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In this episode, Joel and Antonia continue a short series talking about the god archetypes that show up for some people. This episode details the father gods in everyman.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Animas and Anima – Feminine and Masculine Archetypes
- Goddesses in Everywoman by Jean Bolen
- Gods in Everyman by Jean Bolen
- Episode on Vulnerable Goddesses
- Episode on virgin goddesses
- Episode on Alchemical Goddess
- There are different life cycles for men and women according to Bolen
- Women: Girl, Woman, Grandmother (crone)
- Men: Father, Son
- Some men always express father energy whereas other men may gravitate toward son energy even late in life.
- Tension points exist between these two energies that are not present between the goddess cycles
- No matter how powerful a man is, his son will succeed him.
- Ego is self-referential and understands its existence.
- At some point, we will die, and our ego sees that as the most horrible thing that could ever happen.
- We pass our genes on to our offspring since we cannot survive but we tend to want to download our ego into our children, so they replicate our experiences.
- Lots of stories are told about the push and pull between father and son
- Bolen’s perspective of the patriarchal archetypes may be colored by her time.
-
Father Gods:
- Zeus
- Poseidon
- Hades
- One Father God Energy expressed in 3 ways.
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Zeus is the God of the sky
- His brothers are Poseidon and Hades
- Their father was Cronos who swallowed all his children so they wouldn’t overthrow him
- Zeus mother gives Cronos a rock to swallow instead of Zeus
- Zeus and his brothers kill their father and divide up the world
- Zeus gets the sky
- Poseidon the sea
- Hades the underworld
- Zeus has more compassion for his offspring than his father
- He also has some dark aspects
- He liked to establish his realm, which may show up as alpha male tendencies
- He sees the forest over the trees.
- Might makes right
- Fear of being targeted or overthrown
- HBO “Succession”
- Zeus archetypes have a protective streak for anyone under their domain
- The Old Testament God from the Bible has a very Zeus-like quality – obedience or punishment
- “Game of Thrones” – Ned Stark is a positive representation of a Zeus archetype
- There are elements of this archetype that make people uncomfortable
- These god archetypes come from a time where rape and murder were common.
- These attitudes can be recontextualized to our modern day as someone who takes what they want.
- Ambition
- The difference between father gods and son gods is that son gods are all marked by a need for approval, whereas father gods do not seek approval from anyone but themselves.
- The father god doesn’t check in with anyone but himself.
- When a man embodies the archetypical Zeus energy he doesn’t feel accountable to anyone else but himself
- His path to growth is to have some rigor around his character and avoid the tendency toward tyrannical ownership.
- Zeus is a sky god, so he tends to intellectualize everything which prevents him from engaging directly with his choices.
- Zeus archetypes need to remember not to be too disconnected
- Zeus feels very Te/Fi (Extraverted Thinking/Introverted Feeling)
- He sees the world as a resource then sees himself as the center of the universe
- Code of conduct
- Growth for Zeus comes thru a crisis
- Could be a literal heart attack that sets off a shift or a heart attack of love that forces him to reevaluate
- Growth is forced upon Zeus. He isn’t out looking for growth.
- Zeus needs to be less judgmental and distant.
- Foster better relationships with family.
- Willing to be foolish and vulnerable
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Poseidon is almost the exact opposite of Zeus
- He is swallowed with his siblings and later vomited back up
- He is the god of water which symbolizes emotion
- Poseidon can barely contain fits of rage or lust
- Bearded and holding a trident
- Ill-tempered, violent, vindictive, dangerous, womanizer, philanderer
- Children have many of the same characteristics as he does
- Still waters run deep
- Poseidon archetype is driven to be somebody important, but he doesn’t have what it takes to create a kingdom as Zeus does
- Eye for an eye
- He also has a capacity for deep loyalty and emotional depth
- Deepest levels of human emotion
- Hollywood has a high number of men who depict this archetype – actors, writers, directors
- Zeus archetype will be more likely in banking and big business
- Bolen may be a bit harsh to Poseidon
- In a context where emotion is approved, there is no reason why a Poseidon shouldn’t be emotionally stable
- Poseidon’s gift is that he can be in touch with his emotions without attaching it to the approval of others.
