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The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring—From Gilgamesh To Kerouac
Por Edward C Sellner
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Comenzar a leerLongitud: 529 página14 horas
- Editorial:
- Lethe Press
- Publicado:
- Aug 20, 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781301780952
- Formato:
- Libro
Descripción
Ancient Greeks and Romans had a term for the Double, referring to such an entity as a personal daemon or protector, a “heavenly twin,” who acts as an invisible guide during the lifetime of an individual. Recent Jungian psychologists refer to “the double” as "a soul figure with all the erotic and spiritual significance" attached to those inner figures whom Jung called "anima" (the inner feminine side of men) and "animus" (the inner masculine side of women). The double archetype, however, is not of the opposite, but of the same gender. Every man and woman carries within his or her soul this psychic pattern or energy, expressed in the need for same-sex relationships of love, tenderness, affirmation and intimacy. For the male, this archetype contains those of father, son, brother, and, for some, lover; for the female, those of mother, daughter, sister, and lover would apply. The double is facilitative of rapport, creating an atmosphere between doubles of profound equality and deep familiarity that can lead to the development of self-awareness, self-identity, and great creativity. For men, it lies behind males bonding intellectually, emotionally, and at times physically with other males, and is responsible for any collaborative efforts between them. This archetype is particularly significant in education, expressing itself in those friendships that frequently occur between younger and older men, students and teachers, mentors and protégés.
This book examines the concept of the Double in history and literary sources, from the earliest known literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, to the life and writings of the 20th-century Beat writer, Jack Kerouac. Drawing upon his knowledge of theology, Jungian psychology, literature, and the history of Christian spirituality, Ed Sellner shows how this inner figure, reflected in those close friendships between men as fathers and sons, brothers, mentors, guides, and lovers is helpful for all men in their journey toward spiritual meaning and wholeness.
Acciones del libro
Comenzar a leerInformación sobre el libro
The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring—From Gilgamesh To Kerouac
Por Edward C Sellner
Longitud: 529 página14 horas
Descripción
Ancient Greeks and Romans had a term for the Double, referring to such an entity as a personal daemon or protector, a “heavenly twin,” who acts as an invisible guide during the lifetime of an individual. Recent Jungian psychologists refer to “the double” as "a soul figure with all the erotic and spiritual significance" attached to those inner figures whom Jung called "anima" (the inner feminine side of men) and "animus" (the inner masculine side of women). The double archetype, however, is not of the opposite, but of the same gender. Every man and woman carries within his or her soul this psychic pattern or energy, expressed in the need for same-sex relationships of love, tenderness, affirmation and intimacy. For the male, this archetype contains those of father, son, brother, and, for some, lover; for the female, those of mother, daughter, sister, and lover would apply. The double is facilitative of rapport, creating an atmosphere between doubles of profound equality and deep familiarity that can lead to the development of self-awareness, self-identity, and great creativity. For men, it lies behind males bonding intellectually, emotionally, and at times physically with other males, and is responsible for any collaborative efforts between them. This archetype is particularly significant in education, expressing itself in those friendships that frequently occur between younger and older men, students and teachers, mentors and protégés.
This book examines the concept of the Double in history and literary sources, from the earliest known literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, to the life and writings of the 20th-century Beat writer, Jack Kerouac. Drawing upon his knowledge of theology, Jungian psychology, literature, and the history of Christian spirituality, Ed Sellner shows how this inner figure, reflected in those close friendships between men as fathers and sons, brothers, mentors, guides, and lovers is helpful for all men in their journey toward spiritual meaning and wholeness.
- Editorial:
- Lethe Press
- Publicado:
- Aug 20, 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781301780952
- Formato:
- Libro
Acerca del autor
Edward Sellner, Ph.D., is professor of pastoral theology and spirituality at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses for over thirty years, and administered pastoral ministry, spiritual direction, and master's degree programs. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, he is the author of numerous articles and books, and a popular national and international speaker on mentoring, Celtic spirituality, the history of Western monasticism, men's issues, and, more recently Buddhism and other Asian religions.
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The Double - Edward C Sellner
The Double
Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring—
From Gilgamesh To Kerouac
Edward C. Sellner
Published by Lethe Press at Smashwords.com
Copyright ©2013 by Edward C. Sellner.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief citation or review, without the written permission of Lethe Press.
Published by Lethe Press
118 Heritage Avenue
Maple Shade, NJ 08052
www.lethepressbooks.com | lethepress@aol.com
Cover icon of Sts. Antony and Paul by Charles Rohrbacher
Book design by Toby Johnson
ISBN 1-59021-314-9 | 978-1-59021-314-8
eISBN 978-1-59021-258-5
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the publishers, translators, and copyright owners of works quoted in this book to reprint excerpted material: from Andrew George, trans., The Epic of Gilgamesh (The Penguin Press, copyright (c) by Andrew George, 1999); Robert Fagles, trans., The Iliad by Homer (Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., copyright (c) by Robert Fagles, 1990; from Michael Grant, trans., Cicero On the Good Life (Penguin Books, copyright (c) by Michael Grant, 1971); from The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Vols. I, II, III (Bulfinch Press Book of Little, Brown, and Co., 2000, copyright (c) Van Gogh Museum Enterprises. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from CICERO: VOLUME XXII, LETTERS TO ATTICUS – VOLUME I, Loeb Classical Library Volume 7, translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, pp. 37, 39, 45, 57, 97, 103, 189, 191, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Loeb Classical Library ® is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
________________________________________________
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sellner, Edward Cletus.
