Robert L. Moore, the Jungian theorist at the Chicago Theological Seminary, claims that each human person comes equipped with four feminine archetypes of maturity and four masculine archetypes of maturity in her or his psyche. Therefore, the fully functioning person is one who draws on the optimal forms of all eight archetypes of maturity. But it is not easy to learn how to do this. So I will discuss how this process works.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) September 24, 2014: Today we have no shortage of big thinkers thinking big thoughts about feminine archetypes.

For example, Robert L. Moore, Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (born 1942), the Jungian theorist at the Chicago Theological Seminary, thinks that all human persons come equipped with four feminine archetypes of maturity in their psyches -- and four masculine archetypes of maturity in their psyches.

According to Dr. Moore, each of the eight archetypes of maturity involves two "shadow" forms and only one optimal form.

Thus the fully functioning human person would be drawing energies from all eight optimal forms of the eight archetypes of maturity in the human psyche.

So any woman who is not drawing energies from all eight optimal forms of the archetypes of maturity in her psyche is not fully functioning -- yet.

Similarly, any man who is not drawing energies from all eight optimal forms of the archetypes of maturity in his psyche is not fully functioning -- yet.

With Douglas Gillette as his co-author, Dr. Moore has published a series of five books about the four masculine archetypes in men's psyches.

But Dr. Moore has not published any books for men about the feminine archetypes in men's psyches -- yet.

Nor has he published any books for women about either the masculine archetypes or the feminine archetypes in women's psyches -- yet.

Now, M. Esther Harding, M.D. (1888-1971), published her landmark book Woman's Mysteries in 1935. So did her landmark book escape Dr. Moore's notice? Dr. Harding discusses the big picture, as it were. But she does not happen to schematize the feminine spirit in the human psyche into four separate and distinct feminine archetypes, as Dr. Moore does.

But the Swiss Jungian analyst Antonio (Toni) Wolff (1888-1953) did happen to formulate a fourfold schema of women's archetypal patterns that Dr. Moore cites.

C. G. Jung, M.D. (1875-1961), the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist, and his followers were intrigued with quaternity symbolism -- and with circle symbolism. When they found a circle encircling a square, or a square enclosing a circle, they referred to these symbolic representations as mandalas.

Nevertheless, I want to draw attention to the following passage from page 238 of the 1971 revised edition of Dr. Harding's Woman's Mysteries, in which she uses generic masculine pronouns but I will refer instead to a person and make other suitable editorial amplifications.

She notes that "[t]o raise the Veil of Isis" enables a person to see reality "not veiled any longer by custom or convention, by rationalization or illusion." A person "who is able to do that and so to face reality" . . . "has released his [or her] mind, himself [or herself], from the conditionings of time and space, and especially from the distortions of fact brought about by his [or her] ego orientation. His [or her] center of consciousness has shifted from the personal 'I' of ego[-consciousness], to a more disinterested focal point, which embraces in its outlook a larger range and has in consequence a more detached attitude."

Now, the "more disinterested focal point, which embraces in its outlook a larger range and has in consequence a more detached attitude" involves the experience of the Self in the human psyche. I capitalize this term here to differentiate it from our ordinary experience of ego-consciousness -- in effect, the lowercase self.

Next, I want to draw attention to two descriptors that Dr. Harding uses here: disinterested and detached.

In his rightly famous book Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957; 5th ed. 1992), the Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) incorporates these two descriptors in his famous tag-line: the disinterest, detached desire to know.

What Dr. Harding refers to as distortions of fact can be included under the biases that Fr. Lonergan discusses.

It strikes me as fair enough to assume that Fr. Lonergan had experienced in his own psyche what Dr. Harding refers to as the raising of the Veil of Isis.

But I am reasonably sure that Fr. Lonergan never thought that he had been involved psychologically in raising the Veil of Isis.

So how could he possibly been involved in psychologically raising the Veil of Isis without even being aware that he was involved in doing this?

First of all, I need to remind you of the title of Dr. Harding's book: Woman's Mysteries.

To this day, the word mysteries can still be used to refer to psychological processes in the human psyche involving the feminine spirit.

But today Christianity is not usually thought of as a mystery religion, as certain ancient religions were thought of.

Nevertheless, when we turn our attention to Fr. Lonergan, we need to note that he had devoted years of his adult life to cultivating Jesuit spirituality.

If you are familiar with the medieval Grail legends, you could think of Fr. Lonergan as a knight on the symbolic quest for the Grail. For all practical purposes, you can think of all men and all women in religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church as knights on the symbolic quest for the Grail.

All adult knights on the symbolic quest for the Grail self-consciously cultivate their spirituality. Their spirituality involves their psycho-spiritual development and growth.

