The King Archetype - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover

Welcome, guys and gals, to the Man Talks show. I'm Connor Beadon, the host and founder of Man Talks, and today we're going to get into the last archetype. We're going to explore the King archetype in King, Warrior, Lover, Magician. And this is man. This is such an important archetype and I have spent hours and hours and hours really putting this one together because it seems to be the archetype and the energy that our culture and our societies are struggling with the most. And it seems to be one of the more forgotten archetypes, one of the more sort of combative. Like this archetype seems to be under attack quite a bit. But also there are many fraudulent kings, there's many fraudulent archetypes that are out there running rampant in today's society, as we'll talk about in this episode. But before I dive in, I just wanted to say a huge thank you. I don't know if you heard in the last podcast, but we have surpassed a half a million downloads since I've started this podcast and that is all thanks to you. That is such a huge honor and gift, you know, it is. It's humbling and rewarding. I put a ton of time and effort and money and resources into this podcast and we've never done any real marketing. I've never spent a dollar on advertising this podcast. And we have grown substantially because you share these episodes, because you are a part of this community and. And a part of this conversation. And I am just humbled by this win. So I wanted to celebrate with you because this is just as much your win as it is mine because you are the ones that are helping to share this message and I could not do it without you. So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Quick reminder to all the guys, if you want to go deeper into some of these conversations, don't forget to join the Man Talks community or hit me up on Instagram mantalks. I'm pretty active on there and I try and respond to everybody as often as humanly possible. So if you have show ideas, if you have guest ideas, if you have questions for me personally that you would like for me to answer either there or an Instagram live or on one of the shows, hit me up there. So before I dive in too quickly, I just wanted to impress the importance of sharing this specific episode. I truly believe that this is one of the most important archetypes that is falling apart and has been forgotten within our culture and within our society. And the archetype of the King is so important. And so whether you are a man or a woman listening to this show, I would encourage you to share this episode with someone and see what they think of this archetype and see how it relates to their life and see how it relates to their society, their culture, the city that they live in, the business that they work in. Because we are going to dive into the king in its fullest and the king, the shadow king of which we see a lot of in today's society. So let's start off with what the king archetype, what the king energy actually is. And first I'm going to represent the king as an energy before I actually get into what the King does to embody that energy. So the king archetype is the link between the mortal world and the divine world. It is the path of transcendence and the balanced portrayal of the father of life. And so for a long time we had the archetype of the, the father of life being order and we had the mother of life being life itself. And there really are two functions of the king which we're going to get into here pretty heavily. The first one is providing order or ordering, and the second one is providing fertility and blessings. Now that one may sound as a surprise. I know when I first went through the book, King, warrior, lover, magician, which is what some of this stuff has come from, along with a bunch of other resources that I've pulled and some of my own take on some of this information, I was really surprised to find providing fertility and blessings there. But when we get into it, you'll see why it's important. So the King energy, the king archetype really represents the central place from which the king oversees and rules his world. So there is a place within us, within us as men, that there is a, a sense of this king energy. But also within our kingdom, there is a central place from which we can oversee our kingdom. And outside of the king's influence, outside of the kingdom lies chaos and non creation. And so just for a moment, let's think of the kingdom as a household because the family system really represents a sort of a mini household. The intention of a family system, like if we're really honest, the intention of a family system is to have two parents of, you know, two parents, this sort of proverbial king and the queen that are raising. And I know it's a very heteronormative version, but we're going to go with that anyway right now to have the king and the queen that are sort of raising and overseeing and not ruling, but I guess ruling the kingdom and bringing up children in a way that helps them become great men and great