The double : male eros, friendships, and mentoring : from Gilgamesh to Kerouac / Edward C. Sellner.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-59021-314-8 -- ISBN 1-59021-314-9
1. Animus (Psychoanalysis) 2. Anima (Psychoanalysis) 3. Gender identity. 4. Self-consciousness (Awareness) I. Title.
BF175.5.A53S45 2013
155.9’25--dc23
2013018421
Praise for The Double
We have come to expect Edward Sellner to provide significant and helpful insights into issues relating to mentoring and spiritual friendship, and this latest excellent contribution, The Double, is no exception.
Professor Sellner expertly and creatively weaves together many threads of Jungian psychology, theology and biography to illuminate a significant aspect of both the inner life and interpersonal relationships of men and their ongoing search for health and fulfillment.
—William P. Hyland, The Divinity School, University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland
Forged within the crucible of his own life experience and aided by his exhaustive research, Sellner, in this easy to read work, offers both insight and redemption as he frees the reader to embrace the double within.
—Fritz Pfotenhauer, spiritual director, professor emeritus, theology department,University of Notre Dame
Ed Sellner’s scholarship traces for his readers the intriguing archetype of the double, a deep friendship between male soul mates that has taken many forms across time and cultures. He brings to life the meaning of eros as the spiritual power of love and connection that is transformative. Beginning with the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, 3,700 years ago, through the Greeks and Romans, to those in the early Celtic Church who served as confessors and spiritual guides known as anamcara, to John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, and on to 1950s America and the friendship between Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy, Sellner moves past the immense anxiety around a man’s capacity to love another and shows us how much male friendships contribute to others’ happiness as well. His stories are most memorable.
—Julie Neraas, an associate professor at Hamline University, is a spiritual director, ordained minister, and the author of Apprenticed to Hope (Augsburg Press, 2009).
Sellner has provided a skillful and absorbing account of the complexities of masculine friendship. Readers are offered a rare and intelligent gem of original writing which exposes misperceptions about male intimacy through the author’s exploration of the double as a historical and cross-cultural precedent for men to understand and emulate. This book will certainly be welcomed by those who found Robert Bly’s Iron John and other men’s books illuminating, as it offers further support towards a healthy masculine consciousness.
—Terry Shaughnessy, spiritual director and Coordinator of Men’s Spirituality Series, Wisdom Ways Center of Spirituality, St. Paul, MN
Ed Sellner’s book is challenging, provocative and convincing. It deals with a subject most men want to avoid talking about. Ed Sellner takes the bull by the horns and looks at the quality of relationships between men. Using stories and illustrations from other cultures, he shows where we men in Western culture fall short in these relationships and lose out on the possibilities of deeper connections. Reviewing ancient mythology and legends and the expression of male to male relationships in other cultures, Ed shows clearly that it is our culture that is marching out of step. In other cultures, and in earlier times, it is or was acceptable for men to hold hands, hug, kiss on the lips, suck each other’s nipples, and enjoy each other’s physical bodies. There is a gradual easing of our uptight approach to sexuality and sexual expression in Western culture, but Ed Sellner’s book suggests we still have a long way to go.
—Dara Molloy, editor of The Aisling Magazine, Inis Mor, Ireland, and author of The Globalization of God (2009)
This is an important and engaging book. Recent writing in the areas of male and LGBT spirituality have neglected to consider the significance of ‘the double’ as a central element in the construction of healthy identities. Edward Sellner has now corrected this unfortunate oversight. His archetypes of the double, which cover a wide variety of cultures and historical periods—from Gilgamesh and Enkidu to Kerouac and Cassady—will give the reader much to think about. Literate yet accessible, rich in detail yet engrossing in its analysis, this book will open up for all men, of whatever sexual persuasion, some rich possibilities in terms of how the double works and is present in their own lives. This remarkable book compels us all to see other men with new and different eyes.
—Donald L. Boisvert, Associate Professor of Religion, Concordia University, Montreal, and Author, Sanctity and Male Desire: A Gay Reading of Saints
The Double is a remarkable accomplishment as, with insight and verve, Ed Sellner illuminates the archetype of male bonding and relationships in contexts both ancient and contemporary. Weaving scholarship, informed analysis, storytelling, and personal sharing, Sellner takes his readers on a compelling exploration of this long-ignored archetype. It’s a journey that affirms the energy that inspires and sustains a range of male-to-male relationships, including those of fathers, sons, brothers, friends, comrades, and lovers. In a world that routinely views the expressing of emotion between men as suspect, Sellner’s The Double is a much needed and healing balm.
