KING | WARRIOR | MAGICIAN | LOVER

A unique experiential 3-month immersive personal development program for men. One-to-one inquiry, coaching, process work & self-study using the lens of the male archetypes as the map for your inner journey.

King | Warrior | Magician | Lover

A Personal Development Program For Men

This 3-month immersive personal journey for men is based on the groundbreaking work of Jungian Analyst Robert L. Moore PhD (1990), and more recently Rod Boothroyd (2018), and their work on the archetypal map of the male psyche.

This is not a one-size-fits-all training: this is a personal, facilitated, experiential journey into your inner terrain: Getting clarity on how you want to show up in the world and using the lens of the male archetypes as a map to explore your patterns, feelings, emotions, and ways of being that are keeping you from getting what you want. This can be facilitated in-person or online via Zoom.

Michael Meade has referred to King, Warrior, Magician, Lover as a "bold map for traversing the male psyche", and this has been used as a powerful framework for men's personal work since its development in the early 1990's.

Step into a deep and powerful relational inquiry, and take away an embodied relationship with your inner world and a framework to support you as you step forward in your life.

What are archetypes and how is an archetypal map of the male psyche useful for me?

The Jungian lens of the archetypes can be an extremely helpful map of the psyche to employ as we explore how you are showing up in the world, your strengths, your challenges, and your difficulties. Understanding this archetypal theory can help you to make sense of the patterns you notice and experience in your life and to identify where they have come from. With this insight you will see for yourself what needs to happen in order for you to access your innate power and your authentic sense of identity.

Archetypes can be defined as blueprints for our emotional expression which cause us to react in a predictable way to basic human experiences, inner or outer.

The lens of the archetypes can be used to represent the whole of human potential, and a gateway through which we can begin to understand and to see how our previous experiences might influence our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and actions. We all have access to these archetypal energies but the extent to which we express them differs, and is determined by our experience, background and upbringing.

Each archetype contains light and shadow qualities, healthy and unhealthy expressions. It is likely you will resonate strongly with some archetypes, and others may feel underdeveloped or even estranged. By exploring how these areas of personality show up in your life and identifying and exploring the experiences or wounding that have led to occluded access to these energies, we can work towards the goal of you having full and balanced access to each of these four archetypes, so that you are naturally able to call on the most appropriate energy within you at any given time to support you and bring you back into alignment.

This program is about deep self inquiry: using an archetypal map of the psyche to understand your way of being in the world; to identify where your shadows are playing out; to bring awareness to where you need to grow in order to become a whole and powerful adult; and with my support and guidance, taking positive steps to facilitate these changes.

Identifying your shadows is the first step in moving through your limitations and is a significant step towards greater clarity, understanding, and inner strength.

"The programme was excellent and helped me gain clarity around my patterns and how I show up. It blended theory and practice. It fed the mind and the body. It’s a very personalised approach accessing the wisdom of the archetypes and I have felt a positive internal shift from the work in these sessions. Ali brings a very thoughtful and skilled approach to the work."

"The self study material was excellent and really helped to bring depth to the work. I would highly recommend the course to other men wanting to explore the archetypes."

A.D - Dublin

The four quadrant archetypal model King | Warrior | Magician | Lover

The four quadrant archetypal model
King | Warrior | Magician | Lover

The four quadrant Archetypal model views the psyche as being divided into four distinct archetypal energies - areas of personality that can be viewed as sub-personalities or parts of us that stand alone and function almost autonomously as separate entities within us. Each of them carries a particular energy and can act as a semiautonomous part of our psyche with its own motivations, desires, feelings, thoughts, and way of being in the world.

There are many different references to many different archetypes which describe different aspects of human experience. The archetypes in the four quadrant model are the King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover: their respective areas of influence being leading, taking action, thinking, and feeling.

King

Our King is the part of us that leads, guides, and nurtures. He sees both the weakness and strengths in others and blesses and affirms. It is where our wisdom lives. Our King is our visionary and has the motivation to accomplish in order to serve and fulfil our purpose. He is grounded, with clarity and compassion, and is able to hold the wounded parts of ourselves with love. The King establishes our moral compass. This is father energy, centred in the heart. One needs to be connected to an inner sense of Joy that perhaps comes through self-worth, in order to have access to and embody the healthy fullness of this archetype.

A deeper exploration of the King can be found here.

Warrior

Our Warrior is all about action, doing, and the setting and holding of boundaries in order to navigate our lives authentically and inhabit a strong sense of identity. He is the protector of our home and family. Attributes of the warrior include pride, discipline, and decisiveness. If the King is the visionary, then its the Warrior that carries it out the mission. The emotion associated with the Warrior is anger: we must have a healthy relationship with our anger if we are to have access to this archetype in its fullness.

