What went Wrong with Men?
Escaping the clutches of The Mother Complex may help
‘What has no shadow has no strength to live’ — Czeslaw Milocz
In his book Iron John, the old Grimm’s fairy tale, elucidated by the American poet-activist Robert Bly, a young boy is charged with the task of taking a key from under his mother’s pillow.
The symbolism is apparent. This is the key to his freedom, wounding his mother the price for being a man. It is a price many men are not prepared to pay, entering marriages unable to make the necessary leap of elevating their wife to displace mother.
Sit with a group of women anywhere in the world and at least one will rail her man has still not separated from the woman who raised him.
If they happen to be Jews or Indians, we could easily multiply the numbers. Tradition and culture is one of the culprits.
A divergent argument could be this movement mirrors the shift in the unconscious from an ego-centric life to one propelled by soulful concerns.
All men are in need of a psychic shift, even a reversal, to claim the life laid out for them, which usually involves wandering and — for a time at least — separation from woman.
Bly often writes of the soft or naïve male who has spurned his warrior self, instead of journeying — a form of initiation — falls back on home life, consuming beer and crisps on the sofa.
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, in one of his more famous works, Sometimes a Man Stands Up, writes:
Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.
Movement, particularly pilgrimage, is essential to a full human life — this is not just a male problem — although it is primarily part of the masculine drive.
In India, the wandering sadhu may have raised his family and is then perhaps expected to wander, spending his remaining days alone or in the company of others pursuing higher ground than domesticity offers.
Carl Jung, the psychiatrist, writes about the perils of the Mother Complex that, if unresolved, often destroy any chance at love and intimacy.
One of his students, Robert A Johnson, writes of the primitive and raw power the unconscious feminine can unleash upon the masculine ego if he tries to shut her out.
What’s that old saying? There is nothing like a woman scorned. He writes:
‘The unconscious feminine not only demands a place in a man’s life; she demands absolute control.’
In Christianity, this idea appears in the stories of Jezebel, Delilah and Salome, who goes so far as to demand the head of John the Baptist, driven by her greedy, wicked mother.
It seems less has been written about what we might term The Father Complex, but there is no doubt it exists and legions of men who can surely testify to both punishing and being punishing.
In our desperately confused age, we can imagine the naïve, soft male, who is all lover and no warrior, finds himself all at sea, morphing his identity one step further to find his home in what is loosely called woke culture.
As a therapist, I am all for the expression of feelings but something has gone awry. My own experience is that women seem to want an emotionally literate male over one whose feelings remain in the deep freeze, but yearn for a solid masculinity.
Many who don’t find it in men, adopt it themselves and are to be found shouting the odds in board rooms and disparaging their own softness.
I will never forget more than 35 years ago working on a big regional newspaper when a new editor turned up. She would only call us by our surname, taking many of us right back to boarding school or worse.
Letting ourselves be taken over by the unconscious traits of the opposite sex always invites a slow death, even a benighted transfiguration into someone we don’t like.
Bly, whom I was vastly privileged to spend time with, tells us: ‘The naïve man often has difficulty in accepting the dark side of women or the inelegant side of matter.’
All you need is love is a great sentiment yet denies life’s shadows and cruelties. The man who like Icarus flies too high has been termed ‘a flying boy’. James Hillman, another Jungian refers to the puer aeternus.
The New Age man who surrounds himself with women is often ungrounded, yet perhaps a spiritual athlete. While understanding the point, I do not adhere to criticism of what is known as masculine sky gods.
The simple truth is that in realising the Self, that which lies beneath ego and contains all, we discover Self and world are one. It is possible to remain grounded and live a normal human life, even on occasion putting your hands in the Earth.
Of course, none of us are a static entity and at our best follow what Sufis call ‘the hint in the heart’ rather than clinging to certainties, that little house on the prairie Rilke warned against.
First set out and wander, then enjoy home and hearth. But it is not just men who are called to wander of course, many women are too.
Bill Plotkin, the wilderness guide, writes in his book Soulcraft about the call to adventure, how our fear can allow us to spurn what may be a small, silent window of opportunity which may never open again.
After moving to the countryside from London in 2012 to be nearer my kids, sacrificing a hearty income, I realised my time had come. Something in my life had to change.
So, with my younger daughter Meg, then 20, we set out across the field of stars from France, over the roof of Spain and west to Santiago.
Before leaving, I did a specific ritual at the temple to Apollo at Stourhead in Wiltshire, following the Greek Parmenides’ story about travelling to the underworld at night.
Throughout, I suffered — and became famous for — terrible injuries to my feet and imagined I was doing penance for forgotten and remembered wrongs.
After six weeks, I came home and my life took a surprising and highly beneficial turn, restoring my finances and self-esteem.
But I had to leave struggles with women behind, at least for a time and was able to experience a real lightness with my female companions.
The academic Sam Keen writes: ‘To grow from man-child into man…he must take leave of woman and wander for a long time in the wild and sweet world of men. Finally, when he has learned to love his own manhood, he may return to the everyday word to love an ordinary woman.’
This is not the high inflation of romantic love that eventually we must invest in a spiritual life, but a life of simple pleasures thoroughly enjoyed.
Simon Heathcote
augmented man, Mustapha El Hajj, John Haslam, John Gordon Sennett John Welford, Spyder, David Rudder, Marcus aka Gregory Maidman, Graham Pemberton, Hayden Moore, Sam Aureli. Mario López-Goicoechea, Frank Ontario, Bobby G, Brian Seltzer, Richard Childs, Dan Carignan, Bob Metivier, Andrew Pretzel