—Michael Bayly is the editor of the online forum The Progressive Catholic Voice and the author of Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students: A Catholic Schools Perspective (Harrington Park Press, 2007). He blogs at The Wild Reed.
~
Also by Edward C. Sellner
Wisdom of the Celtic Saints
Mentoring: The Ministry of Spiritual Kinship
The Celtic Soul Friend: A Trusted Guide for Today
Stories of the Celtic Soul Friends: Their Meaning for Today
Soul-Making: The Telling of a Spiritual Journey
Finding the Monk Within: Great Monastic Values for Today
Pilgrimage: Exploring a Great Spiritual Practice
Christian Ministry and the Fifth Step
Father and Son: Time Lost, Love Recovered
Step 5: Telling My Story
Step 5: A Guide to Reconciliation
Guidance on Our Journeys: Sponsorship
An Introduction to the Wisdom of the Celtic Saints:
How then shall we live?
~
For my father, Edward A. Sellner,
my sons, John & Daniel,
and for all those men whose love changed my life
Our other half is not only of another sex. The union of opposites—male and female—is not the only union for which we long and is not the only union which redeems. There is also the union of sames, the re-union of the vertical axis which would heal the split spirit.
James Hillman
The double embodies the spirit of love between those of the same sex…. We must give this archetype its rightful due.
Mitch Walker
He who abides in friendship abides in God, and God in him.
Aelred of Rievaulx
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: Physician to One’s Pain
Chapter Two: Comrade-in-Arms
Chapter Three: Bed Partner
Chapter Four: Another Self
Chapter Five: Beloved Disciple
Chapter Six: A Single Man
Chapter Seven: Gifted Son
Chapter Eight: Spiritual Friend
Chapter Nine: Loving Brother
Chapter Ten: Companion on the Road
Conclusion
About the Author
Introduction
My father died suddenly of a massive stroke, one week after he had celebrated his seventy-fourth birthday together with family and friends. I spent the night with him in the hospital room before he died, his body hooked to a respirator, forcing air into and out of his lungs. Earlier that day, after his stroke, I had traveled to his bedside as soon as I received the news. Then, with my mother asleep nearby, I firmly held Dad’s hand, and, as the respirator pumped on, I began repeating the reassuring words of Julian of Norwich, the great fourteenth-century English mystic: All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
It was a simple prayer to God for Dad, and for all of us. Even more, it was an attempt to soothe my father in what I had already concluded might be his transition to another reality. I interrupted this mantra only to rub my father’s arms and to tell him, Dad, I don’t know if you can hear me or not. But I love you; I will always love you.
And, what I noticed then, was how good it felt to touch him, to be physically close when for so many years he didn’t hold me, hug me, embrace me, or say those words which I longed to hear: I love you, son.
In the months following his death, as I tried to make sense of that great loss, I discovered that I was not alone in the conflicts and antagonisms between men, especially between fathers and sons. Journaling and talking with friends helped clarify dimensions of my grief, and even my dreams seemed to suggest some sort of healing of memories. One dream took me back to the hospital room where my father had died, and, when (in the dream) I fled from it, overcome with grief, I distinctly heard the lines from a World War II song that was a favorite of Dad’s, I’ll be seeing you in all those old familiar places.
Another time, when I was under a great deal of stress, I saw in a dream a very vivid image of the face of my father, smiling, affirming me, reminding me of a statement he often quoted that was intended to encourage me, It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken.
Still, as time passed, I asked myself, Why? What kept him from demonstrating his feelings toward me? Why his reticence in verbal or physical expressions of love? Of what was he afraid? Was it his German upbringing that taught him to be so non-expressive, or the relationship he had with his own possibly emotionally distant father? Was it the homophobic culture and religion in which both men had been raised?
This book is my response to those questions; what I’ve discovered through my experiences as the father of two sons, my monthly discussions with a support network of men who share their experiences with each other, and through the numerous books and articles I found that shed light upon the dynamics between men, the fountain of grief from which all of us drink, and the arena of eros in which each of us struggles. While I cannot provide any definitive answers regarding my dad, I can describe what other cultures and times have understood about the nature of male intimacy, male friendships, and male bonds.
One of the most helpful writings I came across after my father’s death was an article by Mitch Walker, a Jungian analyst, which named my own experiences. In his seminal work, The Double: An Archetypal Configuration,
Walker describes the double as a soul figure with all the erotic and spiritual significance
attached to those inner archetypal figures whom the Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung called anima
(the inner feminine side of men) and animus
(the inner masculine side of women) which need development. As archetypes or constellations of energy within every person, it is the lifelong task, Jung believed, of integrating those opposites interiorly and spiritually. What is significant about Walker’s perspective regarding the double is that not only does the opposite energy need to be integrated within, but that of the same gender for greater maturation and wholeness. According to him, every man and woman—whether one is straight or gay (if we use contemporary society’s designations)—carries within his or her soul this psychic pattern, expressed in the need for same-sex relationships of love, tenderness, intimacy, and joy. The double and the anima/us are equal and complementary, and form a whole, androgynous in nature.
