You have enormous, almost magical power. Here’s how to access it

This is how to awaken the Mage within

Jun 26, 2024

You can listen to this piece on TikTok (Part I, Part II), Instagram (Part I, Part II) and YouTube (Part I, Part II).

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There is an evil in this world that is bigger and badder than Death itself and you have the power to overcome it. But do you know how to wield it?

Welcome to the journey of the Mage. The Mage is the last, and therefore most powerful, of the six archetypal journeys that map onto human life. Each of these journeys see the character transform from one archetype to the next.

The Mage’s journey, which we're exploring today, is not about becoming the Mage, but about arcing out of Mage and into… Well that's where it gets tricky. As the final archetype in the series, the Mage is arcing into death.

As with all the archetypal character arcs, the Mage's mission will see them face two archetypal antagonists (or baddies), as well as the threat of two shadow archetypes that could rise up and take hold of the Mage. Finally, there is also the transition from a lie to a truth. We start out believing something unhelpful, negative or disempowering about how the world works and the real pot of gold at the end of the journey is to trade in that lie for an empowering, contrasting truth.

Above all else, the lie vs truth is the acid test – this is how we really know if we've made it. And because it can be so transformative, I'd like to challenge you to see if you can work out the Mage's lie and truth as I explain the arc.

The Mage's journey

The Mage's journey is a mission that takes place in the symbolic setting of the Cosmos. As the last of the six archetypal character arcs, the Mage's story is about finishing things off and tying up loose ends. Have they lived a good life? And will the Kingdom be safe in the Mage's absence?

Crucially, the Mage is not considering their legacy (horrible word) here. They are not trying to leave behind a world that will remember them or even miss them. The Mage's concern is simply to leave the world a better place than the one they were born into.

To have officially reached the Mage's arc requires a character – or a person – to have successfully completed all the arcs that precede it, without having fallen prey to any of the shadow archetypes along the way.

In other words, true Mages are rare, especially in reality. They're out there, though. They're those wholly authentic, present and embodied people who come out with profoundly sage advice as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Think Maya Angelou or Gandhi.

In fiction, Mage characters are often represented as beings that possess some kind of magic – e.g. Gandalf, Dumbledore and The Oracle in The Matrix. This magic can be seen as an archetypal representation for wisdom itself – the Mage, in other words, has grown so wise over the course of their life that to us mere mortals their insight and knowledge will seem supernatural.

And, as such, these characters can feel a little distant and out-of-reach. They may be portrayed as wanderers – not tied to any community in particular, and somewhat above the concerns of the youngsters. They just float around being wise and magical, like Mary Poppins, for example.

Alternatively, the Mage could show up as a kind of humble, monk-like character who has shed the need for all worldly possessions and is content to sit around being dispassionately wise. Like Yoda.

Either way, their call to adventure is different from the calls they've heard before. This time, they will not embark on a quest to vanquish the Big Bad. Instead, they must accompany another character – perhaps a Warrior, off to kill the Dragon, or the Sovereign facing a Cataclysm – as a mentor and guide.

The Mage's journey
Journey: a Mission
Symbolic setting: the Cosmos

A transition from the Liminal World to the Yonder World
Theme: journeying on; letting go of the trappings of life (achievements, possessions, relationships) in order to move on gracefully; a responsible use of the ultimate power and wisdom

Now, in all their superior wisdom and experience, the Mage will, by necessity, have let go of their attachment to many worldly things already. But they are not entirely ego-free yet. There are still things and people they care about and therefore, there are still temptations and risks for the Mage to traverse before they leave this mortal plain.

The Mage's battle, then, is largely internal. Will they use the wisdom garnered over their long, eventful life to empower and guide those they accompany? Or will they use it in the service of their own selfish goals by controlling and manipulating others in order to get their needs met?

Similar to the Luminary's conundrum, but exaggerated, the Mage's biggest challenge is one of letting go – letting those they love be themselves, letting people make their own mistakes and come to their own conclusions about things.

The rewards of the Mage's journey

This story provides us with a powerful and difficult lesson in empathy, understanding, mutual respect and trust. Unlike a born-again non-smoker or non-drinker, even though the Mage knows how to make an incredibly healthy transition, they must resist the urge to tell people how to live their lives, which invariably means watching those they love harm themselves and say nothing. Ooof! And now you know why they need magic powers.

Rewards/virtues: transcendence, spirituality, ability to let go

It's via this agonising rite of passage that the Mage achieves their spiritual rewards of transcendence and non-attachment.

The Mage's antagonists

Now, if you've been following this series, you'll know that – in order to pass their test in the last arc – the Seer literally befriended the archetypal antagonist of Death, which may leave us wondering what on earth could top it? Can there really be a level of Big Bad that's worse than death?

The answer, unfortunately, is yes, and you have met it in real life, guaranteed.

1. Evil

The Mage's key antagonist – Evil – comes in two forms. Firstly, as its pure and simple self, so abstract that it’s unlikely to be personified in fictional stories. Instead, it tends to show up more energetically, just a badness that exists in the world.

Think: the eye of Sauron in Lord of the Rings…

Or the dark side in Star Wars.

But then there's a much more familiar, tangible way for this baddie to affect us. I love this passage from Weiland's Writing Archetypal Story Arcs, so I'm going to quote it directly:

"By the time the Crone [that's the Seer in our terms] makes peace with Death, it rather seems there is no concept of Evil left to confront. But the wisdom of the Mage sees a bigger picture that, in the earlier arcs, could only be instinctively and incompletely grasped. Perhaps most surprisingly, what the Mage recognizes as Evil is not so much a vast and primal entity, but rather something comparatively "small" — the evil that is the destruction and unhealth in the hearts of humankind.
And so the antagonist the Mage faces, whether portrayed in metaphor or not, is ultimately one he himself cannot defeat. Indeed, the larger part of his arc is centered around the struggle of realizing that to exert his great power in taking control of the situation – and therefore robbing autonomy and choice from the younger denizens of the Kingdom – would be perhaps the greatest evil of all."

