Archetypes and Alchemy in American Politics: What if We Are All the Villain, the Victim, and the Hero?
A Nation at a Crossroads
Whether from assassinations, attempted assassinations, or other politically-motivated shootings, 2025 has been a year in which Americans find themselves reeling from an amplified level of societal violence. This year is revealing a part of our nation’s as well as a human collective-level of wounding that is raw with anger, grief, and fear – of the “other side”. Politically-motivated violence is absolutely tragic and it is revealing where there are rifts and chasms amidst us today. The rhetoric surrounding these horrific acts is also a very sad side being shown to us in the American political culture: accusations, blame, and renewed calls for retribution and revenge and providence of power by one group over another. All of these things are imbalanced and distorted power dynamics rooted in the shadows of the human condition. Roots and core wounds based in as yet unfaced trauma and deeply held misunderstanding. To keep within the political context of this article, a vital piece of this vicious cycle of political violence lives a deeper underlying topic about humanity’s progression: choice. No good, no bad, no ugly judgements, simply a conversation that needs to be had around the choices being made every day in how each of us are perceiving, thinking, projecting, and acting towards others in our world.
When choice is based in love (rather than fear), honesty (rather than avoidance or deceit), and compassion - this is how the godliness in humanity emerges and transforms the world. The great lie and illusion of our existence is that we are separate from one another. That what we do unto others has no consequences back to us.
Jesus Christ said in his sermon on the mount: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also (Matthew 5:38–39, KJV).”
This was not a call to justify equally-measured or elevated violence. His teaching on choice in the face of violence was about spiritual transcendence. Christ was not actually talking about the principle of retribution or merely keeping levels of violence from escalation, he was calling for radical non-retaliation and breaking the cycles of violence altogether. Even in the face of great violent acts and evil doings, His teaching on choice was based in a higher law of Love – choosing love and mercy even when faced with another’s ignorance, hatred, or wrongdoing.
In the spiritual awakening process, the human ego comes face to face with the dark and the light within. What emerges is a willingness to see and admit one’s own wrongdoings, to critically assess and admit there is impact and consequence from one’s choices upon themselves, on others, and that there is a contribution to the collective as well. Along the spiritual awakening journey we come to realize that there are many masks being made visible so we can choose to remove them and no longer let them control the story of our lives. At some point on this journey we can also come to realize none of us are without fault.
Whether subjectively true or not, it is commonly the arch of a human life story to play many roles in our lives and in the lives of others. Each of us have contracts to play big leading roles along with various smaller supporting ones. And in truth, no one is inherently and only, the victim, the villain, nor the hero in any of these. The roles we play can also be referred to as archetypes that are as old as time itself and have always existed outside the operations, choices, and cause and effect of the individual soul. Archetypes are universal patterns and symbolic templates. They represent fundamental human experience and we use them (consciously or unconsciously) to shape how we perceive our world and ourselves. As new information or knowledge provides new perspective for an individual or the collective, we begin to perceive different archetypal roles in our society. Just as one person’s poison is another person’s medicine, one person’s villain is another person’s hero. A single person can be perceived in numerous archetypal roles. And this is possible because the potential for all archetypal templates or roles lives within us.
Because all of fundamental, archetypal human expressions and experiences can be accessed from within us – it’s not the labels we place on one another that matters most. What matters is: 1) questioning whether we actually are on the highest ground to view the clearest, most whole perspectives; and 2) examining our perceptions and the nature and quality of our thoughts about others and how our perceptions are informing our choices towards our fellow brothers and sisters.
The Trap of Divisive Politics
Inherent to humanity’s physical and cultural differentiations has emerged a “belief-lie” of separation emanating from that limit in human perception. This has birthed an element of polarization that has been a growing political trend in the modern era and one that continues to be amplified by American politics. The founding fathers’ vision in the formation of a United States and the drafting of the American Constitution never mentioned political parties or running the country by a two-party system. The two-party system emerged regardless from disagreements in how best to serve and run the Country. In his Farewell Address (1796), Geoge Washington himself warned against the formation of political parties amidst democratically elected delegates. He believed political parties would divide the nation into hostile camps, undermining the virtue of unity and opening the door for corruption and manipulation of power and an “us vs. them” culture. And well, here we are with exactly that sort of political climate.
Today the trend we’re experiencing in American politics is the opposite of a respectful unity and cooperation for the greater good. Instead, we have significantly polarized, extremist political groups and viewpoints. Each party’s values and viewpoints are discussed or presented as the only solution further widening the rifts and fractures in the space between. Without peaceful and respectful dialogue and discussion, the political rhetoric presented on social media, television-based entertainment, and in news platforms contains a significant amount of ungrounded, un-fact checked, mere-opinion and judgement-based wars of words. This charged rhetoric then feeds or fuels unjustifiable violent attacks, murder, or attempted murder by the mentally unstable and unwell few on the fringe.
What we forget amidst charged American politics is that simply because seeds of division have been sown, we do not have to help those seeds grow. Division is not our true state. Separation is not our birthright. It is not what you or I have to choose today. Division is not the fertile ground that President Abraham Lincoln envisioned, nor what hundreds of thousands of Americans in the Civil War spilled blood on the soils of this Country for. Today, like every other day that’s ever been or will ever be, comes from the choices we make toward one another in each new moment.
