unfortunately this supposed safety comes at the expense of his own feelings and his connection to other people.
Even so, the ability to dissociate in this way is a great asset to a child who grows up in an environment which reeks of danger and fear. When there is the constant threat of physical violence or emotional abuse, being on guard and staying watchful are strategies which may pre-empt trouble and help a child avoid unpleasant experiences.
But the cost is high: the child lives in a constant state of emotional arousal – which we might call anxiety or fear – because he is hyper-vigilant 24/7 about the threat of what might or might not happen next. This is a logical defence in an environment which has the potential to hugely shame or damage the child, but the defence carries its own high price too.
That price is living in a state of fear, maybe spending a lot of time dissociated, and perhaps developing an internalized self-hatred and sense of shame about your very existence. Such a profile is definitely not going to help you fully connect with other people or develop healthy emotional connections.
In a world which puts so much value on being seen as “good”, and even demonizes those seen as “bad”, the almost inevitable result for any child who believes he or she is essentially bad is a deep – but possibly unfelt – sense of shame about their existence. A strange thing about this shame is that it’s not easy to find in the body in the way that other emotions are. It hides. It’s hard to pin down. And no wonder, because it’s a state of being rather than a feeling.
Generally if you ask somebody where their anger is located, they can show you by putting a hand on a particular part of their body. But ask somebody where their shame resides and most likely they won’t be able to do that. This is because shame is somehow imprinted in every cell of the body. It’s all over, everywhere. It’s hard to find until it comes out of hiding and hits you unexpectedly. Then you know about it.
Shame can be narrow, and shame can be broad. For example, you might carry shame around your sexuality, or you might carry a more widespread feeling of shame about your very existence somehow being bad or wrong. Whatever form it takes, this wound requires delicate and skilful handling by anyone with a therapeutic intention. Nowhere is that more true than in the arena of sexual or physical abuse.
For a therapist, dealing with magician energy can be challenging, particularly when a man’s Magician has evolved into a very skilled and clever character in response to the original emotional wounding. Unless he has the skills to handle it, a therapist can be led a merry dance by a cunning Magician whose every action is designed to prevent the therapist from seeing either the emotional wound or the real person who hides behind the defences erected by their Magician.
Often someone with a deep wound in the Magician quarter will say “I can’t feel anything” or “I don’t know how to feel.” But sometimes it’s not so much that they can’t feel, more that they’re choosing not to feel, or at least choosing not to know what they’re feeling. This can be another Magician defence against feeling (or even acknowledging) the intense level of fear with which they once lived.
Healing work in this quarter often starts by getting the Risk Manager to consider giving up his lifelong pattern of protective strategies. The problem is that the Risk Manager prefers to take no chances. He does what he does because it was useful once upon a day. And because he works out of sight, mostly in an unconscious way, he doesn’t get much exposure to new ways of doing things. In any case he’s probably the one running the Kingdom because there isn’t a strong Sovereign on hand to change the way things are done in the realm.
In our emotional process workshops we sensitively interview and honour the part of a man’s Magician which has acted as his Risk Manager since childhood. We are experienced in working with this part of the psyche, and we find that many Risk Managers are delighted to take on an updated job description and are very happy to support change when they understand the advantages it can bring to their “host”.
Just like all the other shadow archetypal energies, Magician energy can inflate or deflate in response to emotional wounding. These two polarities are the manipulator or predator in the inflated pole, and the innocent or confused one in the deflated pole of shadow.
The Inflated Shadow Magician: The Predator
The inflated shadow energy of the Magician produces the manipulator or predator. This is a manifestation of the Magician archetype in which a man’s Magician uses his skill cunningly and ruthlessly, even perhaps without conscience, to obtain and express influence and power in the world.
There is a detachment from emotional connection here which may lead to cynicism, victimization, cruelty and predation. In its most extreme form this complex manifests as the psychopath, an individual who is totally detached from his own humanity.
The origins of this shadow lie in the childhood emotional wounding which caused the Magician to detach from feeling and connection with other people and the world around him. Yet underpinning all of this cynicism, manipulation and detachment lies deep and profound fear.
Sure, fear can protect us and alert us to danger, but it can also make us detached, disconnected and withholding. Fear may cause us to use our knowledge as a weapon with which we can disempower others and at the same time bolster our status, wealth or power. Such black magic is indeed the currency of the inflated Shadow Magician.