women. And that is the function of every family, people that start families. That's oftentimes the intention. And so here the king understands that within his kingdom, he is the one creating order. He's the one that is supposed to provide order for the kingdom and the people within it. And he must know where his kingdom begins and ends. Sort of like the boundaries that we see within Westeros in Game of Thrones, right? Each sort of king in Game of Thrones has his own boundaries, right? You can see Ned Stark, the King of the north, he's got his own boundaries as King of the north and he knows where those boundaries reside and he keeps an order within his kingdom. And Ned Stark in many ways from Game of Thrones represents a very embodied king along with Jon Snow. As his journey goes on and gets more towards where we are now, I think season nine is coming up, but he's starting to embody that archetypal king energy. But outside of that, oh, another good example of this is the boundaries of Mufasa's kingdom in the Lion King. You can see in the Lion King, he sort of has this very defined kingdom and he says to Simba that outside of the kingdom is not his and it's dangerous out there. So the king's kingdom is always clearly defined and within the boundaries of his realm. The king is tasked with defining a right order, which is basically the manifestation of the divine ordering principles of the universe. And these are energies that the mortal king translates into structures and orders. He does this by codifying laws and creating somewhat of a cultural zeitgeist, often reinforcing the values of home and family and respect for everyone within the kingdom. And that is an essential part. It's an integral part that the king is setting these laws that he is not above, that he actually is beholden to. He has to abide by the rules within his own kingdom, otherwise the whole system falls apart. And most importantly, the king embodies these principles. And like I'm saying, within his own identity, within his own person, he lives them, he breathes them and allows them to shape his leadership style. And because of this, and this is where his boundaries reside and end. So the king really must have the willingness to create a right order. And oftentimes this is where some men struggle because they grew up in homes or kids, quote unquote, kingdoms where their father figure, right, the father figure because the king is seen as the father figure of any kingdom, where the father figure either didn't create rules, or the rules were dangerous, or the rules were something that the sort of people of the kingdom had to abide by, but the king never sort of abided by. So the king must not only create these principles for his kingdom, but he must live within them and embody them. And these principles are there to protect and order not only himself, but the ones that he loves. And if he embodies these principles successfully, everything will go according to the right plan. And the kingdom will flourish, and he will flourish, and the people within the kingdom will flourish. And this is precisely where we see a lot of men struggling today. A lot of men don't feel an inner sense of order or structure. They feel as though their inner lives are in chaos. They lack a deep sense of direction, of fulfillment, of order and of principles. And because of this, they are very chaotic in their sense of direction. They are chaotic in terms of being able to set boundaries, being able to set the rules, being able to create order within the family systems, within their work environments. And they bring chaos, chaos into their families and workplace because they feel lost. And they have lost a connection to a deep sense of centering within themselves. And because of that, they're depolarized and they are looking for a sense of centering outside of themselves. And you can see this, you can see this in a lot of men that put their ideologies, that put their highest value and their identity into the ideologies that are outside of the themselves. And so because of this, they. They often feel the pressure of building a kingdom. But no one has ever shown them how. No one has helped them understand what aspects of order are important. And so we can. We can see this in a lot of men who are struggling to maintain a sense of order in their lives, whether it's within their routines, whether it's within their connections to the people that are around them, whether that's their family or their friends. And they lose a connection to something that's also bigger than themselves. And that bigger than themselves is felt both internally and externally. And we'll get into that more in a minute. The second piece is providing fertility and blessing. And this is part of the piece that really is missing today that a lot of men sort of struggle with. So in pre patriarchal times, Mother Earth was often seen as the main source of fertility because it provided everything that we needed. We didn't need to worry about anything else. But as the patriarchal societies became more prominent. And just to make it clear.

