Veils to the Soul
Season 2 ... Masculinity and Spirituality. An exploration into the current state of the Masculine in Therapy and Spirituality.
Season 1 ... Birthing Spirit in the Modern World. An exploration of what's between us and our Souls' birth, and how the Modern World resists that birth, but needs it - if it's to survive and thrive!
Veils to the Soul
2. Dance of the Archetypes
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The second episode sees Gary and Oliver discuss the role of Archetypes in Spirituality particularly in relation to Men's work. Have we got stuck in a narrow field of exploring the apparently more male archetypes of the Warrior and King at the expense of the Lover and Magician? And what about the myriad of other Archetypal figures and forces available to us?
Oliver Baum has worked with individuals, couples and groups as a Therapist and Spiritual Mentor since 2009. Specialising in Family Systems and Psycho Spiritual Therapy Oliver integrates a diverse range of therapeutic models, philosophies and spiritual practices into his work and trainings. Oliver currently operates an international private practice from the UK.
Gary Wright is a renowned psychic medium and gifted story teller with decades of experience as both a participant and facilitator of Men's Groups. His stellar reputation across the UK and internationally has led to him being frequently consulted by celebrities, artists and peers. Gary provides guidance to those already working with spirit as well as those just starting out. With a background in the arts, Gary often works with creatives and those in the artistic fields to overcome blocks and limitations.
Thanks for listening!
Find out more:
For Oliver's Psycho-Spiritual work with Individuals, Couples and Groups, please visit www.oliverbaum.co.uk.
For more information on Gary's work www.thewrightmedium.co.uk
Veils to the soul Masculinity and Spirituality with Oliver Baum and Gary Wright. Today's episode is Dance of the Archetypes. And the theme for this came from kind of two places. I touched on my frustrations with sort of the limitation in men's spirituality. We seem to be stuck in a rut of uh warrior, magician, lover, king. And loads of these retreats seem to focus on that and quite heavily on the warrior and the king energy. And I just, I don't know, there's something in me that bubbles up, particularly around my heart, that's screaming for something more. And Gary, you're you're in the process of developing a new deck, a new Oracle deck on our I'm doing a completely new deck.
SPEAKER_02I did the Oracle of the Veil, um, which came out in um September of uh 2025. Um and I'm doing um an archetypal one, and I've worked with archetypes a lot um in various teachings, trainings, they come up in the theatre. So I'm in the process of doing this deck, and um I haven't completely decided whether I'm taking out or putting in um the warrior, the king, the lover, and the magician. The magician's definitely in there, I know, and there's nobility. So that echoes to the king. So it's been very interesting looking at these archetypes. And actually, funnily enough, you calling this episode the Dance of the Archetypes, the publishers asked me the other day for a working title, and I went, called it Dance of the Archetypes. And they went, Oh, we like this. And then I've thought about the fact of that movement between one to the other. I think echoes my frustration on the the king and the warrior and the magician and the love of the ones that I use very heavily in men's work. Because there's that part where they don't nobody ever talks about the overlapping of them. And I thought, oh, maybe there's this is where this goes a bit wrong.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02In there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I mean I suppose the shadow side of the king or one of them is is is rigidity. It's that sort of and and it does feel rigid when we're to be confined to a variation of the of you know two or three archetypes when there is so many more. Um and and you're right, it is an interplay, it is a dance um between the lights and the shadow side of of all kinds of elements of life. I just I'm just wondering just to sort of kind of define archetypes loosely. Um I mean my idea of of archetypes is is is a sort of it's almost something that are held in the collective unconscious or conscience that are uh in us, there's an interplay of in in all of us in many ways.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's yes, totally. And it's very interesting on looking at the deck because uh there's sort of it, it it's I mean, it's really early stages. I mean, we're on the first 14 drawings, and I kind of haven't even started putting pen to paper. You know, somebody does the images and I write the book. And um, but it was very interesting. There's the ones that we're kind of defined by sometimes through various parts of life, you know, son being one of them, if we're looking at men. Um, you know, often uh sons become fathers themselves. There's those ones that happen to us that are part of maybe the flow of life, you know. And then there's the ones that we kind of sometimes consciously choose, you know. I I have a background as a dancer, actually. Um, so I fit, you know, I I chose to become a dancer at one point. So we sometimes choose the archetypes, sometimes by job, and that gives us an energy and a position. And sometimes there are just a natural flow of life takes us in and through things. And then there's the collective ones, you know, like like subjects. You're thinking of the king, it has to have a subset of subjects, which kind of we fall into, you know, a community kind of falls into things. And then you've got these nuanced archetypes within, um, which is occasionally why I sometimes think the four, you know, four very set ones, especially when you've got the king overruling that is rigid sometimes, um, doesn't allow us to explore so much, you know. Um there's lots there, and there's lots of different ones. And actually, my big challenge with this deck is what we leave out. You know, you know, because I mean, you know, you could say, you know, one of the archetypes in life is is the um is the thief or the or the robber. You know, we've often all come uh across that. Or sometimes, you know, I think especially teenagers sometimes, and younger people sometimes we've all they've all sat there and you know, lots of we had a conversation. I was talking to a set of young people the other day about I was doing some work on on the um the book Oliver by Charles Dickens with a group of young people, and they were saying, Oh, yeah, we all we we all think, you know, would anybody miss that if we took it? So there's sometimes ones that we just think about. We may not act on an archetype, but they're there, they come up, they bubble to the surface, you know. So they're a very interesting set of little identities that we fall into, and sometimes we stay in them for a long, long while and repeat stories. And sometimes they just flip through our mind of, oh, I could be that, but I'm not gonna act on it, you know.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, I'm just having a flashback to being a chorister called Oliver at school and having to sing all of the songs.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I just forgot about that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I don't know, but anyway.