So, not only can the Mage not fight their archetypal antagonist, it turns out that they potentially are their own antagonist, should they give in to the temptation of the ego. Which leads us seamlessly into the Mage's second archetypal antagonist: Human Weakness.

2. Human Weakness

This is the potential we all have within us to make damaging mistakes – to act horribly, to do things we deeply regret and hurt those we love the most – and the potential to do these things on purpose, too.

Fictional examples of this antagonist include Cypher's decision to return to the false world of the matrix in The Matrix.

Or Mr Bank's inability to show love to his children in Mary Poppins.

No one is above this kind of thought or instinct. Not even the Mage.

So for this final archetype, then, it's the antagonist that lives within us and within the hearts and minds of those around us that poses the greatest threat. By definition, this villain is undefeatable. To succeed here is not to vanquish, outsmart or even befriend but to learn to fully accept the presence of this inner evil – in the self, without succumbing to it; and in others, without trying to control it.

The Mage's lie vs truth

This brings us back round to the Mage's lie vs truth. Let's see if you guessed them.

The Mage's lie goes like this: "My love must protect others from the difficult journey of life".
And the Mage's contrasting truth is: “True love is transcendent and allows life to unfold.”

True Mages, in real life, are extremely rare. We're talking about enlightenment here: the ability to transcend the whims and desires of the ego so much that we can step back and trust life to follow its course even when someone we love is in intolerable pain.

I don't know about you, but I know I'm not there yet, and I doubt I ever will be in any real sense. But this doesn't mean that we can't learn from the Mage's journey. Any time we're tempted to meddle, sway or outright control others, any time we feel that we have superior knowledge, experience or wisdom, and any time we witness “evil” in the hearts of others, we face the Mage's core test, which is ultimately one of acting from a place of humility and trust.

The Mage's shadow archetypes

If the Mage refuses their call to mentorship and/or succumbs to the Evil urges within themselves, then they will tragically fail at the final hurdle and take on one of the Mage's shadow roles. They will go out not as a Saint who gets to meet the Divine in the Yonder World but as either a greedy, hoarding Miser (at the passive end of this shadow continuum) or as the devastating Dark Adept (at the aggressive end) – the nastiest, lowest and darkest of all the archetypes we're discussing in this series.

1. The Miser – a passive hoarding of power

The Miser exhibits a passive hoarding of the wisdom, knowledge and other resources gleaned over the Mage's long life. Think Ebeneeza Scrooge at the beginning of A Christmas Carol. Reclusive and selfish, the Miser is unable to let go. Instead, they try to take what they have – in their opinion, rightly – earned over the course of their life into the Yonder World of death.

The Miser has failed to overcome the entitlement, victim mindset and bitterness that runs along the entirety of the chain of archetypal antagonists we've been exploring. In the previous arc, the only marginally less powerful Shadow-wielder came about as a result of the Seer's inability to accept the loss of their temporally powerful Sovereign self. Here in the Mage's arc, due to their inability to accept their own mortality and imminent end, the Miser, consumed by their bitterness, directs their anger out into the world, punishing everyone by withholding their potentially life-giving knowledge, wisdom and other valuable resources.

The Miser, essentially, refuses to integrate the difficult truth of this third act – that death itself is not to be feared, but embraced; that they will die, just like everyone else, and that's okay. And because of this refusal, they now appear to be bartering with Death, attempting to buy it off. Of course, we all know this isn't possible, so it's not going to end well for the Miser, unless they change their ways.

“The fear of loss is a path to the dark side. Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy … The shadow of greed that is. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
– Yoda in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)

If the Miser manages this, they will be able to graduate to Mage and complete this final positive change arc, thus ending their life well. But this is no small challenge, not least because as well as the Miser self living in the Mage's psyche, there is also the Dark Adept – the Mage's temptation to turn their power against the kingdom (once again, as a result of their unresolved bitterness).

2. The Dark Adept – an aggressive abuse of power

Here, instead of using their knowledge to further the quest, glory and happiness of others, the Dark Adept decides to use their great strength in one last selfish push for greatness, determined to accumulate as much power as possible before going out with a thunderclap of a bang.

"The Sorcerer has the power to rule but also to obscenely manipulate others via his deep understanding of reality"
– K.M. Weiland, Helping Writers Become Authors podcast

The Dark Adept is a megalomaniacal oppressor who has the "power to rule but also obscenely manipulate others via their deep understanding of reality." Think Saruman the White in The Lord of the Rings. This shadow archetype is the ultimate Villain – evil personified. That is, human weakness personified, as a horribly powerful human being, which beautifully illustrated the paradox at play here: that when it comes to human morality, weakness and power are often one in the same.

Avoiding the Mage's shadow sides

So, how do we avoid the clutches of the Miser and the Dark Adept? As with all of these journeys, it's a case of fully integrating the empowering truth, which for the Mage's journey is this: "True love is transcendent and it allows life to unfold.”

The Mage's quiet but poignant inner battle with both the Miser and Dark Adept, as well as with their own human weakness and ego temptations, serves as a reminder that we all have the potential to do great evil – or great good. And that very often, the difference is in whether we operate from a place of love, acceptance and trust, or whether we allow the shadow forces of greed, fear and anger to lead the way.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
– Yoda, The Phantom Menace

Thank you for reading!

We’re Hazel (ex boxer, therapist and author) and Ellie (ex psychology science writer). We left our jobs to build an interactive narrative app for self-awareness and emotion regulation (Betwixt), which you can try on Android here and on iOS here.