In effect, they must cultivate the feminine spirit on their psyches -- it's unavoidable.

If and when their cultivation of the feminine spirit in their psyches works out optimally for them, then psychologically they experience the raising of the Veil of Isis that Dr. Harding discusses.

Next, I want to mention that Dr. Harding regularly refers to initiations.

In effect, all religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church have initiations built into the course of training in the order, starting with the initiation known as the novitiate. The Jesuits have a two-year novitiate, followed years later by a third year of novitiate-like living and working.

Next, I want to mention the veneration of the mythic Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Christ myth, she is the substitute for the pagan goddess Isis. Over the centuries Christian artists have painted the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Child Jesus -- the Christian equivalent of Isis Lactans.

Now, for understandable reasons, men and women in religious orders characteristically feel that they need all the help they can get. Figuratively speaking, they feel as helpless as infants. In the Jungian terminology that Dr. Harding uses, one's spiritual life involves more than one's ego-consciousness. Once you have figured this out, you may at times feel as helpless as an infant, because you have confronted the built-in limitations of your ego-consciousness. As a result, people in Roman Catholic religious orders oftentimes pray to the mythic Blessed Virgin Mary to help them. (They may also pray to the founder of the religious order and to their favorite saints.)

It is fair enough that Fr. Lonergan was among those religious men who prayed to the mythic Blessed Virgin Mary for her intercession and help.

Now, because Pope Francis (born 1936) is the first Jesuit pope, I want to say that I do not think that he has experienced the psychological process that Dr. Harding refers to as the raising of the Veil of Isis -- yet.

Now, can other Roman Catholics and non-Catholics today cultivate their spiritual life? Yes, of course they can.

Figuratively speaking, can they go on their own quest for the Grail? Yes, of course they can.

However, I should mention that the founder of the Jesuit order, St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), famously discusses spiritual desolation in the aptly titled book the Spiritual Exercises.

Now, spiritual desolation resembles what we today refer to as serious depression. No doubt serious depression and spiritual desolation involve the feminine spirit in the human psyche that Dr. Harding writes about perceptively.

The Victorian Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) wrote a certain number of poems about his experience of spiritual desolation. Literary critics refer to these as his "terrible sonnets" -- not because they are terrible poetry (they are not) but because the experiences of desolation sound like terrible ordeals to go through.

So the symbolic quest for the Grail may include terrible ordeals of desolation that can be endured -- as Hopkins so-called "terrible sonnets" show.

Now, a lot of people who have not self-consciously undertaken the symbolic quest for the Grail experience serious depression. No doubt their serious depression shows that they are undergoing the inner journey involving the feminine spirit of their psyches. Figuratively speaking, their psyches are urging them to undertake the symbolic quest for the Grail, which may also include periods of spiritual desolation.

But if in theory everybody can go on the symbolic quest for the Grail, then why not abolish all the religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church? This is an intriguing question to consider.

I have mentioned that all the religious orders are structured so as to incorporate initiations in the training of the people in the order. In as much as the formal initiations built into the training in religious orders work, people who are not in religious orders would probably be hard pressed to experience comparable initiations in their ordinary lives.

Moreover, in as much as the initiations involved in religious orders work, the people in those orders should emerge eventually as more capable in terms of their psycho-spiritual development. Such people can serve as role models and perhaps even as spiritual directors for people who are not in religious orders.

Now, in effect, I have suggested that the inner symbolic quest for the Grail involves the feminine spirit in the psyche.

But are women advantaged over men in engaging the mysteries involved with the feminine spirit in the psyche?

You bet they are.

But are men advantaged over women in engaging the "shadow" forms of the masculine archetypes of maturity in the human psyche? No.

When it comes to drawing on the "shadow" forms of the masculine archetypes of maturity and on the "shadow" forms of the feminine archetypes of maturity, American men and American women are about equal.

However, there is a catch when we turn our attention to the optimal forms of the archetypes of maturity. Let me explain.

For example, it may be possible for a man to learn how to draw on the energies of one of the optimal forms of the masculine archetypes of maturity (e.g., the Wise Old Man archetype) without drawing being able to draw on the seven other optimal forms of the archetypes of maturity. However, before he will be able to draw on the energies of the optimal forms of the three other masculine archetypes of maturity, he will have to be able to draw on the optimal form of one of the feminine archetypes of maturity (e.g., the anima archetype, which is the feminine Lover archetype). Of course this is easier said than done.

Vice versa may be true for women.

Now, men and women in religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church usually take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

But of course most American men and American women do not take vows of chastity. So we should discuss romantic love and the archetypes involved in it. Briefly, in romantic love, each person projects the feminine Lover archetype or the masculine Lover archetype on to the other person.