I am not saying that patriarchal societies are bad or abhorrent or need to be destroyed or anything like that. I'm simply stating that pre patriarchal times, Mother Earth was seen as the source of fertility. But as patriarchal societies became more prominent, this emphasis of the feminine for fertility shifted, at least from a cultural perspective, towards the masculine. And as a result, the archetype of the king became directly linked to the fertility of the kingdom. So if the king was thriving, so too was the kingdom. And we can see this shift in many ways in which many homes have been built culturally over the past few millennia. Men have been tasked with providing for the household. So if the man is thriving, if the king, quote unquote, is thriving, so is his home life. If he's able to provide his kingdom, eats well and is healthy. And so when the king is healthy and righteous, so is his home or his kingdom. And we see this again in the Lion King, and I keep coming back to this reference when Simba comes back. So he's been outcast, Mufasa has died and the kingdom sort of fallen into disarray. But Sinva comes back after being outcast from his land, and he returns to Pride Rock, the area that sort of overlooks his kingdom. And rain comes and sort of washes over the land, allowing life and sun to reemerge, bearing a more fertile land again. And so the king often nowadays represents this sense of fertility, not in the sense, well, sort of in a sense of life giving, but. But being able to be the embodiment of sort of life providing and blessing. And this is the really important part. Providing blessing as a king is more of a psychological and even spiritual event which provides abundance. And the king does this by reaffirming and praising the virtues of the people within the kingdom. I'm going to say that one again, because that's pretty important. He does this by reaffirming and praising the virtues of the people within the kingdom. Now, the king's role in modern times is simply not simply one of making money or providing. That's not just it when it comes to fertility and blessing, but in reaffirming and praising the family system and the kingdom and the players within that system. And we can see this in modern research. We can see this in modern research. There's a guy named Dr. John Gottman that has done a lot of research on what the most important piece, relationships, is. And basically what he came up with is that he identified that appreciation is the greatest indicator of a healthy relationship. So the king is firm in setting the order, but he is also generous in his praise and his appreciation of the people within his kingdom, because he knows that the kingdom is not solely about him, but it's also about his inhabitants. It's also about the kingdom, the residents of the kingdom, the queen, and the other people that are within the kingdom. And in this way, the king remembers the joy in his role as a servant rather than as a slave. And he does this by acknowledging the people within his kingdom. And it brings them healing and wholeness, but it also brings him that sense of healing and wholeness. What I see within a lot of men today, within a lot of men that come to the weekends that I do work with, is that over time, they have forgotten how to not only praise themselves and have appreciation for themselves, but this lack of praise and appreciation because they have let their inner critic and their inner sabotager and their inner shit talker basically take them down and degrade their own sense of self worth and self respect. That that energy, that energy, that darkness sort of perpetrates and permeates the family system that they are starting to build. And actually some men, because their inner world is in such disarray and chaos, they will avoid the type of relationships that they want simply because their inner world is so destructive that they do not want to bring that into a family system. They don't know how to lead within a family system because they have forgotten the art of appreciation within themselves. And because of that, they're worried about being able to bring that into their family system. And so appreciation and praise and validation becomes an integral part of the king's role. So part of the king's role is to hold an audience so he can listen to them, so he can bestow upon them gifts of honor and rewards. And part of this is being able to get feedback. Part of this holding this audience is being the type of leader, the type of king that doesn't shy away from feedback, that is able to hear where he may be making mistakes. And when men fail to access the king in its fullest, in his fullest, because they forget, they feel alone or have never been shown how to access that part, they risk experiencing the shadow king. So let's talk about the shadow king. The shadow King is the bipolar, dysfunctional archetype of the king and is made up of two poles. The one active pole is the tyrant, and the passive pole is the weakling. Now, the tyrant hates, fears and envies new life, which he perceives to be a threat to his kingship. And we can sort of see this going on not in E commerce, but in the commercial capitalistic space. You can see the oil and gas industry really fighting against clean energy, really battling paying politicians to pass laws so that it's harder for clean technology and clean energy and renewable energy sources to be perpetuated out through our society. You can see this sort of tyrant energy within our corporations. And