- Authentic emotional expression
- Men can be masculine and emotional at the same time
- Steve Jobs could have been a Poseidon – intense emotion channeled toward his visions
- Bolen paints Poseidon as perpetually insecure because he played second fiddle to Zeus but that isn’t always the case
- These leadership qualities as represented in these God archetypes are incredibly important
- There is some hostility toward father god energy right now
- These archetypes keep coming up over and over again. We can’t wash them out of society
- We can express greater kindness through these father god energies
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Hades
- Brother of Zeus and Poseidon
- Eaten by father and vomited back up to overthrow his father with his brothers
- Given the underworld
- He was feared as sky god energy began to dominate
- The underworld wasn’t initially a dark, dangerous place, but it became so as the sky god became more prominent
- Hades had no children
- The biggest mythological story of Hades is the abduction and rape of Persephone
- Hades is reclusive. He doesn’t have a persona. He feels invisible, unseen, depressed
- A man who embodies Hades can be very recluse with men and women
- Not a lot of friends but can be deeply connected to somebody if he finds a soulmate
- Rich fantasy life
- Struggle with being a loner
- Distorts reality based upon his inner world
- Hades is that introverted quality inside of us that understands significance and death
- Ask significant questions about themselves and go deep into the shadow of the self
- Poseidon would be more like a Feeler whereas Hades would be more IJ, or using Introverted Intuition.
- A rich inner world doesn’t have to be voyeuristic.
- Tolkien created an incredible world based on his inner vision
- Such a rich world inside that the outside world starts looking colorless
- A Poseidon might gain more territory in art and expression, whereas Hades territory is the inner world
- Lots to explore inside the human psyche
- Hades archetypes are usually into writing, history, psychiatry, etc.
- They are willing to touch on things that others consider macabre
- Edgar Allen Poe
- Willingness to go to the places others are spooked by
- Bolen’s growth strategies for Hades are creating an interface with the world to be more acceptable.
- Partner up with a Persephone that can help Hades interface with the world
- All of these Father God aspects are complementary to one another
- If one of these fathers gods seem predominant than balance it out with some of the other two
- One way a Zeus can grow is by getting more in touch with the emotional aspects of their personality
- Or grow some awareness about the deep unconscious as in Hades
- Trinity of 3 different energies in one. Trident
- These archetypal energies are a bit under attack
- When they are expressed aggressively, it is hard to remember that there are good aspects of these energies
- Leadership is important
- The greatest gift this energy can give us is the positive leadership qualities that are attached to good character
- Men or women can manifest these energies
- This father god energy represents the encouragement to self-approve
- Remember to honor this energy. Control it. Don’t let it overpower you. Do it for good. Be accountable
- If we take, we also have to give
- The best way to create territory is by having people want to follow you.
- Being a good leader will get you the domain you desire.
- Sky, ocean, underworld – not much on the earth
- If you identify with one of these, remember you need to come up from the depths of the world or the ocean and get real
- Or you may need to come down from Mt. Olympus and be more pragmatic
- What can bring you up from the surface or down from the mountain to be the leader we need?
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22 comments
Nice to find other Hades archetype-people here! You know what keeps occuring to me; the Greeks had socialized gender norms just as much as, or even more than, ourselves. Due respect to the Ancient Greek Storytellers and Bolen’s work, but isn’t it the height of patriarchal thought to assume that psychological depth, self-examination, and inner world-building is exclusive to male beings and female animuses? It’s that same line of thinking that’s made it difficult for female authors to sell their work without pseudonyms; just look at J.K. Rowling and D.C. Fontana, women with incredibly detailed constructed worlds who felt the need to write under their initials because their work wouldn’t sell otherwise. Maybe this archetype is only stronger and more common in men because men are historically the only ones allowed to explore it; something I suspect is also true for many (if not all) of the other archetypes. The “animus/anima” concept is cute, but it feels more and more like the idea of “epicycles,” invented to explain planetary retrograde motion under the geocentric solar system model. It seems simpler to say that most aspects of these archetypes are only socialized to be masculine or feminine, and are not innately so. We just don’t notice the socialization, because we’re right in the middle of it all the time. Like Joel and Antonia say, a fish has no idea what water is.
