Abstract: In this article, I use the work of the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary on the eight archetypes of maturity in the human psyche and their sixteen associated bipolar “shadow” forms to construct a Jungian psychological profile of President-elect Donald Trump. In addition, I use the work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University to construct a carefully nuanced a media-ecology psychological account of Trump and his MAGA supporters over the last decade or so.
Thomas J. Farrell
University of Minnesota Duluth
Over the years, I have been deeply influenced by the thought of the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary about the eight archetypes of maturity in the human psyche and their sixteen associated bipolar “shadow” forms.
Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette co-authored the following six books about the four masculine archetypes of maturity in the male psyche:
(1) King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (1990);
(2) The King Within: Accessing the King [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (1992a);
(3) The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (1992b);
(4) The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (1993a);
(5) The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (1993b);
(6) The King Within: Accessing the King [Archetype] in the Male Psyche, revised and expanded second edition (2007).
In addition to reading Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s books about the four masculine archetypes of maturity in the human psyche and their eight associated bipolar “shadow” forms, I listened to hours and hours of audiotapes of Robert Moore speaking about the four masculine archetypes of maturity and their eight “shadow” forms at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Yes, from the early 1990s onward, I have been a big fan of Robert Moore’s Jungian account of the archetypes of maturity in the human psyche!
Yes, I am indeed truly infatuated with Robert Moore’s thought about the eight archetypes of maturity in the human psyche and their sixteen associated bipolar “shadow” forms!
Yes, my infatuation with Robert Moore’s thought involves my projecting the optimal and positive form of the masculine Lover archetype, on the one hand, and, on the other, the optimal and positive form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in my psyche onto him and his thought about the archetypes of maturity in the human psyche.
Yes, when we become a fan of a certain person’s work, we are infatuated with that person, and we are projecting one of the two Lover archetypes in our psyches onto that certain person. Infatuation is a form of love, and expression of love.
In its best form, our infatuation expresses the optimal and positive form of one of the two Lover archetypes in our psyches. However, our infatuation with a certain person may involve one or the other “shadow” forms of one of the two Lover archetypes in our psyches.
In my judgment, the infatuation with Trump that his MAGA supporters feel involves their projecting The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the masculine Lover archetype in their psyches onto him.
In my judgment, Trump himself is a magnet, figuratively speaking, for attracting their projection because he himself is mainlining The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the masculine Lover archetype in his psyche.
In addition, in my judgement, Trump is also mainlining The Detached Manipulator “shadow” form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in his psyche.
In my judgment, Trump’s infatuated MAGA supporters are projecting The Detached Manipulator “shadow” form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in their psyches onto him.
Now, I have undoubtedly been infatuated with Father Walter Ong’s thought from the time I first took a course from him in the fall semester of 1964 at Saint Louis University onward in my adult life up to the present time.
My award-winning book Walter Ong’s Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (2000) is an introductory-level survey of Ong’s life and eleven of his books and selected articles. It won the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in Media Ecology, conferred by the Media Ecology Association in June 2001.
In addition to publishing articles and book chapters about various aspects of Ong’s thought, I have co-edited (with Paul A. Soukup) five collections of Ong’s essays (1992a, 1992b, 1995, 1999, and 2002).
In any event, Ong experience a big breakthrough insight in the early 1950s that set the course for the rest of his long and productive life. I want to dwell on my own wording here for a moment. The word insight sounds mundane. I would also characterize the insight that Ong has a something like a personal revelation from God to him – something like God’s call of the prophet Isaiah. I know, I know, this comparison may sound blasphemous to some people. But I ask you to consider that when young Walter Jackson Ong, Jr., entered the Jesuit novitiate in September 1935, he did so because he felt called by God to become a Jesuit priest. That much of a sense of being called by God was already present in and alive in Father Ong in the early 1950s when he experienced his big breakthrough insight. For the rest of his long and productive life, he never tired of touting his big breakthrough insights in his teaching, in his lectures, and in his publications. In short, he became the prophet telling the world about his exciting big breakthrough insight.
