Tags
Archetypes, Arthurian Legend, Camelot, Celtic, Cuban Missile Crisis, Divine Feminine, Excalibur, Hallows, Jung, kabbalah, King Arthur, Lady of the Lake, Merlin, President Kennedy, Purer, Round Table, Scabbard, Sword
Part III: The Puer Archetype and the Warrior King
The third part of this blog explores the warrior king as the Jungian puer archetype with regard to the Qabalistic understanding of the scabbard and sword and its political application.
Most of us know King Arthur as the courageous “once and future king” destined to unite Great Britain and establish the peaceful kingdom of Camelot by creating the Knights of the Round Table. However by examining his shallow understanding of the scabbard and sword, it is clear that he personifies the Jungian archetype of the Puer, and that this more than anything else shapes his destiny. The Puer is the quintessential “innocent” eternal male-child who acts in the world without thoughtful consideration often possessed of an early realization of deeper spiritual truths which are treated in a casual manner without mature judgment and value. Since Arthur chooses the importance of the sword over the scabbard, he acts like the quintessential Puer, unable to relate to the world with mature self-regulation. The Puer has an overly-developed fantasy life; layers of illusion cover the reality of his situation which is perhaps why he is unable to at first realize Morgan’s trickery in switching Excalibur and its scabbard for those of unequal value. According to Kime, the sword serves the psychological function as the “…main means of communication with the material world”. The end result is the misappropriation of the use of the sword.