SPEAKER_02You were just looking at people who were robbers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know. I I just I I embodied the the sweet chorister who made all the grannies cry whenever I sang Where is Love? Oh I know, I know. So anyway. Um just out of curiosity, which which ones were the easy ones to get rid of or not include, let's put it that way, in the deck.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's it's very so I mean it's still in development, so you know if you can if you suddenly buy one, you know, but end of next year and you think, hang on, these aren't there, you know, they somehow didn't you know didn't go through the thing. Um we very much put in um you know um magician, nobility, masculine, feminine. We tried also to work at archetypes and working energies that went across genders. So we didn't, you know, ones that men and women could embody, so they weren't overtly masculine or overtly feminine. Um but um the bookkeeper, which is an archetype, and the tax man, that they they took a they took us, you know, we took us all to them quite quickly because those are things that we often are reactionary to them, they're in everybody's life, but maybe we don't sit in them very often. And um there were a couple that uh were put through that were were sort of otherworldly. Um there's a there's a there's a list of sort of bordery-like ones that have things like the vampire in them and the prostitute that are do we put them in, don't we put them in? And the publishers are very really free and easy. They're like, no, go for it if you really feel it, you know. They're very, very supportive. But um sometimes those ones that uh just maybe fall into a not everybody's experience, but then when you look a little bit deeper, I was thinking about the prostitute, and I thought, but we all sell something.
SPEAKER_00Well, we all have a price as well, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I thought it's about looking at that, so that one's now crept back up onto the the the list, it's moved from the the bind list up until the maybe list, and it's at the top of the list that might go in because this is a 68 uh card deck, so I think there's about 52 that are set, and there's a sort of another kind of I'm not very good at maths, but whatever that remaining is, you know, 10 plus, 10 and a couple more, um, that are moving to the list. So, but it was sometimes the ones that were either so ancient that we don't really have those anymore. Um, like um there were things like the executioner. I mean, that one kind of didn't seem to fit so well. But so taking out things that were necessarily brutal, but the childhood ones would were interesting to kind of dance round of whether we wanted um feral child or it was how we did the we wanted two inner children, and it was how we named them. So one of them is the divine child, and then the other one is yet to be decided on that. So, yeah. I don't know if I've answered that. I'm trying to flick through my brain.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's really that's really interesting. I mean, you're naming loads of ones I've not even th thought about, and the idea of the feral child as an archetype, and yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, certain things like the storyteller was really key to keep. Now, everybody has a story to tell, and everybody has, and um we had a an you know, the hierophant turns up in the tarot, so we were looking at you know, priest, nun, that's slightly um moved to one side, but we ended so we ended up putting spiritual teacher in, is one in there, and then the shapeshifter, you know, or and the maverick as an archetype, they're sort of on the borders at the moment. One it's either one or the other of them. But you know, sometimes you we do have to, and sometimes we have to be the maverick in certain situations, which is um an archetype I get told I'm often very comfortable in, normally by other people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, aren't I? I can imagine that.
SPEAKER_02You're very much the maverick, aren't you? Apparently, again today, yeah. You're very hard to control what because I said no.
SPEAKER_01So yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I like the idea that you've tried to sort of make it across the genders, so they're not necessarily specific to one or the other. And and it, you know, a lot of the work I do is very much about the integration of the two and the being able to, you know, whether someone's a man or a woman, be able to dance between the masculine and the feminine and the different elements of that. Um recently a group I I ran, you know, we were it was all about integrating and embodying the the light masculine and the dark masculine and the light feminine and the dark feminine. And it was it was so apparent even in just developing the workshop how easy it is to cast it in the light of oh, this is good, that's bad, this is right, that's wrong. Um and and get kind of lost in that. Um they're kind of, I mean, a lot of archetypes to my mind are almost amoral. There's not you know, they have both light and dark in within them.
