The Innocent
The Innocent archetype is characterized by a childlike approach to the world. People living primarily through this archetype are generally optimistic and believe that if they just try hard enough, everything will turn out fine in the end. The dangers for this archetype include indiscriminate trust and the setting of unrealistic or unattainable goals.
Shadow Side: Being clueless. You tend to have a strong capacity for denial and avoidance, and a deep refusal to acknowledge that you might be hurting others or yourself. You might also hurt badly in some situations, but tend to repress these painful feelings as well. You also tend to believe what others say, even when their perspectives directly contradict your own inner knowing.
Life Goal: Keep safe
Fear: Abandonment
Response to Problem: Deny it or seek rescue
Life Task: Fidelity, discernment
Personal Gifts: Trust, optimism, loyalty
Personal Pitfalls: Naiveté, childish dependence, denial, obliviousness
The Orphan
Orphans are independent, self-reliant and are mistrustful of authority. Orphans, fearing exploitation, seek to regain the comfort of the womb and neonatal safety in the arms of loving parents. To fulfill their quest they must go through the agonies of the developmental stages they have missed. Their strength is the interdependence and pragmatic realism that they had to learn at an early age.
Shadow Side: The victim. This will manifest itself in your feelings of being victimized by others, and consequently blaming your incompetence, irresponsibility, or even predatory behavior on other people. You might also expect special treatment and exemption from life because you feel so fragile. When your Shadow Orphan takes control it can attack those who are trying to help you, harming these people and yourself simultaneously.
Life Goal: Regain safety
Fear: Exploitation
Response to Problem: Being victimized by it
Life Task: Process and feel pain fully
Personal Gifts: Independence, realism, resilience, empathy
Personal Pitfalls: Cynicism, tendency to be the victim or victimized, chronic complaining
The Warrior (or Hero)
Tough and courageous, the Warrior archetype helps us to set and achieve goals, overcome obstacles and persist through difficult times. However, the Warrior archetype also tends to see others as enemies and tends to think in “either/or” terms. In truth, the Warrior behaves in a relatively simple way, seeking to simply win in any and every circumstance, no matter what confronts them, including the monsters that live inside the mind and their underlying fear of weakness. Their challenge is to bring meaning to what they do, perhaps by choosing their battles wisely, by using courage to succeed, or by developing great self-discipline where needed.
Shadow Side: The villain. This will manifest itself in your desire to win, even at the expense of other people and their well-being. The villain is also active in your life any time you feel compelled to compromise your principles in order to compete, win, or get your own way. There is also the possibility of perceiving everything as a continuous battle, where virtually everything that happens is a personal slight, threat, or challenge to be confronted.
Life Goal: Win, make a difference
Fear: Weakness, impotence
Response to Problem: Slay it, defeat it, convert it
Life Task: Fight only for what really matters
Personal Gifts: Courage, discipline, determination, skill
Personal Pitfalls: Fear of impotence leading to ruthlessness, arrogance
The Caregiver
The Caregiver is an altruist, moved by compassion, generosity and selflessness to help others. Although prone to martyrdom and enabling behaviors, the inner Caregiver helps us raise our children, aid those in need, and build structures to sustain life and health. Caregivers first seek to help others, which they do with compassion and generosity. A risk the Caregiver takes in their pursuit to help others is their tendency to harm themselves. They dislike selfishness, especially in themselves, and fear what it might make them do.
Shadow Side: The martyr. This will manifest itself in your desire to control others by making them feel guilty, e.g. “Look at all I sacrificed for you!” The martyr evidences itself in all manipulative or devouring behaviors, in which you use care-taking to control or smother others. It is also found in co-dependence; a compulsive need to take care of, or rescue others.
Life Goal: Help others through sacrifice
Fear: Selfishness, ingratitude
Response to Problem: Take care of those it harms
Life Task: Give without maiming self or others
Personal Gifts: Compassion, generosity, nurturing, community
Personal Pitfalls: Martyrdom, enabling others, co-dependence, guilt-tripping
The Seeker (or Explorer)
The Seeker leaves the known to discover and explore the unknown. This inner-rugged individual braves loneliness and isolation to seek out new paths. Often oppositional, this iconoclastic archetype helps us discover our uniqueness, our perspectives and our callings. Seekers are looking for something that will improve their life in some way, but in doing so they may not realize that they have a lot already inside of themselves. They embrace learning and are ambitious, and often tend to avoid the encumbrance of support from others. Needing to “do it themselves,” they keep moving until they find their goal (and usually their true self too).
