You found my old blog. Thanks for visiting! For my new writing, visit mikesententia.com.
Archetypes help us see patterns in the world. This post is about three archetypal ways of exploring magick and healing.
The healer wants to help the person in front of them, whether that’s through compassionate conversation, behavior changes like exercise, or channeling energy. Placebo is a good thing to a healer, because it’s another tool to help people. When healers channel energy, their focus is on the effect that energy has on the person, not on where the energy comes from or how that energy source functions. Energy is one tool among many for helping people.
The magician wants to explore the hidden (occult) parts of the world. They explore spirits, correspondences, and rituals, learning the rules for their chosen system. By embracing a paradigm and understanding the meanings of symbols within that paradigm, those symbols become a language that magicians can use to express their intent. This language is used both for external change (manifesting, communicating with spirits, etc) and for internal change (personal growth, often to get in touch with one’s true will and become unafraid of pursuing it).
The engineer wants to build better tools. Tools = The forces that provide energy for healers, and that cause the external change for magicians. Engineers want to understand how those tools are built, what parts make them up, how those parts work. They want to build something new from those parts, such as new types of healing energy that people can channel, or clearer ways to send out a manifesting intent. The engineer often knows less about the other aspects of healing (talk, diet, exercise) than the healer, and less about symbols and correspondences than the magician. The engineer has the most impact when they get other people using their tools.
Long-time readers know that I don’t normally talk about archetypes. But this week, I did some manifesting, asking, “What should I write about? Cause me to write a good post,” then letting ideas come to me. Now, I don’t think the ethereal software understands literary value or social network shares, but it does understand how to nudge me along my path by getting me to explore new ideas. And I’m finding these archetypes useful as I think about how to connect my work to other practices, how to plan classes (one for healers, another for engineers), and what drives different people to explore this art and science.
Do you use archetypes? How might you use these? Leave a comment below. Thanks!
If you liked this post, consider visiting my current blog at mikesententia.com.Tags: Learning, Learning Magick
Ha, I disdained archetypes as not particularly useful when I was being asked to pay 7k for a year-long program that included significant focus on them, but now you’re getting me interested and excited to explore this. I would say the archetypes I most resonate with in my work (and I may need to invent some here–oh wait, there’s one–inventor! How recursive & meta) might be:
Inventor–the inventor creates or synthesizes a process, approach, application or object that wasn’t there before. Their minds think in synthetic and creative ways about new solutions to existing problems.
Sage–the Sage imparts wisdom in a way that her charge can truly take it in. She knows not only what to say, but how to deliver it in a way that in will be received. She also blogs a lot :-).
Shaman–the shaman creates a comfortable, compelling space between the worlds for the client to work and play in. Shamans hold past, present and future factors in the room as time distinctions collapse, to allow the client to heal in multidimensional ways.
Hi Mike, the first two archetypes that came to mind were the Warrior and Wounder Healer. Then I googled a list to refresh my memory, and it occurred to me that maybe some of the major arcana in the Tarot are drawn from archetypes. It’s possible the occultist drew from Jung to create decks for divination.?
In graduate school, I took an Archetypal Psychology class, and at first, like Jill, I thought it was a lot of money to spend on what seemed like abstract concepts. Looking back, it was my favorite class and the teacher was cool. We walked a labyrinth, made twenty mandalas, did sand tray therapy, read the Myth of Innana, and picked a soul card (which strangely foreshadowed what was to come.) The activities were very powerful and stuck with me.
There’s a book by Carole Pearson called, THE HERO WITHIN: Six Archetypes We Live By. It’s easy to read. According to her, they are the: Warrior, Altruist, Magician, Orphan, and Wanderer. At different times in our lives we have to call on them for the gifts they offer, the lesson to learn, and to find our own inner strength.
Halloween is a perfect example of a holiday that represents walking archetypes going hunting for candy. People dress up as superheroes – the warrior, nurses – the altruist, witches – the magician, babies – the orphan, and pirates – the wanderer. And that’s just a few possible costumes. I like Halloween! :) Julie
Thank you, both Jill and Julie.
On tarot: Yes, it’s full or archetypes. As I recall, Jung was a contemporary of Crowley and was involved in the Golden Dawn, so Crowley was almost certainly aware of his work. So the Thoth deck, and everything that derives from it (which is rather a lot), would have been done with an awareness of Jung. Anyone more up on Crowley want to elaborate?
Thank you for answering. It’s nice to have someone to talk magick with! Yes, you’re right. Crowley read and was influenced by Jung, I looked it up :)