The Deflated Magician
On the other hand, the deflated Magician, the passive pole of the Shadow Magician, manifests as the fool, the simple one, or the confused one who does not know. What does he not know?
Anything, really. This shadow is powerlessness. It’s an avoidance of taking responsibility, an avoidance of being the Magician in charge of something important.
This passive shadow is characterized by a lack of energy, effort, power, or even real presence in the world. All this shadow wants is enough power to interfere with those who are making forward movement in the world.
This shadow of the Magician always appears to be innocent and unknowing. But this innocence hides a desolation and deep wounding of the individual, a wounding so deep that he is in some sense “lifeless”. He cannot take responsibility for his presence in the world. He may adopt an air of detachment, of aloof superiority, even an impressive knowingness, but his cynicism, his deflating remarks, and his hostility towards other people (always disguised as humour) show through anyway. This is an act designed to create a wall so strong that it keeps others separate, apart, away.
You may find it hard to confront a man (or woman) with this shadow. He lacks Warrior energy, he lacks the power to cut through to the truth. His Magici
an is in control. His defence is often a subtle kind of manipulation, an endless debate fuelled by circular thinking which never reaches a conclusion – and even if it does, that conclusion will most likely be reversed next time you speak.
A shadow Magician keeps answers and clarity out of your grasp and can hypnotize you with an energy of entrancement which leads you to engage with him at his level. That’s a trap, for you will surely enter an endless maze of questions, an endless conversation, which goes nowhere and achieves nothing.
When challenged, shadow Magicians are adept at discharging their own shame on to you while they slip away, maintaining their innocence, and you are left feeling ashamed for having seen them in such a negative light or somehow thinking the whole problem is your fault. And yet at the same time your own Magician will sense you’ve been manipulated and outwitted, and you’ll be left questioning where the truth lies.
How To Be A Balanced, Fully Present Magician
1 Study and Learn New Things
Since this is the realm of thinking, reasoning, and creativity, studying almost anything will take you deeper into the energy of the Magician. Of course you’d be wise to choose something you’re interested in, to make the whole journey more enjoyable!
That might be learning the intricacies of a complex card game like bridge. It might be learning about a pastime that appeals to you: painting, pottery, winemaking, brewing, dancing, woodworking, fishing, hunting, or cookery, for example. It might be taking a personal development course or training in some new area of expertise such as computer programming, Greek mythology, or psychotherapy. It might involve a course of study or a change of job.
Whatever it is, it needs to be something you are drawn to, something which already appeals to the Magician within you, so that you have plenty of enthusiasm and passion to drive you forward in your pursuit of knowledge.
Magicians are traditionally long-lived beings in myth and legend. You might want to emulate that quality by becoming a lifelong learner and maintaining an active interest in gaining new knowledge for as long as you possibly can.
2 Enhance Your Creativity
You may or may not have noticed that mature men – which is to say emotionally mature elders, not just older men – seem to have a certain solid quality about them, a more substantial presence.
One reason for this is that they’ve evolved emotionally and spiritually. Often they’ve escaped the grip of consumerism, moving beyond it to a place of greater emotional maturity where the transient attraction of an endless supply of consumer goods is replaced by a deep appreciation of their real needs. In other words, they know themselves and they know what really matters to them.
They understand that satisfaction and happiness come from the inside, not the outside. They know that wanting something because it makes you feel better, look better, or because it makes up for some inherent deficiency in your sense of self is an immature way of being in the world.
Consumerism feeds into an inherent desire in the human species to accumulate wealth and goods as protection against hard times. However, a man with a mature Magician knows that any social opportunity (such as consumerism) which feeds into one of our intrinsic genetic “programs” (such as accumulating food or goods as a protection against hard times) is a distraction from the path towards mature masculinity and a diversion from personal growth.
To be powerful enough to resist the draw of consumerism, which in this case means giving up the transient “reward” of buying things you most likely don’t really need, requires a strong Magician who has worked out a better way of being in the world.
One way to get the sense of fulfilment which buying and owning things can give you, but in a more healthy and permanent way, is to put your mental and physical energy into creating something of value. And so you might want to learn the art of woodcarving, learn how to strip down and rebuild steam engines, restore vintage cars, or write a novel.
There are countless ways to express your creativity: take up gardening, learn the art of metal forging, try your hand at painting, discover how to create great experiences for your family and friends, follow a spiritual path through life… the possibilities are indeed endless.