Now, my wording “big breakthrough” also sounds mundane to me. As a result of the insight that Father Ong experienced in the early 1950s, we can divide his scholarly publications in to “before” and “after” – before his insight and after his insight. But when we do this, we are also dividing his life in “before his insight” and “after his insight.” I sometimes use the expression Ong’s mature work to refer to his scholarly work after his insight. In effect, I think of Ong’s scholarly life in terms of “before his insight” and “after his insight.”
In any event, for a bibliography of Ong’s 400 or so distinct publications (nor counting translations or reprintings as distinct publications), see Thomas M. Walsh’s “Walter j. Ong, s.J.: A Bibliography 192902006” in the anthology Language, culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J., edited by Sara van den Berg and Thomas M. Walsh (2011, pp. 185-245).
Next, I want to discuss Ong’s life-changing insight in terms of Robert Moore’s account of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in the human psyche. I am here going to claim that Ong experienced his life-altering insight as a result of accidentally learning how to access the optimal and positive form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in his psyche.
Next, I want to suggest that we should think of Ong’s psyche in terms of ecology – to wit the ecology of his psyche.
Now, because young Walter Ong first took a vow of chastity as a Jesuit novice, he devoted his life to living that vow of chastity. This means that Ong devoted his life to living The Impotent Lover “shadow” form of masculine Lover archetype of maturity in his psyche. Good for Father Ong! He was faithful to his vow of chastity!
Disclosure: I was 20 years when I took my first course from Father Ong at Saint Louis University in the fall semester of 1964. During my entire life (I am now 80), I have mainlined The Impotent Lover “shadow” form of the masculine Lover archetype in my psyche. No, I do not take pride in this. I am simply reporting this here as a fact about me and my psychological profile. In any event, in this respect, Father Ong’s commitment to his vow of chastity would not have been an obstacle to my becoming infatuated with him as a teacher and scholar. As a teacher and scholar in the fall of 1964, Father Ong embodied and exemplified the optimal and positive form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in his psyche. However, in the fall of 1964, I was still mainlining The Detached Manipulator “shadow” form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in my psyche. In this respect, when I was 20, I resembled in spirit The Detached Manipulator spirit that I am here attributing to Donald Trump – which spirit in him I now see as the primary quality that has contributed to his public prominence in American political culture for more than a decade now. End of disclosure.
Now, as a result of Father Ong’s life-altering insight in the early 1950s, he was able to parlay his new access to the optimal and positive form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in his psyche, to learning how to decisively access the optimal and positive form of the masculine Warrior/Knight archetype in his psyche, on the one hand, and, on the other, the optimal and positive form of the King archetype in his psyche. Good for him!
In any event, Ong expressed his big breakthrough insight in the early 1950s in his account of the aural-to-visual shift in our Western cultural history in his massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (for specific page references to the aural-to-visual shift, see the “Index” [p. 396]). Peter Ramus (1515-1572) is the French Renaissance logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr. Ong massively researched 1958 book is a history of the formal study of logic in our Western cultural history from Aristotle down to Ramus and beyond.
As an aside, I want to say here that as much as I enjoy touting Ong’s massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue, I recognize that Ong wrote that book for specialists. Yes, over the years, I have read it slowly and carefully several times. Throughout Ong’s text, he makes presuppositions about the considerable background knowledge that the reader brings to reading his text. In brief, his 1958 book is written in such a scholarly way as to preclude it ever becoming a best-seller.
Now, when young Ong’s lengthy Jesuit formation, he was sent to at Saint Louis University (SLU) for his early graduate studies in philosophy and English. In his graduate studies in English, he took at least one course from the young Canadian Catholic convert Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980; Ph.D. in English, Cambridge University, 1943), who taught English at SLU from 1937 to 1944, while he worked on his 1943 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation. Marshall McLuhan’s 1943 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation was posthumously published, unrevised but with an editorial apparatus supplied by the editor W. Terrence Gordon, as the book The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time (2007).
In any event, from young McLuhan, young Ong first learned about the French Renaissance logician and education reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572). After Ong had been ordained a Jesuit priest and had completed his lengthy Jesuit formation, he proceeded to Harvard University for his doctoral studies in English. For his doctoral dissertation, Ong undertook his massive study of Ramist logic and the history of the formal study of logic in our Western cultural history from Aristotle down to Ramus and beyond.
