The Four Initiations

Course Outline

FAQ

Why do I need a course on mature masculinity?

“By disconnecting from ritual we have done away with the processes by which both men and women achieved their gender identity in a deep, mature, and life-enhancing way.

What happens to a society if the ritual processes by which these identities are formed become discredited? In the case of men, there are many who either had no initiation into manhood or who had pseudo-initiations that failed to evoke the needed transition into adulthood. We get the dominance of Boy psychology.

Boy psychology is everywhere around us, and its marks are easy to see. Among them are abusive and violent acting-out behaviors against others, both men and women; passivity and weakness, the inability to act effectively and creatively in one’s own life and to engender life and creativity in others (both men and women); and, often, an oscillation between the two — abuse/weakness, abuse/weakness.

Because there is little or no ritual process in our society capable of boosting us from Boy psychology into Man psychology, we each must go on our own (with each other’s help and support) to the deep sources of masculine energy potentials that lie within us all. We must find a way of connecting with these sources of empowerment.”

— From the introduction to KWML

Why does the world need mature men?

“In the present crisis in masculinity we do not need, as some feminists are saying, less masculine power. We need more. But we need more of the mature masculine. We need more Man psychology. We need to develop a sense of calmness about masculine power so we don’t have to act out dominating, disempowering behavior toward others.

We need to learn to love and be loved by the mature masculine. We need to learn to celebrate authentic masculine power and potency, not only for the sake of our personal well-being as men and for our relationships with others, but also because the crisis in mature masculinity feeds into the global crisis of survival we face as a species. Our dangerous and unstable world urgently needs mature men and mature women if our race is going to go on at all into the future.”

— From the introduction to KWML

Who was Robert Moore?

Dr. Robert Moore (b. 1942 - d. 2016) was Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality in the Graduate Center of the Chicago Theological Seminary where he was the Founding Director of the new Institute for Advanced Studies in Spirituality and Wellness.

An internationally recognized psychoanalyst and consultant in private practice in Chicago, he served as a Training Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and was Director of Research for the Institute for Integrative Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and the Chicago Center for Integrative Psychotherapy. Author and editor of numerous books in psychology and spirituality, he lectured internationally on his formulation of a neo-Jungian psychoanalysis and integrative psychotherapy.(1)

His publications include: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover; The Archetype of Initiation; The Dragon of Grandiosity & The Magician and the Analyst.

Along with Robert Bly, Michael Meade, James Hillman and others, he is credited with pioneering the modern mythopoetic men’s movement and was influential in the founding of the ManKind Project, an international network of men’s groups and trainings.

1. CG Jung Center of Chicago

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Listen to a short lecture by Robert Moore, recorded at the Minnesota Men’s Conference in 1993.