The key here is to engage with life in an active way rather than slumping passively in front of your computer, smart phone or TV every evening. Such an attitude dulls your Magician’s edge and convinces him that there’s no point in serving you because the demands placed on him are so far beneath his capacity.
3 Explore Your Soul
The domain of your Magician is your unconscious, the realm of your soul. If you’re new to the exploration of soul and you wish to know more, start by finding the path that’s right for you. This might be a particular path of personal growth and development such as psychotherapy, shadow work, or emotional process work. You might want to go on a Vision Quest, or spend time in nature in some other way. Whichever path you choose, the more you dive deeply into your soul, the more your Magician energy will strengthen and develop.
4 Get Initiated into Manhood
Deep in the very fibre of his being every man wants – and needs – to truly understand what it means to be a man. And in fact every man needs – and wants, whether consciously or not – to be initiated into manhood by other men.
This is what men have always needed and still need to this day: to go through an initiation, a Rite of Passage which sets each of us on the road from boyhood or adolescence to mature masculinity. Without this transition a man may never come to naturally embody the energy of the mature masculine; he may remain adolescent in his thinking and attitude until he dies, incomplete and unformed as a man.
There are a few organizations offering modern-day Rites of Passage and rituals which serve as a contemporary form of traditional male initiation processes: the ManKind Project (mankindproject.org) and Illuman (illuman.org) are two examples. But are their offerings true initiation rituals? No, they are not. The nature and content of traditional masculine initiation rituals in which boys and men faced a real possibility of dying cannot be replicated in modern society.
Even so, these modern Rites of Passage have enough authenticity about them to speak to a deep part of your masculine soul. And initiation doesn’t have to take place at a certain time of life: you can be initiated into manhood at any age. Whenever the process happens, it will still activate the part of you which has been waiting for years to come alive. It’s important, though, to know that these modern rituals and ceremonies only work for men who are psychologically ready to make the transition from adolescence to mature manhood. Does that include you?
5 Join A Group of Initiated Men
Perhaps it is only in a group of men prepared to listen fully and hold space for you while you reveal your soul’s longings and your deepest emotional wounds that you will feel truly safe and “at home”.
You might want to start such a men’s group or you might want to join one that already exists, such as those available to men who have undertaken the Initiation Adventure offered by the ManKind Project.
6 Create Sacred Space in Your Life
If you want to nurture the archetypal energy in your life, you will need a place where you can carry out your own rituals of connection with the various parts of your inner world. For example, you might go into your garden every morning for a few minutes to connect with each of your archetypal energies and ask them what they require of you as their Sovereign, or to give them instructions as you see fit.
Or you might have a room in your house where you can go to meditate or talk to each of your archetypes. You might spend time on a Vision Quest to discover what you need to know about the course of your future life. Above all, you might want to be a part of a men’s group.
Every two weeks I meet with a group of men in the woods around a fire, come rain or shine, where we share our experiences of life, the world and masculinity. We support each other in our shared journey to healthier masculinity and together we experience the strength of brot
herhood. My Magician loves it – and so does my Lover, my Warrior, and my Sovereign.
So set apart some area of your life, some experience you can call your own, something you can adopt as your own sacred ritual. You might have an altar or area representing each of the archetypes in a room in your house. You might have a place in nature where you can go to have these internal dialogues. Ask your Magician what is needed and see what he says.
Do this not only for the sake of your Magician but also for the rest of your internal Kingdom.
The Boyhood Archetype Of The Magician: The Precocious Child
The boyhood archetype that precedes the mature Magician is the Precocious Child. According to the dictionary, when applied to a child, the word precocious means “having developed certain abilities or inclinations at an earlier age than is usual or expected”. And so it is, for although this archetype prefigures the mature Magician, some of its foremost qualities are the need to learn, the need to know how things work, and the need to understand why things are the way they are.
The stronger this archetype in a boy, the higher his performance in school, the earlier he learns to read, the better able he is to learn to play musical instruments, to excel at sports, and so on.
You see, this is the archetype which lies behind our urge to explore life. It drives our curiosity, delights in the astounding discoveries just waiting for us, and knows that everything is a mystery simply waiting to be explored and understood!
The motivation and energy of the precocious child is all about understanding as much as possible. And for some people, the way it lives on into adulthood becomes very important: it forms the basis of connecting with other people through the sharing of knowledge and understanding. For men in particular, this is an important way of connecting: to stand together on the ground of mutual interests and common understanding.
Warrior, Magician, Lover, King Page 9