Now, Marshall McLuhan was impressed with, and inspired by, Ong’s massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason. Ong’s 1958 pioneering study of print culture and pioneering exploration of media ecology in our Western cultural history inspired Marshall McLuhan to write his landmark synthesis in his 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (for specific pages references to Ong’s publications about Ramism, see the “Bibliographic Index” [pp. 286-287]).
Now, because I have noted above that Ong’s 1958 book was written in such a scholarly way that Ong in it presupposes that the reader brings considerable background knowledge to reading the text, I should point out here that in his 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy, McLuhan does and does not presuppose that the reader brings considerable background knowledge to reading the text. Yes, on the one hand, McLuhan presupposes that the reader is informed enough to know something about the many authors whose works he discusses. On the other, McLuhan in his 1962 book writes in a racy way that does not resemble what Walker Gibson styles the “stuffy talk” of scholarly discourse in his landmark 1966 book Tough, Sweet and Stuffy: An Essay on Modern American Prose Styles, even though McLuhan himself was a scholar and there is an unmistakable informed scholarly orientation to everything he says in his 1962 book. With respect to the three modern American prose styles that Walker Gibson discusses in his landmark 1966 book, McLuhan’s racy prose style in his 1962 book somewhat resembles the sweet style of advertising. In any event, McLuhan’s 1962 book has been translated into many other languages. It is an important book, and it deserves to be read carefully – as one might read a scholarly book written in the stuffy style. In its own distinctive way, it is indeed a truly informed scholarly book.
In any event, I have explained Ong’s philosophical thought in his massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue to the best of my ability in my somewhat lengthy OEN article “Walter J. Ong’s Philosophical Thought” (dated September 20, 2020).
Now, subsequently, Ong published his seminal 1967 book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History, the expanded version of his 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University, and, still later, his most widely read and most widely translated book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982).
Now, Ong famously differentiated what he refers to as primary orality culture (and primary orality) from our contemporary secondary oral culture (and secondary orality) induced by the various communications media that accentuate sound (e.g., television, telephone, radio, audio recordings, movies with soundtracks, and the life).
I have discussed out contemporary secondary oral culture in my essay “Secondary Orality and Consciousness Today” in the well-organized anthology Media, Consciousness, and Culture: Explorations of Walter Ong’s Thought, edited by Bruce E. Gronbeck, Thomas J. Farrell, and Paul A. Soukup (1991, pp. 194-209).
Our contemporary secondary oral culture emerged in our Western cultural history around 1960. What is known is known in America as second wave feminism emerged in our contemporary secondary oral culture in the United States.
When Tramp ran for president of the United States of America in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. She was a second-wave feminist – and a symbol of second-wave feminism. In Trump’s 2016 campaign, he used the expression “political correctness” to rally his MAGA followers against Hillary Clinton and against second-wave feminism. Trump and his millions of MAGA supporters defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
In Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate was a black woman, Vice President Kamala Harris. But she was not a symbol of second-wave feminism. In addition, the expression “political correctness” was not still commonly used in 2024. Therefore, trump had to use a variety of other ways to signal his longstanding misogyny to his rallygoers.
Now, the Jungian analyst Edward C. Whitmont published the perceptive book Return of the Goddess (1982). By the expression “return of the goddess,” he means the comparative surfacing at the archetypal level of the collective unconscious in the human psyche.
This comparative surfacing of resonances at the archetypal level means at a “proximity” and in a new way that once again allows some interaction with ego-consciousness in the human psyche.
You see, in the centuries-long dominance of the visual orientation of ego-consciousness in our Western cultural history under the influence of phonetic alphabetic writing developed in ancient Greek culture and in ancient Hebrew culture, and then further strengthened in the print culture that emerged in our Western cultural history after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in Europe in the mid-1450s, there was a comparative “distancing” and “silencing” of the archetypal level of the human psyche vis-a-vis ego-consciousness.
In any event, at the level of ego-consciousness, second-wave feminism is a manifestation of what Whitmont refers to as the return of the goddess in the human psyche to interacting with and influencing ego-consciousness.
