In society, the diminishment of one’s masculinity is equated with losing the male sex organ (castration anxiety ), while the attainment of manhood is equated with its active use. Phallos is the carrier of the masculine, driven by the male god image. Men hide their source of authority and power by not exposing their sexuality; their genitalia is a form of evasion. They substitute the phallos with family authority, job superiority, physical prowess, politics, and social or intellectual conformity.
Men expose their phallic members in private when they are comfortable with their capacity for prowess, where their secret can be shared with another person in an intimate situation. By design and nature, the phallic is extraverted and visible, while the female organs are introverted and hidden. The male also desires to participate in the brotherhood, with the masculine veneration of the god image. If they do not join the masculine ceremonies, they stay feminine and seek masculinity elsewhere. The ego or superego does not govern Phallos; however, phallic action can be restrained by civilisation, parents, and society.
As a conscious man standing before the unknown, the ego responds in fear and trembles at eh force of the autonomous unconscious. Human beings connect with the deeper aspects of themselves through their sexual, sensual and orgasmic instinctual experiences. Authentic divine experiences are contained within the numinous, conveying direct knowledge of the supernatural divine power to the subject.
Because men are not the same sex as their mothers, their nature is fundamentally masculine, and differentiation must occur. The mother may try to hinder this process by binding to him, sabotaging any form of separation. The phallos will remain the property of the mother who produces it, she is the authority and castrator, and the feminisation of the male has begun. A man will then continue to seek relief, reassurance and nurturing from his mother to reestablish his false sense of phallos, which can only be attained once liberated from her. The mother becomes his captor, hindering his autonomy and independence. He becomes the sun lover, where his commitment to his mother devours his phallic energy. The mother becomes the partner and lover, who he must not disobey; he is nothing without a woman.
Men build up their masculine and phallic identity by bonding with one another.
Mercurius
The revealer of divine secrets, conceived by the soul of the arcane substance, the messenger of the gods. Mercurius
- Consists of all conceivable opposites
- Both material and spiritual
- It is a process by which the lower and material are transformed into the higher and spiritual.
- Is the devil ( guides one into the unconscious ) an evasive trickster, and God’s reflection in the physical?
- Is the reflection of a mystical experience of the Artifex
- Represents the self on the one hand, the individuation process on the other, and the unlimited names of the collective unconscious.
It is usually the father’s responsibility to take care of the mother in the oedipal phase, pushing his son away and freeing him from the mother’s grasp to go his own way. The male child no longer feels obligated and responsible to his mother, with his phallic energy intact and unincumbered. The ego must separate from its unconscious matrix, as the boy must separate from his mother. The hero must go forward and face these challenges and ordeals to reach independence and adulthood.
Masculinity is accomplished , not a birth right.
The union quality, which prompts and feeds masculine development, is phallos. The hero’s journey is Jung’s way of saying he will seek his fortune elsewhere than in the mother’s womb and embrace. There are four stages of masculine development, two passive and two active.
- conflict containment in the mother`s belly or around the ouroboros (dragon eating its own tail )
- The male is subservient to the mother queen; even if physically separate, they are still tied to her psychologically.
- In the 1st active stage, the hero takes flight through trials and the release of himself from his mother.
- Reproduction via intercourse with the mother image, the surrogate produces a new species with the need for a strong feminine aspect.
Phallos, as the god image, allows the man the courage to return to the unconscious without swallowing or losing his phallic identity. The shadow side of the phallos is brutal and careless, with an insatiable desire and possessiveness. The shadow has an unimaginable need for power and status, driven by a sense of madness. Chthonic phallos is how a man moves through the ego limitation to an ecstatic merger with the archetypal world of sexuality. The hidden sense of masculine power, capable of destructive rage and tender love and attention. When integrated into the ego, the restoration of the shadow is no longer denied, regardless of how alien it may be to the persona. A man must learn to take risks with his sexuality, testing its boundaries; otherwise, he will judge it harshly, dance around it, and be plagued by guilt. He will try all manner of things, no matter how distorted or dysfunctional, to connect to the solar phallic consciousness, thus losing chthonic entry into the divine.
The phallic energy can lead to rape, murder, or rapture, as he can’t be aware of the closeness of 2 people without the integration of the shadow. New potential emerges from the dark night of the soul, where one is no longer innocent or burdened with childhood expectations and maternal comfort. Breaking the phallos chain is needed for transformation and rebirth. Man needs to work through his shadow first (the negative aspects of the chthonic and solar phallos ) and then deal with the union of his feminine and the requirement for relatedness. Hidden behind these two psychological tasks is wisdom; both pose a threat and challenge to ego solidity.
Solar represents enlightenment due to the strenuous masculine effort to pull oneself up from the dead and the primordial miseries of maternal nature. Solar phallos are the logos (the word) and the substance of masculinity. A solar man wants the facts and power of direction and is motivated by conquest and achievements. Man believes the hero`s journey might end him, and his ego will not survive the challenges. The terror of the loneliness within the conflicts, where no one can help, is a blow to his phallic pride and an injury he must endure to reach wisdom.
The homosexual has an abundance of the feminine within the ego, forcing his libido in a male direction as compensation, and seeks in sexual drives that are missing from his ego. The powerful great mother in the unconscious had invaded and penetrated the ego and feminised it. This can lead to an unstable ego formation with poor boundaries, where the go needs strengthening. Heterosexuality will emerge when the feminity is eased out of the ego and back into the unconscious, where it belongs.
Monick,E (1987) Sacred Image of the Masculine, inner City Books; First Edition