Shadow Side: The perfectionist. This will manifest itself in your life as the tendency to always strive to measure up to an impossible goal or to find the “right” solution. We see this shadow element in people whose main life activity is self-improvement: going from health club to health club, traveling the world, bouncing back and forth through self-improvement seminars and workshops, etc. If this sounds like you, you might wind up feeling as though you haven’t really accomplished anything through a lack of commitment.
Life Goal: Search for a better way (better life)
Fear: Conformity, entrapment
Response to Problem: Leave it, escape it, take off
Life Task: Be true to a Higher Self
Personal Gifts: Autonomy, ambition, identity, expanded possibilities
Personal Pitfalls: Inability to commit, chronic disappointment, alienation and loneliness
The Lover
The Lover archetype governs all kinds of love – from parental love, to friendship, to spiritual love – but we know it best in romance. Although it can bring all sorts of heartache and drama, it also helps us to experience pleasure, achieve intimacy, make commitments and follow our bliss. The Lover seeks the bliss of true love and the syzygy of the divine couple. They often show the passion that they seek in a relationship in their energy and commitment to gaining the reciprocal love of another. They fear both being alone and losing the love that they have gained, driving them to constantly sustain their love relationships.
Shadow Nemesis: The seducer. This will manifest itself in your life as the tendency to become a sex or relationship addict, and someone who is unable to say “no” when passion descends, or is totally destroyed when a lover leaves.
Life Goal: Bliss, oneness, unity
Fear: Loss of love, disconnection
Response to Problem: Embrace it, love it
Life Task: Follow your bliss
Personal Gifts: Passion, commitment, enthusiasm, sensual pleasure
Personal Pitfalls: Objectifying others, romance/sex addictions, out of control sexuality
The Destroyer (or Rebel)
The Destroyer embodies repressed rage about structures that no longer serve life even when these structures are still supported by society or by our conscious choices. Although this archetype can be ruthless, it weeds the garden in ways that allow for new growth. The Destroyer is a paradoxical character whose destructiveness reflects the instinctual death drive and the inner fear of annihilation. As a fighter, the Destroyer tends to be careless of their own safety, and can sometimes put others in unnecessary danger as well. Their quest is to use their passion in a balanced way that will sustain them.
Shadow Side: The self-destructor. This will manifest itself in your life as the tendency to be prone to addictions, compulsions, or activities that undermine intimacy, job success, or self-esteem. The shadow side of the Destroyer tends to motivate a lot of emotional and physical abuse (domestic violence, murder, rape, suicide, etc.) when completely out of control.
Life Goal: Metamorphosis
Fear: Death, annihilation
Response to Problem: Destroy it, be destroyed by it
Life Task: Letting go, acceptance of mortality
Personal Gifts: Humility, metamorphosis, revolution, capacity to let go
Personal Pitfalls: Doing harm to self/others, out of control anger, terrorist tactics
The Creator
The Creator archetype fosters all imaginative endeavors, from the highest art to the smallest innovation in lifestyle or work. Being adverse to inactivity, the Creator can sometimes cause overload in our lives with constant new projects that are never quite fulfilled. However, when properly channeled, the Creator archetype can help us to express ourselves in beautiful ways. Creators, fearing that all is an illusion, seek to prove reality outside of their minds. A critical part of their quest is to find and accept themselves, discovering their true identity in relation to the external world.
Shadow Side: Avoidance. This will manifest itself in your life by the tendency to fill your inner feelings of emptiness with many different inessential projects, challenges and new things to do. One variety of this habit is workaholism, in which you are constantly pushing yourself to create, produce and to do more.
