I heard about this book a long time ago, but I can’t remember where exactly. I do remember it being mentioned by Elliott Hulse, who used to be a youtuber I enjoyed for his earthy nourishing big brother advice, before he ended up getting into MAGA culture war stuff. The snippets I encountered of it on the internet were pretty compelling, and I think I finally sat down to read it properly when I was working on my own book Introspect.
It’s a good book. It’s fairly short, only 156 pages. The book was first published in 1990, the year I was born.
It’s dedicated “to the poet Robert Bly, who has provided the impetus for a revaluing of the masculine experience”, and it opens by quoting William Blake, another poet. Also referenced are Carl Jung, Victor Turner, The Emerald Forest, Alfred Adler, Freud,
as with a lot of books, you’ll have a better time if you recognize that the words that the authors are using are not necessarily “correct” or “true”, but rather signposts they are using to try and set up the meanings they want to discuss. this feels particularly the case for this book but really it’s all books.
Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Krishna
Initiation: “The boy is dead and the man is born!”
Boys pretending to be men, pretense to manhood – controlling, threatening, hostile – underlying extreme vulnerability and weakness, the vulnerability of the wounded boy
playful open-minde boyishness source of pleasure and energy ready for adventure, vs infantile
the Divine Child is both all-powerful, the center of the universe, and at the same time, totally helpless and weak. this is the actual experience of infants. Heinz Kohut: “the grandiose self organization”, which is demanding of ourselves and others in ways that can never be fulfilled
High Chair Tyrant – needs to learn he is not the center of the universe
25 weakling prince – needs to be coddled, dictates to those around him by his silent or his whining and complaining helpllessness. needs to be carried around on a pillow. everything is too much for him. he reveals the dishonesty of his helplessness, however, in his daggerlike verbal assaults on his siblings, his biting sarcasm directed against them, and his patent manipulation of their feelings… occupies a less easily detectable throne (than the high chair tirant)
32 “the less a man is in touch with his true talent and abilities, the more he will envy others.”
36 “Caught up in masturbation and the compulsive use of pornography, the Mama’s Boy, like all immature energies, just wants to be. He does not want to do what it takes to actually have union with a mortal woman and to deal with all the complex feelings involved in an intimate relationship. He does not want to take responsibility.”