SPEAKER_02I totally agree with you. And in looking at them like that, it was very interesting because um we have got the the the light masculine and the dark masculine, dark feminine, light feminine are in these archetypes. I think the cards have already, I think the artwork's already been created. I'm not so sure. We have a divine masculine and a divine feminine in there as well as over that. It it also fragments this deck. So it's like there's one and then there's another layer, and there's another layer, and then there's another layer. But so there's the ones that we all hit, and the ones that sometimes we choose to choose to be a part of, like the dancer, like the storyteller. We their choices, and there's others that are naturally part of ourselves. And um, there was a it was a very interesting one because somebody was talking to me about it. I was having just having a chat with somebody, and they said, Um, oh yeah, well, the light masculines, you know, all that's you know, we were thinking of energies of the light masculine, you know. Of course, Jesus comes up and those and the healers and sort of people who you know hold space. And they said, Oh, you know, not got a heavy shadow. And I said, Well, until that moves into kind of that, you know, spiritual kind of person who can hold space moves into the guru, and maybe that becomes a slightly abusive energy of taking people through. So they all have a shadow side, but it is very easy with archetypes to kind of go good, bad, wonderful, not want to be, don't want to be. And and there's and the dance really is to be able to move through them all. I mean, the the dark feminine in her real power, um, you know, if she really vi, you know, if you really vibrate in that dark feminine, she goes through, you know, she really creates a very, very attractive. Now, that's the energy that people are trying to draw work to them or draw good fortune to themselves. You really need to get your vi, you know, your dark feminine kind of active in your energy because it does draw things to them. You know, the dark feminine in her, you know, in her power is the one that everybody wants to be to get to know. Might make you a bit nervous, but you're drawn to this energy. It's in the room, you know, everybody who is that woman, you know, it's that. And sometimes you know, it's she's a very good energy to use around business and and just lighting something through. But fundamentally, you know, quite people, quite a lot of people are frightened of the dark feminine because she's slightly uncontrollable, you know, she's slightly the woman on the edge of the woods, she's slightly the one that what's she gonna do now? So it's an interesting one, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and uh there's a couple of things I think I divide, I I uh defined in the demonstration the the shadow side of the light masculine as as the guy who moves to Glastonbury and you're paying for lunch, um, and which is probably a bit unfair, but anyway. Um but there's also um there's something about that dark feminine energy and actually how how it gets mistaken. There was something that there was there was a few few people there who said, Oh yeah, I'm very much in my masculine. Where my sense was actually when they were saying that, they were actually more in the dark feminine, and in a lot of ways they were giving their power away because all their their autonomy away, because of of the misunderstanding of where they were in relation to to the two at the time.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it's a very interesting one, isn't it? Because especially for men, those four, you know, archetypes and you know dark feminine and dark masculine, light feminine, light masculine, they are they all penetrate. And the word penetrate is not necessarily a word that necessarily the world is often comfortable about because it's about pushing through something and breaking through something and entering something, but they all penetrate quite heavily, and um the the light feminine you know penetrates because of this beautiful compassion that she has. I mean, this is really a beautiful healing energy she has, just this incredible, incredible kind of um lightness and ability to kind of really you know bring in compassion and and help people see themselves and who they are. Um where the dark, you know, masculine in its shadow side, you know, is the one that starts wars, goes off and rapes, goes off and you know, brutally, you know attacks things. But that's a dark, you know, but you know, the the light side or the you know the positive side of the dark masculine is he he'll get things done. Walk in and go, no, then none of this works, we need to change it. And move things. So they all have this interesting thing, but they're all on penetration. And I think that's actually quite sometimes for men quite a difficult energy to hold.
SPEAKER_00That's interesting, yeah. I mean what what comes to me as you're saying that one I can really feel it across my heart, my chest anyway. And and there is something about letting that in, you know, allowing that penetration into the heart space. Um then there's also something about I mean, particularly with men, the sort of that penetrative energy needs to be met w I mean, it needs to be well intentioned in order for it to then hopefully be received. And without a receptor, then I d I don't know, there's something in that. Um I think that something about men then maybe giving up. This this is sort of I suppose where I'm tilting towards is is what seems to be a bit of a drop-off of men in in workshops and groups, the mixed ones. Um because they don't feel received.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and sometimes even in single sex workshops, people don't men cannot feel received. Um so it is about being able to sit in the breaking through that because when those archetypes really break through, the light masculine will always hold space. And um I um I've got a friend at the moment, and I'm watching her dance because she's got a new partner, and she's a very sort of sexy, evocative woman, and she's very in her dark feminine. Very, you know, she's the woman who walks into a room and everybody goes, Who's that? And she really holds a certain power, but she behaves quite appallingly, and he'll always hold space for her. But he's very uncomfortable in his dark masculine, so he's very uncomfortable in the energy to say to her, actually, no, you're being really outrageous here, you're being really difficult. Can you move? Can you think about something else? So there's this very strong um opposing energy where she pushes forward and he receives, and he doesn't know how to push back. So sometimes it is about having and being able to dance between those changing energies. What one am I in now? And um I've got a uh colleague rather than a friend, I would say, who's very, very good at working through her archetypes. She is amazing. And I've watched her in a meeting turn to one person, and she's been very much the light feminine, and turn across to the next person, and she's very much in her dark masculine, and she turns back and she really moves through them. And consciously, you know, she's picking which one she needs to be in at the time, and so sometimes it isn't about always needing a receptive space, it is in a kind of shared container that where people have made agreements and and workshops in workshop spaces is about people really being conscious that they've also got to allow somebody else and being a receptive energy. But sometimes in life we hit something where is just closed, but it is about working through what energy helps penetrate that. So it's an it's a true in tremendous dance for everybody through the archetypes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then I've also got the sort of the divine, um not just masculine and feminine, but just more generally, because there's a there's a there's a sort of penetrating force. We have again it's allowing that in, and and maybe you know, the the idea of surrender and all of that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, but that divinity speaks to a very strong place, I think, in all of us. I mean, uh you know, and I would say men and women, you know, this is where we can all probably, you know, go past genders. I think you can have a conversation around the divinity within, and men and women will also will echo the same kind of feelings around it often when I've been working with them. Is that that part of us that doesn't always allow us to be divine, you know, you are incredibly special, you know. And if we look at those things we think of as being very magical, you know, sunrises, sunsets, the moon, the stars, the planets, nature, we kind of Can see the divinity externally quite often. We might not think about it too deeply, but it's there, you know. We say, What's actually magical? What it was, you know, what in the world, what's magical? Oh, I saw a really lovely sunrise. Oh, actually, you know, oh, I've seen the night sky, you know. Not in London, possibly, but where you haven't got much light pollution, you know, it's really beautiful that you know, that starry sky. But can we bring that to us and say, actually, there's something incredibly beautiful and special and divine, and not quite godlike, but but really beautiful, a higher energy that goes beyond everything. And if we can sit in that, then we can surrender and allow you know, a nature, a natural way to kind of take its course, really.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean, yeah, so there's something there about having a a willingness to see, and also then the openness to receive.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I do think I mean I've I've been massively guilty about of this in the past. I'm getting slowly better, but a lot of sort of healers, therapists would we can be very good at giving, but utterly useless when it comes to receiving. Um, because again, maybe it's a light, dark thing, one feels more virtuous than the other. Um, but actually the importance of receiving is huge. Um, you know, in order to give, so you get that that sort of flow of life going backwards and forwards between people and the world, um, and the divine, I suppose, as well. But I j I I suppose I'm just wondering, um you know, if if someone was sort of embodying an various archetypes to sort of just as an experiment, sort of stepping into an archetype and embodying it, which would be what do you reckon would be the ones that would be really good um at receiving? The really, really receptive ones.