For the male, this archetype contains and expresses, according to Walker, the energy of those relationships associated with those of father, son, brother, and lover;
for the female, it refers to those of mother, daughter, sister, and lover.¹ It is not, however, Walker believes, a reflection of the shadow,
what Jung referred to as all those repressed and often totally unrecognized aspects of our unconscious that we project outward onto others, but an archetype in its own right that needs acknowledgment and integration.²
Referring to mythological and biblical pairs of heroes, such as Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Achilles and Patroclus, and David and Jonathan, Walker states that the double works like a mirror, reflecting back to us and drawing out of us our own inner beauty, strength, and wisdom. As these myths suggest,
he writes, the double is a soul-mate of intense warmth and closeness. Love between men and love between women, as a psychic experience, is often rooted in projection of the double, just as anima/us is projected in love between the different sexes…. Furthermore, since the double is a soul figure, the sexual instinct may or may not become involved. That is, the double motif may include a tendency to homosexuality, but it is not necessarily a homosexual archetype. Rather the double embodies the spirit of love between those of the same sex….[T]he double is facilitative of rapport. It creates an atmosphere between friends of profound equality and deep familiarity, a mysterious, joyful sharing of feelings and needs, a dynamic, intuitive understanding….
This double, Walker believes, is a powerful helper, full of magic to aid in an individual’s struggles,
an archetype that can lead to an understanding of our own identities and to highly important self-realizations and expressions of creativity.³
Walker’s article helped me understand that behind men’s longing for genuine community, behind my own father hunger
for acceptance and affirmation from my dad and other males is this same-sex archetype, a soul pattern that can lead to deep and intimate friendships between men. It lies behind males bonding intellectually, emotionally, and at times physically with other males, and is responsible for any collaborative efforts between them. As Walker says, such pleasurable camaraderie easily extends to a sharing of purpose or goals through which difficult tasks are undertaken and fulfilled.
This archetype is particularly significant in education, Walker believes, expressing itself in those friendships that frequently occur between younger and older men, students and teachers, mentors and protégés. Every male needs to find a double, a soul-mate or soul-friend with whom he can communicate openly and honestly, with warmth, affection, and love. While the gay movement recognizes this in its affirmation of creative, passionate, and caring relationships between males, this archetype is not limited to those who call themselves homosexual. Rather, this archetype is at the foundation of all men’s innate desire for intimacy with other males, starting with their own fathers. When we love another of our own gender, we are getting in touch with an unconscious spirit-source, the divine within us that can teach us wisdom and compassion. This loving and trusting relationship can help us discover inner harmony, Walker says, a reunion
that restores us, at some level of depth, to a wonderful primal state.
⁴
The problem in our western culture, however, is that this desire for union or communion with other males is the source of so much suspicion. While other societies acknowledge and take for granted men’s need for other male intimates, our western culture, with its patriarchical values that emphasize competition between men (and women!), strength over tenderness, the rational over the intuitive, Logos over Eros, is fearful, if not outright condemnatory of this type of love. Emphasis is consistently placed on male-female relating, and on the belief that male-female relationships should act as containers of all eros, energy, and time. While obviously important for the propagation of the human race as well as for personal transformation and social harmony, such expectations of intimate exclusivity can and will lead to marital conflicts and breakdowns. No one relationship or type of relationship can contain everything; no male-female relationship can contain all.
This emerging conviction of mine was confirmed when I came across certain works of Robert Johnson, another Jungian analyst. In his Lying with the Heavenly Woman, in particular, he describes how different India and other eastern countries are in their acceptance of same-sex relationships, and how much male friendships contribute to the happiness of both women and men. Johnson journeyed to India in his early 50s and lived there on and off for some time. He suggests that India’s greatest gift to me was the opening of a vivid, colorful world of homoerotic capacities that burst into my life like a revelation.
According to him, his Hindu friends reaped a whole world of security, happiness, delight from their man-to-man relationships.
It is taken for granted among the people there that every male will have at least one close male friend, an intimate relationship that sometimes begins in childhood, and a bonding between the two that lasts for a whole lifetime.
This bonding, Johnson says, is noted and honored by the community. They consider it normal that a youth be married
at least twice in his life, first to his buddy, then to his wife.
And, he continues, I was often astonished at seeing how much safety and security there is in a Hindu life when one is strengthened by both sides of one’s nature. One has both his buddy and his wife to help him deal with the vulnerability of life, something we lack very sorely in our Western ways.
According to Johnson (who admits his own reticence in discussing this), the art of relating to another man is based upon mutual attraction, and the appreciation, sometimes highly intuitive, of what each can give and receive. There can be a specific exchange of feeling between two men with unique characteristics not found in any other relationships…. Our culture tends to put this under the general heading of homosexuality; but this closeness is sufficiently specific to warrant its own terminology—terminology we will have to invent or recover since homoerotic relationship has been given no official place in our society. Slang terms have partly filled the gap, and we make uneasy use of buddy, or sidekick, or the Australian mate, for our homoerotic attachments. Locker-room banter warily edges around affection and camaraderie and shies away from anything that looks like homosexuality…. Feeling between men is mostly disguised under towel snapping, rough talk, bravado, showing off, and casualness….