Of course, it has to be said that even in today’s new encouragement of women to fill powerful roles, so-called masculine archetypes are still being elevated far more than the feminine ones, so if these archetypes ARE innately masculine or feminine, it’s possible our masculinity-obsessed culture is causing some women’s animuses to grow larger than even their natural feminine energies. Even as I type this it seems silly, but it’s worth considering, I guess.
None of this is simple (or really provable), but the debate is fascinating, no? Thanks to Joel and Antonia for bringing the discussion of this framework!
Hello, this podcast has been very useful for furthering my understanding of the archetypes as well as my own life circumstances. I also wanted to share these ideas i read in this very cool book called archetypes-a complete history of the self by anthony stevens
archetypes as
“the river beds through which circumstances might induce libido to flow”
and
“the instincts perceptions of themselves”
it seems like all archetypes are written into the human psyche and it’s just a matter of the life circumstances that happen to confront us which determines what energies we draw upon. i like this series because now i feel like i have more internal freedom in knowing that these perspectives and energies are lying dormant in me and i have a higher chance of awakening them because i know they exist. whereas without this knowledge my circumstances would awaken archetypal experiences in me and i would participate blindly.
As an INFP woman, I listened to all the Goddess archetypes and could not truly relate to any of them. But Hades fit like a glove. What might be the cause for a woman identifying so strongly with a male archetype as a dominant energy?
Perhaps some of the discomfort that you were voicing and I was also sensing is that once we get to the male archetypes we are forced to come face-to-face with patriarchy and how it has played out throughout our history. I identify with Athena and Artemis and also with Zeus, probably appropriate for an intj female. And yes I have come full circle and do I identify as intj.
One thing that struck me as I was listening to this podcast is how the male archetypes were able to be in relationship with a woman and still retain their power and agency. For a female archetype to have power and agency, e.g., Athena and Artemis, she had to stay single and unattached. Once she attached to a male she lost her agency. It’s the old story, and still somewhat current, that a man can have both career and family but a woman cannot, though in truth men were never able to have both either. We see things starting to change but our societal structure has not yet realigned itself.
The second thought I had goes deeper than societal structure and gets to our internal psyches.
As I understand Jung, he defined anima and animus as those unconscious alternate gender components inside us that reveal themselves to us through dreams and other semi-conscious vehicles. My sense is that we are living in the midst of a major cultural upheaval where those unconscious components are coming into our lived consciousness. Women are leading the way but both genders are struggling to deal with new realities and new opportunities.
I identified strongly with several attributes of Zeus. Throughout my career I loved expanding my territory and power. I enjoyed having responsibility for everyone within my sphere, both work and family, and I always had a strong internal sense of integrity for how I executed that responsibility. Very te-fi. What I struggle to accept is that this is somehow a part of my animus because to do so necessarily describes these attributes as male gendered. When I was younger I think I was okay with that concept – outmanning the men so to speak . But now having lived 75 years, it seems so intuitively clear, looking back, that I displayed these attributes in such a uniquely female gendered way that to define them as male attributes does them an injustice. I don’t have answers here, just a lot of questions.
After drafting this response last night I had an urge to draw a single tarot card though I am not necessarily a follower and have limited knowledge. That said I drew the Sun card and it was so eerily appropriate that I am still spooked about it this morning. My version of the tarot speaks about the Sun card as our desire to return to our androgynous whole self. It tells the story of how Zeus was so threatened by the power of the androgynous person that he split Humanity into two gendered halves, thereby reducing its power. The Virgin goddesses remained as the one set of entities that attempted to live as an androgynous whole.
This post is too long already so I need to stop. Probably all I can say in closing is that I guess I am now a Tarot follower. Sometimes the universe speaks and we ignore it at our peril.
There are two books that really describe Hades energy, “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” and “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” by a novelist Haruki Murakami. Main characters literally go into the underground in the novels. After I read his most famous novel “Norwegian Wood,” based on how he writes, I was pretty sure that Mr. Murakami is INTJ. Mr. Murakami always had “underground” as his theme, and it crystalizes in his two books, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Hard-Boiled Wonderland. I learned a lot about this types of energy or people by reading Murakami’s novels.