What is Arkhelogy?
Arkhelogy is the innate human ability to discern the patterns of human behavior that make up what Jung called archetypes. It is a kind of second sight, an ability to see further into people than society today requires or even allows us to see.
Arkhelogy is a word adapted from the obsolete English word archelogy, which Webster's defines as: Ar*chel"o*gy\, n. [Gr. ? an element or first principle + -logy.] The science of, or a treatise on, first principles. --Fleming.
Many readers will be familiar with the Jungian definition of archetypes. The American Heritage Dictionary: "In Jungian psychology, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious." According to the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT), "people go through life drawing from a repertoire of instinctive roles: father, mother, child, lover, creator, warrior, caregiver, and an untold number of others." CAPT offers a test of 12 different archetypes: Lover, Warrior, Innocent, Orphan, Caregiver, Destroyer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Sage, Seeker, and Jester.
However, in arkhelogy, we do not rely on pre-defined, cookie-cutter archetypes. We discover the archetypes from the root up, in the context of their origins inside of us.
That arkhelogy is a skill, not just the superimposition of types, was one of my major discoveries and is an incredibly important fact. It means that the skill, while inherent, can be developed and taught.
Why Should You Become an Arkhelogian?
Aside from being able to impress your friends by telling them, "I'm an Arkhelogian!" and having them respond "You're a WHAT?" (or be afraid to ask), being an arkhelogian will bring you great rewards.
Will you publish a best-selling novel or sell the movie rights for a huge sum? Will you become a celebrity? I don't know.
What I do know is that you will start to see the world differently. You will see MORE. You will see what I call "the secret lives" of people. And when you get really good at arkhelogy, you will begin to discern "the invisible world" they live and move in -- the world where all the action really takes place.
On top of this, you will gradually develop your Author Self. This is not just the part of you that does the writing. It is a unique and rare thing -- and really quite amazing, because the Author Self already knows the beginning, the middle, and the end of all of your stories! That's all the stories that you carry inside of you and the lives of all your characters. These are not just those that you would imagine or make up, but the ones that actually live inside of you: the ones that, in every sense, are you.
And if you think about that for a moment, you will realize that what that means is that you will, in a sense, transcend linear time, as we know it. The lives and destinies of your characters (who, after all, are just the people in your life who are in a special relation to you) will be known to you.
It's a tremendous power to have. That's why you should become an Arkhelogian.
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2 comments:
I ordered Archetypes For Writers today after reading the customer reviews and book preview on Amazon at least a half dozen times. I’d talked myself out of it a couple times on top of that. But little thoughts kept popping up in the back of my mind telling me that maybe, just maybe, the arkhelogy approach was a tailored fit for my style of doing things. You could call it a hunch if you wanted to.
I’m in it mostly for writing purposes but I have to ask, has your ability to discern the invisible world helped you form deeper connections with people more easily? It seems like that would be an added benefit of understanding them on such a level.
Robert,
Your question makes the assumption that deeper connections are dependent only upon one's own ability, whereas, of course, it's really dependent upon the other person(s), too.
I have never had any trouble making deep connections. I find others do (who have not done archetypes work, for example, or something comparable).
Hope this helps. :-) JVB
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