Now, I would align what Whitmont refers to as the return of the goddess in the human psyche – and the return of the goddess in the human psyche interacting with ego-consciousness, but not overthrowing ego-consciousness in a psychotic episode – with what the Jungian analyst Erich Neumann describes as stage seven of the eight stages of consciousness in his book The Origins and History of Consciousness (1954). In Ong’s big 1971 collection titled Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture, he succinctly sums up the eight stages of consciousness that Neumann discusses in his 1954 book:
“The stages of psychic development as treated by Neumann are successively (1) the infantile undifferentiated self-contained whole symbolized by the uroboros (tail-eater), the serpent with it tail in its mouth, as well as be other circular or global mythological figures [including Nietzsche’s imagery about the eternal return?], (2) the Great Mother (the impersonal womb from which each human infant, male or female, comes, the impersonal femininity which may swallow him [or her] up again), (3) the separation of the world parents (the principle of opposites, differentiation, possibility of change, (4) the birth of the hero (rise of masculinity and of the personalized ego) with its sequels in (5) the slaying of the mother (fight with the dragon: victory over primal creative but consuming femininity, chthonic forces), and (6) the slaying of the father (symbol of thwarting obstruction of individual achievement, [thwarting] what is new), (7) the freeing of the captive (liberation of the ego from endogamous [i.e., “married” within one’s psyche] kinship libido and the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness), and finally (8) the transformation (new unity in self-conscious individualization, higher masculinity, expressed primordially in the Osiris myth but today entering new phases with heightened individualism [such as Nietzsche’s overman] – or, more properly, personalism – of modern man [sic])” (Ong, 1971, pp. 10-11).
I know, I know, Ong here aligns personalism, presumably including the personalism of his own mature work, with stage eight of the eight stages of consciousness that Neumann describes. I have no quarrel with that alignment. Nevertheless, I align what Whitmont refers to as the return of the goddess in the human psyche with what Neumann describes as stage seven of the eight stages of consciousness – “the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness” (in Ong’s words).
Ong also sums up Neumann’s Jungian account of the eight stages of consciousness in his (Ong’s) book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (1981, pp. 18-19; but also see the “Index” for further references to Neumann [p. 228]), the published version of Ong’s 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University.
Now, this brings us back now to Trump and his misogyny and his MAGA supporters over the last decade or so in our American culture. To spell out the obvious, Trump and his MAGA supporters have not yet experienced what Neumann refers to as stage seven of the eight stages of consciousness. Simply stated, Trump’s MAGA supporters are not ready psychologically to elect a woman as the president of the United States of America.
Now, in 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden received a record number of votes in defeating then-President Trump. However, in 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris did not receive as many votes in 2024 as Biden received in 2020. It appears that some Americans who voted from Biden in 2020 switched and voted for Trump in 2024.
In all honesty, I know of no way that the Democratic Party could possibly help Trump’s MAGA supporters move from stage six in the eight stages of consciousness that Neumann describes to stage seven. Frankly, I do not know how Trump’s MAGA supporters could help themselves move from stage six to stage seven. Even if I were to consider only one person who is firmly entrenched in stage six, I could not tell that one person how to help himself or herself to move to stage seven.
Incidentally, stage seven in Neumann’s Jungian account of the eight stages of consciousness is the equivalent of stage seven of the eight Freudian psycho-sexual stages that Erik H. Erikson discusses in his short summative book The Life Cycle Completed: A Review (1982). According to Erikson, stage seven is characterized by what he refers to as generativity (e.g., p. 32). For Erikson, generativity “encompasses procreativity, productivity, and creativity” (p. 67; his italics). No doubt generativity, as Erikson conceives it, is a great personal virtue.
No doubt individual Democrats can cultivate the personal virtue of generativity.
But the Democratic Party as a broad coalition of individual persons now needs to cultivate something new to recapture its broad appeal to the American people after Trump’s enormous 2024 victory over the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
In any event, in the 2024 presidential campaign, the Democrats made preserving our American experiment if representative democracy an issue. They claimed that Trump represents a serious existential threat to our American experiment if representative democracy.
Therefore, it now remains for me to locate our American experiment in representative democracy in terms of Ong’s thought about media ecology in out Western cultural history.