All people,
Johnson concludes, have the native capacity for homoerotic relationship, and we have been missing a rich aspect of life in our Western world. Truly we have sold our birthright—from a feeling point of view—for a mess of potage.
He equates the homoerotic with some of the warmest and most strengthening exchanges in which man is capable,
and posits that the same respect for male friendships can be found among the American Indians where two boys who are especially close are called partners
⁵ (a term now used by many contemporary gay men to describe their own committed relationships). The eros between Native American boys upon which these relationships are based is not necessarily to be equated with sexual expression, but it can be. Above all, however, Johnson says in a shorter work, the erotic quality [of such friendships]
is the quality of relatedness. It is the quality of belongingness. It is the quality of identity."⁶
This warm and strengthening exchange between men reflects the double archetype within, a pattern of psychic energy that has both a positive and negative side as all archetypes do. On its positive side, it is manifest, for the male, in the search for and need of affirmation from other males, their fathers, sons, brothers, friends, confessors, confidants. In classical times, as we will see, friendship between males was so valued that it was described as one soul in two bodies;
a friend was seen as a second self,
someone with whom one could share both great joy and great suffering, through whom one was led to wisdom and truth.⁷ In more recent literature, some of the greatest, sometimes highly conflictual, yet most enduring male friendships have been explored in such books as Hermann Hesse’s Narziss and Goldmund, Irvin Yalom’s When Nietzsche Wept, and D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love. The first book, by Hesse, tells of a relationship between Narziss, a teacher in a monastery in medieval Germany, and his student, Goldmund, who decides to leave the monastery and to pursue his own path through life. As Goldmund says farewell, the two men sat close up to one another, sad, and yet happy together in their knowledge that their friendship would never end.
⁸ Yalom’s historical novel, When Nietzsche Wept, describes how friendship between two men can have, at times, many overlapping roles. In the mentoring relationship between the young Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer, an older man, the latter is depicted as not only Freud’s friend, but his teacher, his father, his older brother.
Also, in Breuer’s therapeutic sessions with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche himself alludes to the collaborative nature of such same-sex relationships: I dream of a love in which two people share a passion to search together for some higher truth. Perhaps I should not call it love. Perhaps its real name is friendship.
⁹
D.H. Lawrence’s famous Women in Love was written at a time in Lawrence’s own life of intense involvement with another male, John Middleton Murry, a relationship that created a great deal of conflict between Murry, his wife, and Lawrence, as well as between the author and his wife, Frieda.¹⁰ As anyone knows who has read the book or seen the movie, Women in Love is not only about women’s love, but the affection—and dissonance—between two men, Birkin and Gerald. In a conversation with Ursula, his wife, after Gerald’s tragic death, Birkin points out the failure for many women to appreciate this male need for a double:
Did you need Gerald?
she asked one evening.
Yes,
he said.
Aren’t I enough for you?
she asked.
No,
he said. You are enough for me, as far as a woman is concerned. You are all women to me. But I wanted a man friend, as eternal as you and I are eternal.
Why aren’t I enough?
she said. You are enough for me. I don’t want anybody else but you. Why isn’t it the same with you?
Having you, I can live all my life without anybody else, any other sheer intimacy. But to make it complete, really, happy, I wanted eternal union with a man too: another kind of love,
he said.
I don’t believe it,
she said. It’s an obstinacy, a theory, a perversity.
Well——
he said.
You can’t have two kinds of love. Why should you!
It seems as if I can’t,
he said. Yet I wanted it.
You can’t have it, because it’s false, impossible,
she said.
I don’t believe that,
he answered.¹¹
On the negative side, the double can be projected onto other males in a destructive way, and, rather than being claimed interiorly or in a non-possessive, non-generative fashion, can be sought, sometimes frenetically and obsessively, outside oneself. This possession
by the double archetype lies behind all sorts of strange, if not ultimately self-destructive behaviors. It can cause one to think, as they say, only with one’s dick, or to be caught up in sexual addiction, what the ancient Romans identified as peni deditus
(given to one’s penis
).¹² Frank Browning, in The Culture of Desire: Paradox and Perversity in Gay Lives Today, speaks of the ambiguity of desire
and of its trickster
elements.¹³ Bruce Bawer, in A Place at the Table, while lauding friendships and eros between men, also alludes to the darker side of anonymous, promiscuous, and unsafe sex—caused largely, he says, by our society and churches that refuse to endorse or bless any type of committed long-term relationships between men.¹⁴ Douglas Sadownick, in his Sex Between Men, discusses what he calls the shadow side
of gay relations which can be characterized by a world of half-men, refusing to grow up, inclined to fall in love with role players instead of role models,
engaging in love affairs with people afraid to love.