I was raised in a family culture of liberal values and heated discourse at the dinner table. For what it’s worth, I did once take up the activism pulpit. I still have my views, perspectives, and leanings but the word and energy of politics as we understand and use it today has no context or real traction in my heart’s love, respect, and value for other human beings. I know that in my blood, my bones, my very DNA, that politics does not belong in my relationships with others. Politics originates from the ancient Greek root word politikos, meaning “of, for, or relating to the citizens” and was defined by Aristotle as the art of governing the city-state for the good of the people or community. It’s how societies negotiate who gets what, when, and how groups of people make decisions about the rule of law, leadership, and distribution of shared resources.
Again, politics was intended at an organizing level of City, County, State, or Nation not at the level of how we treat each other individually. What some amongst us and perhaps also some part within each of us easily forgets is that politics is simply one arena in which we view the multi-dimensional world. It does not and should not define the essence of what it means to be human and live and cooperate as a society. Politics was meant to help organize and cooperatively govern an ecosystem of individuals. When it’s used as a vehicle for violence or control of power over others – in any direction, toward any group or individual – that is evil.
The Archetypal Triangle Made Visible: Villain, Victim, Hero
Hermetically speaking, one cannot actually understand one plane or dimension of our existence without examining it’s connection to and context with others. This is called the 2nd Hermetic Principle or The Law of Correspondence. This principle states, “As above, so below; as below, so above...” And to which other philosophers have aptly added “…as within, so without, as the soul, so the Universe.”
In a nutshell, this Universal principle seeks to remind us that everything reflected in our outer world exists also on the planes within us – either in potential or actual energy and form. Large scale, or small, there are also archetypes which exist that allow thought-forms and energies to shape and organize into physical material. As we discussed earlier, amidst the archetypal realms are various dark- and light-casting roles, like two- and three-sided coins. An example of a “dark role” would be the human shadows and masks – sides of the Self or collective which have not yet been brought into the light and made conscious or true. The “victim and villain” roles in human social dynamics would also fall into this dark category. The role of “hero”, an individual or group seeking to bring justice and revelation of higher truth, would be an example of an archetypal-aspect of the light.
Just as Shakespeare coined it, we can observe these quintessential archetypal roles or human-ego aspects in ourselves, in our relationships, and on the world’s stage today. The distinction here to make is not that any one of us is always 100% of the time, in everyone’s life or perspective a victim, a villain, or a hero. As I’ve posed earlier in this article, each of us carries these potentials (and infinitely more) within.
Ultimately, the solution to what resolves seemingly divided political groups or populous will neither be “a life or limb for an eye” nor an “eye for an eye”. And it will not be found by projecting and attaching to a single opinion-based perception and assigning a singular archetypal role to those we disagree with. However, to recognize a higher truth that the vast majority of the time we see the world as we are, not as it actually is – is a profoundly and urgently needed first step. If you only see venom, hate, and a vile, villainous role for our “adversaries” and those on the opposite political spectrum from us – what does that say about the state of what lies within your own soul?
The solution is not to tie or pull on the noose of fear, guilt, and shame for another’s harmful act that might also hang ourselves in the process. Our solutions to division exist in the willingness to lay down the traps and weaponry of our ego-perceptions – the filters of self-identity, fear, attachment, and separation. The solution begins by choosing the virtuous tools of love, listening, and a higher level of understanding so we can forgive. So we can peacefully honor the divinity and dignity of every being no matter the wrong- or right-doing. We still need to anchor into what is just but we do not have to do that with hate in our hearts.
It is to some extent the karmic chain of past choices that have led us to our current socio-political climate. But we have the opportunities and agency in this very moment (and the next one) to break those chains and admit we may not know or see the whole picture alone. This is why we need each other, why we are all here together on the planet today. Solutions will come from being willing to seek higher ground within larger context and perspective and to offer loving, caring, kind, and respectful words and acts to each other. Perspectives and actions based in the universal principles which govern and shape our reality and which are based in love – this is where we, as divine- and human-beings discover who we actually are. We are not who we actually are amidst the polarity swings of politics – but in the love we can offer each other. This is where we will find our brighter, illuminated, more peaceful and justice-filled world.
The Middle Pillar Path: Alchemy and Balance in American Politics
The path of Hermetic Ray Universal Kabbalah teaches that there is a universal, cosmic structure to life and creation and the various rhythms and flows of energy. Within this structure there is a Left Pillar of Severity and a Right Pillar of Mercy. Sourcing ourselves too far left – we become the vengeful tyrants or the villainous overlords at the high cost of our own souls. Too far right and we become meek victims trapped under-the-thumb of forces we have little to no will and agency for creating change. On the extreme ends of a polarity actually exists more similarities than differences as both far left and far right extremes end up in a sort of “hellish” state and out of touch with their own peace and way to being self-mastery that also creates peace and prosperity to the world.