SPEAKER_02The receptive ones sometimes we've um I used to do something linked with the planets. We used to work with an astrologer, and we used to do a psychic archetypes linked in with the planets and things, and um we'd put them with the planets, and we'd have things like the the sage or the spiritual kind of teacher, was often very Jupiterian. You know, those people who genuinely want you to go forward, so things like the sage, the hierophant, the spiritual teacher, people who want to go forward are very good at receiving energies. Um, the parent, in its positive light, I mean you can have terribly difficult parents, but the parent often is that nurturing side. Um allowing something to come through and forward. And I was doing this workshop with archetypes, and you could pick your own. It was a workshop where you could pick, I was running it, but you could pick your own. And this woman stepped forward and she was the midwife. And she wasn't a midwife, she was an accountant by trade, but she said, I'm the midwife. Because it's about allowing something to come into the world. So there's quite often, there's quite a lot. The storyteller, as much as it's putting out something, is often a great listener as well. The Samaritan as an archetype is also a great listener. So it's about spaces being held and thinking about archetypes that actually are good at receiving. Sometimes when you get into energies a bit like the philosopher, maybe the philosopher likes the sound of their own voice sometimes. Maybe it isn't so good at listening. Maybe their desire is to get something over to make sure somebody knows something. But things like the the Samaritan or the um or the or the priest in some ways, those people who can receive information are good, are good archetypes to work in.
SPEAKER_00I mean, they all have the capacity to hold space in a healthy way, but it it tends to be more uh focused and pushing through. Um I don't know, the king doesn't it's feels more about sort of st giving things out, whether it be orders or whatever else. And yeah, and the magician, I suppose, archetype, as you said, if that goes into the guru side of things, it can get a bit ego egotistical. Um and I it's again, it's it's it's speaking to this constraint that I feel.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's a very interesting one with those archetypes because when I and I have worked through them all in great depth in men's circles, and um I remember I was I oh yeah, I forget how old I am, I must be 110. But um but a long, long while ago, I mean 30 years ago, I think, I was I was in a space, and we were all asked to step forward into what we felt, you know, that what which one of those four archetypes, and because everybody shot in as the warrior, and everybody shot in as the lover, even if they weren't very good at it, they were gonna pretend they were. And I was the only one who stepped forward into the magician, and somebody's one of the warrior men said to me, Oh, come on, nobody's a magician, get back out, and you're young, don't be ridiculous. And I I found myself saying, 'cause I I am very easily in my dark masculine, very easily. I'm very in my warrior energy, much more than people think I could access that ever so quick. And I said, Now hang on. One, nobody criticized anybody stepping in, so don't criticize me. And two, the magician takes a group of people and gets them to do something and enables another group of people to feel something different because they're in the world of magic, they're in the world of moving one reality into another reality. And I just started working as a theater director, and I said the theatre director resides in the world of the magician because he takes this group of people, they do something on that group of people. I, the audience, go out and feel different. So, again, that there's there's that moment of you thinking actually it is about holding spaces sometimes, but it's also about creating change. But those four archetypes are either about keeping something settled or creating a change. None of them really are ideal at listening. You know, the the king might take advice, but ultimately has to, and the way that that archetype is used in often men's work, it is about holding spaces. It's very Satonian. There isn't a lot of flexibility, it structures, it's it's it's rigid, it doesn't have a lot of kind of give. It can't have a lot of give because if the king topples, what happens to everybody else? You know, I mean, we do you know, when we have president, or you know, you could say the king or the president, you know, they those people, somebody's got to be in charge, really. Um and the warrior, you know, might you know break through things and might create amazing change, but actually it has an ideology. This is gonna they're gonna drive through something. Um, the magician again is is about the sleight of hand, you know, it is about moving energy and creating something quite different with what's happening. And then um the lover, you hope that the lover is good at holding space and listens, but maybe it doesn't. But you know, and even if the lover is good at listening to what its receptive energy or its partner wants, is it also is the lover very good at listening to what they want? Um it's an interesting thing on listening and holding space with those four archetypes, and they're not the easiest ones to move between. You know, they're quite tricky to move between one and the other quickly. Maybe the magician and the lover, if you can get that right, you know, somebody's in for a good evening, but you know, it's uh it's a it's an easier one, but maybe the warrior and the king doesn't isn't so easy. And maybe you know, the the lover and the warrior, maybe is not so easy to move between as well. So sometimes some archetypes are just easier to dance between.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I suppose I I mean me my mind just went to the the tarot deck and and the you know the difference between say the knight, which would be a warrior archetype, and has that sort of youth, is there's a use to it, and to my not quite as useful as the page, but it still has that youthful energy. Whereas yeah, the I mean the kings or the or the emperor archetypes, the cards rather. Um it's not necessarily immaturity, but they have an age to them. I mean, I think probably in their positive there's a wisdom. Um I don't know. I just I just wonder what about sort of false kings? Where do they fit into all of this? You know, people who assume positions which they're not really either suited to or qualified for.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's interesting, isn't it? False kings, because is the false king uh if you're a false king, are you really holding an archetype? Are you really holding the king archetype? Are you holding the magician archetype but are making everybody else think you're the king? You know, sometimes we view people as archetypes, and really they're not that. And that I think working with archetypes in oneself is very, very key because you've got to know what archetypes you're moving through. And do you project a lot out and make other people certain, you know, other things? I think the false false kings are very interesting, but I think often they're created by somebody else. But you if I was playing a false king, I suppose on a stage, you know, somebody who's not what they see, you're into the world of the charming manipulator. And if we're looking at those four, the only one that fits the charming manipulator in there is the is the magician. Because I'm taking something and I'm making you think it's something else. You know, he's the alchemist. You know, let's let's get let's sell you a couple of rusty old nails and say they're silver or gold. It's about moving through something. So real Kings, in its real sense, has a you know, in its pure sense of that archetype, does have a standing, it has a structure, has a has a sort of an end point, it does keep it's keeping an energy settled and safe and you know, solid and providing in some ways. It's the most providing one of those four archetypes. Where actually a false king really is the world of the magician, I think. You know, charming manipulators are wonderful to play on stage, but you can never play what that they you know, but they're always about getting people to go along with their story.
