Customer Reviews

He: Understanding Masculine Psychology (Perennial Library)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

He, by Robert A. Johnson
A fascinating discussion of the male maturation process, using the story of Parsifal and Jungian concepts. The author relates the myth of the famous Arthurian knight to a masculine lifeline. Why use a medieval story to illustrate the psyche of modern man? As the author explains, "Often, when a new era begins in history, a myth for that era springs up...One can say that the winds of the twelfth century have become the whirlwinds of the twentieth century."

Short and concise like its title, He is nevertheless a profound study, and serves as a guide to the every man's own life. Major questions are asked, addressed in Jungian thought and in the myth, and then handed to the reader, who can apply it to his own experience.

The real start of Parsifal's and every man's journey comes when Parsifal enters the Grail Castle. He is offered the Grail (the cup out of which Jesus Christ drank at the Last Supper) but fails to ask the question that would have brought happiness to the kingdom. That question is "Whom does the Grail serve?" We spend the rest of book discovering why the naïve teenager said nothing, and how he could redeem himself, as well as the readers.

The Grail moment, as explained by Mr. Johnson, is that time in the life of all young men when they stumble onto the Divine, "a magic hour sometime in their youth when the whole world glowed and showed a beauty not easily described." Parsifal's inability to ask the question, according to the author, is because "no youth can cope with this opening of the Heavens for him and most set it aside but do not forget it." Men, once touched by this overwhelming joy, spend the rest of their lives seeking it. Their journey, if thoughtful, will bring them to the castle again, usually in middle age, when they are more able to ask the question.

Although this book is not really a fable, still, I will not "give away" the ending because I think the author wants the reader to explore along with the hero, Parsifal, at least on first reading. However, here are some points of interest in the journey that shed light into the process of "becoming a man."
- When Parsifal leaves home, his mother gives him a homespun undershirt. He wears this under his armor, and it is partly this that keeps him from asking the fateful question. Mr. Johnson explains that Parsifal had not reconciled his mother complex, that he was still boyishly clinging to the idea of mother as protector.
- When he returns home to visit his mother after the grail castle, he finds her dead from a broken heart, because he had left home. This is important, says the author, because we must become independent even if it brings pain.
- When Parsifal kills the evil Red Dragon, this is coming to terms with our manly power, our primal rage. We must learn that we have power, as people and men, but also must learn to use it wisely and temper it.
- Mr. Johnson points out that chastity in knightly mythology has to do with seduction of the feminine side of man. This feminine side is called anima, according to the author, and it is essentially our joi de vivre, our activating vital mood energy. To be seduced by this anima (resulting in depression) or to seduce it (resulting in giddiness) are both unmanly violations of chastity. It is boyish to allow oneself to be ruled by moods; moods must be mastered in order to reach manhood. Feeling, with a capital "F," on the other hand, is to be retained always, because Feeling is related to values and compassion.
- And more.

When Parsifal revisits the Grail Castle he is wise enough to remember the question "Whom does the Grail serve?" Mr. Johnson shows that every man can also revisit the Grail Castle, once again face the Divine, and this time perhaps attach more meaning to the experience.

On applying the ideas and stories to one's own life, it is possible to see many Grail moments, but this does not diminish the message. Also, women can learn from this, although they have their own book by Mr. Johnson, aptly titled, "She."

In He, Robert A. Johnson gives invaluable insight into what makes a man, not in a macho sense, but in the truest sense of the word: gentleman, knight. Independence, self-control, and selflessness are some of the manly traits discussed here. And a definition is offered for true, profound happiness. Not bad for 80 very readable pages.

This small book actually began with 10 lectures given by Robert Johnson at an Episcopal Church. Thus they are concise and do not offer a broad array of examples. I found the book to be excellent and found it much more to the point that Emma Jung's long study of the Holy Grail myth in all it permutations.

Of course, as a Jungian, Johnson sees mythology as reflecting underlying psychological and spiritual processes that take place in the human psyche. These myths are spontaneous images from the unconscious and contain both psychological and spiritual truths. Myths allow the interaction of archetypes, which are patterns of life that are universally true for humans. Myths are to mankind as dreams are to an individual. Therefore a dream shows the dreamer a truth about themselves whereas the myth shows mankind a truth that applies to all of us.

Individuation is a process that Jung describes as a life long movement toward wholeness and completion. It involves the life long expansion of consciousness and the ability of the conscious ego or personality to reflect the total self. One interpretation of Jesus Christ is that of a man who has been able to allow the unconscious to fill up the self and be always present in the personality. Because God the Father moves through and emerges in the world through the human unconsious, Christ may say that he and the Father are one.