¹⁵
Sexual abuse and lack of respect for younger males’ integrity and vulnerability is, of course, a phenomenon that has been in the news for some time. There can also be narcissistic tendencies in male friendships that reflect the negative side of this archetype, when one, for example, projects the archetype outward onto other males and treats them only as copies or clones of oneself rather than individuals with their own experiences, talents, and goals. In literature, perhaps one of the most famous descriptions of an older male’s infatuation with a younger male that becomes a destructive obsession is found in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. It is the story of a German writer, Aschenbach, and his madness of desire
for the youth Tadzio: Aschenbach noticed with astonishment the lad’s perfect beauty. His face recalled the noblest moment of Greek sculpture…. Yet with all this chaste perfection of form it was of such unique personal charm that the observer thought he had never seen, either in nature or art, anything so utterly happy and consummate.
¹⁶ Based upon the recognition of another’s extraordinary beauty, this birth of eros in the older man’s highly controlled and controlling personality eventually resulted in Aschenbach’s death. Unfortunately for Aschenbach, he did not realize what the ancient Greeks knew: that beauty has its deadly side.¹⁷
Still, despite this dark side of the double, there are the positive aspects of this archetype, for, as Robert Bly acknowledges, the primary reason adult men get stuck in the dark side, the shadow, is that they never had older men who held them in their hearts,
who helped them find a nurturing spirituality in the context of masculine identity.¹⁸ From the Christian tradition, perhaps the most powerful symbol of this male friendship and mentoring is that of Jesus with his beloved disciple
John resting his head on his mentor’s heart (cf., Jn 13:21-26).
There is a tremendous need today for older men to become male elders, realizing how important it is to their spiritual development and to that of younger men who are desperately searching for approval, genuine caring, a blessing. The search for the double is directly related to the desire to achieve unity of being within.
In this book, I want to explore this aspect of the double as a way to self-acceptance and greater wholeness. In western culture, we have lost sight of the importance of male-male archetypes that dwell in the male soul. As Robert Johnson and other writers make clear, anyone who studies other cultures with their fluidity of gender categories and flexibility of sex roles will begin to wonder about the rigidity and repression of our own culture and religious traditions, and whether our myths truly serve to develop the full masculine and feminine capacities in either men and women, of whatever age. Old theories of sexuality with their emphasis on dominance of one sex and the compliance of the other, with their suspicion of men loving other men or women loving other women have brought about an imbalance in society that needs to be addressed and healed. Much of homoerotic attraction and experimentation today is probably part of a swing of the pendulum away from patriarchy and its strict definitions of what constitutes masculinity—and toward the development of one’s full humanity. The gay movement shows everyone that men are capable of great passion—and compassion. And yet, because of centuries of homophobic indoctrination, there exists an immense anxiety and even hatred in a man’s capacity to love other men not only in western society but within men themselves.
This book, then, is about the double, an archetype or psychic pattern of male relatedness that exists in the history of humankind and that lies within the soul of every male. Since archetypes are constellations of energies, blueprints of basic human drives and qualities that we all share, this archetype of same-sex love exists in women as well as men. In this book, however, I intend to concentrate only upon the male experience of it. This psychic pattern in men is reflected in their eros, that inner drive and passion for connection, for intimacy, for the giving and receiving of love. As will become apparent, I believe that not only are those who call themselves gay today in search of a double, but that all men are in need of finding the double in themselves, and expressing that inner figure in friendships and mentoring. This book is written for men in order that they might become more conscious of their innate capacity and human need to love deeply and tenderly other males, and to help them better accept and integrate those feelings when they become aware of them. Rather than being filled with shame, guilt, and self-hatred (what at least one writer identifies as internalized homophobia
),¹⁹ sometimes tragically leading to suicide, or directing their initial confusion outward in distancing themselves from friends or in homophobic acts of abuse or violence, it is my hope that they might find resources for healing splits within their own psyches and for reconciling conflicts with others in the world outside themselves.
By focusing upon the same-sex archetype in their souls, my purpose in writing this book is to support men, regardless of their sexual orientation, in valuing those sometimes very complex relationships between fathers, sons, brothers, friends, and lovers. In particular, I hope, through the study of intimate male relationships in history and literature, to help heal all those who, as Mitch Walker rightly contends live in a culture which condemns overt manifestations of love
and who carry a particular burden
of such feelings.
Not only must they [gay men] struggle against moral and social prejudices, but also against the shadow-evil imparted through collective censure.
²⁰ This homophobia, so often fostered by our religious institutions and leaders, must be acknowledged, as I do in this book, as a path forward to greater freedom and true equality for every person, no matter what one’s sexual orientation. It is also written for women who are attempting to understand their husband’s or friend’s need for male relationships other than their own, or who are threatened by any manifestation of male bonding that may occur. By examining the ancient origins as well as the diversity of expressions of the double archetype, perhaps at least some of the sources of fear, suspicion, and homophobia in our society and churches may be eliminated for both women and men.
