SPIRITUALITY
EDITION #5

Table of Contents

• ARCHETYPES

• GUIDE POST 🪧

• WHAT I’M WORKING ON

• MY CURIOSITY

SPIRITUALITY
ARCHETYPES

The concept of Jungian Psychology and archetypes came to me from a few friends. I was working on the play Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, who put onto the page these archetypes. The everyman, the outlaw, the lover, the innocent, the caregiver. She used basic ideologies; Man, Man 1, Man 2, Husband, Mother, Young Girl, Girl, Woman…etc. So part of my work playing the lead male was to head into archetypical work. He’s a lover, he’s an outlaw, he plays by his own rules, but is also an explorer as well. I could discover these and I could explore these parts while in the show and how they show up within the character’s relationships.

I asked for help from my friends, and one offered me a few podcasts to listen to, and there was a podcast that broke down Goddesses in Everywoman, and Gods in Everyman by Jean Shinoda Bolen. This led me down the path of ancient Greek mythology and the archetypes of these characters. This rabbit hole opened up for me to jump down Carl Jung’s 12 archetypes:

-The Innocent -Everyman -Hero -Outlaw -Explorer -Creator -Ruler -Magician -Lover -Caregiver -Jester -Sage

Ever since working on Machinal I continued to wonder how I can further utilize these archetypes in future work. As I thought about this, I began noticing more and more how archetypes were showing up in the modern world. Movies, press tours, social media. Archetypes were constantly at play. Archetypes easily communicate a message as it is supported through psychological pattern recognition. The subconscious of the viewer knows what it’s viewing based off the archetype. So there’s a further curiosity in how these archetypes currently play out in mainstream media as well as upcoming forms of storytelling.

Utilizing Archetypes in a Story-Driven Communicative World.

Archetypes are used consistently throughout media and have been practiced since the birth of communication. Actors need an objective understanding of archetypes and how they’re played out through cinema, social media, and all storytelling.

Archetypes offer an outstanding resource of language. Being able to find patterns in the character's psyche will help you to locate weak points as well as strengths to identify what was just seen. For work that is in process, archetypes can help to grow a piece of work to help better communicate to an audience. It’s the generalization that has many threads to pull from. Pull from one and you’ll go down the path of intentionality, a path you intended the audience to see to begin with.

Archetypes set our camp at the bottom of the mountain. It’s only the beginning of the winding, windy, and wet climb to come. Archetypes become our guides to the adventure of the story we’re traveling down and become the setting of why we’re here in the first place.

When they begin their craft, the artist can utilize these tools. Start with the general destination of archetypes, leading to many doors available to choose from. Pick your door and continue onward.

We all have a desire to be someone/something different, therefore, apply that to your character. Your character probably also reads, watches movies, or scrolls through social media. The desire to be someone, or something else is prevalent in the human psyche. We seek novelty. Play into the journey of change, the desired change into an ideal archetype, but then the necessary change that will inevitably occur for your character.

The arc of the character becomes increasingly clear as the hero’s journey itself is a large cycle of:

Preparation: The problems, discomfort, desire, and initial push toward the…

Journey: The adventure, travels, more problems and discomfort, the dragon, the biggest hurdle, the success or success through failure, and learning the lesson/obtaining the gift.

Return: With lessons learned, reward in hand, there is a return, a teaching/giving back, and a change to the inner and/or the outer world.

The stories don’t end there though; footage or words may end, but we keep living on and ignite the new journey with a new preparation.

I think there’s plenty of value for anyone to take a look at these archetypes and how they reveal themselves in life because it’s been a part of the conversation since telling stories around a campfire.

What characters do you gravitate toward? How do these people make you feel? Do you ever feel like making changes in your life when you watch these characters traverse through their journey? To what archetype might you wish to alchemize yourself into?

These of course are all questions that I personally have, and want to continue discovering for myself as I continue on this journey.

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