As always seems to be the case when I write non-fiction, it ended up taking a lot longer than I thought to finish, but I have finally dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s on the introductory volume to what has unexpectedly ended up becoming a framework of human growth and development. Long-term readers would know that this all began with my foray into Jungian archetypes, which produced the Devouring Mother concept. Archetypology represents the distillation of that idea into its core components. It borrows a bit from Jungian psychology, a bit from humanist psychology (Maslow), a bit from Jean Gebser, Jan Smuts, Ken Wilber, and a number of others.
For the introductory volume, I tried to strike a balance between presenting the model in itself and also showing to what purposes it can be used. Thus, the book contains an extended case study of the early life of Martin Luther, the rise of modern feminism, and the loss of the Elder archetype in the 20th century. These may seem like unrelated topics, yet viewed within the archetypology framework, they all revolve around problems during the Orphan phase of life (adolescence). Accordingly, the book does feature the Orphan and Elder archetypes most heavily as these are the most problematic ones for us in the modern West. In short, Volume 1 is both an introduction to archetypology and an analysis of modern Western culture.
The book should now be available at most online retailers, including Booktopia (AUS), Barnes and Noble (USA), AbeBooks, Amazon, Amazon Kindle (ebook), Kobo (ebook), Everand (ebook), and more.
For Australian readers, Booktopia actually has the book available at a non-gouging price of $25. This is a nice change from past books of mine which opened at double the listed price. I assume the $25 is exclusive of postage. If any Australian readers would like to buy a copy direct from me, I can do it for $25 including postage. Shoot me an email if you’d like to do it that way and cut out the middlemen (my email address is on the home page of this website).
For those who’d like to read more on archetypology, I’ve given a more detailed introduction to the concept here. You can also read the sample chapter of the book on the Amazon page here. These are the main themes of the book:-
Now that I have finally presented the model in full, I’ll be moving on to Volume 2 which applies the idea of the Orphan-Elder relationship to the relationship between the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the composer Richard Wagner. Working title is Archetypology, Volume 2: The Initiation of Nietzsche.