Contained within the sacred Kabbalistic teachings of the Tree of the Life there is also what is called the Middle Pillar, or the pillar of Mildness. This pillar teaches us moderation of thought and action and guides us to anchor into higher truths and perspectives so we have discernment before taking actions and in order to grow, mature, and spiritually ascend through the ladder-like integration of the polarities, opposites, and extremes within the human soul. A ladder of learning through working with potential and actual energies of light (conscious awareness) and darkness (unconsciousness or shadow).
The journey of the Kabbalist is to become a conscious explorer and observer of the cause and effect and “good and evil fruits” of one’s thoughts, words, feelings, emotions, and actions. This is embarked upon through the study of the knowledge of polarities – vices and virtues, logic and intuition, mind and emotion, the energies of feminine and masculine, and so forth. In this way, a Kabbalist, or really anyone if well guided, can learn the path of the Middle Pillar. It is the path of moderation and balance. And can be applied in order to perceive and discern the world in a more clear and balanced way and to guide one’s actions in the world accordingly.
Additionally, the ancient art and science of Alchemy shows us that true transformation (rather than illusory change) arises from the tension between extremes through the uniting or bridging of opposites.
Through this kind of lens, one can take a view or stance that divisive politics is not our solution but it is serving a purpose or a role. And when we are ready to be open and curious, and willing to come together to listen, to communicate respectfully, and cooperate amidst different groups and each other our solutions will emerge. Extraordinary opportunities can come from tensions between political groups, polarities of thought, and opposing viewpoints.
Extreme left-right politics may bring about a certain level of breakdown in a society, but it can also give birth to a Middle Pillar path of moderation, synthesis, unified populous, and representative government for the people.
Choice as the Marker of Spiritual Evolution in Politics
From the plane of the individual, even if we pick up a gun or other weapon, we do not control or change the whole political system for the better. Nor do we wield any of the true transformative power we seek when we wield weapons of hate, blame, or disdain. If these are our weapons of choice, we have not entered the pulpit of righteousness, but a prison of our own making. From that place we are choosing to become the villains we seek to destroy and the victims we seek to save.
You and I can choose how we treat each other and our brothers and sisters across aisles and political groups or spectrums – this is the power, the free will, we were given in coming here. You and I can choose to respond with respect and dignity, even when we strongly disagree – because we will. Disagreement is inevitable. In lieu of choosing the self-inflicted chains of hate and violence, choosing love and respect towards our political opposites would actually be an evidential exercise of the highest personal and political freedom. It is our choices grounded in love, truth, compassion, and restraint from violence—that reveals the dignity and divinity within our humanity.
Diversity as the Raw Material of a United States
The reality of physical life on earth is that ecosystems thrive as diverse individual elements and organisms co-existing in a dynamic dance of balance. And that diversity is actually a key to that dynamic balance within an ecosystem. Just as ecosystems thrive on cooperative diversity, so do societies thrive on differing perspectives, voices, and values, all being honored and given voice and agency. It is not our differences that destroy us; it is the approach of contempt, hate, blame, and attack to create a desired change that does. Democracy – rule by the people, for the people – thrives when societies honor differences and diversity of thought, belief, religion, culture, value, and in America in particular, free speech and the checks and balances of the power dynamics within governing and judiciary offices.
The Call to Conscious Citizenship
Today’s political divisions and dramas are actually some of the loudest calls from Spirit for each of us to awaken to personal and collective conscious choice in how we contribute to our transformative evolution. In a political context, these things are also a call to what I would phrase as conscious citizenship. You and I are not a red state, a blue state, a Country, or a religious or other political faction. You and I are not our cultural heritage or any geo-political identity. You and I are souls. You and I are eternal. You and I are divine beings having a different but shared physical experience. And, we are participating in an epic story playing out on the world’s stage, writing history as we go along, together.
Citizenship is certainly a mask or a hat we can choose to don in service to our City and State – to participate in the governing of our societies. Citizenship is defined and most often used in applying legality status to certain people in certain places; however, citizenship is also about a lived practice with a civic dimension. Citizenship is active participation in the common good – based in engaging in dialogue, respecting the rights of all people, and then contributing to society’s well-being in meaningful ways that produce fruits that can feed and serve all, not only a few.
To ascend an even higher arch, to don the role of heroes and heroines of our world also does mean becoming conscious citizens. Conscious citizenship is the Middle Pillar path and it means you are engaging and living in the world, but not necessary of it. Meaning, a conscious citizen is neither consumed, avoiding, distracted by, nor taken off-center or out of balance by the external polarities of political containers and other types of power dynamics within society.
Remember, that none of us are inherently the victims, villains, or heroes of our collective story – all of us are all of them all at once. We project and amplify any archetype of our choosing when we embody and anchor them through our thoughts, our words, and our choices every day. The future of an enduring, peaceful, vibrant and free democratic society depends not on pendulum swinging extremism and constant violent reactivity to opposing views or world events. Our transcendent peace and prosperity will only be built upon a foundation of everyday choices anchored in our own integrities with truthfulness, trust, forgiveness, courage, kindness, respect for differences, and the willingness to be of service to one another no matter who “the other” is.
Which role do you choose to embody and project into the world today?