Introduction to Archetypes
Archetypes are changing models of people, behaviours, and personalities. They exist as shared concepts and symbols across various cultures and philosophies. Their universal nature provides a framework for understanding our inner and outer worlds.
Awareness of archetypes can help us identify if and when we are in shadow expressions of ourselves and when our soul light is occluded. By becoming aware of and letting go of attachments, to ways of being and seeing ourselves, we have greater opportunity to choose our behaviours. Choosing allows responsiveness instead of reactiveness, our souls shine brightly as a result and anchor our expression as more consistently heartfelt.
Do we need to put ourselves into the boxes of archetypes? In fact, we are all either unconsciously or consciously already in them, until we can master ourselves to some degree. Then we can see their matrix and create/realise/live our uniqueness within unity, accepting and transcending the boxes.
Ancient myths, legends, and religious traditions are the storylines that have shaped human consciousness across culture for millennia. From Gods and folklore heroes, to dragons, fairies and vampires, these timeless symbols have provided a lens through which to view human nature and feel into the experience of multiple perspectives within. They remain relevant, reflecting core aspects of the human experience. If in my world view I have seen myself as a victim, I have also painted a picture of another as a perpetrator. By empowering myself to be free from the victim archetype, my responsibility frees both myself and anyone I chose to see as a "bad guy".
Psychological and Spiritual Concepts
Letting Go of Attachments
When travelling deeply within, we can release our favouritism for specific archetypes. Partner's who have purchased Light Masculine and Dark Feminine products (a popular polarity) gain much when they take turns wearing both the perfumes and roles. It's also possible to embody the paradox of opposing polarities within oneself, dissolving attachments to specific roles we have played and aspired too. This liberated energy allows us to more fully embody archetypes relevant to the present moment and to shift seamlessly between them. To be responsive to our environments as opposed to reactive from archetypes we have felt attachment to expressing from encourages authentic living.
Our Stories Can Heal and Evolve Us
Carl Jung was a pioneer in exploring archetypes and is commonly referenced as a powerful storyteller. He once cured a woman's insomnia by singing a lullaby, and in his words demonstrated that enchantment is a form of medicine. Jung was able to use incantations, humming, the mystical and irrational with those he defined as the #2 personality type (inwardly directed towards their subjective world). These tools according to Peter Kingsley were used in Western Shamanic traditions and were integral to the Orphic tradition. Orpheus’s mythology involves him travelling to the underworld, the realm of shadows, to save his wife. Orpheus’s birth island (Lesbos) is also the birthplace of half of Marc John Calokerinos (creator of Hieros Gamos Alchemy)’s heritage. This story encourages Marc to hold out his hand to assist others in their journeys out of their own underworlds and shadows.
Placebo has been shown in science to be just as effective as medicine in healing the body. This means our beliefs when empowered can be potent as medicine, that the stories we choose to believe can powerfully create currents in our life that carry us. Our invitation is to consciously choose your own mythology, as our own stories when reinforced become truths that build our realities and affect everyone's actuality. Using tools such as archetypal perfumes with ritual and repetition to anchor and then trigger our healthily chosen beliefs, emotions and patterns can be a great upgrade to our psyche.
Shadows
In the context of psychology and spirituality, shadows refer to the hidden or repressed parts of our personality and psyche. These are aspects of ourselves that we deny or are unaware of, often because they are deemed undesirable or unacceptable by societal or personal standards. Shadows can include fears, unresolved traumas, suppressed desires, and negative traits such as anger, jealousy, or greed. This is very different to the concept of dark which is a polarity to light, both light and dark have shadows and a pure soulful expression. To learn more about this explore our article on what masculine and feminine, light and dark represent.
Meeting Our Shadows
Shadow work is the process of exploring and integrating these hidden parts of ourselves. It involves bringing the unconscious shadows into conscious awareness, acknowledging and understanding them, and ultimately transforming them. By meeting our shadows, we undergo an internal alchemical transformation. Integrating these shadows and creating new patterns raises our consciousness. This practice is crucial for personal growth and healing, as it allows us to confront and embrace all aspects of our being, leading to greater self-awareness, emotional balance, and inner harmony. This approach, known as apotropaic in Ancient Greek tradition, involves facing our fears with interest and respect, thus transforming them. By holding the intention of smothering our fears with niceness when meeting them, we can ease-fully experience old feelings and move through them. Such an approach is also quite tantric, to expand in many directions, within duality and quadrality; and then to transcend the expansion.
Benefits of Shadow Work
Self-Awareness: By uncovering and understanding our shadows, we gain deeper insights into our true nature and behaviours.
Emotional Healing: Confronting repressed emotions and unresolved traumas can lead to profound healing and emotional release.
Personal Growth: Integrating shadows helps us to grow and evolve, breaking free from limiting patterns and behaviours.
Improved Relationships: By acknowledging our shadows, we can communicate more authentically and empathetically with others.
Inner Harmony: Embracing all aspects of ourselves leads to a more balanced and harmonious inner life.
