page_title: Mythopoetic men's movement
section_title: Tenets and practices
hierarchical_section_title: Mythopoetic men's movement / Tenets and practices
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert Bly at the Poetry Out Loud Minnesota Finals at the Fitzgerald Theater
context_page_description: 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". 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 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 performing Native American rituals such as drumming, chanting, and sweat lodges. These rituals were organized to facilitate the personal growth of participants with an intended purpose of connecting spiritually with a lost deep masculine identity or inner self.
context_section_description: According to sociologist Michael Messner, mythopoets believe that the rise of the urban industrial society "trapped men into straitjackets of rationality, thus blunting the powerful emotional communion and collective spiritual transcendence that they believe men in tribal societies typically enjoyed". The movement seeks to restore the "deep masculine" to men who have lost it in their more modern lifestyles.
  Other causes claimed by advocates for the loss of the "deep masculine" include:
  Men no longer being comrades who celebrated their masculinity together. Rather, they had become competitors within their workplaces.
  Men spending more time in their houses with women than they did with men (in non-competitive terms outside of work).  Excessive interaction with women generally kept men from realizing their internal masculinity.
  Feminism bringing attention to the 'feminine voice.'  Through this, the mythopoetic men felt that their voices had been muted (though Bly and others are careful in not blaming feminism for this).
  The separation of men from their fathers kept them from being truly initiated into manhood, and was a source of emotional damage.
  Men were suffering further emotional damage due to feminist accusations about sexism.  Men should celebrate their differences from women, rather than feeling guilty about them.
  Men being discouraged from expressing their emotions.  Male inexpressivity is an epidemic and does not correspond to their "deep masculine" natures.
  The mythopoetic men's movement spawned a variety of self-help groups and workshops, led by authors such as Robert Bly, Michael J. Meade and Robert L. Moore.  Among its most famous advocates was the poet Bly, whose book Iron John: A Book About Men (1990) spent 62 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, being an exegesis of the tale of "Iron John" collected by the Brothers Grimm.  Groups of men from the professional class retreated from their female loved ones in order to join in spiritual rituals that emphasized homosociality, with the central goal of reclaiming the parts of their masculinity that they had lost called the "deep masculine."
  In the mythopoetic movement, the desire to be spiritual and yet manly is also a factor in the way the group understands the nature of gender and relationships between the sexes. The mythopoetic movement tends to regard gender as biological realities, "hardwired" into the psyches of men and women. This gender essentialism is consistent with the Jungian philosophy undergirding the movement. Mythopoetic men thus speak of the need to recover "deep masculinity," to distinguish what they regard as genuine or mature masculinity from the problematic toxic masculinity of immature males.
  Because most men no longer perform masculine rituals, mythopoets assert that men have mutated into destructive, hypermasculine chauvinists, or, in the opposite direction, have become too feminized.  The mythopoetic men performed rituals at these gatherings, which were meant to imitate those performed by tribal societies when men initiated boys into a deeply essential natural manhood.  The movement emphasized the importance of including multiple generations of men in the rituals, so that the men could learn about masculinity from those who were older and wiser.
  Characteristic of the early mythopoetic movement was a tendency to retell myths, legends and folktales, and engage in their exegesis as a tool for personal insight.  Using frequent references to archetypes as drawn from Jungian analytical psychology, the movement focused on issues of gender role, gender identity and wellness for the modern man (and woman).  Advocates would often engage in storytelling with music, these acts being seen as a modern extension to a form of "new age shamanism" popularized by Michael Harner at approximately the same time.  The movement sought to empower men by means of equating archetypal characters with their own emotions and abilities.  For instance, Michael Messner describes the concept of "Zeus energy" as emphasizing "male authority accepted for the good of th
caption: Robert Bly
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