In Ong’s “Preface” in his big 1977 collection of essays titled Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (pp. 9-13), he spells out explicitly the relationist thesis that he works with in his mature works from the early 1950s onward:
Ong says the following in the first sentence: “The present volume carries forward work in two earlier volume by the same author, The Presence of the Word (1967) and Rhetoric Romance, and Technology (1971).” He then discusses these two earlier volumes.
Then Ong says, “The thesis of these two earlier works is sweeping, but it is not reductionist, as reviewers and commentators, so far as I know, have all generously recognized: the works do not maintain that the evolution from primary orality through writing and print to an electronic culture, which produces secondary orality, causes or explain everything in human culture and consciousness. Rather, the thesis is relationist: major developments, and very likely even all major developments, in culture and consciousness are related, often in unexpected intimacy, to the evolution of the word from primary orality to its present state. But the relationships are varied and complex, with cause and effect often difficult to distinguish” (page 9-10).
Thus, Ong himself claims (1) that his thesis is “sweeping” but (2) that the shifts do not “cause or explain everything in human culture and consciousness” and (3) that the shifts are related to “major developments, and very likely even all major developments, in culture and consciousness.”
Major cultural developments include the rise of modern science, the rise of modern capitalism, the rise of representative democracy in the United States and elsewhere in the Western world, the rise of the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of the Romantic Movement in philosophy, literature, and the arts.
In effect, Ong implicitly works with this thesis in his massively researched book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (1958) – his major exploration of the influence of the Gutenberg printing press that emerged in the mid-1450s.
Next in Ong’s 1977 “Preface,” he explains certain lines of investigation that he further develops in Interfaces of the Word. Then he says, “At a few points, I refer in passing to the work of French and other European structuralists – variously psychoanalytic, phenomenological, linguistic, or anthropological in cast” (p. 10). Ong liked to characterize his own thought as phenomenological and personalist in cast. In the lengthy subtitle of my book Walter Ong’s contributions to Cultural /studies; The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (2000), mentioned above, I honor both of Ong’s characterizations of this mature thought as phenomenological and personalist.
Now, please note just how careful and cagey Ong’s wording is when he says that his account of the evolution of certain changes does not “explain everything in human culture and consciousness” – or every cause.
On the one hand, Ong’s terminology about primary oral culture (and primary orality, for short; and his earlier terminology about primarily oral culture) is sweeping inasmuch as it refers to all of our pre-historic human ancestors.
On the other hand, his cagey remark about sorting out cause and effect does not automatically rule out the possibility that certain changes somehow contributed to the eventual historical development of writing systems and specifically phonetic alphabetic writing (= literacy) as well as to the historical development of human settlement in agriculture (or agrarian) societies and economies.
Now, just to be clear here, the four masculine archetypes of maturity are in all human psyches, just as the four corresponding feminine archetypes of maturity are in all human psyches. According to Robert Moore’s theory of the archetypes of maturity, each of the eight archetypes of maturity has two associated bipolar “shadow” forms but only one optimal and positive form.
Now, as I write the present short essay, I am primarily accessing the optimal and positive form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity in my psyche. Because the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity is in all human psyches, I hope that both men and women may read the present short essay and draw fruit from the present essay.
No doubt, in my case, my infatuation with Father Walter Ong’s thought from the fall semester of 1964 onward in my adult life enabled me to learn from his excellent example how to access the optimal and positive form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in my psyche.
Now, I have drawn of Robert Moore’s thought about the eight archetypes of maturity in the human psyche in the following five recent OEN articles:
(1) “Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette on Boy Psychology” (dated September 8, 2024).
(2) “Robert Moore on Optimal Human Psychological Development” (dated September 17, 2024).
(3) “Thomas J. Farrell’s Encore on Robert Moore” (dated October 10, 2024).
(4) “Pope Francis’ New 2024 Encyclical” (dated November 1, 2024).
(5) “Thomas J. Farrell’s Encore on Trump’s Male MAGA Supporters” (dated November 6, 2024).
Even though my 2,100-word OEN article “Thomas J. Farrell’s Encore on Trump’s Male MAGA Supporters” was published on November 6, 2024, I wrote it on November 5, 2024, the day of the election.