But romantic love can get tricky, because of the "shadow" of the masculine and the feminine Lover archetypes.

For romantic love to work out optimally, each person must eventually learn to love the other person as a human person -- instead of being in love with an archetypal projection. This is easier said than done. However, when two persons manage to learn how to love one another as individual persons, they may thereby learn how to draw on the optimal form of the respective Lover archetype in their psyches.

For the sake of discussion, let's say this does happen to two persons.

One down, one to go for each person involved. But the one to go must be the right one -- the one that can effectuate the conjunction of opposites that Dr. Jung explores in hif last big book, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, translated by R. F. C. Hull (2nd ed., 1970; German original ed. in two parts, 1955 and 1956). In other words, each person involved in the romantic love then faces the challenge to learn how to draw on the energies of a second optimal form of an archetype of maturity, but it must be the right one to effectuate the conjunction of opposites and bring about personal transformation.

Let's review. I've been discussing Dr. Harding's book Woman's Mysteries. I just mentioned Dr. Jung's book Mysterium Coniunctionis. Please note that these two titles have one word in common.

To learn how to draw on the energies of all eight optimal forms of the archetypes of maturity can take years. It's tricky to learn each of the eight optimal forms.

When it comes to the fully functioning human person who is able to draw on the energies of the optimal forms of all eight archetypes of maturity, are American women and American men just as likely to emerge as fully functioning persons?

Or are American women more likely than American men to emerge as fully functioning persons?

Or are American men more likely than American women to emerge as fully functioning persons?

Or are neither American men nor American women likely to emerge as fully functioning persons?

If neither American men nor American women are likely to emerge as fully functioning persons, then it is simply visionary to discuss the possibility.

But the possibility of both fully functioning American men and fully functioning American women is a prospect that we Americans should think about, because it may not be utopian -- it may be in the realm of the possible. I know, I know, I sound like another one of those big thinkers thinking big thoughts about archetypes.

However, until it becomes the prevailing norm in American culture, American culture will continue to be the waste land that the American-born poet T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) commemorated in his famous poem "The Waste Land" (1922). The wounded Fisher King needs to be healed so that the waste land of American culture today can be revivified at long last.

The wounded Fisher King represents the masculine archetype of maturity that Dr. Moore refers to as the King archetype. So the figure of the wounded Fisher King suggests that the King archetype in the psyches of both American men and American women is symbolically wounded.

But Anthony Stevens, M.D. (born 1933), the Oxford-educated British psychiatrist and Jungian theorist, says that archetypal wounding requires archetypal healing. But it will not be easy for American men and American women today to experience archetypal healing of the King archetype in their psyches.

Now, in the book C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time, translated from the German by William H. Kennedy (1975; German original ed., 1972), Marie-Louise von Franz (1915-1998; Ph.D. in classical philology, University of Zurich, 1943) likens Dr. Jung to Merlin in the Grail legends, "the great magician, medicine man, and bard of Celtic mythology" who represents "the pattern of fate of the archaic shaman and medicine man" (pages 275 and 278).

However, the twentieth-century Merlin, the gifted healer and psychotherapist Dr. Jung, did not heal the wounded Fisher King in the psyches of people in Western culture.

The wounded Fisher King is seriously depressed as the result of his being wounded. Archetypal wounding of any of the eight archetypes of maturity that Dr. Moore discusses characteristically results in a certain degree of depression. So in as much as a person who has experienced depression begins to feel a decidedly different spirit arise within his or her psyche, he or she has experienced a measure of relief as the result of archetypal healing.

But depression always involves the feminine spirit in the human psyche. This means that the feminine spirit in the human psyche must be -- how should I put this? -- engaged. This is easier said than done.

Let's review. Arguably the wounded Fisher King symbolically represents the most serious archetypal wounding of the human psyche in Western culture. No doubt the wounded Fisher King symbolically represents archetypal wounding that Dr. Stevens writes about. No doubt the feminine spirit in the human psyche that Dr. Harding writes about is involved. As I explained above, this means that we are clearly in the realm of mysteries. This is not just terminology made up by silly misogynists. The realm of mysteries involving the feminine spirit in the human psyche involves mysteries not only for men but also for women.

For the sake of discussion, let's say that the wounded Fisher King somehow undergoes archetypal healing involving the feminine spirit in the human psyche. What would the Fisher King look like when he emerges from undergoing archetypal healing involving the feminine spirit in the human psyche?

He'd emerge looking like the triumphant warrior/king envisioned in the Christ myth as the Second Coming of Christ. In the Christ myth, the mythic Christ rises to heaven in the ascension. But after an unspecified time, he returns as the triumphant warrior/king -- kind of like King David writ large. As the story goes, there are going to be a lot of dead people when he returns triumphantly leading God's forces of angels. I wouldn't take the imagery about all the dead people literally.

