One of the things I’ve been working on in the last couple of weeks was to write the most concise summary of my Archetypal Human concept that I could. I’m pleased to say the idea came together very smoothly. It still took almost ten thousand words to write, though. The result has ended being a synopsis for my next book project. Interested readers can check it out here – https://simonsheridan.me/the-archetypal-human/
Alongside the long-form prose version of the Archetypal Human concept, I’ve also been playing around with a diagram form that aims to capture all the main parts of the model. Previously, I had used fractal sine waves for this task and, while I think the fractal sine wave representation is a useful one, I wanted something more mnemonic.
I’m pleased to say that this idea also came to fruition quite easily and, if you’ll forgive my lack of graphic design skills, I’d like to present it here.
Most people would recognise the inner image as Da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man. I like the idea of re-using this since the Archetypal Human is very much in the broad stream of thought that flows back to Renaissance humanism. Vitruvian Man represents the highest level archetype that we call the Human. This represents the starting point of analysis; the unified view.
What I would like to do, although don’t have the skills to do it myself, is to split Vitruvian Man down the middle into male and female parts. Imagine the left side of Virtuvian Man in the above image having a female body. That would give us the first crucial distinction of the Archetypal Human: male and female.
The splitting of the circular background surrounding Vitruvian Man into two halves presents another crucial distinction. The dark background on the right represents the shadow, or unconscious, or disintegrative forces that affect us, while the light background on the left represents the integrative, conscious and positive forces. Within the Archetypal Human concept, these represent the struggle that the hero must go through i.e. the battle with the shadow forces that subvert the archetypal mission towards integration.
The inner circle then symbolises the full human lifecycle represented as a Hero’s Journey though the four main archetypal phases of Child, Orphan, Adult and Elder. This also captures the relation between the archetypes including the two fundamental archetypal pairings of Child-Adult (Parent) and Orphan-Elder.
The outer circle is the Hero’s Journey that belongs to the macrocosm of civilisation or society. I have used the terminology of Arnold Toynbee to mark the phases of this cycle. It makes sense that this cycle be on the outside of the Human cycle since it necessarily turns much slower.
Finally, we have the x and y axes. The y axis is the natural way to mark the levels of being concept with the biological (animal) at the bottom, the psychological/sociological in the middle and the spiritual at the top. The x-axis then becomes the symbol for the Exoteric-Esoteric distinction. Both of these hold for the microcosm and macrocosm. That is, we can analyse the collective of society at the biological, socio-psychological and spiritual levels of being.
With this, we have all the basic elements of the Archetypal Human framework represented graphically as follows:-
Let’s do a couple of quick examples of how to use this mnemonic. Although we’re going to use fictional characters, the point of the Archetypal Human framework is that it can be applied to any person.
We’ll start with Shakespeare’s King Lear.
Lear is obviously the hero of the story. He is biologically male. Lear is in the Elder phase of life and that is his archetypal manifestation in the story. However, Lear has not achieved elderhood. That is the archetypal mission set for him. Of course, he will not achieve it and, thus, his story is a tragedy. Therefore, we can say that Lear is in the shadow form of the archetype; the Shadow Elder.
We can use the levels of being concept to be more specific about Lear’s failure. Lear has achieved elderhood at the biological level of being, but that is no great achievement since it happens by default. At the socio-political level, he is thrust into elderhood at the beginning of the story by retiring from his position of king and handing power over to his daughters and son-in-laws. Thus, Lear is biologically and socio-politically in the Elder phase of life. Where Lear is not ready for elderhood is at the higher levels of being: the psychological and spiritual. The story of Lear is his almighty struggle at the highest levels of being, which is what makes it such a profound work.
The last element in the mnemonic diagram is the macrocosmic cycle. Since the story of Lear ends with the death of the king, we can see that the macrocosm is at the end of the disintegration phase. This reading is reinforced by the fact that Edgar is the one who will take command after the death of Lear. Edgar represents the archetype of the Fool and the new beginning which must follow the death of the king.
That gives a quick overview of the character of Lear. But we can do the same analysis for all the other characters in the play. Doing so allows us to draw out the relations between them.
For example, Goneril and Regan are female, Adult characters in shadow form while Cordelia is female, Adult in positive form (tragically cut short). However, just as Lear is an Elder at the biological and socio-cultural but not at the spiritual, the same is true for Goneril and Regan. Thus, we can also say that they are shadow characters.
Each of these stands alone as a character but also relate back to the Lear as symbols of his feminine anima (conversely, Lear is a symbol of their masculine animus). This is where the masculine-feminine distinction resonates at the psychological and spiritual level of being as well as the biological.
Note also that it is the interaction between the characters which denotes the macrocosmic dynamic. Lear is not just a father to Goneril and Regan, he is (or was), their king and his downfall is the also the downfall of the kingdom.
Let’s do one more quick example, this time using a more modern story: the original Star Wars trilogy.
The hero of the story is Luke Skywalker. Skywalker is an Orphan archetype who is matched against positive Elder archetypes in Obi-wan and Yoda and shadow Elder arhetypes in Darth Vader and Palpatine. Star Wars provides one of the more perfect exemplars of the shadow archetypal energy since the two shadow Elders are literally trying to pull Luke to “the dark side”.
At the macrocosmic level, Luke is aligned with the rebels against the imperial forces. This implies a macrocosmic cycle that sits right at the turning point between Growth and Breakdown. The movement towards empire signals the turn of the cycle away from culture (Growth) and towards power (Breakdown).
The original Star Wars trilogy achieves a happy ending at both the microcosm and macrocosm. Luke transcends from the Orphan to the Adult and becomes a Jedi at the same time that the rebel forces defeat the empire. This double payoff works so well precisely because it unifies the microcosmic and macrocosmic Hero’s Journeys.
That is the gist of the idea. No doubt, there’s room for improvement, but I’m really liking this first draft of the mnemonic image as a representation of the Archetypal Human framework.