A deeper exploration of the Warrior can be found here.

Magician

Our Magician is the part of us that can detach in order to see clearly and come up with possibilities. His role is to observe, scan, and monitor our inner selves and others, keeping us safe. Magicians are the knowers and the masters of technology. He is the counsellor to our King; providing options but unconcerned with morals or right and wrong. The emotion associated with the Magician is fear: we must be willing to be alongside our fear, know it and hold it, if we are to have access to this archetype in its fullness.

A deeper exploration of the Magician can be found here.

Lover

Our Lover is the primal energies of vividness, aliveness, passion, enthusiasm and connection. Our Lover is connected to his feelings, his body, his sensuality and his sexuality. He is spontaneous and seeks the joy and delight in the sensory experiences of life. It is through our Lover that we experience sadness and grief, the natural response to loss of any kind: it is grief that must have the freedom to flow fully within us if we are to have access to this archetype in its fullness.

A deeper exploration of the Lover can be found here.

The Shadow Energies

The characteristics of the archetypes described above are the positive or “mature” aspects. For each archetype, there are two extremes of “too much” and “too little”, characteristics that exist in an individual when access to the fullness of the archetype is blocked for one reason or another.

As an example, a mature and healthy Warrior knows who he is, meets challenging situations and conversations with calmness and clarity, sets and holds boundaries, and acts when he needs to. A person with inflated or too much warrior energy can be sadistic and abusive, hyper-boundaried seeking conflict for the sake of conflict. A person with deflated or too little warrior struggles with his sense of authentic identity, cannot set or hold boundaries, is easily pushed around, avoids or fears confrontation, and has trouble moving forward in life or in getting things done. The shadow aspects of 'too much' and 'too little' for each of the archetypal energies are detailed in each of the links above.

Employing the lens of the archetypes, each can be approached, explored and ultimately balanced as necessary. Each archetype has an essence, a particular quality to it, and it also has these polarities, light and dark aspects which manifest as optimal and detrimental character qualities.

Negative emotional and psychological experiences and impacts can create barriers to the access of these healthy and full ways of inhabiting what it is to be human and fully showing up in the world. When you’re out of alignment with an archetype, you will suffer the shadow aspects of it, the specific limiting beliefs and behaviours. When you’re in balance, you receive the gifts and benefits of it. When we have unencumbered access to these archetypes, we are able to draw on their attributes and qualities and experience that part of us in it’s fullness, harnessing it’s aspects to fully inhabit our lives.

A Personal Development Journey For Men - An Overview

The Journey consists of six, fortnightly one-to-one 2-hour sessions, taking you on an exploratory journey into your own inner world, your patterns, feelings, emotions, and ways of being in the world. These session can take place online via Zoom or in person.

This is not a one-size-fits-all training: this is a personal, facilitated, experiential journey into your inner terrain using the male archetypes as a map for our exploration.

Each session will begin with a grounding meditation. We will explore what you understand about each archetype, what resonates with you, and how you see this archetype currently showing up in your life. We will probe more deeply through directed inquiry and/or some journalling.

There will be an experiential component to the sessions where, should you wish to go deeper, you will be invited into a specific process work piece around the archetype, in order for you to process and experience an aspect of this archetype, expressing whatever needs to be expressed, and taking a step towards balancing your system.

King: Accessing your King to experience and anchor in this energy, working with any blocks; supporting a part of you you struggle to accept; or inner-child support.
Warrior: Exploring your boundaries and what might be in the way to you setting and holding them; process work setting boundaries; or approaching your anger and working with your anger.
Magician: Approaching and speaking with the 'controller' or the 'protector' within you; approaching and speaking with your inner-critic; or exploring how others show up in your inner world and working with your projections in order to see and experience them differently.
Lover: Stepping into and exploring sadness or grief; approaching and exploring a part of you that feels vulnerable or frightened; or experiential work with your inner-child.

Each session will conclude with a grounding and integration of your experience of what we have covered, along with a discussion of what you'll need to do prior to the next session.

Session one: Introduction

Session two: Warrior Archetype

Session three: Magician Archetype

Session four: Lover Archetype

Session five: King Archetype

Session six: Integration

Before each session you will be asked to:

Read a chapter from a selected text (15-20 pages)
Listen or watch a selected talk/podcast/interview (30-60 minutes)
Record personal journal notes (15 minutes)

Optional:

If you wish to go deeper, you'll have access to additional resources to offer a broader context and a greater psychological understanding of yourself and the work.