because the older, the older tyrant king, it doesn't have to be older, but the tyrant king doesn't like the new life and the new energy because it's a massive threat to his rule. And he acts violent. Often the tyrant king will act violent and aggressive because behind the aggressive nature is the weakling. And he is trying to hide the part of himself which is lacking inner structure or wholeness. And he feels, he feels the need to overcompensate for himself and to be seen as the absolute ruler. So he will often position himself in the grandiose ways by pretending to be the savior of the people, all while taking advantage of them. He will use abuse and create chaotic polarity. And because of this, all life, all beauty and all strength is an assault on his insecurity, making him paranoid and irrational and abusive towards others, often justifying his actions of abuse and labeling them as righteous and just. The shadow king identifies himself with the king energy, fusing it and making himself above all because he is his own priority. And so in this way, the ego of a man will fuse with the energy of the king. And rather than a man being a servant to the energy of the king and a servant to the people, he becomes fused with the archetype of the king. And this is the man who needs to be seen and admired, he needs to be worshipped and admired, must be praised and right, or he loses all sense of self because he has attached his identity to the king. And we see this in the role of Macbeth, Shakespeare's Macbeth, which leads him to claim power for himself in a manipulative way, in an abusive way, but also he becomes paranoid and completely mad. We also see this, see the tyrant, obviously in the role of Donald Trump, who plays out this role daily with his abusive tweets and his constant self protection and his paranoid behavior towards anyone, literally anyone, any side of the political spectrum, who threatens his power. And the clearest way to define the weakling, which is the other polarity, is by looking at the character of Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones, who abuses power, who acts like a child and is incredibly, incredibly self Focused. So that is the weakling king. But the virtuous king still experiences the shadow king. He still sees that part within him. It's not that he's devoid of the shadow king, it's that he can see that part within him. And because the king archetype in his fullest still sees the shadow within himself, he is able to sometimes be able to face that part and sometimes he loses to it. And he can course correct, but other times he's able to maintain order within himself. So what distinguishes the shadow king from the king in its highest form? The king allows himself to disconnect from the ego in the sense of self righteousness of his duties. He is not doing these things for himself or for his own personal gain, which is a huge difference, but for the evolution of others, for the well being of others, for the servitude of himself and others. So the shadow king is often just serving his own self reliance, righteous needs. He is often just serving himself for his own personal gain, financially or legacy, or however he wants to put it. Whereas the healthy king, the embodied king, is one who is in servitude of all. And this separates this sort of infantile grandiosity from mature and grounded greatness. For the true king that realizes that he is a steward of the king energy, he is a steward of the king energy. That he is not the king quote unquote, like the embodiment of God, but rather one of many kings who embodies the king energy. And that the aim or desire to be the absolute best king who towers over the rest of all kings is the shadow king itself, is the ego of the king archetype. Because a true king is a mortal man and he is a temporary steward of the enduring king energy. Because the king energy will always perpetuate, it'll always carry on. And a great king recognizes his limits and knows that his time will come, the end of his rule will eventually come. And again we see this in the Lion King, where Mufasa says to Simba, a king's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. And one day, Simba, my time will end here and the sun will rise on you. So here we can see the important role that the king plays in mentoring the sons and daughters of the future who will be taking over the energy of the king and the queen. And the king may have his own personal feelings or selfish desires within his lifetime within his rule, but ultimately he acts in accordance with the highest good of his kingdom. And it is here that transpersonal commitment lies it's here where a sense of purpose, of something greater than himself resides. And this is the devotion to something beyond himself, something beyond his ego's desire, something that surpasses this sort of sense of legacy. It's not the aim of legacy. Legacy is part of the being and the embodiment of this energy. And it's a reminder that the great king's energy resides within what he serves. So the king in his fullness brings the qualities of calm, of centeredness, of integrity and life force to himself first and foremost and his kingdom. Just like we can access the archetype and bring these qualities into our own lives. Because when we don't do this, when we don't access this energy, we put the responsibilities in our lives and the power of our lives, of our own personal lives, in the hands of others and we follow them blindly. And this can lead to catastrophic consequences.

