Gods In Everyman

366 Pages·1990·1.62 MB·English

by  Jean Shinoda Bolen

Gods in Everyman
Archetypes That Shape
Men’s Lives
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

Contents
Preface vi
Acknowledgments xi
PART I. Gods in Everyman 1
1. There Are Gods in Everyman 3
2. Fathers and Sons: Myths Tell Us About the Patriarchy 17
PART II. The Father Archetype: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades 41
3. Zeus, God of the Sky—The Realm of Will and Power 45
4. Poseidon, God of the Sea—The Realm of Emotion and
Instinct 72
5. Hades, God of the Underworld—The Realm of Souls and
the Unconscious 98
PART III. The Generation of the Sons: Apollo, Hermes, Ares,
Hephaestus, Dionysus 125
6. Apollo, God of the Sun—Archer, Lawgiver, Favorite Son 130
7. Hermes, Messenger God and Guide of
Souls—Communicator, Trickster, Traveler 162
8. Ares, God of War—Warrior, Dancer, Lover 192
9. Hephaestus, God of the Forge—Craftsman, Inventor,
Loner 219
10. Dionysus, God of Wine and Ecstasy—Mystic, Lover,
Wanderer 251
PART IV. Finding Our Myths: Re-membering Ourselves 279
11. Finding Our Myths: Re-membering Ourselves 283
12. The Missing God 295
Appendix: Who’s Who in Greek Mythology 307
Charts: Gods and Archetypes 311
Chapter Sources and Notes 315
Bibliography 327
Index 332
About the Author
Other Books by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., on:
Male conformity…
“If a boy or man tries to conform to what is expected of him, at the cost
of sacrificing his connection to his own truest nature, he may succeed
in the world and find it meaningless to him personally, or fail there as
well, after failing to keep faith with what was true to him.”
—page 11
Female identity…
“There are ‘gods’ in women too—women can gain self-knowledge from
knowing the gods. The ‘Aha!’ of recognition may be particularly appre-
ciated by a woman who is already familiar with the ‘goddesses,’ and
who now finds that a particular god explains part of her own behavior.”
—page xi
Finding inner truth…
“Bliss and joy come in moments of living our highest truth—moments
when what we do is consistent with our archetypal depths. It’s when
we are most authentic and trusting, and feel that whatever we are doing,
which can be quite ordinary, is nonetheless sacred.”
—page 287
v
Preface
As the author of Goddesses in Everywoman, I’ve often been asked about
the gods in men. Men who have heard me lecture on the goddesses
have repeatedly asked, “What about us?” Gods in Everyman is thus a
natural sequel to my previous book; but my profession, the historical
time, and (paradoxically) being a woman also have prompted me to
write this book about the archetypes in men.
In writing this book, I’m a woman doing what women traditionally
have done for men. Women have served as interpreters of the inner
lives of their men, because men often share with women what they do
not usually share with each other. Many men, for example, choose
women psychiatrists because they feel safer and find it easier to talk
with a woman. Some men say that they want to avoid the competitive
feelings and consequences that they fear might arise in themselves or
in a male therapist.
And sometimes a significant woman may play an important role as
“dream carrier” in the life of a successful man, as psychologist Daniel
Levinson noted in his book The Seasons of a Man’s Life: This is also a role
in which a woman Jungian analyst is sometimes cast. In psychoanalysis,
men share their inner lives, and find their vulnerabilities and their
strengths. As they gain insight into themselves, they teach me. I see
who the man is under the surface, and come to know the archetypes in
him, and the difficulties he may have in being himself and feeling au-
thentic. Levinson wrote,
The special woman is like the true mentor: her special quality lies
in her connection to the young man’s Dream. She helps animate
the part of the self that contains the Dream. She facilitates his entry
into the adult world and his pursuit of the Dream. She does this
partly through her own actual efforts as teacher, guide, host, critic,
sponsor. At a deeper psychological level she enables him to project
onto her his own internal feminine figure—the ‘anima,’ as
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Preface
Jung has depicted it—who generates and supports his heroic
1
strivings.
For many reasons, many men often do feel more understood by wo-
men than by other men, and reveal more of themselves to women than
they do to each other. As the McGill Report on Male Intimacy testifies,
One man in ten has a male friend with whom he discusses work,
money, marriage; only one in more than twenty has a friendship
where he discloses his feelings about himself or his sexual feel-
ings…. The most common male friendship pattern is for a man to
have many “friends,” each of whom knows something of the man’s
public self and therefore a little about him, but not one of whom
2
knows more than a small piece of the whole.
McGill found that if a man reveals himself at all it is likely to be to a
woman, sometimes to his wife or to another woman. As most women
suspect, men are much more likely to tell their feelings, thoughts, and
dreams to them, than to each other.
Also, as Jean Baker Miller noted in Toward a New Psychology of Women,
whenever there is a superior and inferior group (male, female; white,
black; rich employers, poor servants), the less empowered group out
of necessity studies the other and knows more about them than vice
versa. Because of this, as well as the people-oriented nature of most
3
women, women have forever been attentive observers of men.
Gods in Everyman is thus a psychology of men as seen by a woman
who is doing what women have done over the ages for men they have
cared about: reflecting back what she sees, and being aware of the need
for sensitivity as she describes men’s flaws and problems and of the
importance of appreciating their positive qualities. The perspective of
this book is that of a compassionate observer, a perspective that I’ve
gained through professional and personal experience.
I am a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst and a clinical professor of
psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. I have men as
well as women in analysis in my private practice, and I’m a woman in
a male profession with male mentors, friends, and colleagues. In turn,
I have mentored and taught men as well as women.
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Gods in Everyman
In addition, I was an affirmed “father’s daughter,” a “Daddy’s little
girl,” whose father took pride in my accomplishments. As a con-
sequence, I found it easier than many women to find validation in this
patriarchal culture. I was also a wife for nineteen years in a marriage
that had both traditional and egalitarian roots, separated for three years
and then divorced. And I am the mother of a son and a daughter, both
born at the beginning of the seventies, the decade of the women’s
movement, when issues of stereotypes—of nurture over nature—were
most strongly voiced.
A BINOCULAR VISION OF PSYCHOLOGY
Gods in Everyman provides a “binocular vision” of psychology, a
depth perspective that takes both powerful inner archetypes and con-
formity-demanding stereotypes into consideration in an effort to under-
stand where our conflicts lie and how we might better achieve whole-
ness.
This perspective has grown out of my professional training and per-
sonal experience. My practice has developed my awareness of what
goes on inside men and women’s hearts and heads, of the joy that comes
from having a sense of wholeness and integration when what we do is
consistent with who we are. Conversely, our bodies and dreams and
symptoms express conflict and pain when what is archetypally true is
consciously denied and repressed. What these archetypes are, and how
they are expressed in individual lives, becomes clearer only after years
of in-depth work in psychology.
Also essential is an understanding of what the women’s movement
called “consciousness raising.” In the past two decades, we have learned
how stereotypes can distort and limit human potential—specifically,
women’s. In this period, many women became aware of how living in
a patriarchal culture affects them personally. Everyone’s values and
beliefs are shaped by culture, which is reflected in our laws and customs,
affects how power is distributed and how worth and status are determ-
ined. In a patriarchal society, women do not fare well. But male stereo-
types also hold power over men, limiting who they can comfortably be
by rewarding some qualities and rejecting others.
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