Now, after I wrote my 2,100-word OEN article “Thomas J. Farrell’s Encore on Trump’s Male MAGA Supporters,” I subsequently revised and expanded it into my 4,000-word essay titled “Probe: Trump’s Ardent Male MAGA Supporters, and Walter J. Ong’s Thought” in the Fall 2024 issue of the online journal New Explorations: Studies in Culture and Communication.
The present essay is the expanded version of a short essay titled “Thomas J. Farrell’s Encore Jungian Profile of Trump” that I submitted for consideration for publication online at www.opednews.com. I wrote it after the election on November 5, 2024.
Since the election on November 5, 2024, I have read cogent analyses of Trump in the following three articles in The New York Times: (1) Maureen Dowd’s short article titled “It’s This Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” (an allusion to James Brown’s song “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World”; dated November 6, 2024).
(2) Ezra Klein’s exceedingly long article titled “The Book That Predicted the 2024 Election” (dated November 9, 2024).
(3) Roger Cohen’s long article with a long title titled “The Long Global Trail of Resentment Behind Trump’s Resurrection: Disillusionment with the world that emerged from the Cold War has fueled a long-gathering revolt against the established order” (dated November 8, 2024).
Now, in Maureen Dowd’s article dated November 6, 2024, she gives Trump credit where she thinks credit is due. She says, “[Trump] bonds with his supporters by talking to them in an intimate, spontaneous, confessional way, unlike typical politicians who offer speech chunks. Trump does not have many, if any, close friends. But he talks to rallygoers – many of whom rightly feel that Democratic elites have treated them with disdain – as though they were his friends.
“He is a billionaire whose life is gilded, yet he is able to make his supporters feel that he is their cheerleader in a world where they are having trouble affording food and housing. . . .
“Thet think he is fun to be with and says things they have on their minds but don’t have the nerve to say.”
As a result, his supporters are infatuated with him!
Now, the book touted in the headline of Ezra Klein’s November 9, 2024, article is longtime Republican pollster’s Patrick Ruffini’s Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP (2023). Yes, a multiracial coalition of voters voted President-elect Trump into office again in 2024.
Now, in the long subtitle Roger Cohen’s long article of November 8, 2024, he refers to the “long-gathering revolt against the established order” established post-1945 (that is, after the end of the Second World War). Wow! Roger Cohen is attributing a global perspective to Trump’s foreign policy populist grievances (rather than ascribing them to a conspiracy theory)!
Now, in two of my recent OEN articles in which I discussed Robert Moore’s thought about the eight archetypes of maturity in the human psyche, I have mentioned the men and women who perform sex acts in porn videos. Both the men and the women who perform sex acts in porn videos are exhibitionistic – but most ordinary people are not exhibitionistic.
The exhibitionistic women who perform sex acts in porn videos are mainlining The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the feminine lover archetype in their psyches – and the exhibitionistic men who perform sex acts in porn videos are mainlining The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the masculine Lover archetype in their psyches.
Now, the millions of young boys and men of all ages, including me, who take pleasure in watching exhibitionistic women perform sex acts in porn videos are also mainlining The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the feminine Lover archetype in their psyches.
But the feminists who decry porn videos featuring exhibitionistic women performing sex acts are mainlining The Impotent Lover “shadow” form of the feminine Lover archetype in their psyches.
Conversely, the sex-positive feminists who do not denounce porn videos featuring exhibitionistic women performing sex acts, such as Camille Paglia, are mainlining The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the feminine Lover archetype in their psyches.
Camille Paglia is most widely known for her challenging book Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson – a kind of erotic history of Wester cultural history (1990).
Now, compared to the feminists in these two competing groups of feminists, I have no idea how many American women today are mainlining The Impotent Lover “shadow” form of the feminine Lover archetype in their psyches, just as I have no idea how many American women today are mainlining The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the feminine Lover archetype in their psyches.
