Men on Purpose
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Men on Purpose
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BOOKS ON RITES OF PASSAGE & INITIATIONA Fine Young Man: What Parents, Mentors and Educators Can Do to Shape Adolescent Boys into Exceptional Men Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of Boys; Love’s
Journey; Mothers, Sons and Lovers; and The Prince and the King.
1998
Lots of practical wisdom and ideas. Gurian proposes that boys become men in three major stages and suggests a rite of passage for each. Gurian says that "We do not understand adolescent-male development, and therefore are unable to give our adolescent males the kind of love they need to become fully responsible, loving, and wise men." Adolescent boys may appear to be self-sufficient, but Gurian asserts that they actually need their parents and elders desperately. Especially recommended is chapter 9: Nurturing the Core of Manhood and chapter 10: The Ten Integrities. Gurian says that "all cultures share certain key, or core, values". "The core of manhood is a paradigm representing these four elements:
These core four values can be mapped to the king, warrior, magician, lover archeotypes.
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover : Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
Order Book Order Audio Cassette My observation is that men like to use the word "Warrior" a lot more than "King", "King" more than "Magician", and "Lover" almost not at all. This book is important because it stands for a balance of all four archetypes. I include this book here because has so much to say about the development towards the fully mature version of each of the archetypes. Each of the four mature archetypes has a ‘boy’ or immature precursor. Each of the eight archetypes has two shadows or polarities. The power of this book for me comes from the startling realization that the descriptions of one of the shadows is describing me. Also the confidence that comes from recognizing my growth toward the mature archetypes. The book says that one of the key roles of an initiation is to wound the boyish notion of invulnerability. The flip side of invulnerability is the notion of the self as the center of the universe. Men cannot have compassion for themselves or others until the myth of invulnerability is punctured. A attempt at mapping Gurian's four core values to the four archeotypes:
Robert Moore, Douglas Gillette The book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover : Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (see above) was written as an introduction to a series of books that would deal with each of the archeotypes in turn. The Lover Within : Accessing the Lover in the Male PsycheThe Magician Within : Accessing the Shaman in the Male PsycheThe Warrior Within : Accessing the Knight in the Male Psyche
Men and the Life of DesireRobert Bly, James Hillman, Michael Mead
Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth Mircea Eliade A classic, and very readable summary of the anthropological study of initiation. I strongly recommend this book to every man with an interest in initiation as practiced by traditional cultures. In this book Religious historian Mircea Eliade provides an excellent introduction to the study of initiation. Scholars and anthropologists generally distinguish three categories, or types, of initiation. The first category of initiation are described as "puberty rites", "tribal initiation", or "initiation into an age group". Eliade describes this type of initiation as "the collective rituals whose function is to effect the transition from childhood or adolescence to adulthood, and which are obligatory for all members of a particular society." The second category initiates members into secret society or confraternity (an association of men united in some common purpose or profession). The third type marks the entry into a mystical or religious vocation. In traditional societies this would mean the initiation of the shaman or medicine man. These latter types are not obligatory to all members of a society and are performed in smaller groups or individually. Eliade says that initiation "involves not only the religious life of the individual, in the modern meaning of the word 'religion'; it involves his entire life. It is through initiation that, in primitive and archaic societies, man becomes what he is and what he should be". What should a man be? "A man open to the life of the spirit" which especially in terms of these societies means "one who participates in the culture into which he was born". Our initiations should be based upon our culture especially those elements that we need to honor. I particularly liked Eliade's description of the puberty initiation rites of the Kamilaroi of Australia. "On either side of the path a number of figures are drawn on the ground or modeled in clay. The neophytes are not allow to look at these images, which will be destroyed by fire before the end of their initiation. But they can examine them on the occasion of the next. The detail is interesting; it shows that religious instruction does not end with initiation, but continues and has several degrees." In his introduction to Rites and Symbols Michael Meade writes that "the initiations of youth always imply an opportunity for the cleansing and restoration of the life force of the community and the society. The initiation of youths into full life also represents a critical opportunity for a society to sustain meaning and to teach life-affirming values. Although out of print this book is well worth waiting for. About Mircea
Eliade (1907-1986)
Raising a
Modern Day Knight This book is written from a Christian perspective. I am going to borrow a copy from one of my team mates.
BOOKS ON ADOLESCENCE Early Adolescence: Understanding the 10 to 15 year old Gail A. Caissy, Ed. D. Plenum Press, 1994 A overview of the important issues for early adolescence - biological, physical, emotional, intellectual, social, psychological. Full of practical information and ideas.