A primary first step in the individuation process is the confrontation with the Shadow. Actually the confrontation with various aspects of the Shadow continue throughout a lifetime, but the first encounter is usually of great psychological power. The negative repressed side of the personality, that longs for acceptance and integration, continually follows the ego until the strength is mustered to face the shadow, accept the shadow, and then integrate the shadow into the personality which increases the energy and strength of the personality/psyche because energy is no longer used to suppress the shadow.

After the shadow is integrated, many people then may develop to the point where they can integrate the anima/animus, which is the characteristics of the opposite sex into their more complete psyche. It is here that Johnson points out the Parsifal and quest for the Holy Grail is in fact a myth of the male reconciliatoin with the anima who becomes a guide and leads him to the Grail.

Here Emma Jung and Robert Johnson would have slightly different interpretations of the Holy Grail myth. Whereas both see the anima as being essential to reaching the Grail, Johnson believes the integration of the feminine, the Anima, is a major and tricky task for young men. Also, whereas Emma Jung saw the grail as serving mankind as an expanded consciousness through which much psychic material may now flow; Johnson sees that the grail serves mankind through and expanded consciousness but also serves God because it is through this expanded consciousness that God flows into human interactions and becomes real and active in the world. This is a philosophical and theological issue of great importance. The first question is: Is God an active participant in the world and in the lives of men? Johnson goes beyond Deism, which would acknowledge God acting through nature, and would assert that God acts through the unconscious of mankind and it is through expanded and integrated consciousness that God becomes real in the world of men. Thus the Grail, the symbol of the accessible unconscious, serves man and God. This is the key to both Emma Jung's and Robert Johnson's work. She would emphasize that the Grail serves man and Johnson would emphasize that the Grail serves God, but both would acknowledge that the Grail serves both. This is the point of Johnson's book but he takes you down many fruitful trails to reach this point. I will point out some of these paths:

The Fisher King has wounds so severe that he cannot live, yet he is incapable of dying. The kingdom is dependent on the virility and power of its rule. As an adolescent, the Fisher King is burned on the fingers when he tries to eat hot broiled Salmon. He touches the divine part of his own unconscious but it is too hot for his consciousness to handle. He touches his individuation but can not hold it. His life becomes barren, his wound never heals, and he can not cure himself even though he and the Grail are in the same castle. The fool must come to cure the king.

Parsifal is the holy fool, the innocent, who emerges from the forrest nieve and full of creative possibilities. He is entraced by the knights and longs to become one. He must break with his poor heartbroken mother, Heartsorrow, on his journey to be a man. All men must be somewhat disloyal to their mother on the path to manhood and toward individuation. His first quest is to fight the Red Knight and gain his armour. He kills the Red Knight and thus takes on masculine power, courage and virility. However when he gets on the Red Knights' horse, he can't steer or stop it but must let it run its course. This is the symbol of a young man's first forray into the world of power where forces can be let loose which no one can control. Johnson points out that a boy gets his red Knight armour by taking it from someone else. This is the way of young male competetion. But a man must not carry the young male competitiveness throughout life, he must move beyond the Red Knight. A young male moves beyond the red Knight when he learns to master his own aggression. So every young man must defeat the Red Knight, take on the armour of power, aggression, virility, strength, courage, but must also not let these attributes consume the entire psyche. Parsifal gets a mentor, Gournamond, who teaches him chivalry and the skills of knighthood. He also tell Parsifal that he must seek the HolY Grail, the ture vocation of all knights, that he must not seduce or be seduced by a woman, and that he must ask "Whom does the Grail serve?" at the right moment in the castle of the Fisher King.

There are many women in the story who play various aspects of the Anima, but it is White Flower and the Ugly Hag who play critical roles as the positive and negative anima, each with a part to play.

The book ends with a really good explanation of why the Holy Grail serves the Grail King (God) and also serves Parsifal. Parsifal asks the question and the Fisher King is healed immediately, he becomes whole. But God now has a path, a window, into the world of Man and thus the Grail ultimately served God's purposes. Even though this interpretation of the Holy Grail story is more Christian in interpretation than that of Emma Jung, both are fantastic and insightful reading.

A very pleasant and quite interesting little book analyzing the story of parsifal and the castle of the grail through the lens of male psychology.

Though it's treatment of the mythological story seems quite conscise it seems to fail to really bind this and it's psychological interpretations to any tangible real world experience of my male psyche. In a way it is to abstract, not tying things back to reality.

Thus it offered so far (finished it a few hours ago) no real insights or answers. How many questions and different ways to look at things and approaches to take as well as those experiences of catching your inner world tricking you it will induce will have to be seen.