When Trump ran against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, she was a celebrated feminist. In 2016, political correctness was a well-known expression that Trump used to signal his opposition to feminism. His opposition to feminism was consistent with his long history of misogyny. However, in 2024, the expression political correctness was no longer as popular as it had been by 2026, and so Trump signaled his misogyny is various other ways than simply invoking the expression political correctness. Trump’s most ardent male MAGA supporters in 2016 and in 2024 appear to have been comfortable with his long history of misogyny.
Now, see how the contra-sexual psychodynamic works? This example serves to illustrate the basic contra-sexual psychodynamic that I will discuss further below.
In my earlier short and widely read OEN article titled “A Jungian Profile of Trump” (dated August 26, 2017), I drew of Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s 1990 book, mentioned above, to profile Trump primarily as an immature trickster figure. In my 2017 Jungian profile of then-President Trump, I say that he represents “the immature trickster “shadow” form” of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in his psyche (quoting from Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s 1990 book, esp. p. 17 and 28-33).
“I would say that the trickster is also the dominant immature masculine “shadow” form in the psyches of Trump’s most fervent supporters – men and women.”
Now, according to Father Ong, Odysseus in the Homeric epic The Odyssey is a trickster figure.
In other words, I profiled Trump in 2017 primarily in terms of The Detached Manipulator “shadow” form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in the human psyche.
Now, because Trump was elected to be the new president of the United States starting in late January 2025, by such an enormous margin, I now want to work up a full profile of Trump in terms of all four masculine archetypes of maturity. Remember that all four masculine archetypes of maturity are not only in the psyches of all boys and men, but also in the psyches of all girls and women.
Regarding the King archetype of maturity, Trump is mainlining The Tyrant “shadow” form of the King archetype of maturity in all human psyches. The bipolar other “shadow” form of the King archetype of maturity is The Weakling “shadow” form. Now, in effect, Trump typically diminishes men that he does not like as weaklings – thereby calling to mind the very imagery that Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette use to characterize one of the two associated bipolar “shadow” forms of the King archetype of maturity in the human psyche.
According to Robert Moore’s theory of the eight archetypes of maturity in the human psyche, the Queen archetype of maturity in the human psyche is associated with two associated bipolar “shadow” forms: (1) The Tyrant “shadow” form, and (2) The Weakling “shadow” form.
Now, even though Vice President Kamala Harris was effective in her one and only debate with Trump, her overall campaign strategy was to avoid projecting The Tyrant “shadow” form of the Queen archetype in the human psyche — because Trump was already projecting The Tyrant “shadow” form of the King archetype in the human psyche. As a result, Kamala Harris, in her overall campaign, came across as projecting The Weakling “shadow” form of the Queen archetype in the human psyche. But this did not make Kamala Harris an especially attractive and alluring candidate for president of the United States.
But having said this about Kamala Harris’ overall campaign, I now need to return to my observation about her impressive performance against Trump in their one and only debate. Kamala Harris is a trained lawyer and an experienced prosecutor. In her one and only debate with Trump, she was impressive because she was mainlining The Tyrant “shadow” form of the Queen archetype in her psyche.
In other words, Kamala Harris tends to switch, at time rapidly, from mainlining The Tyrant “shadow” form of the Queen archetype in her psyche to mainlining The Weakling “shadow form of the Queen archetype in her psyche.
It would be wonderful if Kamala Harris could now learn how to access the one optimal and positive form of the Queen archetype in her psyche.
Unfortunately, I cannot think of an example of a real-life woman or of a woman in literature who embodies the optimal and positive form of the Queen archetype in the human psyche.
In some of my recent OEN articles, I have written about the beautiful and busty (37”) young Lynda Carter’s portrayal of Wonder Woman in the 1970s Wonder Woman television series. However, in that television series, Wonder Woman is presented as a princess, not a queen. Her mother is the queen.
Regarding the Queen archetype in Wonder Woman’s psyche, she flashes all three forms in various television episodes:
(1) The Tyrant “shadow” form on the Queen archetype in her psyche;
(2) The Weakling “shadow” form of the Queen archetype in her psyche;
(3) the optimal and positive form of the Queen archetype in her psyche.
However, with respect to the other three feminine archetypes of maturity in Wonder Woman’s psyche, she, across all episodes of the 1970s television series, consistently manifests the optimal and positive forms of the feminine Warrior/Knight archetype in her psyche, the optimal and positive form of the feminine Magician/Shaman archetype in her psyche, and the optimal and positive form of the feminine Lover archetype in her psyche.
