03 Jan NEWSLETTER ISSUE #3 JAN 15TH 2026
If you’ve been following the journey so far or if this is your first IAM Newsletter welcome! The journey is intensifying, we’re going deeper into our inquiry to discover the answer to; ‘Who Am I?’ while simultaneously painting a picture of the Magician Archetypes workings within our lives. Oh, did I not explain this before? The King, Warrior, Magician, Lover (fairy-tale) which we have been developing in this newsletter is a parable; and you are the King!
Throughout the quarterly seasons, each season, The Idea of a Man™ is going to be focussing on one of the corresponding four male archetypes. The Male Archetypes of King, Warrior, Magician and Lover were identified by Jungian Psychologists Gillette and Moore and expanded on by Rod Boothroyd in his updated book for the 21st Century.
The King, the Warrior, the Magician, and the Lover
(A Fairytale)
ZaKaRaYaH’s Cunundrum
The King was on his throne, lounging to one side. His crown was askew, and he looked bored. He had the potential to cut an impressive figure. However, his body language was off. Slouched and lazy his demeanour conveyed the idea that this individual would happily be someone else, somewhere else, doing something else.
And you would not have been wrong to have arrived at this conclusion. Internally the King felt like anything but a King. He found himself vacillating between abdicating his sovereignty or seeking to overcompensate by expressing an authority his position afforded but which internally he felt extremely alienated from.
He believed people viewed him either as a hypocrite or a jerk. Either way, he couldn’t really argue with these perceptions because ultimately when the man in the mirror gazed back at him he wasn’t convinced he saw things any differently himself.
The Magician walked in. To be honest, the King realised he didn’t know his own Magician very well. The thought came then slunk quickly away that this was something he should rectify. However, something about the Magician’s expression indicated he was up to something. Several parts of the King’s consciousness had different feelings about that. For starters the abdicated King felt apathetic – ‘who cares what Zakarayah is up to, what kind of stupid name is that anyway. I wonder where he got it?’ Meanwhile the Dictatorial King felt internally enraged, although at the moment he was not triggered enough to show it. ‘Who did this Magician think he was?’ prancing around here, like he owned the place. Always telling him what to do, criticising him, and making him remember his many mistakes. The King spoke from a mixture of frustration and curiosity. The frustration was perhaps too obvious in his tone; ‘What do you want now?’…
Throughout the 12 months of the year, each month, The Idea of a Man™ newsletter will focus on one of the 12 Chambers of Sovereign Mastery. Introducing and expanding upon these concepts and signposting readers to current relevant material and resources on The Idea of a Man™ website.
Who am I?
As we continue to explore the question of ‘Who am I? ‘The question I must ask is how much work are we prepared to do to get to the bottom of our identity? I remember reading in Robert Bly’s book Iron John which is a breakdown of a Grim brothers tale about the protagonist in the tale having to steal the keys to Iron John’s from under his mothers pillow in order to release the wild man. You’ll have to read the book to get the full understanding. But essentially we must be willing to steal the keys from under our mothers pillow to step out into our destiny. I remember asking my mother for information about my family line and heritage. Her reluctance frustrated me, but I realised I had to go beyond her. So I contacted her sister, my aunt. No luck there, they appeared to be in cahoots. However, they had a cousin, who I was not so close to. I managed to get their contact information from my mother sister, despite her protestation,
there would have been no way I would have got it from my mother. However, once I had contacted this auntie, they sent me their writings on my family history, they sent me pictures and got me in touch with an uncle who had put together a family tree. This information alone enabled me to get a picture of myself which I had never had before, but I needed to show initiative to uncover.
In my pursuit of self-knowledge, I have taken personality tests, read books, pieced together family history and gone on my own shadow work journey to understand the internal archetypal moving parts within my psychology and gain a deeper understanding of who I am. I encourage you, don’t set limitations on what you are prepared to do to expand your understanding of who you are. Go on the journey and most of all, listen to voices of your highest self. All learning is remembering. Therefore, the truth is you actually know who you are, these modalities simply assist in jogging your memory to enable you to remember who you are.
Here’s some tools you may find useful;
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