As Walker suggests, and as I discuss, the double is manifest in a great variety of ways, and there is an element of eros, that spiritual power of connection, in all male relationships of intimacy—not only those which are explicitly homosexual—or there wouldn’t be the natural attraction, warmth, or sustainability that characterizes them. Eros is dynamic and shapeshifting; it spurs the release of energies that might otherwise lie dormant. This book, then, covers warrior and friend relationships, father and son, brother and brother, lover and lover, and a number that don’t easily fit into specific categories. Chapter one examines the earliest stories that have survived in human history which interestingly enough were about, and the first to depict, an intimate friendship between two men, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, living in Babylon, which was compared to a marriage.
Chapter two discusses the homoerotic culture of the Greeks, their love of male beauty and valor, and the love between two heroes, Achilles and Patroclus. Chapter three turns to the world of the ancient male Celts and their reputation for not only sexual intimacy with women but with other men, a love manifest in the stories of the great Irish leader, Cuchulainn, and his foster-brother Fer Diad. Chapter four explores Roman culture, its attitudes towards men and mentoring, and, in particular, the writings of Cicero which influenced profoundly later Christian interpretations of friendship. (As we will see, Cicero’s own ideas on friendship originated in his relationship with Atticus, his lifelong friend.) In chapter five we move directly to Christian history, reflecting on the relationship between Jesus and the beloved disciple, and what that expressed and what it came to symbolize. Chapter six examines the hagiographies of certain desert elders whose influence significantly affected Christian attitudes towards same-gender relationships, in some cases affirming love between men, and in others tragically reinforcing homophobic and horribly condemnatory attitudes. In chapter seven, the relationship between St. Augustine, one of the early church’s most influential spiritual leaders, and his son, Adeodatus, will be explored as an example of the double archetype as it relates to fathers and sons, offering the strong possibility of developing relationships of friendship rather than dominance. Chapter eight turns to the Celtic soul friend tradition as it developed in early Celtic monasticism and as described in the writings of the Cistercian monk, Aelred of Rievaulx, who had his own intense struggles with eros and self-acceptance. As an example of the double archetype found between brothers, chapter nine describes the deep love between Vincent van Gogh and his younger brother, Theo, who not only supported the artist financially, but acted as his spiritual confessor. Chapter ten focuses upon the mid-twentieth-century Beat Generation, and the intense, highly creative and extremely combustible friendship between Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassady. The conclusion summarizes what we have discovered about the double, and how awareness of the double within can affect men’s understanding of themselves today.
By examining and claiming the double archetype in human history and our own psyches, it is my hope that all of us will come to see that male bonds and male friendships, rather than being a source of fear or prejudice, should be highly valued—considering the important and meaningful contributions they have made in the past and in our contemporary world. As Mitch Walker so wisely has affirmed: The double embodies the spirit of love between those of the same sex… We must give this archetype its rightful due.
²¹
__________
¹ See Mitchell Walker, The Double: An Archetypal Configuration,
Spring, 1976: 165.
² For more explanation of Jungian terms, anima,
animus,
and shadow,
and how they relate to what Carl Jung called the process of individuation,
of becoming more psychologically and spiritually whole, see Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New York: A Harvest Book, 1933), Emma Jung, Animus and Anima (Dallas, TX: Spring Publications, 1981), and Robert Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993).
³ See Walker, The Double: An Archetypal Configuration
:169-170.
⁴ Ibid., 170-172.
⁵ See Robert Johnson, Lying with the Heavenly Woman (HarperSan Francisco, 1994), 60-67. Johnson, an analyst who studied with Carl and Emma Jung in Zurich, Switzerland, describes his journey to India in his autobiography, Balancing Heaven and Earth: A Memoir of Visions, Dreams, and Realizations (NewYork: HarperOne, 1998), 206-275).
⁶ Idem, Homoerotic Relationships between Men in India and in Western Mythology,
in Robert Hopcke, Karin L. Carrington, and Scott Wirth, eds., Same-Sex Love and the Path to Wholeness (Boston: Shambhala, 1993),10.
⁷ An excellent summation on classical theories of friendship can be found in Carolinne White’s Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992),13-44.
⁸ Hermann Hesse, Narziss and Goldmund (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1971), 78.
⁹ Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession (New York: HarperPerennial, 1992), 32, 243.
¹⁰ See D.H. Lawrence and Frieda,
in John Tytell, Passionate Lives (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), 52 ff.
¹¹ D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), 472-473.
¹² Quoted in Emiel Eyben, Restless Youth in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge,1993), 234.
¹³ Frank Browning, The Culture of Desire (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 227.
¹⁴ See Bruce Bawer, A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society (New York: A Touchstone Book, 1994), 86-87.
¹⁵ See Douglas Sadownick, Sex Between Men (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 138-139.
¹⁶ Thomas Mann, Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories ((New York: Vintage International, 1989), 25.
¹⁷ One example in Greek storytelling is found in Homer’s Iliad when Helen of Troy’s beauty is called terrible,
precisely because it caused the war between the Greeks and Trojans. See Robert Fagles, trans., Homer: The Iliad (New York: Viking Penguin, 1990), 133.
