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Concept
Mythopoetic men's movement
Summary
The mythopoetic men's movement was a body of self-help activities and therapeutic workshops and retreats for men undertaken by various organizations and authors in the United States from the early 1980s through the 1990s. The term mythopoetic was coined by professor Shepherd Bliss in preference to the term "New Age men's movement" (though "mythopoeia" was coined by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s, and has a different meaning). Mythopoets adopted a general style of psychological self-help inspired by the work of Robert Bly, Robert A. Johnson, Joseph Campbell, and other Jungian authors. The group activities used in the movement were largely influenced by ideas derived from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, known as Jungian psychology, e.g., Jungian archetypes, from which the use of myths and fairy tales taken from various cultures served as ways to interpret challenges facing men in society.
Groups formed during the mythopoetic men's movement typically avoided political and social advocacy in favor of therapeutic workshops and wilderness retreats, often using Native American rituals such as drumming, chanting, and sweat lodges. These rituals were done with the aim of personal growth of participants with an intended purpose of connecting spiritually with a lost deep masculine identity or inner self. The most well-known text of the movement was Iron John: A Book About Men by the poet Robert Bly, who argued that "male energy" had been diluted through modern social institutions such as the feminist movement, industrialization, and separation of fathers from family life through working outside the home. Bly urged men to recover a pre-industrial conception of masculinity through spiritual camaraderie with other men in male-only gatherings. The purpose of these activities was to foster greater understanding of the forces influencing the roles of men in modern society and how these changes affect behavior, self awareness, and identity.
Official source
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