Much has been written recently about the plight of boys and young men in our society – their widely reported difficulties in school, problems adjusting to the work world, general disengagement from life, and higher rates of alcoholism, overdoses, and suicides – all at a time when women in our culture appear to be thriving. Sociologists, educators, and politicians have all weighed in on these issues, with proposed solutions ranging from delaying the start of boys’ formal schooling to increasing their exposure to stories of war and macho heroism.  

But as the archetypal psychologist James Hillman tells us, sociology follows mythology and thus reflects developments taking place deep in our collective unconscious.  If Hillman is right, then we might beneficially look to developments in mythology for insights into the issues afflicting boys and men.  The most significant mythic event of recent times has been the death of (the male) God and the more recent re-emergence of the Goddess.  The Jungian analyst Verena Kast, writing about the re-emergence of feminine deities, noted the importance of women having a primary identity and not just one derived from a male deity.  To be sure.  But what happens to men and boys if they find the culture has no living male deity from which they can derive a primary identity?  In 1938, C.G. Jung wrote, “Myths … have a vital meaning. Not only do they represent, they are the psychic life of the primitive [sic] tribe, which immediately falls to pieces and decays when it loses its mythological heritage, like a man who has lost his soul.  A tribe’s mythology is its living religion, whose loss is always and everywhere, even among the civilized, a moral catastrophe (emphasis added).” 

On this evening, we’ll explore what this gender shift in the mythosphere might mean for boys and young men in our culture, including such questions as:  

• How is Goddess-centered religion different from God-centered religion?  Do these differences give rise to different expectations for men and boys than what they’re taught to anticipate? Do these differences affect our conception of heroes and the seemingly age-old hero’s journey?  
• Are men’s experiences of the anima changing, perhaps becoming more powerful and more numinous?
• Are we experiencing the death of patriarchy, which is “fall[ing] to pieces and decay[ing]” from having lost its “mythological inheritance”?
• Why do so many men seem unable to find meaningful roles for themselves in this new environment?  
• Should men be searching for a new God-image, or instead finding a way to accommodate themselves to a new and different mythic reality?

Art Delibert, Ph.D., holds a degree in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where his dissertation focused on Chretien des Troyes’ Story of Perceval, or the Grail, as a story of male development specifically taking place in 12th century Europe, an era much like today in that goddess energy came strongly to the forefront in Western culture. The dissertation focuses on the roles of puer, senex, anima, and shadow and explores in depth the contrast between Perceval and Gawain, to whom Chretien devoted some 40 percent of the story.