A Totally Alien Life Form – Teenagers Sydney Lewis The New Press, 1996 Each chapter is a teenager telling his or her story in their own words. Lewis worked for many years with the oral historian Studs Terkel.
A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence Patricia Hersch Ballantine Publishing Group, 1998 To research this book Hersch followed the lives of teenagers full time for three years in her middle class town of Reston, Virginia. For a year she attended high school, occasionally guest teaching but mostly just attending class and listening. Hersch, a former contributing editor of Psychology Today, concludes that today’s teens have been left on their own to make their own choices and determine their own fates. She writes: "The most stunning change for adolescents today is the aloneness. The adolescents of the nineties are more isolated and more unsupervised than other generations." I am reminded of the motivation for founding NoM captured in the phrase "never alone again". Whereas A Totally Alien Life Form – Teenagers tells the story in the adolescence’s own words, Hersch tells the story as a historian from several points of view including parents, teachers, youth workers, and of course the adolescence’s themselves. If you could read only one of these two books I would choose A Tribe Apart. Fortunately both books are written so that the reader could pick them and start at the beginning of any chapter.
MENS BOOKS WITH SOMETHING TO OFFER Masculinity Reconstructed: Changing the Rules of Manhood - at Work, in Relationships, and in Family Life. Dr. Ronald F. Levant Penguin Books, 1995 I enjoyed Levant’s book because he writes for men who don’t go to men’s weekends. I recommend the section right at the beginning titled "What Men’s Gatherings Can and Can’t Do for Us". The chapter called "Achieving Manhood: ‘The Big Impossible’" is about the "four basic points about the nature of the quest for manhood". In summary the points are:
The book suggests a number of processes and is full of examples from real men’s lives.
Men and Marriage George Gilder Pelican Publishing, 1986 A revised and expanded edition of Sexual Suicide first published in 1973. This book is a classic on the relationship between men, women, and families. Gilder makes a good case for the importance of marriage and family in the lives of men. Gilder is a straight shooter who speaks his mind. He writes, for instance: "Biology, anthropology, and history all tell the same essential story. Every society, each generation, faces an invasion by barbarians. They storm into the streets and schools, businesses and households of the land, and, unless they are brought to heel, they rape and pillage, debauch and despoil the settlements of society. These barbarians are young men and boys, in their teens and early twenties. If the truth be known, all too many of them are entirely unsuited for civilized life. Every society must figure out ways to bring them into the disciplines and duties of citizenship. A young man enters the decisive phase of his life when he resolves on marriage and career. … At this point, economic incentives and bureaucratic rules alone are impotent to make him a useful citizen. He becomes law-abiding and productive, in essence, because he discovers it is the only way he can get sex from the women he wants, or marriage from the one he loves. It is the sexual constitution, not the legal one, that is decisive in subduing the aggressions of young men."
Knights Without Armor: A Practical Guide for Men in Quest of Masculine Soul Aaron, Rl Kipnis, Ph.D; Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc 1991 Kipnis’s contribution is "The Twelve Tasks of Men" which form the outline of the book.
Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance Steven Goldberg, 1993 245 pages "It is true, as Professor Goldberg points out, that all the claims so glibly made for societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed. … men everywhere have been in charge of running the show … men have always been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home." - Anthropologist Margaret Mead For many pro-feminists this is perhaps the most politically incorrect book in all of men’s literature. Goldberg’s claims are troubling to the "gender is culturally constructed" crowd for "in this politicized time, the distinction between the correctness of an explanation and its political utility has evaporated for many people". The theses is simple. In all societies that are large enough to have a hierarchy of power or status men dominate the upper positions. That means that the majority of the top economic, political, industrial, financial, religious, and social positions are held by men. There are no known exceptions to this rule. The universality of male dominance demands an explanation and a biological difference in the brains of men and women that leads to different behavior is a theory that easily fits the facts. Like it or not, men seem to have a need that drives them towards power, status, and respect. This motivation is also our vulnerability. The question is what do we do with this power once we get it? The male energies of the Warrior and the knowledge of the Magician that make us powerful may only lead to chaos and pain without the balancing energies of the King and Lover. With power comes responsibility. Violence and discrimination may be explained the differences between men and women but it does not justify it. Justice, fairness, and economic opportunity for the women we love - mothers, wives, lovers, and daughters - is in men’s hands. The fact of male domination is perhaps the best reason for men to be pro-feminists in a certain way. At the end of the book Goldberg offers a personal perspective. "The central role will forever belong to women; they set the rhythm of things. … One of the most stunning regularities one notices when studying cross-cultural data closely is the extent to which women in all societies view the male preoccupation with dominance and suprafamilial pursuits in the same way the wife in Western society views her husband’s obsession with professional football – with a loving condescension and an understanding that men embrace the surrogate and forget the source. Nature has bestowed on women the biological abilities and psychophysiological propensities that enable the species to sustain itself. … Each man know that he can never again be the most important person in another’s life for long, and that he must reassert superiority in enough other areas often enough to justify nature’s allowing him to stay. There is no alternative; this is simply the way that it is. At the bottom of it all, man’s job is to protect woman, and woman’s is to protect her infant; in nature all else is luxury." Goldberg continues in a vein reminiscent of Michael Gurian. "Women are not dependent on male brilliance for their deepest sources of strength, but men are dependent on female strength. Few women have been ruined by men; female endurance survives. Many men, however, have been destroyed by women who did not understand or did not care to understand, male fragility." Goldberg summarizes his book with this statement. "I believe the evidence indicates that women follow their own psychophysiological imperatives and that they would not choose to compete for the goals that men devote their lives to attaining. Women have more important things to do. Men are aware of this and that is why in this and every other society they look to women for gentleness, kindness, and love, for refuge from a world of pain and force, for safety from their own excesses. In every society a basic male motivation is the feeling that the women and children must be protected. But a woman cannot have it both ways: if she wishes to sacrifice all this, what she will get in return is the right to meet men on male terms. She will lose."