SPEAKER_00Is there the seductive quality of the lover in that as well, potentially?
SPEAKER_02I think the magician and the lover are the two that are probably the closest sometimes. And if we're looking at the dark feminine, the dark feminine will always try and put in an in an idea into somebody's mind and think it's their idea. You know, I saw somebody once years ago when I was dancing, and uh he'd left a dancer, they had a very difficult relationship. He left a dancer and gone out with somebody else. And uh she was standing there in a very beautiful costume looking incredibly angelic, and he smiled at his old partner because she was very fond of him still, and they'd kind of parted reasonably on good terms. It was a bit tricky. He smiled at her, and this this lady just said, Oh, I don't know why you smiled at her. She said she doesn't exist in our world. And he never ex he never spoke to her again, he never looked at her again, other than when he was paid to look at her on stage, and then it got so difficult they tended not to be cast together or near each other. But it was some it was a very lovely statement done very beautifully, which doesn't exist in our world, it was a unity, our world, this wonderful world that we're creating together, but it was a real thing of you that that is not appropriate any longer. And the dark feminine, you know, sometimes really puts drops and ideas into people's thinking. And sometimes that can be wonderfully freeing, sometimes it can be deeply manipulative. And the magician and the lover sometimes dance between those two. You know, they're they you know, what do you get? Let's let's seduce you by and get you to think something differently. It's quite interesting. But it is often, you know, especially I I can, you know, I mean, I've often found those four or four quite frustrating in men's work to work with. Because what often isn't really taught around archetypes is how to move between one to the other very quickly and fluidly. Often it's very much like you have to get to know that particular archetype to be able to move in and out of it quickly, but quite often they're placed as a which one are you in now? And we probably move between loads of different archetypes in the course of a day thousands of times. You know, if if I ring, you know, if I if I ring my mother, I'm very much in the archetype as a son. But I don't want to take this, you know, the energy of a son into a piece of professional work. You know, maybe I'm the light masculine in there, or I'm the spiritual teacher, or I'm you know the medium or the psychic or or the teacher. I'm into different archetypes in there, but I might move between, you know, three or four of them in an hour. And it's being able to kind of consciously sometimes move between those. And also see sometimes, which doesn't get talked about often, how you're cast in other people's eyes as a particular archetype. And do you then play that out for them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that yeah, I mean, that's a massive topic, isn't it? The the idea people embodying an archetype they're not comfortable with, so they project it onto others, and then do the others identify with it or not? The projection or not? And yeah, I mean that's pretty much my day job encapsulated, I think in um put very simply anyway. Um, but yeah, because there can be a but even within that, there's a dance that can be creative or and destructive. Um and again, there is the no. So the so the example you gave earlier of of um someone in their light masculine not being able to say no to the dark feminine, but being very good at holding space for it, I suppose would be potentially an example of that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, the the light masculine will hold space for sh to she for Shiva to dance wildly in it. I mean, and you know, she can always be herself because you'll hold space for her. But the dark masculine won't necessarily hold space for the dark feminine in quite the same way, you know. I mean, is it when the dark masculine and the dark feminine to come together? Is it dynamic? Yes. Is it probably highly charge charged? Yes. Is it sexual? Probably definitely. Is the sex good? I would imagine so, probably quite wonderful. Is it gonna last? No. Because they'll they'll they'll they kind of burn each other out. But if you can dance between, you know, you can bring in those, you know, if the if the light feminine and the dark and the light um masculine can sit and talk, you know, and and hold space for each other and be able to kind of work in that way, you know, and you can move between those different archetypes. No, there's nothing wrong with the dark feminine and the dark masculine coming together at certain points. But if those are the only two that just are allowed to play out, it's difficult. And you know, the dark masculine for the light feminine can often be a bit scary. She'll, you know, that energy I say she, that energy will accept him for who he is because she has ultimate, you know, beautiful compassion. And she could be uh holds, you know, she's non-judgmental. I mean, it's an incredible feminine, maternal, wonderful way. But um, maybe the dark masculine is not quite ready to be seen quite that closely. So quite often the dark uh masculine will find the light feminine a little bit challenging as well. Although overtly her energy is not challenging, it's just about saying, I see you. But maybe for her in a rel, you know, in a closer relationship, that's sometimes a bit he's a bit unruly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, there's something there, isn't it? These the interplay with these whole mirrors up to each other. Yeah. Um, yeah. And there, I mean the power and power's the wrong well, there is a power, but I don't I don't mean a power as in power over, in being able to move between each of them and you know, particularly say in a relationship or relationships, almost being able to sort of dance between them together. Yes, um you know, it could be lots of fun for starters, but also very um Yeah, I'm just I'm just seeing that unity coming within a relationship and almost like a volcano exploding in between in a in a good sense. But but again, it's about the capacity to to be with that, to feel, you know, to lean into that challenge, because it will challenge us.