Like when we give the kings in our lives, we idolize them and give them too much power and they pull us down into the darkness of despair. This is why so many self sabotage. They have forgotten the King energy within themselves. They have forgotten the true nature of servitude, of servitude to their kingdom, to themselves, and to the King energy itself. And they have forgotten how to serve something bigger than themselves and are constantly in the energy of trying to serve themselves only. But when we access the King energy correctly, we will speak from and access an inner authority. An inner authority, some call this gut, some call this intuition, some call this a connection to source or higher power. I mean, there's so many different words for it. But when we access this King energy correctly, we access an inner authority within ourselves that transcends our rational mind, right? Einstein was quoted as saying, the rational mind is a faithful servant and the intuitive mind is a sacred gift. And we have created a culture that honors the servant, the rational mind, and has forgotten the gift of the intuitive mind. And so here we can see that our job, our path as men, if we do one thing, is to move towards that sense of inner authority, that sense of inner king energy that is not about us and something that is within us, but it's greater than us. And we will recognize others as full people and have the capacity to care for them deeply and genuinely. And the great king of today, the great king of today is one who has passion in his subjects and one who recognizes the people of his kingdom. He recognizes their fears and their struggles. And you can recognize this in your own life, in recognizing the fears and the struggles and the passions of the people in your family and the people that you work with. And this energy of the king archetype tells them that it's okay, that things sometimes aren't their fault. And he liberates them from their own suffering in some way. And a man who stands the king energy of today, of now is a man who stands for peace in a time of violence. It is the father dedicated to giving his son and daughters a better future. The grandfather who lets go of hate fueled ideals and embraces a gay grandchild. And a man who is able to to embrace his servitude not only for himself and his family, but for the world around him. Because the king's voice is the true voice that lies within the core and the center of every man. And that voice always moves towards peace and communicates clearly and calmly the human rights of all. A voice that minimizes punishment and maximizes praise. I'm going to say that one again. A voice that minimizes punishment and maximizes praise. A firm, clear and assertive voice that reaffirms the human rights of all. And this, this is the voice that we as men are being called to rediscover right now in our world. So how do we access the king? Well, just a few points that I want to leave you with because this is outside of everything that I've already outlined in this episode. How do we access the king? Well, first and foremost, we need to be able to create question the would be kings who are often being followed in our culture. We need to look at the dysfunctional king archetypes that already reside within our culture and be able to call them forward into better iterations or to be able to take a stand as a healthier, more not righteous, but a peaceful king that again.

Calls for peace over violence. And it's in a time of violence because we live in that space right now. We need to be able to create distance from the ego's desires to be the king, right? To be the ultimate version, to not be the service or the in service or the servant of the king energy. Because oftentimes the ego's desire will sort of be to attach itself to this idea of the king and to want to guide us and move towards being this highly praised. You know, this is why we see this huge rise in social media influencers. And many of them, not that all of them are bad or wrong or fake, but some of them embody this shadow king, right? And the shadow queen is that they are the embodiment of not living their own core values, not Living their own core, core truths, but acting from a space of needing praise and validation from the people that follow them. So being able to create a bit of a distance within our ego's desire to be king and move back into the energy of that servitude. Then thirdly, we need to open ourselves to feedback about our leadership. We're never going to get it right all the time. There are going to be moments in our lives where we make mistakes. There are moments in our lives where we are going to be blind to our dysfunction. We're going to be blind to our own shadow. And it is because of this that all of the great kings that you see, whether it's in movies or stories or I guess I don't know about real world, but maybe real world. You see these men who embody this archetype and they are open to feedback. They are open to hearing other people's perspective and they integrate what they can. They allow people to contribute to them because they respect and appreciate the insight of all those who are within their kingdom. They praise the people in their kingdom and their surroundings, so they are able to appreciate and praise everyone that's around them and see their inherent worth and value. And finally, they connect to the energy of servitude, to something bigger than themselves. And this is a really important piece that I think a lot of men are looking for. A lot of men have found how to do something incredibly well, how to make good money. But they are lacking a sense of connection to servitude, to something bigger than themselves, something bigger than their, maybe even their families that's outside of them. So that is the king archetype. I know that that was a pretty.

Hefty and deep lesson today, but I would encourage you to go back, take a few notes, and let me know what stood out for you. Hit me up on Instagram at Man Talks. Please do Share this episode goes a long way to getting it into the ears and onto the phones of other people. And until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.