But I have to stress here that I am characterizing Wonder Woman in the 1970s Wonder Woman television series, not the original comic book character created in the early 1940s by the Harvard psychologist William Moulton Marston (1893-1947) and drawn by Harry G. Peter (1880-1958). Yes, that’s right, the attractive and busty female comic book superhero character and her revealing costume were created by a man and drawn by another man in the 1940s. In this respect, we could say that Wonder Woman the comic-book superheroine is a male fantasy – that is, a project from the male psyche.
Ah, but the male psyche, like the female psyche, includes the four feminine archetypes of maturity, as well as the four masculine archetypes of maturity. Consequently, the Wonder Woman comic-book superheroine could appeal to young girls such as young Gloria Steinem and women of all ages as well as to young boys and men of all ages.
In any event, the attractive and busty (37”) young Lynda Carter whose tall and slim gloriously beautiful body was not a male fantasy but the body a real-life Hollywood actress who gloried in playing Wonder Woman in the 1970s Wonder Woman television series which was nationally broadcast on network television from 1976 to 1979 – after second-wave feminism had emerged in American culture. Ah, but did young Hillary Rodham (born on October 26, 1977) watch the 1970s Wonder Woman television series – years before she became publicly identified with second-wave feminism and political correctness?
The classic study of the history of the original Wonder Woman comic-book superheroine is Jill Lepore’s book titled The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2014).
For further discussion of Wonder Woman in the 1970s television series, see my OEN article “Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman” (dated September 3, 2024).
But also see my subsequent OEN article “Thomas J. Farrell’s Encore on Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman” (dated September 30, 2024).
Now, for a perceptive and at time eloquent account of the 1970s Wonder Woman television series starring young Lynda Carter, see Ian Boucher’s article “Casting a Wider Lasso: An Analysis of the Cultural Dismissal of Wonder Woman Through Her 1975-1979 Television Series” in The Popular Culture Review (2018).
Now, regarding the masculine Warrior/Knight archetype of maturity in the human psyche, Trump is mainlining The Sadist “shadow” form of the masculine Warrior/Knight archetype of maturity. Trump’s longstanding misogyny has been noted frequently. Trump’s misogyny is a manifestation of his mainlining The Sadist “shadow” form of the masculine Warrior/Knight archetype in his psyche.
Regarding the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in the human psyche, Trump is mainlining The Detached Manipulator “shadow” form of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity.
Regarding the masculine Lover archetype in the human psyche, Trump is mainlining The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the masculine Lover archetype. Trump’s longstanding misogyny is also a manifestation of his mainlining The Addicted Lover “shadow” form of the masculine Lover archetype in his psyche.
Now, Trump’s many male supporters were and are drawn to him because they are also mainlining the same four “shadow’ forms of the four masculine archetypes in their psyches.
Trump’s numerous women supporters were and are drawn to him because they are mainlining the same four “shadow” forms of the four masculine archetypes of maturity in their psyches.
Now, so much for profile Trump and his many American supporters.
I would suggest that you might want to try profiling yourself. You see, you could have, for example, all four of the characteristics I have here described Trump as having – except in your case you are not a politician or a public figure, and you tend to support liberal/progressive policies and programs. C’est la vie.
However, by constructing a profile of yourself, you may also be able to identify areas of personal growth that you need to work on in the future.
From my brief discussion of the contra-sexual psychodynamic, you should be able to construct the profile of your contra-sexual archetypes of maturity in your psyche. For example, if you are a man who enjoys watching women perform sex acts in porn videos, you are mainlining feminine The Addicted Lover “shadow” form in your psyche.
From there, if you are a man, you should be able to use other women you admire to identify certain traits you like in them and then match up those traits with the thumbnail characterizations of the three other feminine archetypes of maturity in the human psyche and their respective “shadow” forms that I have highlighted above.
If you are a man, remember that profile of the “shadow” forms of the four feminine archetypes of maturity that you construct for your own psyche are most likely identical to the “shadow” forms of the four masculine archetypes of maturity for you and your own personal profile.
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