SPEAKER_02And I think they do challenge, and I think the the difficult the difficulty sometimes for for men is to hold the lighter as the the feminine aspects within, not because men are not necessarily good at getting in touch with their um their feminine energy, but the the dark feminine energy that resides in all of us, men or women, can be quite manipulative. And sometimes men like to be very much straightforward. You know, they're much more kind of go, right? I'm not doing this, let's not do this, it's rubbish, it ain't working, let's spin it off, start again. She's very much dark masculine energy. Let's just, you know, it ain't happening, no, holding a big boundary. But the dark feminine, maybe she kind of looks at what we can keep, what we can lose, maybe who we can lose, maybe, you know, maybe it's a little bit more smoke and mirrors there. And often for the light feminine, you know, that really just coming out and being completely compassionate. I think for lots of men, um, is also quite hard energy to hold because they can't always hold that for themselves. Men and wounds, I think, are a big, a big thing, you know. Can we really forgive ourselves? And if we can't really forgive ourselves for the we'll muck up somewhere. If we can't really forgive ourselves, do we we can't really hold the light masculine, like feminine for anybody, really? You know, professionally possibly, but not necessarily, you know, in in the dance of the life, really. That's interesting. She's hard to hold if you can't bring that compassion towards yourself.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you know, yeah, it's very true that. Sorry, I hadn't hadn't thought about that at all. It's really true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't want to sound a bit like Rude Paul, but if you can't love yourself, how are you gonna love anybody else? But you know, but it's it's a it's a very kind of you know, it's a bit on t-shirts, that isn't it? If you can't love yourself, how are you gonna love somebody else? It's something we've all heard of, but if we really can't forgive ourselves, the light feminine is very, very hard to hold. It's the one I've struggled to hold.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Just going back to that statement the amount of people I know who use that as a avoidance of relationships. Well, I don't love myself enough.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and it's also lovely, you know how many times I mean it comes, you know, how many plays. Have I been sent over the years? And how many people have told me over the years? You know, and they you know, the get out is oh, well, it's not you, it's me. Well, go and do something about it and stop and let's not dump the other person. Let's not use that as an excuse. It's not you, it's I'm the one that's broken. Well, go and fix yourself because or let somebody else help you go on that journey, yeah. But it's a very difficult one because it is about and she she does bring an inner forgiveness, I like feminine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's lovely, yeah, that's lovely. And it and again, there is, yeah. Again, it's the receptivity of the heart and the willingness that I'm with with that, whether it's self-compassion or and compassion for others.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and as I as I was saying, you know, the light they all penetrate, and you know, it's not immediately obvious where the light feminine penetrates, but she penetrates very, very strongly across an energy of ultimate compassion. You know, let's forgive yourself, let's forgive the situation, let's start again. It's an incredible. Um she's incredibly good at just bringing a light healing. I mean, that that whole healing energy resides really in the light, like feminine, in that way we often think of healing, you know, where it's transformative, it's nurturing, it's soft, it's gentle. Now, healing can also be where you break through things in some quite difficult ways, but um, you know, that wonderful softness that is the ultimate compassion that's unapologetic for supporting you, you know, unapologetic, you know, just you don't have to be anybody else other than um who you are with the light feminine. And sometimes that's a difficult gift to hold. I I've seen a couple of people, you know, that and I've been one myself, really. I don't I don't expect anybody to be any different when they sit in front of me. I people sit in front of me and I go, Who are you? Which is a wonderful gift to give somebody, but if they don't know who they are, I suddenly become incredibly frightening. Because I'm not going to define you. You got I want to know who you are. I'm not going to tell you what to do. You know, the the dark, the dark feminine will tell you what to do. Don't wear that, it doesn't suit you. No, I'm talking now. She's the one that does that. But the the light feminine will just say, Who are you? It's an incredibly challenging energy of the light feminine, and one that men have to bring to themselves and say, Well, who am I as a man? No, she's the energy that you have to work through in that way.
SPEAKER_00That's interesting. I don't yeah. I mean, you're absolutely right. And I don't I I'm just I'm just thinking in relationships and stuff like that. It's it's almost like the the light feminine is the sleeper cell that gets you. Whereas the dark feminine is much more obviously challenging um and growthful, but that yeah, it does, it really asks for a lot from you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And there's a ch there's a real, you know, and and and that light masculine and light feminine sometimes dance sometimes is the relationship that sometimes is easy as going to brother and sister energy really quickly. If you're constantly meeting, you know, uh if if you're if she says it's okay, be who you want to be, and he goes, Well, I don't know who I am, but but I'm you're just here anyway, and I can feel the energy and I can sit in that. They will sit in that in a really beautiful way, but sometimes there is a kind of it moves into brother and sister. There's a sex death really on some types of energy as well. And an intimacy death, or maybe it didn't even get started. And it's whether or not you can just move out of that.
