Maturity

“Patriarchy is the expression of the immature masculine… Those caught up in the structures and dynamics of patriarchy seek to dominate not only women but men as well. Patriarchy is based on fear—the boy’s fear, the immature masculine’s fear—of women, to be sure, but also fear of men. Boys fear women. They also fear real men…

The more beautiful, competent, and creative we become, the more we seem to invite the hostility of our superiors, or even of our peers. What we are really being attacked by is the immaturity in human beings who are terrified of our advances on the road toward masculine or feminine fullness of being… What is missing is not, for the most part, what many depth psychologists assume is missing; that is, adequate connection with the inner feminine… What they were missing was an adequate connection to the deep and instinctual masculine energies, the potentials of mature masculinity… And they were being blocked by the lack in their lives of any meaningful and transformative initiatory process by which they could have achieved a sense of manhood.

We found, as these men sought their own experience of masculine structures through meditation, prayer, and what Jungians call active imagination, that as they got more and more in touch with the inner archetypes of mature masculinity, they were increasingly able to let go of their patriarchal self- and other-wounding thought, feeling, and behavior patterns and become more genuinely strong, centered, and generative toward themselves and others—both women and men. In the present crisis in masculinity we do not need, as some feminists are saying, less masculine power. We need more. But we need more of the mature masculine… We need to develop a sense of calmness about masculine power so we don’t have to act out dominating, disempowering behavior toward others. There is too much slandering and wounding of both the masculine and the feminine in patriarchy, as well as in the feminist reaction against patriarchy.

We need to learn to love and be loved by the mature masculine. We need to learn to celebrate authentic masculine power and potency, not only for the sake of our personal well-being as men and for our relationships with others, but also because the crisis in mature masculinity feeds into the global crisis of survival we face as a species. Our dangerous and unstable world urgently needs mature men and mature women if our race is going to go on at all into the future. Because there is little or no ritual process in our society capable of boosting us from Boy psychology into Man psychology, we each must go on our own (with each other’s help and support) to the deep sources of masculine energy potentials that lie within us all. We must find a way of connecting with these sources of empowerment...”

~ Dr Robert Moore was an internationally recognized psychotherapist and consultant in private practice in Chicago. He worked with both men and women, and was considered one of the leading therapists specializing in psychotherapy with men because of his discovery of the Archetypal Dynamics of the Masculine Self (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover). He served as Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality at the Graduate Center of the Chicago Theological Seminary, and has served as a Training Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is Co-founder of the Chicago Center for Integrative Psychotherapy.