Life Goal: Creation of new life (identity)
Fear: Abomination, failure (inauthenticity)
Response to Problem: Embrace it as part of the Self
Life Task: Self-creation, self-acceptance
Personal Gifts: Creativity, vision, individuality, aesthetics, imagination, skill, vocation
Personal Pitfalls: Self-indulgence, creating messes, prima donna behaviors
The Ruler
The Ruler archetype inspires us to take responsibility for own lives, our fields of endeavor and our society at large. If the Ruler overcomes the temptation to dominate others, the result is the creation of an environment that invites the gifts and perceptions of all concerned. The Ruler’s quest is to create order and structure and hence an effective society in which the subjects of the Ruler can live productive and relatively happy lives. This is not necessarily an easy task, as order and chaos are not far apart, and the Ruler has to commit him or herself fully to the task.
Shadow Side: The tyrant. This will manifest itself in your life as the tendency to insist on having your way, and to banish anything that does not give you control (such as creativity or self-expression).
Life Goal: Order, a harmonious and prosperous life
Fear: Chaos, loss of control
Response to Problem: Find its constructive uses
Life Task: Take full responsibility for your life
Personal Gifts: Responsibility, benevolence, sovereignty, system savvy
Personal Pitfalls: Rigidity, controlling behaviors, attitude of entitlement, elitism
The Magician
The Magician archetype searches out the fundamental laws of science and/or metaphysics to understand how to transform situations, influence people, and make visions into realities. If the Magician can overcome the temptation to use power manipulatively, they galvanize their energy for good. The Magician’s symbolic quest is not to “do magic,” but to transform or change something or someone in some way. The Magician has significant power and as such may be feared. They may also fear themselves and their potential to do harm. Perhaps their ultimate goal is to transform themselves, achieving a higher plane of existence.
Shadow Side: The sorcerer. This will manifest itself in your life through the manipulative use of your knowledge and insights (e.g. black mail, playing God, gaslighting, etc.). Furthermore, you engage in “sorcery” any time you belittle yourself or another person, lesson possibilities and close doors.
Life Goal: Transformation into greater realities
Fear: Negative transformation
Response to Problem: Transform it or heal it
Life Task: Alignment with the Cosmos
Personal Gifts: Personal power, ability to transform, serving as a catalyst, healing power
Personal Pitfalls: Manipulation of others, disconnection with reality
The Sage
The Sage archetype seeks the truths that will set us free. If the Sage has overcome the temptation of dogma, this can result in wisdom and the ability to see the world and others objectively. The Sage is a seeker of truth and enlightenment and journeys far in search of the next golden nugget of knowledge. The danger for the Sage is the deep seated fear that their hard-won wisdom is built on the sands of falsehood. However, the Sage has hope that through honesty, they will learn to see life with clarity.
Shadow Side: The judge. This will manifest itself in your life as the tendency to be cold, rational, heartless, dogmatic, even pompous – evaluating others in an unfair or insensitive manner.
Life Goal: Truth, understanding
Fear: Deception, illusion
Response to Problem: Study it, understand it, transcend it
Life Task: Attain wisdom
Personal Gifts: Wisdom, non-attachment, knowledge, skepticism
Personal Pitfalls: Being overly critical, pomposity, impracticality, lacking of feeling/empathy
The Joker (or Jester)
The Joker archetype urges us to enjoy the process of our lives. Although the Joker can be prone to laziness and dissipation, the positive Joker invites us all out to play, showing us how to turn our work, our interactions with others, and even the most mundane tasks into joy. The goal of the Joker is perhaps the wisest goal of all, which is simply to enjoy life as it is, with all of its paradoxes and dilemmas. What causes most dread in the Joker is a lack of stimulation and not being “alive.” The Joker seeks to simply “be” in the present moment, perhaps like the Sage, but unlike the Sage may not truly understand the depths of this.
Shadow Side: The glutton. This will manifest itself in your life as slothful, unmotivated and hedonistic behavior that are wholly defined by lust, without any sense of wise direction or self-control.
Life Goal: Enjoyment, pleasure, aliveness
Fear: Oppression, non-aliveness
Response to Problem: Play with it, play tricks on it
Life Task: Enjoyment of the journey
Personal Gifts: Freedom, humor, life lived in the moment, exuberant joy
Personal Pitfalls: Debauchery, irresponsibility, slothfulness