Understanding Men’s Passages: Discovering the New Map of Men’s Lives Gail Sheehy 1998 This book is primarily about the passages that men face in middle life.
BOOKS SPECIFICALLY ABOUT TEAMS Wisdom Circles: A Guide to Self-Discovery and Community Building in Small Groups Charles Garfield, Cindy Spring, Sedonia Cahill; 1998 I recommend this book for the Ten Constants of Wisdom Circles which is what the book is about. Almost all of these principles should be familiar but there is a lot of wisdom and experience embedded in this collection. Garfield is best know as the author of the best seller Peak Performers and was one of the founders of the Shanti Project in San Francisco.
A Circle of Men: The Original Manual for Men’s Support Groups Bill Kauth M.S. , St Martin’s Press, 1992 Kauth is described as a cofounder of The New Warrior Training Adventure. Recommended for the process and discussion themes that the book shows you how to lead in some detail. I like a book that is action oriented down to a suggested script of what to say at all the critical points.
Talking with Our Brothers: Creating and Sustaing a Dynamic Men’s Group. George M. Taylor 1995 Chapter 3 "Why Groups Fail: Common Patterns in Group Behavior" helped me make sense of what happened to other teams that I have been on. The last half of the book has forty group exercises. This book can be hard to find. I ordered my copy from the Men’s Voices magazine http://www.vix.com/menmag/.
Tending the Fire : The Ritual Men's Group Wayne Liebman, 1991 57 pages A short and well written book on ritual, myth, and the sacred in men’s groups. One of Liebman’s contributions is to point out a distinction between process groups and ritual groups. "The two groups differ in the way they deal with feeling. The process group emphasizes the feeling life of men as individual human beings; the ritual group emphasizes the feeling life of man as men, pointing to something deep within and yet greater than individual selves." A ritual group focuses on "developing a connection between what is personal in the member’s lives to what is universal in the lives of men." A man in a ritual group "feels himself living out part of the theme of maleness, the theme living itself out in him. He is thinking about himself mythologically rather than psychologically, and the significance of this in not that is gives answers to problems … but that it fosters a sense of partnership with the mysterious forces of the universe." Regarding initiation Liebman says "whatever rituals of initiation were practice by the elders on young men in ancient and primitive times are forever beyond our knowing; that even if we did know them they probably would not do us much good since the mythology behind them has ceased to be our mythology, if it ever was." Leibman contrasts aspects of initiation to the experience of ritual groups. "The ancient experience of initiation surely entailed some element of chaos and terror … not knowing what to expect, unable to go back to the familiar ways of doing things, unsure of the new ones. This is precisely the experience of uncertainty we choose in a ritual group."
BOOKS / RECORDINGS RECOMMENDED BY OTHERS Letters to my son author ? "A very good book" - John Butler
Character and Destiny - Authentic Threads of Life Thresholds of Change Micheal Meade Audio recording Recommended by Carl Kalin, Men’s Eagle Council, Boulder, Colorado.
On the review list Before It's Too Late : Why Some Kids Get into Trouble--And What
Parents Can Do About It by Samenow Stanton Raising Cain: How to Protect the emotional life of Boys
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Webmaster: Cortlandt Wilson (webmaster@cortsoft.com) Last Revised: 05-May-1999 02:05:58 AM |