SPEAKER_00There's something about putting a fire underneath, isn't it? Underneath, yeah. Yeah. So I I'm just thinking sort of ways of working with archetypes. So I mean my sort of default go-to for working with these kind of things is is literally just embodying them. So I might write I don't say the the warrior archetype to go back on what I've just said or whatever, on a post-it note, put it on the floor, step into it, and then really just embody it and feel into the the nuances of it and and do that kind of thing. I suppose another way would be contemplating contemplation, just sitting with whatever archetype might come to mind. Um but but but what really strikes me in this conversation is the is almost the the relational side and importance of that. Both internally and externally.
SPEAKER_02I think with the with all of the archetype energies, especially with the with the with the dark and the feminine, you know, the dark and feminine, and you know, all of those, you know, masculine, feminine ones, dark and light. And then the four, you know, that we found a bit frustrating, the warrior, the king, and the the lover and the magician. It is about sitting and finding what what is helpful in them. Is it restricting or is it opening and is it fluid? And why don't I like sitting in those energies? And I think you have to sit there and look at what's comfortable and look at what's uncomfortable, and how you can and and how you can move through that. I I tend to sit, I tend to, I've done that. I just write on it and stand in it, or I just go, I'm gonna stand over there. Um in my individual way, you know. And there's certain ways you can you can open those up. You've got to just find the gateway into the archetypes. I mean, I work with colour a lot. I mean, the last deck of cards was all on colour, or a lot of to do with colour and symbolism. So sometimes I think, well, actually, what colour is the what colour is the light archetype, or the light masculine, or what is the, you know, what colour is the this is the storyteller? Is it lots of colours or is it just one? What's it for me? And then I try and work out form like a little character on that, and then try and sit there and think, am I comfortable in it? What am I feeling in it? Um, and how's that working? So it is about embodying something and sometimes trying to work out what's not so comfortable in it. If that makes sense. It's often in the uncomfortableness tells us more about the archetype and sometimes the comfortableness.
SPEAKER_00One of the things I always I love about um family constellations work is is being representatives in the circle where you do, you step in and embody things you wouldn't normally step into. Like it might be, I don't know, the energy of someone who murdered somebody or whatever. So you really get to feel these expert these energies moving through your body. And it is is can be shadow work, but it can also be sort of archetypal work. You know, what does it feel like to be in in to embody an army, for example, or to really get the warrior energy going? And and you know, how comfortable or uncomfortable is that? And I I do think it's the embodied experience of all of these things that really helps them land and probably, I mean, I don't know, maybe not a hundred percent, but to a certain degree protects us from projecting it out onto everybody else or onto the world.
SPEAKER_02And I think very much with with archetypes, sometimes the way if we're we're unsure an archetype and how we hold it in ourselves is to get somebody else to hold another archetype in front of you.
SPEAKER_01Hmm.
SPEAKER_02What does what you know what does that do to your archetype if somebody can really hold archetypes? And what uh when we were doing this um with the planets, we we we had the archetype of the victim. And we knew as workshop leaders we couldn't ask anybody to hold the energy of the victim. It was just a bit kind of challenging for just too many people, and then we spotted this woman who we both knew quite well, and we said, actually, she will be able to hold it because she's had a very difficult life. No, very, very difficult life. She's past now, but uh sadly. But she knows she she lost a child and she lost uh two husbands very suddenly, and she'd really been through it and difficult, difficult energies that she'd had to face, but she wasn't she was not a victim of any of it, she didn't let any of it define her. And so she could it was what happened to all the other archetypes when they were confronted with the energy of the victim and how did they change? And quite often, when we have an energy that we see as lower than ourselves, or we kind of perceive, you know, oh well, I'm you know, they're definitely, you know, like the victim, we often kind of think, oh, you know, I don't, you know, we can be quite compassionate about it, but it gives us a role to step into either we just think I'm not getting involved, or I'll come and really support you. You know, it's quite a quite a black and white response sometimes if any somebody's you know wounded or a victim or or needs help. Um, if you can't embody uh uh an archetype yourself, you know, think about if you were standing in front of another very strong archetype that you do understand, and what does that do to your energy? Um it's how sometimes actors create characters as well, you know, what where are they in relationship with others? So it's an interesting one, but it does help us if we can really understand them. It gets it really helps you understand who you are.