¹⁸ See Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men (Reading, MA; Addison-Wesley, 1990), 97, and The Sibling Society (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 129-130, 181, 236.
¹⁹ See Vittorio Lingiardi, Men in Love (Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court, 2002), 15-17.
²⁰ Mitchell Walker, The Double: An Archetypal Configuration,
173.
²¹ Ibid., 174. Walker himself, besides being a therapist, is the author of Visionary Love (Treeroots Press, 1980) and Men Loving Men (San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1997). As one of the founders of a major movement within gay culture, the Radical Faeries, who represent an important expression of enlightened/ new age
spirituality, he has done much to counteract homophobia in our society. While the Faeries have been described as very pro-sex,
their real power—with their various gatherings around the country in specific sanctuaries
—is the support and friendship base they provide for gay men.
Chapter One
Physician to Oneís Pain
A worthy friend is a physician to your pain.
Menander, Sentences
Like a wife you’ll love him, caress and embrace him,
he will be mighty, and often will save you.
Epic of Gilgamesh
The ancient world was filled with stories of male heroes, many of whom are portrayed as having close, intimate ties with other men. This world of early antiquity produced legends of loving friendships between warriors, some of which expressed a profound sense of equality between them; other writings speak of relationships highly initiatory in form showing the value of mentoring between older and younger men. Both types reflect the double in the intensity of feelings of tenderness and love between men. Such relationships were often associated with beauty, poetry, healing, and the pursuit of wisdom. As portrayed in stories and writings that have survived, this friendship between men was linked with special ties of affection, honesty, and trust. A friend, according to early writers, was one who is loved and loves in return,
who is a physician to your pain.
¹
In a world of violence and brute force, friendship was voluntary and not subject to coercion; loving and unselfish, not deceitful or manipulative. It was also characterized by mutual self-disclosure and intimacy: the sharing of one’s interior self, as well as for some the sharing of one’s body. The honesty that was expected between friends included not only affirmation but sometimes criticism—as long as it was constructive and done in order to help the other recognize limitations (a sure sign of maturity), and hopefully to correct faults or perhaps potentially fatal decision-making. Always friendship was more than warm feelings towards another; it presumed loyalty and commitment. Loyalty meant coming to the assistance of one’s friend, especially in times of crisis when the other most needed help; commitment presumed continuity in the relationship, and, as we will see in the stories of ancient heroes, a depth of familiarity that was sometimes equated with the bonds of marriage. The deepest friendships were considered eternal, transcending physical separation in this lifetime and beyond.
Although not always expressed genitally, frequently male bonds of affection were identified with eros, what the ancients considered to be primarily a spiritual power, a yearning for communion with another, an appreciation of another’s inner and perhaps outer beauty, a gift sent from the gods. Unlike later Christian writers who sought to separate eros and philia (friendship) into two distinctly different types of loves, classical literature often linked the two, describing eros as the god of friendship and concord,
and saying that a lover is a friend inspired by God.
Many ancient writers believed that attraction to beauty and attentiveness to eros produce philia, and that erotic desire itself is ultimately about the soul, referring to it as a divine spirit, protector of friendship, revealer of its mysteries.
Other writers also describe eros as a double god,
a prankster
and a propagator of healthy desires.
Thus eros is associated with both unbridled lust as well as temperate affection.
²
In regard to eros and sexuality, ancient sources offer no evidence for assigning individuals an identity of being heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual as Western society came to do later, especially after the emergence of the discipline of psychology in the late nineteenth century. As David Halperin suggests, throughout history the norms, practices, and even definitions of what counts as sexual desire and sexual activity have varied significantly from culture to culture.
³ For the ancients, a person over a lifetime could be drawn or attracted to a great variety of personalities as well as to both genders. Eros was not so much about a specific sexuality as it was about the depth of one’s love. Male human beings both then and now,
Craig Williams writes, have consciously experienced desire for others, both male and female, and have sometimes embodied those desires in specific [sexual] acts…. Beyond mere physical encounters, men have desired to form lasting bonds with both male and female, and the spectrum of emotional states involved in pursuing and maintaining those relationships seems to have remained basically the same.
⁴
Nonetheless, anyone who has studied the great variety of ancient literary sources is aware that the homoerotic element of friendship between men in the ancient world met with about as many opinions as can be found today. In some of the great epics, love and friendship between men is lauded, and in erotic poetry openly affirmed.⁵ In plays and other writings, however, homoerotic behavior is the recipient of ribald jokes and defensiveness, if not outright disgust. Whether accepted or not, what is clear from these diverse sources is that many men in ancient societies knew two types of loves. The first love, between a man and a woman, was seen as mutually beneficial for those involved, for their children, and the wider community. This love was primarily for the purposes of procreation and ongoing companionship, and was highly regarded for those reasons. A second type of love between men was also fairly common due to the highly masculine nature of many ancient societies in which women remained in the home while the men learned, worked, exercised,
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