How to Practice Shadow Work
Self-Reflection: Regularly reflect on your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. Pay attention to triggers and patterns that may indicate the presence of shadows.
Journaling: Write about your experiences, feelings, and insights. Journaling can help you uncover and process hidden aspects of yourself. [We suggest journaling using the 'I'm sorry statements' from our audios as prompts - Download here]
Mindfulness: Practice mindfulness and meditation to observe your thoughts and emotions without judgment. This awareness can bring shadows to the surface. [We suggest visualising a rewritten version of the stories you've journaled about our above suggestion to build mindfulness for future opportunities, allowing you to rewrite behaviours and patterns - Download Shadow Journal here]
Therapy and Counselling: Working with a therapist or counsellor can provide guidance and support in navigating the complexities of shadow work. [Refer to the bios of our recommended practitioners]
Creative Expression: Use art, music, or other creative outlets to explore and express your inner world.
Rituals and Ritual Tools: Incorporate rituals through the use of tools like Hieros Gamos Alchemy’s products to create a sacred space for shadow work. These can enhance your connection to the hidden aspects of your psyche and facilitate transformation.
By engaging in shadow work, we embark on a journey of self-discovery and transformation, allowing us to live more authentically and fully.
Confronting Shadows
Our products serve as aids for exploring the astral and anchoring expanded states of consciousness. By using our audios and rituals to bring a touch of the numinous (religious or spiritual quality) into everyday life, and anchoring our awarenesses with scents and flower essences we can embed and channel new templates, free from old patterns and attachments. As a result we approach life with more heart and soul expression.
Intention
Your intention is the spell, and our products are tools for self-liberation from the maze of the collective unconscious. They help anchor growth, clear old patterns and encourage facilitation of new neural pathways being established. Our sacred substances are of high vibrational frequency and your power of belief will determine their effectiveness. Coupled with clear expressions of each archetype over an extended period, new tendencies form.
Everything is Sacred
Holding the intention of seeing and knowing the Divine in everything encourages a feeling of connection for:
1) Souls to shine;
2) Ways of being to become soul-focused; and
3) Journeys into our centre/core (the void) to be supported as a result of foundations built through choosing healthy experiences
Living from our centre/void, we are in greater flow (unity), and also co-creating from our unique frequencies in harmony. We are highly present and interact ecologically when channeling our divine unique expression whilst in harmony with our environments.
Decisions and Habits
Using traditional Indian Spiritual terms, Karma is an action or decision made. It can be waking up and choosing between smoking or exercising. Such action choices create Vrittis, thought patterns/impressions. Repeated Vrittis manifest as habits, and when habits influence our thoughts, they become Samskaras, habits so deeply ingrained that they shape our inner world and mould our personality; they are psychological imprints that result in Vasanas, desires/tendencies.
Â
Habits and Presence
We encourage you to become aware of your habits, of how they may have created a sense of separation from the present and your full expression. At the same time, habits have kept you functioning and have allowed a feeling of connection to your unnatural environment and to the world—at least until now. Now you are more than the average seeker; a seeker in the moment continues to seek; you have become a finder, and your present moments are filled with finding. Be compassionate for the self that employed old habits to fit in and stay alive. Habits can be healthy or separated from the Soul. When disconnected in the mind, we have experienced Illusions—a separation from true emotions can be the result of an emotional attachment to delusion, and Maya is what keeps us separate from our body. These are veils, filters of our experience, protection mechanisms, reactions to less favourable circumstances—they are coping mechanisms. By clearing such Body/Mind expressions, we progress into a more embodied soul expression, which in turn brings us to connect deeply into a principle of oneness, a connection to ourselves and life without attachment. It is possible to be in our hearts, bodies and minds simultaneously, all cylinders firing, all us engaged and present and this is part of Hieros Gamos Alchemy's mission.
Let's Evolve
As old paradigms of being in the world are challenged by that which emerges, all those holding on will be challenged to evolve by the darker archetypes, while the lighter archetypes will provide support for their transformation. Both sets of these archetypes are roles that the World Soul and Cosmic Soul can call upon you to embody, and our tinctures and perfumes are intended as bridges and portals to bring you into perfect integration. Listening and responding to both of these greater souls and embodying both the Dark and the Light.
Selecting Your Alchemical Tools
So how do you choose which perfumes, tinctures and audios to work with and when. This post is made to help you discern for yourself. We also have a quiz for you to uncover your dominant archetypal energy and a quiz to help you discover which archetype you are experiencing the most shadow in.
Further Learning (Dark/Light and Masculine/Feminine)
In this blog post we will explore the meaning of Hieros Gamos (Sacred Marriage /Â Inner Union) and then the polarities of Masculine and Feminine, Dark and Light.
A Deeper Dive (Our 4 Main Archetypes)
Our next suggested blog post for deepening your connection to this Lore and to the process of using archetypal tools for evolution is our deep dive into the quadrality between the 4 poles of Masculine and Feminine, Dark and Light.
Comments