The Feeble-minded King Archetype

While in the midst of this week-long ISTA workshop in Turkey focused on death and rebirth, I keep thinking about Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. More particularly, I think about the archetype of the feeble-minded king ruling over a cursed, blighted kingdom. There was a King like this in Lord of the Rings: King Théoden, possessed by Sauron.

Robert Johnson’s excellent little book, The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden, explores the story of the Fisher King, who has received some unidentified wound and is therefore incapable. Johnson’s book sheds some light on the wounded (or feeble-minded) king archetype:

If the king (that is, the central focus of one’s personality) is wounded, then the whole personality will be troubled and there will be no productiveness. Since it is the generative part of the fisher king that is wounded, it is the generative part of the personality that is impaired. The fisher king’s land is described as unproductive—the cattle do not breed, the crops do not grow, the orchards do not bear, wives are widowed, and men are in despair. One finds himself uncreative in every realm. A modern man would complain that he has no new ideas, he is stale, bored, stuck, uncreative, and depressed. If the king is wounded the land is barren.

Obviously, president and king are not identical. Yet the symbolism holds: The president, like the king, represents, on some level, our inner lives, the core of our personalities. The feeble-minded president must reveal, on some level, our individual as well as collective failure of resolve, willpower, intellect, cunning, feeling, and courage. We’ve let things slide — way too far.

All things considered, this is a fantastic time for us to turn our attention to something wonderful: The Future of Consciousness. I have assembled many of my favorite thinkers into a six-week live seminar, which you can also watch on replays if you want. Please join us for this. As a post-debate special, I am extending the Early Bird sale until July 9: Here is a coupon for 20% off.

The hideous Trump-versus-Biden fiasco is like a mythological horror-comedy. We find ourselves living in a low-grade parody about a corrupt, post-industrial, earth-destroying civilization made by a semi-intelligent species unable to prevent its own extinction. It is clearly scripted — on some metaphysical level — for all of us to learn something for the development of our souls. Even if it is too late to forestall catastrophe, we might as well try to at least take the lesson.

It is incredible — agonizing, bewildering — to watch the Democratic Party holding onto the delusion that Biden should continue to be president.