All in all at 80 pages and it's small format a very pleasant and worthwile read.

A note about another reviewer's complaint about it being heavy on preachy christianism. I am normally quite allergic to christian preachyness in 'unrelated' books like these. And though I have noticed slight hints thereof, it is by no way as bad as the reviewer makes it look like.

Robert Johnson is a life changer. I have read everything he has done several times. HE and SHE should be a required read for everyone. I recommend you read the book on your own sex first so that you become familiar with Johnson's style before prying into the opposite sex's mind. :) If you find some of the other self help books too trite and not very thought provoking, Robert Johnson is for you!

This book is disjointed, underdeveloped, and, at times, cursorily written. Why, then, the four gold stars?

Because it reveals every man's story: through the retelling of the deeply symbolic Grail Legend, it unmasks many of the landmark trials in man's psychological development, and it does so in an unassuming way.

Some of the trials Mr. Johnson addresses are:

1) The Fisher King Wound - that happy fall that casts him out of his "ignorant paradise" into duality and starts him on the arduous path toward redemption and wholeness.
2) The healing function of the Inner Fool (the childlike unconscious)
3) The Red Knight killing (overcoming the Shadow and using its power for strength)
4) The poison of the Mother Garment (overcoming the mother complex)
5) Learning from the Godfather (furthering one's masculine development)
6) The mother death (the necessary separation from the mother in the transition from boy to man)
7) Blanche Fleur (the Anima, or internal feminine motivator) and her danger
8) The Hideous Damsel (Doubt, Hatred) that motivates a new grail search
9) Consulting the Old Hermit (our wise, introverted aspect within that leads us toward the Grail)
10) The true meaning of the Grail

I saw myself on every page and had many awakenings about my identity, about masculinity, even about the development of western civilization.

The writing at times may be muddled, but this book is a rich and momentous journey which will help you on your own.

After gaining personal insights that I had never seen articulated so well, I gave HE to all my sons -5 - one of whom told me "that HE was a book which should be made mandatory reading for every boy in high school. HE helps put the forces which drive male psycholgy in perspective and balance incredibly well.

"He" is a book that takes the mythological tale of the Fisher King, and parallels it with stages and traits of the modern male psyche. Granted the book is a slim one with only about 80 pages, but it's something you can read over and over. There are so many characters and parts to the classic tale that it's easy to go beyond the meanings and modern examples that the author gives along the way. After you read it once, I suggest reading it again while sitting down and making notes on the characters and basic outline of the central myth. It's an insightful read no matter what state you feel your life is in right now.

Not too long ago I saw the movie "The Fisher King" (Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges) for the first time. I wouldn't have understood half of what was going on if it wasn't for this book. As the author even explains, there are different variations to the story, and the movie doesn't match up 100% to the book. But after you read the book, it might be fun to rent the movie to see another example of the symbols manifested in modern times.

Although the Fisher King story itself deals with the Holy Grail myth, the lessons and over all message are actually quite secular. The author draws a few religious parallels, but they didn't distract from the main lessons that the myth teaches. And believe me, I'm talking as a guy who's the furthest from being god-fearing or even a philanthropist.

With so many books on feminism, countless commercials and sitcoms that constantly use the male as the butt of jokes, and universities that even offer "Women's Studies" majors, it's refreshing to find a book that looks into male behavior without being guilt-ridden and self-defeating about it.

In "HE", Robert Johnson, relates the myth of the Fisher King, and explains the age-old psychology of masculinity in both men and women. His insights into human consciousness and the meaning of myth are invaluable to any man trying to understand and free himself, and any woman trying to understand a man

This is the first book I read in this field. It is eye opening and provocative. By using mythology, the auther makes the subject easy to follow. Here is also the weakness of the book as it sometimes oversimplyfy issues. There is a risk that one tries to find an easy, stright forward matching between him and his stages of life with "parsifal". The book is very concise. For example, I liked to see some more words about "Mood" which is so dominant in today's man life. I enjoyed reading the book.

Johnson is a brilliant man and a thought-provoking writer, but EXTREMELY abstract. Again and again, I was fascinated but bewildered. If Johnson had given us just a few more examples of how the archetype of Parsifal is reflected in the lives of real men, this book could change lives.

As it was, I was as much frustrated as I was intrigued. If I had not already done a little work with archetypes and psychological rituals, I would have been totally baffled.

Johnson's "Owning Your Own Shadow" is far more comprehensible and valuable, at least to me. Also, his "Inner Work" is almost all practical suggestions for work on oneself, and very good.