SPEAKER_00It does. I mean it's always struck me. I mean, I've I've not worked with many, but I've worked with a couple of actors that their training actually, this the sort of stripping back of their personality so that they can just step into different roles. Yeah. And just almost at the drop of a hat, um, is is not dissimilar in some ways to sort of training to be a psychotherapist. It's that idea of you know clearing those veils and the contractions.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and those parts that protect ourselves, you know, and that and that sometimes we're especially in the body, if you're if you're a dancer or an actor, you need to be able to access the body. And if you you know, you're one of those actors that need to come out and you know, puff the chest out and play high status the whole time. You're not maybe very good at playing low status, and sometimes that's not so easy, you know. You sometimes see people cast very much on the Hollywood guys, you know, they're very attractive, very good looking, they've got a very good body, you know, men want to be their friend, women want to go to bed with them, oh you know, it's all marvelous. But they're not sometimes very good at playing vulnerable or playing the softer side of things. And um an actress who can really move between being very vulnerable and very um strong, you know, understand those archetypes often quite well. Maybe they don't understand them consciously, but they'll they'll know what's required sometimes. Um but if they can't get past themselves, it's an interesting one. Um this is an aside idea. Well, it does have something to do with what we're talking about. But I find if you're if you're if you're bored at Christmas or you're watching the telly, you're bored on a wet day, and you look at films sometimes, you can really tell if somebody's managed to go past their body. Because um they often this you know, they'll lean in, they're meant, you know, if you fancy somebody, you generally your body tends to lean towards them. But if you're put if you're acting that you like them and you really can't bear them, and you can't get past your physicality, you will go in for, you know, they'll move, they'll you watch people's spines get further and further away for the person they're desperately falling in love with. And the text says, I love you and I can't live without you, and the body's actually going back, and it hasn't been addressed by the actor or the director, and sometimes you can really see it, especially on Hollywood films where they're big budgets and they're often, you know, suddenly the you know, the aliens are gonna come and and you know CGI is gonna take over, and maybe the you know the little bits of part of the text maybe aren't so important, but you can really see people leaning away from somebody. But it becomes the actor hasn't been able to transform in themselves, the archetype isn't there to be able to travel through that because that archetype you'd have to call on the magician. Got to get you to feel because the magician's very good at helping you feel something different or creating a different reality in your world. So that's the archetype of the magician. Where often people think I'll try and bring the archetype of the lover in to go past myself. Well, sometimes it's a magician you need. You know, it's an interesting one. I mean, I have clients, you know, and they are they probably, you know, and I have nothing in common with them as friends. I mean, I just couldn't be my life and their life couldn't be further apart. But my job is not to sit there in judgment, my job is just to actually be quite a clear channel for spirit. So then I'm sitting very much sitting in my world of my of my magician or my or my well, you could say or my my or the higher thing of some level, you know, those spiritual kind of teachers. It's got a journey through something. If I'm sitting in there thinking I've got to be the king in this situation, some part of it could be quite judgmental.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's interesting as you say that I can feel part closing down in some ways, part of the magic of it closing down. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, the king sits in ultimate control often, and we do need control, you know. It's it's um it's it's needed, and some archetypes you never want to fall into. One of the ones you talked about what came off the list, and uh I'm sometimes tempted to put it put back on on, but it was one of those sort of words that maybe you know, in medieval times it might have held something was the lunatic. Um because uh, you know, uh, some when you move into we all have an outer restriction, you know, that the archetype certain archetypes fit into the outer restrictions in life, you know, morality, you know, law of the land, you know, way we all behave in society, you know, we don't go and kill people because of morality, but then you know, the inner world, you know, then morality, the dignity of life, humanity, all of those things. If you lose the outer restrictions and you lose the inner restrictions, you move quite quickly into madness, you move into an uncontrollable space within oneself. So um, archetypes sometimes that we don't embody, um, don't, you know, often, fortunately, because being you know, going into some kind of mental illness that happens to you, sadly, it doesn't necessarily be created. So that loss of inner and outer restrictions is something that happens to you because a breakdown of one's uh self, really. But um but mainly with an archetype, you've got an inner restriction or an outer restriction. And the king, which is I think why we sometimes find them quite frustrating for men's work, well, both of us have said that, is that actually he doesn't ever lose an outer restriction, he's all about imposing outer restrictions, and we we need those, but it's not always easy to develop through them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's interesting. Um there's an old uh I don't I don't know why this has just popped into my head, but there's an old Victorian Asylum building just just up the road from me. Um, that most of it has been turned into posh flats now. Um, but this the chapel is now Buddhist monastery. Oh, and there's there's I don't know, there's just something in the um that movement again from the lunatic and the uh into peace. I don't know, again, there's that dance. Yeah, that's a dance or a process, I don't know, but it's um yeah, there's something in that that's yeah, yeah, rather like that.
SPEAKER_02Well, often when you've lost often when you've lost both of those, or you know, you've really gone through some difficult things and you've lost that those restrictions. I've had a couple of um can I yes, I think I can talk about this because sadly he died as well. Um man came to see me years ago, and he sat in front of me, and I I was working as a medium. He was in that, that was the relationship we're in, and I said, Oh, I've got this man, and I did and I described this man. He said, Oh yes, no, that isn't. I said, Oh, because somebody cut his throat. And he said, Yes, I did. The first time somebody had ever admitted that. And he said, It's all right, he said, it's all right, I've been in prison for it. He said, he said, I've got terminal cancer, and he said, I've only got about six weeks to live. He said, I'm just wondering what kind of reception I've got when I go over. Because he trained as a healer, and we'd had a fascinating, we had a fascinating hour together, and it was really an honor to sit with him. I mean, it was an easy admittance, but it was a real honor to sit with him. And as I said, I wouldn't be telling this story, but I said, Can I say this? He said, Yeah, wait until I'm dead though. He said, I've said give it a give it a good year, he said, because there's no cure, you know. He said, But I'll definitely be gone by then. This must have been maybe 15 years ago now. And um, but he said, When you go through and you lose all of that, the only way up, there is only a way up, and then you you you have to go through of what where did I go and why did I lose the love of humanity? And he was the most extraordinary energy to walk into. I mean, he was quite an imposing figure, but he had the most compassionate space. And that's when you you move from your dark masculine, is you know, which he really embodied in its shadow side into into actually his light feminine, you know, in the absolute compassion and love and the dignity of life. He'd gone right the way through that. Um, and it was an incredible kind of journey for him. So sometimes in an archetype that you know we go through a period of time where we have to lose some stuff, there is always what did we replace it with, and what do we want to replace it with? And sometimes that's a choice, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00You have been listening to Veils to the Soul Masculinity and Spirituality with Gary Wright and Oliver Baum. For more information on the work of Gary Wright, please visit www.therightmedium.co.uk and for Oliver www.oliverbaum.co.uk produced and edited by Oliver Baum with additional editing and music by Felix. Thank you for listening.
