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What is a tactic Orlando uses to deal with depression? Anger. “Above depression and total powerlessness, there is only anger, there is nothing else,” he describes beautifully in “Winning Myself Back,” a smaller seminar/workshop by Orlando.
While this tactic is certainly appropriate in a brutal environment where there is no possibility of (permanently) withdrawing, it is certainly not suitable for maintaining mental health or truly resolving traumas. Instead, you simply get used to lashing out at anything that triggers you and withdrawing into your fantasy world.
But self-reflection (in a good, productive sense)? Really taking a different path, transforming your life, and feeling well, processing traumas? That will certainly not be possible in this way. It is a survival tactic, and not necessarily a bad one. However, it only works well in situations where you are socially superior and others agree with you – but if you are the underdog, the pendulum swings quickly in the other direction.
Of course, unless you are in an action movie and can easily eliminate all your enemies. But let’s be honest: How many of us are in such a situation? And what happens at the end of the fight/war – can you return to a normal life? Or do you remain forever in “warrior mode,” in an eternal struggle for survival?
Iron John and The Count of Monte Cristo say: Eventually, you have to find your way back!
Both are works that Orlando referred to as references in the “Mann-Bewusst-Sein” program. For example, in “Iron John” by Robert Bly, there is a passage that says the following:
“In ancient cultures, it was customary for women and the community to slowly guide a warrior who came out of battle out of this state.”
Robert Bly, Iron John (loosely quoted)
And this hardly ever happens at MM. The girls on the team are apparently very focused on constantly pushing their men, not letting any wounds pass. It’s downright disgusting.
Fight until victory? Good luck with that, guys
Guys, dear “Magick Male warriors”: You are just repressing your depressions. If you need that aggression and the “wild man” to survive, fine. But that is only SURVIVING, and it has so incredibly little to do with life purpose that it makes the pig shudder. You go from victims to perpetrators (see Feel Different, module “Victim Role,” I believe). And eventually, it will hit you hard.
Orlando is just repressing his issues. You are doing it too. And all the fighting will not bring the fulfillment you expect.