You see, the Second Coming of Christ envisioned in the Christ myth does not involve events in the outer world. That's why it does not involve any dead people in the real world. If and when the event envisioned in the imagery as the triumphant Second Coming of Christ occurs in the real world, it is an inner psychological experience.

Now, I want to return to the unspecified period of time between the ascension of the mythic Christ and the triumphant Second Coming of Christ. During the unspecified period of time, the mythic Christ figure is in heaven. But where exactly is the mythic heaven? Now, do you understand why ancient people referred to mysteries?

Now, the human psyche gradually emerges in the course of development in the mother's womb. No doubt the human psyche is fully formed by the time when the fetus reaches the moment of viability -- the time when the fetus is able to survive on its own outside the mother's womb. When the fetus is able to survive independently of the mother's womb, I would operationally define this as the moment of ensoulment with the distinctively human soul. Prior to the moment of ensoulment, the fetus is an infra-human life-form.

No doubt the human psyche contains memories formed in the mother's womb prior to the moment of viability. In other words, when the fetus is an infra-human life-form in the mother's womb, the infra-human fetus absorbs sensory impressions from being in the mother's womb. The bodily and sensory impressions that the fetus in the mother's womb absorbs live on in the human psyche. They are part of the feminine spirit in the human psyche. Now, are you catching on to why ancient people referred to mysteries? To spell out the obvious, most people do not have conscious memories of their experiences in their mother's wombs.

Now, we can use imagery to characterize the fetus' experience in the mother's womb. Surprise, surprise, we can use the imagery of heaven to characterize the fetus' experience in the mother's womb -- and heaven is where the mythic Christ is supposed to have been in the period between the ascension and the Second Coming of Christ.

Now, serious depression can be likened to Jonah's experience of being swallowed by the whale and being in the belly of the whale. But this imagery is, shall we say, pregnant with meaning. In this imagery, Jonah undergoes an experience that can be likened to the experience of the fetus in the mother's womb.

For the sake of discussion, let's agree that the experience of returning to the mother's womb in serious depression is deep stuff. Few people would ever wish to replicate Jonah's experience just to see what it would be like. Nevertheless, a lot of people experience serious depression. Figuratively speaking, they experience being in the belly of the whale, as Jonah did.

For people who have experienced serious depression, Dr. Harding's book Woman's Mysteries should help them understand the feminine spirit in their psyches involved in their experience of depression.

I suspect that no one can emerge as a fully functioning person in the second half of life without undergoing an experience of serious depression. Remember that I interpret the wounded Fisher King as being depressed.

Now, what is known today as complicated grief involves serious depression. But there may be one or two aspects of complicated grief that are not also present in serious depression. As a result, we could image the relationship between complicated grief and serious depression as two concentric circles with the slightly larger circle representing complicated grief and the slightly smaller circle representing serious depression.

Next, I want to turn to following statement that Dr. von Franz quotes Dr. Jung as writing somewhere, but she does not provide a footnote citation for where he has written the statement:

"'The sea in which the unconscious fish are swimming [i.e. the sea of the collective unconscious] is now past, now the water [previously in the sea of the collective unconscious] is in the jug of Aquarius, that is, in the vessel of [ego-]consciousness. We [we in Western culture or who?] are cut off from instinct, from the unconscious. Therefore we have to nourish instinct, or otherwise we shall dry up. That is why Aquarius is giving the fish water to drink'" (quoted on page 284).

I'm not so sure that we in Western culture are cut off from the unconscious. No doubt the experience of serious depression involves the unconscious -- and the feminine spirit in the human psyche. How in the world could we be cut off from the unconscious? Dr. Jung's hyperbolic statement shows his catastrophizing bent of mind.

But Dr. Jung's observation here about Aquarius giving the fish water makes Aquarius sound like the wounded Fisher King after he has presumably experienced the archetypal healing of his archetypal wounding. Therefore we can use Aquarius as a symbol representing the healed Fisher King.

In the fictions of the Roman Catholic Church, the pope has for centuries been imagined to be the successor of the apostle Peter. In the Christ myth, Christ is portrayed as appointing Peter to be the fisher of men and women -- in effect, the Fisher King. But Pope Francis today represents the wounded Fisher King. Pope Francis does not represent the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

In 1969, the 5th Dimension had a hit song about the alleged dawning of the Age of Aquarius. If we understand Aquarius to represent symbolically the healed Fisher King, then we in Western culture should all look forward to the continuing dawning of the Age of Aquarius in Western culture.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview