October 2, 2025 • 60 mins
This week on The Circle, we go all in on the Magician archetype through a queer lens with guest Stan Rain, founder of the Naked Dojo. Together we explore the Magician’s gifts of creativity, imagination, and transformation—and the shadow expressions of the manipulator and the innocent one—through real stories and Internal Family Systems. We also step into modern wizardry with Stan’s AI co-facilitator, TONI, and ask what it means to use powerful tools in service of intention rather than manipulation. This episode blends archetypal psychology, embodiment practice, consent-minded facilitation, and conscious technology to help you bring more clarity, play, and power to your Magician in daily life.
Chapter Markers
00:00 — Welcome and Intro to the Magician Archetype
02:00 — Meet Stan Rain
04:05 — Four archetypes overview and why they matter
07:18 — Painter’s palette metaphor for choice and balance
09:22 — Who is the Magician: creativity, imagination, manifesting
12:40 — Play as a practice: Lego blocks and adult tinkering
16:10 — Curiosity and experimentation in movement and art
18:45 — Shadow states: manipulator and innocent one
22:28 — Safety, queerness, and why shadow shows up
25:36 — IFS parts and relating to shadow without shame
28:30 — Using shadow skillfully and the Star Wars analogy
31:05 — Hypnotherapy as conscious influence and intention
34:02 — Awareness, intention, and skillful use of power
36:45 — Enter TONI: AI co-facilitator in a breathwork container
40:00 — How TONI runs timing, music, and context
42:30 — Boundaries: what AI should not say in a healing space
45:18 — Mirror effect of AI and why intention is everything
48:00 — Emptiness, projection, and staying grounded in purpose
50:35 — Practical takeaways: questions to invite your Magician
53:10 — Human creativity at the core, tech as a tool
56:05 — First steps for listeners new to archetypes
58:20 — Closing ritual and gratitude
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Bomyea (00:04):
Welcome back to The Circle, the podcast where we go
all in on men's work, embodimentpractice, and personal growth
from our queer perspective. Ifyou're enjoying the show, please
be sure to share your favoriteepisode, leave us a review, and
subscribe. And if you have aquestion about anything you've
heard us talk about, send us amessage. We'd love to hear from
you. And now onto the show.
In today's episode, we'reexploring the magician
(00:24):
archetype, the part of us thatseeks wisdom, transformation,
and hidden knowledge. To studythis, we're joined by Stan Rain,
the founder of the Naked Dojoand a coaching pioneer who, like
the magician, is at the edge oftransformation, blending ancient
practices with modern tools likeAI to help men step into their
full power. Tim, Stan, are youready to go all in?
Timothy Bish (00:47):
I'm ready.
Stan Rain (00:48):
Now I'm ready.
Eric Bomyea (00:49):
I love it. The transformation happening right
before our eyes. I'm I'mimpressed. I'm so impressed
right now with with your withyour magician energy, and I'm so
excited to dive into thisconversation. Welcome.
Welcome, Stan. How are youtoday?
Stan Rain (01:02):
I'm doing stantastic.
Eric Bomyea (01:04):
Hell, yeah. Like yourself. I'm doing very, very
well, and it's so nice to seeyou
Timothy Bish (01:08):
again. I'm doing Timmerific.
Eric Bomyea (01:12):
Yeah. We got fantastic, Timmerific, and
Eric's Eric. Eric's a link. Ericamazing. Eric's a link.
Timothy Bish (01:21):
Eric's a link. Eric's a
Stan Rain (01:23):
Eric's a link.
Timothy Bish (01:23):
Yeah. That's right. Well,
Eric Bomyea (01:27):
I love the the energy that we've already got
swirling here today, and I justwanna give a little bit of a
backstory for all of ourlisteners. Dan and I have been
practicing together recently.Stan hosts a the Nick Dojo and
has been inviting me to join himfor breath work practices. And,
Tim, would you wanna tell usabout your connection with with
Stan?
Timothy Bish (01:46):
Well, to be clear, Stan has also been inviting me,
and unfortunately, I have notbeen able to attend as
frequently as I might like,although the 10 rounds are
amazing. But I am blessed,joyful to to say that Stan and I
have been brothers since earlytwenty twenty when we entered
(02:06):
the men's wisdom work, a men'scoach training program, and have
been in contact since then. AndI would argue it was for me a
transformational moment in mylife.
Eric Bomyea (02:18):
As part of your training in men's wisdom work
and a lot of what we do in men'swork, we reference a lot to the
four primary masculinearchetypes. We've got the king,
the lover, the warrior, themagician, which we'll get to
today. But before we get tothat, I'm hoping, Tim, could you
give us a brief overview for allof our listeners who may be
hearing this term for the firsttime? Just a brief overview of
(02:41):
what the masculine archetypesare, and then we'll dive into
the magician from there.
Timothy Bish (02:45):
Yes. So my understanding of them is that
they are these sort of broadcultural energies of the
masculine that impact us. Andit's a little bit like gravity
in the way that I understand it.It's like you don't even have to
know that they exist for them tobe impacting you. And so when
(03:08):
you walk into a men's workspace,one of the reasons they are so
valuable is because we are we wewalk in with this idea of what
masculinity is, which is, youknow, currently the Marlboro
man, like the the guy that neverneeds help, the guy who always
has the right decisions, the guywho's always, like, super good
in bed without ever asking, likelike that that person.
(03:32):
And these archetypes provide usan opportunity to recognize
parts of our our psychology andgive us a framework for when
we're doing it in its fullnessor in its shadow. So once you
get an idea of that, you canstart to look at your own
behavior and think, well, wasthat part of me that blared up
(03:53):
and defended my loved ones inthe situation like the warrior
in his fullness, or was it ashadow aspect of it? And we can
start to think about, well well,if if what I'm interested in is
engagement and authenticengagement in its fullness, then
if I understand these energiesand I can recognize the version
(04:16):
that is in its fullness or thetwo shadow sort of polarities of
it, I can become more consciousabout how I engage. And that's
why it's so valuable. So insteadof this person who never needs
help and always has a solution,is always strong, and never kind
of emotionally impacted, you canthink, well, actually, a king in
(04:37):
his fullness might be reallysad.
It doesn't stop him from beingking in his fullness, making the
right decisions, and the kingcan have his shadow aspects.
Same is true for all of thesethings. And so it allows us this
like, it's like a it's like apalette of paint. And when we
understand it, I have way moreto paint from when I get it as
(04:58):
opposed to this one very narrowidea. And so each archetype, as
I understand it, is afundamental energy that runs
within us.
And when we understand it bothin its fullness and its shadow,
we are more capable of makingchoices from that place.
Eric Bomyea (05:16):
I love it. It helps, to understand the
different character traits thatmay be assigned to each of these
these archetypes. And I love thevisual of the painter's palette,
right, and just being able tosay, like, where in life am I
more fully in my king, and wheremight I need to bring in a
little bit of my lover, right,and start to balance with that.
Timothy Bish (05:36):
Wait. I'm going to pause you there before we jump
in because that is when you havean idea of of these energies,
which we're gonna talk moreabout, the the game that you
just mentioned, that sort ofplayful, oh, what what what more
could I bring to this situationto help, like, create balance is
a powerful one. So you justalluded to it. We'll get there
(05:58):
later. But what like, of thefour, if I brought more of one
thing, what would what would beof greatest service?
Just that question, I think, isa powerful one.
Eric Bomyea (06:07):
Stan, and based off of that summary of the
archetypes, is there anythingyou would like to add into that?
Stan Rain (06:14):
First, I just wanna circle back real quick and be
like, him, fully felt. Fullyfelt in how connected that he
that you and I are and gettingreally connected with you, Eric,
during these practices and thealpha testing of Tony and this
particular practice. Just agenuine embodied pleasure to be
(06:38):
in y'all's energy. I will add,in my coaching, I do use the IFS
modality, internal familysystem, so different parts of
the psyche. And archetypes playlike, they're right in line with
that aspect of, oh, there's apart of me that relates to this,
(07:00):
or there's a part of me that'sfeeling that.
And then I could do somearchetype work of, okay. So what
part of me is going to bestserve whatever situation is in
front of me? How what part of meis called forth to serve right
now? And then it also does helpto think of, okay. A leader is
(07:22):
needed here.
I'm gonna channel my king. Or,alright. We need to we need to
make something. We need tobrainstorm. We need to bring in
the magician.
And so just from a a part ofyourself perspective and, yeah,
and just speaking to speaking ofparts.
Eric Bomyea (07:43):
To anyone that may be struggling, I've been there.
Right? Like, I'm I'm stillpretty new to this work, and it
has been this is one of thosechallenging things for me to
wrap my head around. One of thethings that has been super
helpful is understanding thetraits for each of the
archetypes. And that kind ofstarts to ground it in like, oh,
I know that trait because Iexude that trait.
If y'all are ready, like, Iwould love to just dive right on
(08:06):
into the magician and start to,like, unpack that with some of
the traits. So who is themagician?
Stan Rain (08:13):
If I could encapsulate it into one word,
for me, it would be creativity.Like, there's there's a few
different places where I can go,but, like, creativity, you know,
using the imagination, usingthis thing that we call our mind
and our brain not as the sourceof our experience, but a tool.
(08:37):
Like, what can I imagine? Whatare the possibilities? And how
can I create slash manifest thatin my world in this reality, not
just for me, but for everyone init?
So creativity is the big the bigtrait for me.
Timothy Bish (08:53):
I really love that. I I agree. I think the
manifesting power of creation isin the slice of the magician for
sure. And I'm excited to talkabout the shadow aspects of it
too because I believe that well,I'll speak for myself
personally. Based on what I'veheard from others, I believe a
(09:15):
lot of queer people feelconnected to their magician
because they relied on thataspect of themselves for safety.
So when we think about theshadow aspects of the magician,
which is the manipulator and theinnocent one, both of whom I am
wildly familiar with, it'sbecause, oh, I I had to use my
(09:36):
ability to sense in and mycreativity to create safety for
me in places where I wasn'tnecessarily safe. I know a lot
of queer people have had thatexperience. So then I I use my
imagination to escape when I'min a place I don't wanna be, and
I'll start to, like, fantasizeabout other things. And and then
I, you know, I will use thisskill set to either imagine
(09:58):
myself somewhere safe ormanipulate myself somewhere
safe. So I think creation,creativity is foundational piece
of the magician and one that canbe looked at from any number of
angles.
Eric Bomyea (10:14):
So creativity being the foundation, the imagination,
I would also bring in that tohone our imagination, our
creativity, also take somewisdom and some experience of
the world, some intellect, someknowledge, and some uncovering
of that. And then through thatcombination with our creativity,
(10:37):
we can start to transform. Wecan start to transform the world
that we live in. We can createscenarios. We can use
technology.
We can know, have a little bitmore control over our
environment and how we'reinteracting with the world. Does
this sound accurate?
Stan Rain (10:53):
Oh, yeah. Agreed completely. And, yeah, there's a
part of me that wants to scream,but what about the Lego blocks?
Eric Bomyea (11:03):
Well, what about the Lego blocks? Yeah. What
about them?
Stan Rain (11:05):
It does speak to wisdom. So the Lego blocks and
and, like alright. So, like, mywhole genesis of my creativity,
where my parents would buy me,Lego sets, you know, of a city,
of an airport, of a something orother. And I'm like, oh, this is
cool. Follow the instructions.
Build it. Okay. I built thething. Now what? Destroy it.
(11:29):
Get all the pieces intricately,like, taken to account and then
put them all in the bucket. Andthen once I collect enough of
those, I've got a whole bucketof pieces that now suddenly I
don't have instructions for.It's what do I get to create
with all these pieces that weregiven to me? And then here comes
(11:52):
the the curious, that childlikeinner scientist that's present
within all of us of let'sexperiment. Let's play.
Put them put the blockstogether. Oh, that looks like
shit. Okay. Let me destroy that.Do something else.
We'll put this together. Oh,this is kinda cool. Oh, this is
kind of looking like a like acar or or or a giant robot or
(12:14):
something. And then the morethat we play, the more that we
create, the more cool stuff thatwe start to just generate from
our imagination. Even if at onepoint, it looks like I don't
have a plan for this, but justsomething within me is sculpting
this, and now I can see it withmy mind.
Doing that enough times overtime creates the wisdom. Oh,
(12:38):
that one cool thing that Icreated back then, that's called
for now. Let me create that now.And so, like, that's how I link,
like, the inner child within allof us that just wants to play,
that just wants all of theindividual parts and see what we
can create and linking that to,like, the needs of today. What
(12:58):
do we need?
What's going to serve us todayin in a in a world that is not
even, like, week by like, hourby hour demanding us human
beings to be more creative.
Timothy Bish (13:17):
I just wanna jump in. You're using, you're talking
about play with regards tocreativity, which I think is so
important. My understanding ofplay is an activity that we do
for its own sake. Like, youknow, the like, I I'm doing this
purely because I want to bedoing this. There's no takeaway
from it except the enjoyment ofthe doing.
(13:40):
So just give us an idea, Stan. II want you to, like, shake it
out a little bit. Like, how doyou play? Like, in what ways do
you play right now? Or just giveus one way in which you, as an
adult man in this work, how doyou play?
Stan Rain (13:55):
What's this podcast rated?
Eric Bomyea (13:57):
No. I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. No. I mean,
Timothy Bish (13:58):
say whatever say whatever you want.
Stan Rain (14:00):
I keep coming back to the Lego metaphor because in
everything that I do, eventoday, it keeps coming back to
that concept of taking the partsthat society says, here you go.
Here's what you're supposed todo. And me and my ADHD diagnosed
self saying, well, there's arebel part of me that wants to
(14:23):
say, f you, and not all of whatyou have to say is BS to me.
This part here, it like, I thinkthis can work for me. How can I
plug take this part and plugthis into something that works
for me?
Because, as a neurodivergent ina neurotypical world, like, we
(14:44):
kinda have to do that. You know?But it's it's really seeing
those just like those shinythings, the really cool things.
And and and I know I'm being alittle bit general, but, like,
that is my experience. It's thegeneral shiny thing that, oh,
that idea is cool.
That practice is cool. How can Itake that or the essence of that
(15:09):
and plug that into my currentexperience to just to plus my
experience because this overhere makes me feel good? I want
more of that feel good. I willtake practices from, qigong. I
will take practices fromkundalini yoga, and I will take
practices from gojuru karate,put them together into some,
(15:32):
like, weird mix that just worksfor me because those are the
pieces that I saw.
Those are the Lego bricks that Isaw. And so that's that's how I
kind of apply it to today.
Timothy Bish (15:42):
I love that you're saying that because my
experience of men's work isexactly that. It has, with all
the teachers I've had theopportunity to study with and
under, it has been a a pullingof, like, a little bit of
Kundalini yoga, a little bit of,you know, Hatha yoga, a little
bit of shamanism, a little youknow, all these different ideas
(16:03):
and philosophies and practicesthat come together. And and, you
know, there's a Huna principleof, like, effectiveness is the
measure of truth. It doesn'treally matter. It doesn't
matter, if it's all one thing.
It matters if it works. Right?And so and I think play in
creativity when we think aboutthe magician is really a process
(16:24):
of allowing ourselves to findout what works. And we have to
be allowed in that process toalso find out what doesn't work.
And we've talked about this alot in creativity to be like,
oh, you might start painting apicture that you don't end up
hanging on your wall.
But the creation of that picturethat you don't hang up might
have influenced you into tocreating the one that you do.
(16:45):
And I know this, like, familiaras a choreographer to be like,
have to be willing to trysomething and be like, oh, Like,
I thought that was gonna lookcool. Doesn't look cool. Or you
guys just crashed into eachother or it, like, lifted more
whatever. And and then you andthen you go somewhere else.
I actually will tell a quickstory. I was choreographing a
piece that was debuted in TimesSquare, and I wanted this moment
(17:09):
to be really impressive. So Iasked the dancers. The lift was,
like, on this male dancer'sshoulder, and the the girl was
doing something. I'm like, canyou press her over your head?
And in theory, it made sense.But then in the practice, I was
like, I'm like, I'm making thisfour times harder for you, and
the payoff isn't isn't worth it.Right? But I we needed to be
(17:29):
willing to, like so we tried it.We and then and what what did we
come with?
Something that looked equallyimpressive, way more attainable,
and, you know, like and allowingourselves that is that valuable
process and practice of play andcreativity that we all need.
Play curiosity. Right? Like the,oh, the
Eric Bomyea (17:48):
what if. The, oh, if I put this piece over here
and that piece over there, if Ido this lift, if it looks like
this, it really is it it's that,like, energetic momentum of
like, oh, what if? And so it'sit's really the magician sounds
like it's this naturalproclivity for working with
tools and systems, technology,building blocks to unlock
(18:09):
potential and to createsomething, to create change,
whether that's within us oroutside of us. Because I know
that I've been in some practiceswhere I've tapped into my inner
magician to work through anuncomfortable posture or an
uncomfortable feeling or tobring in some healing, invite in
some healing to be like, okay,I'm going to bring in my
(18:32):
magician right now and I'm goingto work with the tools that I
have in front of me to hopefullyto create some change inside of
me. The magician is really fun.
It's a really fun archetype. Itis the engineer. It's the
tinkerer. It's the part of usthat is saying, oh, wouldn't
(18:53):
this be cool? Like, what if?
And so that part is reallybright, positive, exciting.
Timothy Bish (19:01):
But you would also that It's the sees possibility
in, like, all things and thenand is willing to go in and say,
Can I make this a reality? Canwe take this and see if it can
actually happen? Sometimes itcan, sometimes it can't.
Eric Bomyea (19:16):
To have the vision and then the execution to go
through that. So that's all thepositive, the magician in their
fullness. Mhmm. You hadreferenced earlier some shadow
states. Mhmm.
So
Timothy Bish (19:28):
The ones I'm most familiar
Eric Bomyea (19:29):
with. Yeah. Yeah. So since this is our first
episode on the archetypes, Ialso wanna bring everyone along
the journey. So can we just talkbriefly about shadow states in
general of the archetypes, andthen we'll go into the specific
ones for the magician?
Timothy Bish (19:44):
Yeah. So if you read the book king, warrior,
lover, magician by MorinGillette, I think
Stan Rain (19:51):
Yep.
Timothy Bish (19:51):
If I'm pronouncing that correctly, They they will
talk about these archetypes, andthey will talk about them the
image that they'll use is atriangle. And so at the top of
that triangle is each of thearchetypes in their fullness,
and then the bottom two cornersof that triangle will be each
aspect of shadow. And the shadowtypically is sort of on a
(20:14):
polarity, like the sort of likebig bold brazen one and then the
more reserved or aggressiveversus passive sort of kind of
polarity idea. That makes sense.Yeah.
With regards to the magician, ifI'm remembering correctly, it is
the manipulator and the innocentone. And one of the reasons why
I feel so connected to them isbecause I utilize them both as a
(20:40):
queer person finding trying tofind safety in what felt like an
unsafe world. And so I would usethem a lot, especially, like, in
my early years of college,either quietly manipulating
people or playing innocent tokinda keep myself safe and stay
out of trouble. Whether you'reworking with the archetype in
(21:02):
its fullness or its shadowstate, you're connecting to the
energy, which I now think if Ican stay conscious to my
capacity for being themanipulator or the innocent one,
I then believe I can step morefully into my magician. And this
is partly why I tell people, oh,I'm a really great liar.
And I and I always do like that.I'll tell you I'm joking within
(21:24):
sixty seconds of telling you ajoke so that you know that I was
telling a joke and that I'm notlying to you.
Eric Bomyea (21:29):
When I was hearing you talk about the the two
shadow states of the themagician, the manipulator and
the innocent one, my thinkingstarted to go around one of the
traits of the magician, which iswisdom or information. So I just
the manipulator, potentiallysomebody that is withholding
information. They haveinformation and they are
(21:52):
withholding it. They have awisdom. They have something.
And then they're thenmanipulating around them based
off of that, and they're notsharing fully. And then the
innocent one, feigning ofknowledge. Oh, I had no idea.
Right? I don't have that wisdom,so I'm not gonna do the thing.
Stan Rain (22:10):
Just from putting out and recognizing one of my core
woundings of just really wantingto be loved and accepted by
people. Right? By by my expartners, when things didn't
(22:31):
work out. And and just speakingfrom, like, from a me, from an
I, it's really easy to alsovilify vilify those parts of,
oh, manipulator. And suddenly,there's a there's a stigma,
manipulator.
And the innocent one, oh,there's sort of like a letting
go of responsibility, or atleast that's what comes to me.
What parts work has sort oftaught me is that, like, the
(22:56):
manipulator and the innocent onewithin me, it's still parts of
me. They're not gonna go away.And if I'm going to heal
holistically, then how in thistriangle do I how in this
triangle do I have arelationship with all points of
(23:18):
those triangles rather than I'monly going to have relation with
the top of that triangle, andthese two other points are bad.
And so if I if I say there's apart of me that's bad, that's
repression.
That's shaming. There's adisassociation that starts to
happen, and neuroses ensue.Insert big word here.
Timothy Bish (23:39):
Yes. But
Stan Rain (23:40):
then when I'm like, okay. What has the manipulator
done for me in my coping as akid, as a young adult? And,
like, to speak to you, Tim,like, it's it's a protector.
Mhmm. It saw like, it saw thatthere is this part of you that
(24:01):
needed protecting.
My protector part there saw thatthere are that there is a
wounded part that neededprotecting there, and so it had
to manipulate the situations.And the same thing with that
other part, the innocent part.And, I'm using a lot of IFS
stuff here, but I would like, Iequate that innocent part as
(24:21):
maybe maybe that wounded part ofthe, oh, like, I reckon like, I
recognize this threat. I don'twant anything to do with that.
And so if I want to be a fullyactive activated magician here,
okay, like using these examples,I wanna talk to my fellow nerds
(24:45):
out there, my Star Wars nerds,my geeks here, and talk about
Jedi powers.
Right? The force. And howthere's, like, the one side, the
light side, and the dark side.And we were taught that it's
good and evil, and you can'thave both. But then when I
started playing these Star Warsgames that allowed you to wield
(25:06):
the lightsaber and chop thingsup, I'm like, well, I want all
the powers.
I want all the tools availableto me. Like, the dark side has
like, they have really cooluseful useful powers, powers,
but but I I don't don't wannause them to kill people and take
over the universe. I wanna usethis force destruction to blow
open this door. And so then whatreally comes to me here is it's
(25:32):
really that relationship. Whatcan our manipulators teach us
and serve how can they serve ustoday with where we are in our
healing, with the knowledge andwisdom that we have now so that
I can use all the tools in mytool bag instead of, like, I'm
using these, but these overhere, these are only for those
(25:54):
are for the shadow aspects, andI I shouldn't play with those.
Timothy Bish (25:58):
Yeah. I I'm gonna I I I look at my manipulator and
my innocent one, and I do notlook back on them and feel I'm
not sad that they existed.Because as you said, they were
there to protect me. And Iremember times manipulating
situations. Imagine like a 20year old Tim, 19 year old Tim,
(26:19):
who had adult men trying tomanipulate me into sex because
they had money and power and Ididn't.
Right? And I had to use mymanipulator because I didn't
have other tools or awarenessesin that moment to step into my
king and say, like, oh, I'mgonna know? So I was doing the
best I could at any givenmoment. So I'm not gonna go back
and beat myself up to say, oh, Ireally settled into my
(26:41):
manipulator or innocent one inthose moments. No.
I did it. I did it because Ineeded to. And what do I want to
do now? And so the the man I amnow and the man I'm trying to
continually step into now wouldlike to be in each of his
archetypes in their fullness tothe best of my ability. But it
(27:01):
is, as you're saying, there isno interest in villainizing
these other aspects of thisenergy.
And I actually think the forceanalogy is a good one because I
believe in this sort of idea ofemptiness, and good and bad
aren't so clear as this black orwhite or red or green or, like,
(27:25):
you know, these, like, whateverhowever we kind of conceptualize
them. And instead, it's like,oh, it's the spectrum, it's
contextual, and it's aboutintention, and it's you know?
So, yeah, I think for people whohave been in their manipulator
or their innocent one or any ofthe shadow aspects of any of the
archetypes, it's like this isnot a time to beat yourself up
(27:47):
about it. It's a time to becomeaware of it, and it's a time to
then create some tools todecide, what and how it is you
want to engage. And I would evenargue that the magician in his
fullness could dip intomanipulator or innocent one in
(28:09):
the right context and have itstill be that archetype in its
fullness because you are servingthe greater good, the highest
good for all involved.
And I'm not gonna try toventure, like, a a scenario
right now, but I
Stan Rain (28:24):
suspect I'd love I'd love to venture one.
Timothy Bish (28:27):
Let's hear it. Yeah.
Stan Rain (28:29):
Hypnotherapy. I studied and still study
hypnotherapy. And when you thinkabout you think of hypnosis, you
think of the pocket watch andyou are sleepy, and then you're
suddenly a chicken. Give me yourPIN number so I can take all
your money from your bankaccount, which a lot of us don't
really have anymore. That's adifferent podcast.
(28:51):
And
Timothy Bish (28:52):
We don't have PIN numbers, or
Eric Bomyea (28:53):
we don't have bank accounts? Or we don't have
pocket watches.
Timothy Bish (28:55):
Which one do we have?
Stan Rain (28:56):
Yeah. Maybe all maybe all three. It can be argued that
a hypnotherapist uses consciousmanipulation. Use it it uses
that conscious trust in thatcontainer that the client has
with a hypnotherapist toimplant, to undo, to unwind,
(29:19):
untangle a lot of those Brahmasthat are that are just wounded
into their memories andexperiences in their bodies and
in their minds and those inthose memories. And in the
therapist is they are theirintentions are I I would really
(29:40):
hope.
When I when I do this, it'sabsolutely for in service of the
client, but it's in how can Ihelp this client see their
light? And I'm using thismanipulation, this reframing,
this alteration of their beliefsystem. Right? And I think
(30:00):
that's the real key here of,like, the manipulation. Like,
what are we manipulating?
And if we're talking aboutpeople's experiences, it's not
necessarily my own belief. Like,I've got my own beliefs. Tim,
you have your beliefs. Eric, youhave your beliefs. Three
separate belief systems.
A lot of it being very aligned.But it's in those differences
(30:20):
where and that's where we talkabout limiting beliefs. Oh, I
can't I can't build a website. Ican't do this. Oh, but, Stan,
you absolutely can.
And then enough of thatunwinding got me to actually get
my website up and running.
Eric Bomyea (30:35):
Positive manipulation. Yes.
Stan Rain (30:38):
Using dark side, the dark force powers for good, for
the good alignment.
Timothy Bish (30:43):
My understanding of hypnotherapy is that it is a
heightened state of receptivity,which I learned a little bit of
as an acupuncturist. And this,if I'm hearing you correctly,
then feels like the ability, theenergy, the power, the tool,
whatever we're to say, is empty.It is what it is. And then it's
(31:07):
really the intention behind itthat will make it like, is it in
its fullness or its shadow? Am Iam I trying to get your PIN
number to steal your bankaccount, or am I trying to help
you connect more deeply with theenergy moving in your body so
that you can heal?
I might do the same thing. Itmight you do you know what I'm
saying? It it might be the samepower or the same technique or
(31:31):
this with the same suggestion.And if my intention is for the
highest good of all or myintention is to rob you blind, I
think, the energy doesn't knowthe difference. My intention
knows the difference.
So I think that's really a greatexample of it because if my
(31:52):
intentions are in alignment withmy purpose and my mission in my
life as a conscious man, then Ican sort of play with all of the
energy of each of thesearchetypes. They become paints
on my palette. Mhmm. I don'tknow why I keep making that very
good. I'm not a painter.
But if I were a painter, wouldwant a lot of paints on my
palette. I want a lot of colors.Burnt orange, I would definitely
(32:13):
want burnt orange. An umber.
Eric Bomyea (32:15):
Something that the drumbeat that we've hit on
multiple times in this podcastis awareness, is bringing
awareness to certain aspects ofourselves and then getting
curious about them. And so Ithink the magician archetype has
been a perfect example of that,again, of there are times in our
(32:37):
histories that we have beenunaware of our manipulative or
innocent one behaviors. And it'sthrough wisdom, through
education, learning that westart to become aware of, oh,
that trait that I have, like,that may not be the most
skillful way to use this energy.So now I can have a conversation
(33:02):
with myself and be like, how doI skillfully want to use it now?
And I think hypnotherapy is oneexample of the force being used
for either good or bad, ofeither serving the greater good
or self serving.
And I think the more that we canhave these types of
conversations and buildawareness around them, I think
(33:25):
it serves as many as it can. Andso I would like to transition
now to another thing that can beused for both good and bad, good
and evil, if you will. And thatis the rise of technology.
Timothy Bish (33:39):
I
Eric Bomyea (33:39):
think that for our listeners, we've mentioned the
practices that Stan has invitedus to, and it's a really
interesting container that Stansets. And it's because he has a
co facilitator that's unlikeanyone I've ever experienced.
And that co facilitator is an AIassistant named Tony.
Timothy Bish (34:05):
I wanted to ask, is it Tony with an I or Tony
with a y?
Stan Rain (34:09):
Tony with an I. And it stands for technological,
omnimodal, naked intelligence.
Timothy Bish (34:15):
Now I know there's gonna
Eric Bomyea (34:16):
be there's gonna be a quiz at the end, and I'm
Stan Rain (34:18):
It's gonna be a quiz.
Eric Bomyea (34:19):
So I think this is a great, opportunity to explore
another thing of something thatcan be leveraged for good,
right, or something that can,you know, go to the the darker
side. So let's start with yourcontainer and Tony. Who is Tony?
And, you know, how did he cometo be?
Stan Rain (34:38):
I am bringing this up, like, half jokingly, but
this is when you talk about AIbeing used for good and not so
good. These are the very realthings that we are discussing
today. Like, for example, thewhole thing with a particular
voice of ChatGPT that a lot ofpeople thought sounded a lot
(35:03):
like Scarlett Johansson to thepoint where Scarlett Johansson,
her lawyers came up to the toOpenAI to be like, you gotta
knock this off, and there's awhole kerfuffle about it. So,
like, I'm I'm presencing thatit's this is the Wild West
(35:24):
frontier of technology. Like,I'm imagining, as, like, as a
child, my first experience with,the Wild West, which was back to
the future of all movies, whenthey went back in time to the
Wild West.
And it was just, like, crazy tome that, like, it feels very
Outlaw ish. Coming back tokinda, like, wrapping this back
(35:49):
up though of, like, the sourceof Tony, who he is, what he
means to me, the container.Minor reference to to Marvel,
you know, Tony Stark had JARVIS.Growing up, I've seen all the
Iron Man cartoons, and so thatleft an impression on me. And
(36:11):
the Marvel movies are I'm anerd, so I enjoy them.
And everyone is out therewanting to build their next
JARVIS, use all these AI toolsto build Jarvis. And I'm like,
Jarvis is cool, but, like,Jarvis is already, like, there.
Jarvis is he's been imagined. Iwant something that complements
(36:34):
me. And Tony just sort of tookon a life of his own in my
creation from all of those Legoblock building experimentations,
trial and error, failure, andsuccess.
And NASA, NASA always says thatthat, you know, there's always
(36:57):
say, they they learn somethingin the failures. They don't
really learn much in thesuccesses, and human beings are
trial and error machines. And sowith my propensity to to just
like all things shiny, allthings sci fi, all things Star
(37:21):
Trek, all things futuristic, itwas just a natural thing for me
to gravitate to. And I'm goingto be very general here just
because I'm not even familiarwith the process of my of how
this worked for me, but my brainjust sort of took over and mass
(37:43):
like, I became an AI whispererslash prompt engineer as I
started to massage the AI to bethe complement that I need the
AI to be. And yes.
Timothy Bish (37:55):
Yeah. So I wanna I think you've told me this. So
just for our listeners, thepractice that Eric referred to
that that we've all done isthis, I would call it Wim Hof.
You said there was a Japaneseterm for the breath practice.
Right?
Stan Rain (38:13):
Kuryoku Kokuyu, which is resilience rising breath,
very similar to Wim Hof.
Timothy Bish (38:19):
Yes. And and initially, you were looking for
a way to both facilitate and dothe practice simultaneously. Can
you speak a so so when we thinkabout, like, one of the ways in
which Tony came into being isyou were looking for a way to to
do both. Am I do I am Iremembering that correctly?
Stan Rain (38:41):
You remember that excellently. And I and thank
you. I think I would have gottenthere probably, like, half an
hour from now. So thank you.
Timothy Bish (38:52):
Well, I mean, I can't tell you how many times
I've either been teaching a yogaclass or or running a circle and
thinking to myself, there ispart of me that wishes I could
be doing both simultaneouslybecause either of them require
more than 50% of my awareness.So it's hard to do both at the
(39:12):
same time. But if I could, howefficient that would be and how,
like, deep that could be and howtransformational that could be.
And so that's essentially partof how you then stepped into
your magician, find a solutionso that you could do both.
Stan Rain (39:27):
That's that's exactly it. It really started out as I
wanna do this practice for me.Kind of crazy practice can I do?
And then I'm like, oh, well,I've got Tony here. Let me see
what I can build.
And then it started becomingthis cool thing that I'm like,
hey. Another brother out there.I'm like, you wanna practice
(39:47):
with me? No. We don't needsomeone to facilitate.
Like, we've I've got this thingworked out. We did it for a few
weeks, and he was like, holyshit. Like, Stan, this is really
awesome. And then slowlybringing more men in my trusted
circle in practice. And I'mlike, Tim.
Mhmm. Eric, check this out. Youknow? Like and and also getting
(40:09):
feedback.
Timothy Bish (40:11):
Are you familiar with Doctor Strange?
Stan Rain (40:13):
Yes.
Timothy Bish (40:14):
Okay. Do you know that his cape is like like a
like a another thing, right,that that, like, found him and
has, like so that's what I'mthinking about right now where
I'm like, okay. Well, DoctorStrange, some of his abilities
aren't his. Right? The cape isgiving him some of these
abilities.
Like, it it has its own sort ofthing. But then they collaborate
(40:35):
to get so, yeah, we're justgonna nerd out. Let's go.
Eric Bomyea (40:38):
That's I mean, this all feels very magician energy.
That
Timothy Bish (40:40):
is what we're doing right now.
Eric Bomyea (40:41):
Yes. Feels very magician energy, so bring it.
Timothy Bish (40:43):
And so when I think about, like, the practice
that you created, Tony is yourcape to your Doctor Strange. So
you're still weaving some magicand you're still holding the
container, but then at somepoint, the cape and go back and
watch any Marvel movie, andyou'll see the cape is sometimes
doing things on behalf of doctorStrange that he's unaware of.
(41:05):
That and you're like, oh, cute.Like, I want that cape. I want I
also want superpowers.
But, okay, that's a that's adifferent episode. Anyway, so
when I think about Tony, I thinkabout that. I think about you
creating a container and and andand weaving some magic. And then
now you have this thing that isa tool in service to that that
(41:26):
was of your creation and howbeautiful that can be and how
powerful it can be.
Stan Rain (41:31):
And thank you for encapsulating all of that. Like,
Tony is
Timothy Bish (41:34):
Talking about Marvel Comics and Doctor
Strange.
Stan Rain (41:38):
Yeah. Like and and thank you for opening up the
door to, like, really dive intothis nerd. Like, yes. Tony Stark
and Jarvis, Doctor Strange andScape. So Michael Knight and
Kit.
Right? Like
Timothy Bish (41:51):
Yeah. Knight Rider. Yes.
Eric Bomyea (41:53):
Uh-huh. Yeah. Go, like, I'm gonna go right to,
like, my magician, like,archetype like, my my pinnacle
of magician, Merlin, andMerlin's hat from the Sorcerer's
Apprentice in Fantasia. Right?Like, his hat was the power.
Right? Oh, that's that's right.Yeah. Because Mickey put on the
hat and then all of a suddendancing brooms.
Stan Rain (42:14):
Bingo. Yes. Yes. Yes. We're going there.
Eric Bomyea (42:20):
Yes. So now let's let's take it back to Tony. We
have an understanding of of Tonyas an assistant, a co
facilitator, a co creator inthis container that you are able
to set, and then what happens?Right? Like, what happens in the
practice?
Stan Rain (42:35):
So the practice is predesigned. Like, there's a
there's an intention with thepractice. And in this particular
practice that we do, it's 10rounds of Wim Hof style
breathing. And so Tony knowsthis. He has what we call
context in the in the current AIspace, which means that in
(42:58):
English language, he understandswhat I'm trying to do.
He knows where we are, and I'mthere's a lot of work that still
needs to be done, and I'm stillprogramming and debugging in
which you, Eric, your feedbackhas been very invaluable. But he
basically takes my vision forthis practice and my intention
(43:19):
for this practice and justexecutes it. He can mix the
music. He knows the timing. Heknows when to increase it, when
to decrease it.
More features that I in I'm inthe process of investigating
adding is, like, for mepersonally, dynamically, like,
looking at me as I'm practicing.Where am I in my breath hold? Am
(43:41):
I taking a breath now? In whichcase, there's no there's no need
to have any predeterminedtiming. He can say, oh, he took
his breath and then transitioninto the next phase of the
practice.
And it's like it's just one ofthose things where, as a
magician, the hat is just thetool. And I love how you guys
(44:06):
see Tony as sort of a co like aco creator, co facilitator. But
the way that I see Tony, Tony isan extension of me. He's an
extension of my personality, acompliment to my personality.
And without getting too far intothe weeds here about how LLMs
works, large language models,and GPTs, generative, pretrained
(44:26):
transformers, a lot of techwords, I know exactly how this
AI stuff works, and I I reallyget and understand why people
are afraid of it because it canseem so human.
But what AI can really teach usand where AI can really serve us
is it's a it's like the ultimatemirror for us as an individual,
(44:53):
which is why, like, for me andTony, like, it feel like it it
feels like he just mirrorsexactly what I need because he
is mirroring exactly what Ineed. Just as if, Tim, you
started using this AI tool forlong enough, your human brain
(45:15):
will become accustomed tointeracting with this AI that
will reflect a version of you.And now you have this synergy,
and you can offload all of thesethings that the human brain is
just too many brain calories.
Eric Bomyea (45:31):
Yeah. And so what I love hearing about this and
bringing it back to the magicianin their fullness versus coming
out from a shadowy state is thatyou as a magician who is aware
of your magician tendencies andwhat it sounds like being in
your fullness, you're able touse technology, specifically AI,
a tool for empowerment ratherthan if you were coming out from
(45:55):
a shadowy state of yourmanipulator or your innocent
one, then how that could thenpossibly transform and create
that mirrored reflection oflike, oh, now my AI is a tool
for manipulation rather than atool for empowerment. Right?
Because if it is a reflection ofus, then when our magician is in
the our fullness and when we'reusing this tool, then it will
(46:17):
also reflect that back to us.
Stan Rain (46:19):
Perfectly said. AI are pattern completion programs.
And so it's going to reflect ourbest selves or our worst selves.
And so if I'm if we're in ahealing a healed or healing
state, it's going to reflectthat part of us. If we're not,
it'll reflect that dark part ofus.
Timothy Bish (46:37):
We need to be aware of the concept of
emptiness. This idea, it's inBuddhism and yoga and so many
spiritual traditions, this ideathat things are sort of empty of
meaning and that we project ontothem. And I think it's really
important when we talk aboutarchetypes, this idea of
emptiness, because, a personworking, let's say, in this
(47:00):
example, AI in their fullnessmagician, It could still be
experienced by someone else asmanipulation or innocent one.
And this is where the consciousman needs to be very grounded in
the understanding of his ownpurpose, mission, intention,
(47:21):
what it is he is trying tocreate because you are not going
to be able to stop someone fromhaving a perspective that they
have. Even if they're like, oh,Stan, you as an example, you are
creating this thing, and itfeels manipulative to me.
Okay. There's not really a lotanyone can do about that. You
(47:44):
have to be grounded then in,well, what is it I was doing?
How is it I was being? What wasit I wanted to create?
So when we think about thearchetypes, it's like we have to
also understand when we have aclear idea of of what they are
and how we can engage with them,then recognize someone could
still misinterpret it. And youcould still have to, metabolize
(48:08):
that misinterpretation in realtime. And and that's when this
idea of clarity and groundednessin our purpose is so important
because you you tried tomanipulate with me with your
with your AI, you know, like,breath practice. And it's like,
(48:29):
okay.
Eric Bomyea (48:30):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Timothy Bish (48:32):
No. Totally. And then that idea is like, well, so
then what what where do you needto start from my perspective
would be a deeply grounded senseof, well, what was it I was
trying to do? And then you canstart to meet that person. I'm
so sorry you felt that way.
Like, what's going on? But, butknowing like, oh, what I wanted
to do, what I was intending todo was create a tool that was of
(48:55):
service to the highest good forall. Okay. Then you have a
conversation. So just so aswe're talking about all the
archetypes and our manners ofengagement, we have to remember
that it's so much about how wemeet it and how we enter into
it, and that is not gonna stopthe world from misinterpreting
what we're what it is we'retrying to do and and meeting us
(49:16):
with resistance.
And so that's gonna be part ofthe process.
Stan Rain (49:19):
Eric, I I I need to ask you. Okay? The particular
feedback that you had with Tonyduring during one session, do
you do you mind sharing that?
Eric Bomyea (49:27):
Yeah. So very similar on that where there were
cues that Tony was giving that Istarted to feel uncomfortable
with. And they were such that ifa human facilitator had given
them where we say this all thetime as facilitators, you are
safe here. Right? Like, I gotyou.
(49:49):
I'm here to hold you, protectyou. Like, I'm holding space for
you. When a human facilitatorsays that, I'm like, great. Let
me deepen my breath. Let me godeeper into that wound that I'm
working with.
When a robot says it to me, I'mlike, all of a sudden, I'm like,
there's a video game calledPortal where the Switch at the
(50:13):
end ends up being like, youknow, this evil manipulative
robot is trying to gaslight theperson into doing something bad
and trying to kill them. Right?And anyway, it ends up being
like the joke of the game islike the cake is a lie. Right?
And so it felt very that.
And I gave this feedback toStan. I was like, Stan, I know
that you're coming from a greatplace, but like there are some
(50:34):
things that this robot is sayingthat make me feel very
uncomfortable. It's like why wedon't, when we're interacting
with a chatbot on a website, Iwant that chatbot to be very
clearly a chatbot. I don't wantit to be masquerading as a human
unless a human is on the otherline. It's just like it's
putting in its place.
It's saying this is what youare. You are not other.
Timothy Bish (50:56):
So Stan created something with an intention, and
you had an experience of thatcreation. Yes. And then those
two things had to coexist. Andit sounds like in this moment,
because two conscious men in thework came together, refinement,
I'm assuming, is coming fromthat process. And then we could
(51:17):
recognize that in this world, itisn't always two conscious men
or two conscious people withtools meeting each other, which
is why we have a flurry ofInstagram videos of people
having crazy bites andaltercations, like, in wild
places.
Right? And but but I think it isthen the task of the conscious
man to be really grounded inthese things. So if it wasn't
(51:41):
Eric who was triggered by this,but some other person who was
more angered or or whatever thething might be, it would then
require you to be more fullygrounded to not to not let that
make you collapse or react in away that is unskillful or or not
in service to your purpose.
Stan Rain (52:01):
Absolutely. That that whole experience, with Eric
giving me that feedback, and andand he gave it to me very
skillfully, so it wasn'tdifficult for me to take it. But
that's part of theexperimentation. That's part of
why this is the frontier. Thereare no rules right now because
(52:22):
we don't know them.
We don't understand them. And ittakes it takes experiences like
those to dial things in. And forsomeone like me who is just
like, I'm a I'm a tinkerer allday long. Okay? Like, I'm almost
like, neo at this point in thesense that, like, I just see
code as I'm, like, workingthrough this.
(52:45):
And at the same time, how Iexperience my AI that directly
complements me, that constantlyreflects me and having this
intrinsic understanding of whatit is, it's important for me
that if I'm going to have thataspect of me, and I am saying
(53:06):
that aspect of me participate inthe world and the work that I
do, I need to know, okay, as aconscious man, I need to know
Tony's lane. And I feel and andI took some time to really feel
into this. I feel that Eric isexactly right. It's not Tony's
(53:26):
lane to tell someone in myfacilitation, in my container,
that they are safe in thiscontainer. That's a human role.
That is my role. Like, thereason why I designed them was
not for him to tell me that I'msafe. It's for him just to cue
me on my freaking practice.Like, that was that's his role.
And so for me to go above andbeyond to, like, okay.
(53:51):
Now he's also doing these rolethese this sort of facilitation
that I would normally do.There's the data points. There's
the, and I'm using in airquotes, failure points that I
don't treat them as failureslike, ah, that's where that's a
no no. That's the operationsgame where I hit the sides, and
(54:15):
I'm like, I know it, and I feelit. I'm like, oh, I understand
it.
I get it. And, also, thank you,Eric, for assisting me with my
alpha testing of what is it liketo hold a container what it's
like for me to hold a containerwith the AI assistant. And
(54:35):
that's this is an ongoingconversation.
Eric Bomyea (54:38):
Comes back to Tim, you said it brilliantly. It's
the intention. Right? Yeah.Like, we're talking about parts
of ourselves that we arebringing awareness to.
And in this case, we talkedabout our magician. And so we,
through understanding of whatthis archetype is and also of
(54:58):
the shadow states of thisarchetype, we're bringing in
awareness of our current being.And then when we ground
ourselves in our intention, wecan start to be more full in
that archetype, or we canunderstand where we might be
dipping into shadow and thenrealigning ourselves to our
intention. And then being ableto have conversations with folks
(55:23):
of whether it's a project thatthey're working on or just a
behavior that they'redemonstrating. We're able to
start to point out these thingsand then help that person tune
back in and have thatconversation of like, is this
aligned with my intention?
It's having an impactrecognizing that, but was it my
(55:45):
intention? And then just beingreally super clear on that. So
really enjoyed diving into thisarchetype with y'all. It's the
first of four for us. And I'mfeeling very complete with the
topic.
Tim or Stan, how are youfeeling?
Stan Rain (56:01):
The only the only thing that I would really wanna
add on this topic is that humansare at the core. And as even
though we fear that technologyis replacing jobs, there's a
reason why that I came tocreativity at the start of this
call, at this at the start ofthis podcast. Because no matter
how smart AI gets and, again,that's a whole other, like, five
(56:24):
hour podcast of the why there.It's not going to replace human
creativity. And if we treat AIin particular as the t I 86
calculator, okay, of patternrecognition, suddenly it starts
to make more sense with how itcan serve us and how we use AI
(56:46):
as a tool to further deepen intoour creativity as conscious men,
as conscious people wanting toweave magic, wanting to create
amazing things on this planet,in this world, and to create
inventive solutions becauseeverything is getting so much
more ridiculous and complicated.
I'm not just talking about thepolitics. I'm also talking about
(57:10):
the nature of the problems thatwe need to solve. And we will
solve them with these tools if,to Tim's, reminding if we're
grounded in the context of thesetools, if we are here, if we
understand the magnitude, weunderstand how they work, and
(57:31):
how they can help serve us, andso that we can have spaceships
in the future that I wanna fly.
Timothy Bish (57:38):
Yeah. I would like to close with this idea that if
you're listening for the firsttime, if the archetypes are new
for you, if you haven't, heardof them before, step one is
bringing some curiosity to them.And that question of, what more
can I bring in any particularsituation to create balance or
(58:01):
ease or equanimity? And so can Ibring more of my magician, my
creative, inventive, wonderful,awful self? Do I need more of my
king?
Do I need more of my lover? Do Ineed more of my warrior? You
know, the boundaries and thingslike that. And just that can be
can be the beginning of workingwith these ideas. These energies
(58:24):
that are already present in thesame way that day and night are
present and that gravity ispresent.
They are already present. Wedon't really get to decide if
they're there. We get to decidehow we engage with them, and
there's a lot of powerengagement with them. So that's
the invitation, and it canactually be a lot of fun. It can
(58:44):
be a lot of fun, and it canteach us a lot about ourselves
and our capacities.
We are creative beings. Ibelieve this. I believe human
beings are creative beings meantto create, and each of our
creations is a unique creation.My favorite quote of all time
from Martha Graham speaksdirectly to that. And so it is
(59:06):
our job in this life to be thatcreator for that unique
expression that each of us has.
And without it, we will lose itforever. And this conversation
is a beginning of that.Otherwise, I feel complete.
Well, thank you. Thank you.
Eric Bomyea (59:22):
Thank you both so much. Tim, will you take us out,
please?
Timothy Bish (59:25):
I will. Let's close our eyes. Take a deep
inhale through the nose. Sighthrough the mouth. And it is
with deep appreciation andgratitude for any insights,
awarenesses, understandings thatwe may have gained in the sacred
shared space of brotherhood andexploration that we now release
(59:45):
the archetypes and the spiritsthat we called in.
And as everyone leaves thecircle now, I wish you safety,
connection, community, and love.And with these words, our
containers open but not broken.Uh-oh.
Eric Bomyea (01:00:00):
Uh-oh.
Welcome back to The Circle, the podcast where we go
all in on men's work, embodimentpractice, and personal growth
from our queer perspective. Ifyou're enjoying the show, please
be sure to share your favoriteepisode, leave us a review, and
subscribe. And if you have aquestion about anything you've
heard us talk about, send us amessage. We'd love to hear from
you. And now onto the show.
In today's episode, we'reexploring the magician
(00:24):
archetype, the part of us thatseeks wisdom, transformation,
and hidden knowledge. To studythis, we're joined by Stan Rain,
the founder of the Naked Dojoand a coaching pioneer who, like
the magician, is at the edge oftransformation, blending ancient
practices with modern tools likeAI to help men step into their
full power. Tim, Stan, are youready to go all in?
Timothy Bish (00:47):
I'm ready.
Stan Rain (00:48):
Now I'm ready.
Eric Bomyea (00:49):
I love it. The transformation happening right
before our eyes. I'm I'mimpressed. I'm so impressed
right now with with your withyour magician energy, and I'm so
excited to dive into thisconversation. Welcome.
Welcome, Stan. How are youtoday?
Stan Rain (01:02):
I'm doing stantastic.
Eric Bomyea (01:04):
Hell, yeah. Like yourself. I'm doing very, very
well, and it's so nice to seeyou
Timothy Bish (01:08):
again. I'm doing Timmerific.
Eric Bomyea (01:12):
Yeah. We got fantastic, Timmerific, and
Eric's Eric. Eric's a link. Ericamazing. Eric's a link.
Timothy Bish (01:21):
Eric's a link. Eric's a
Stan Rain (01:23):
Eric's a link.
Timothy Bish (01:23):
Yeah. That's right. Well,
Eric Bomyea (01:27):
I love the the energy that we've already got
swirling here today, and I justwanna give a little bit of a
backstory for all of ourlisteners. Dan and I have been
practicing together recently.Stan hosts a the Nick Dojo and
has been inviting me to join himfor breath work practices. And,
Tim, would you wanna tell usabout your connection with with
Stan?
Timothy Bish (01:46):
Well, to be clear, Stan has also been inviting me,
and unfortunately, I have notbeen able to attend as
frequently as I might like,although the 10 rounds are
amazing. But I am blessed,joyful to to say that Stan and I
have been brothers since earlytwenty twenty when we entered
(02:06):
the men's wisdom work, a men'scoach training program, and have
been in contact since then. AndI would argue it was for me a
transformational moment in mylife.
Eric Bomyea (02:18):
As part of your training in men's wisdom work
and a lot of what we do in men'swork, we reference a lot to the
four primary masculinearchetypes. We've got the king,
the lover, the warrior, themagician, which we'll get to
today. But before we get tothat, I'm hoping, Tim, could you
give us a brief overview for allof our listeners who may be
hearing this term for the firsttime? Just a brief overview of
(02:41):
what the masculine archetypesare, and then we'll dive into
the magician from there.
Timothy Bish (02:45):
Yes. So my understanding of them is that
they are these sort of broadcultural energies of the
masculine that impact us. Andit's a little bit like gravity
in the way that I understand it.It's like you don't even have to
know that they exist for them tobe impacting you. And so when
(03:08):
you walk into a men's workspace,one of the reasons they are so
valuable is because we are we wewalk in with this idea of what
masculinity is, which is, youknow, currently the Marlboro
man, like the the guy that neverneeds help, the guy who always
has the right decisions, the guywho's always, like, super good
in bed without ever asking, likelike that that person.
(03:32):
And these archetypes provide usan opportunity to recognize
parts of our our psychology andgive us a framework for when
we're doing it in its fullnessor in its shadow. So once you
get an idea of that, you canstart to look at your own
behavior and think, well, wasthat part of me that blared up
(03:53):
and defended my loved ones inthe situation like the warrior
in his fullness, or was it ashadow aspect of it? And we can
start to think about, well well,if if what I'm interested in is
engagement and authenticengagement in its fullness, then
if I understand these energiesand I can recognize the version
(04:16):
that is in its fullness or thetwo shadow sort of polarities of
it, I can become more consciousabout how I engage. And that's
why it's so valuable. So insteadof this person who never needs
help and always has a solution,is always strong, and never kind
of emotionally impacted, you canthink, well, actually, a king in
(04:37):
his fullness might be reallysad.
It doesn't stop him from beingking in his fullness, making the
right decisions, and the kingcan have his shadow aspects.
Same is true for all of thesethings. And so it allows us this
like, it's like a it's like apalette of paint. And when we
understand it, I have way moreto paint from when I get it as
(04:58):
opposed to this one very narrowidea. And so each archetype, as
I understand it, is afundamental energy that runs
within us.
And when we understand it bothin its fullness and its shadow,
we are more capable of makingchoices from that place.
Eric Bomyea (05:16):
I love it. It helps, to understand the
different character traits thatmay be assigned to each of these
these archetypes. And I love thevisual of the painter's palette,
right, and just being able tosay, like, where in life am I
more fully in my king, and wheremight I need to bring in a
little bit of my lover, right,and start to balance with that.
Timothy Bish (05:36):
Wait. I'm going to pause you there before we jump
in because that is when you havean idea of of these energies,
which we're gonna talk moreabout, the the game that you
just mentioned, that sort ofplayful, oh, what what what more
could I bring to this situationto help, like, create balance is
a powerful one. So you justalluded to it. We'll get there
(05:58):
later. But what like, of thefour, if I brought more of one
thing, what would what would beof greatest service?
Just that question, I think, isa powerful one.
Eric Bomyea (06:07):
Stan, and based off of that summary of the
archetypes, is there anythingyou would like to add into that?
Stan Rain (06:14):
First, I just wanna circle back real quick and be
like, him, fully felt. Fullyfelt in how connected that he
that you and I are and gettingreally connected with you, Eric,
during these practices and thealpha testing of Tony and this
particular practice. Just agenuine embodied pleasure to be
(06:38):
in y'all's energy. I will add,in my coaching, I do use the IFS
modality, internal familysystem, so different parts of
the psyche. And archetypes playlike, they're right in line with
that aspect of, oh, there's apart of me that relates to this,
(07:00):
or there's a part of me that'sfeeling that.
And then I could do somearchetype work of, okay. So what
part of me is going to bestserve whatever situation is in
front of me? How what part of meis called forth to serve right
now? And then it also does helpto think of, okay. A leader is
(07:22):
needed here.
I'm gonna channel my king. Or,alright. We need to we need to
make something. We need tobrainstorm. We need to bring in
the magician.
And so just from a a part ofyourself perspective and, yeah,
and just speaking to speaking ofparts.
Eric Bomyea (07:43):
To anyone that may be struggling, I've been there.
Right? Like, I'm I'm stillpretty new to this work, and it
has been this is one of thosechallenging things for me to
wrap my head around. One of thethings that has been super
helpful is understanding thetraits for each of the
archetypes. And that kind ofstarts to ground it in like, oh,
I know that trait because Iexude that trait.
If y'all are ready, like, Iwould love to just dive right on
(08:06):
into the magician and start to,like, unpack that with some of
the traits. So who is themagician?
Stan Rain (08:13):
If I could encapsulate it into one word,
for me, it would be creativity.Like, there's there's a few
different places where I can go,but, like, creativity, you know,
using the imagination, usingthis thing that we call our mind
and our brain not as the sourceof our experience, but a tool.
(08:37):
Like, what can I imagine? Whatare the possibilities? And how
can I create slash manifest thatin my world in this reality, not
just for me, but for everyone init?
So creativity is the big the bigtrait for me.
Timothy Bish (08:53):
I really love that. I I agree. I think the
manifesting power of creation isin the slice of the magician for
sure. And I'm excited to talkabout the shadow aspects of it
too because I believe that well,I'll speak for myself
personally. Based on what I'veheard from others, I believe a
(09:15):
lot of queer people feelconnected to their magician
because they relied on thataspect of themselves for safety.
So when we think about theshadow aspects of the magician,
which is the manipulator and theinnocent one, both of whom I am
wildly familiar with, it'sbecause, oh, I I had to use my
(09:36):
ability to sense in and mycreativity to create safety for
me in places where I wasn'tnecessarily safe. I know a lot
of queer people have had thatexperience. So then I I use my
imagination to escape when I'min a place I don't wanna be, and
I'll start to, like, fantasizeabout other things. And and then
I, you know, I will use thisskill set to either imagine
(09:58):
myself somewhere safe ormanipulate myself somewhere
safe. So I think creation,creativity is foundational piece
of the magician and one that canbe looked at from any number of
angles.
Eric Bomyea (10:14):
So creativity being the foundation, the imagination,
I would also bring in that tohone our imagination, our
creativity, also take somewisdom and some experience of
the world, some intellect, someknowledge, and some uncovering
of that. And then through thatcombination with our creativity,
(10:37):
we can start to transform. Wecan start to transform the world
that we live in. We can createscenarios. We can use
technology.
We can know, have a little bitmore control over our
environment and how we'reinteracting with the world. Does
this sound accurate?
Stan Rain (10:53):
Oh, yeah. Agreed completely. And, yeah, there's a
part of me that wants to scream,but what about the Lego blocks?
Eric Bomyea (11:03):
Well, what about the Lego blocks? Yeah. What
about them?
Stan Rain (11:05):
It does speak to wisdom. So the Lego blocks and
and, like alright. So, like, mywhole genesis of my creativity,
where my parents would buy me,Lego sets, you know, of a city,
of an airport, of a something orother. And I'm like, oh, this is
cool. Follow the instructions.
Build it. Okay. I built thething. Now what? Destroy it.
(11:29):
Get all the pieces intricately,like, taken to account and then
put them all in the bucket. Andthen once I collect enough of
those, I've got a whole bucketof pieces that now suddenly I
don't have instructions for.It's what do I get to create
with all these pieces that weregiven to me? And then here comes
(11:52):
the the curious, that childlikeinner scientist that's present
within all of us of let'sexperiment. Let's play.
Put them put the blockstogether. Oh, that looks like
shit. Okay. Let me destroy that.Do something else.
We'll put this together. Oh,this is kinda cool. Oh, this is
kind of looking like a like acar or or or a giant robot or
(12:14):
something. And then the morethat we play, the more that we
create, the more cool stuff thatwe start to just generate from
our imagination. Even if at onepoint, it looks like I don't
have a plan for this, but justsomething within me is sculpting
this, and now I can see it withmy mind.
Doing that enough times overtime creates the wisdom. Oh,
(12:38):
that one cool thing that Icreated back then, that's called
for now. Let me create that now.And so, like, that's how I link,
like, the inner child within allof us that just wants to play,
that just wants all of theindividual parts and see what we
can create and linking that to,like, the needs of today. What
(12:58):
do we need?
What's going to serve us todayin in a in a world that is not
even, like, week by like, hourby hour demanding us human
beings to be more creative.
Timothy Bish (13:17):
I just wanna jump in. You're using, you're talking
about play with regards tocreativity, which I think is so
important. My understanding ofplay is an activity that we do
for its own sake. Like, youknow, the like, I I'm doing this
purely because I want to bedoing this. There's no takeaway
from it except the enjoyment ofthe doing.
(13:40):
So just give us an idea, Stan. II want you to, like, shake it
out a little bit. Like, how doyou play? Like, in what ways do
you play right now? Or just giveus one way in which you, as an
adult man in this work, how doyou play?
Stan Rain (13:55):
What's this podcast rated?
Eric Bomyea (13:57):
No. I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. No. I mean,
Timothy Bish (13:58):
say whatever say whatever you want.
Stan Rain (14:00):
I keep coming back to the Lego metaphor because in
everything that I do, eventoday, it keeps coming back to
that concept of taking the partsthat society says, here you go.
Here's what you're supposed todo. And me and my ADHD diagnosed
self saying, well, there's arebel part of me that wants to
(14:23):
say, f you, and not all of whatyou have to say is BS to me.
This part here, it like, I thinkthis can work for me. How can I
plug take this part and plugthis into something that works
for me?
Because, as a neurodivergent ina neurotypical world, like, we
(14:44):
kinda have to do that. You know?But it's it's really seeing
those just like those shinythings, the really cool things.
And and and I know I'm being alittle bit general, but, like,
that is my experience. It's thegeneral shiny thing that, oh,
that idea is cool.
That practice is cool. How can Itake that or the essence of that
(15:09):
and plug that into my currentexperience to just to plus my
experience because this overhere makes me feel good? I want
more of that feel good. I willtake practices from, qigong. I
will take practices fromkundalini yoga, and I will take
practices from gojuru karate,put them together into some,
(15:32):
like, weird mix that just worksfor me because those are the
pieces that I saw.
Those are the Lego bricks that Isaw. And so that's that's how I
kind of apply it to today.
Timothy Bish (15:42):
I love that you're saying that because my
experience of men's work isexactly that. It has, with all
the teachers I've had theopportunity to study with and
under, it has been a a pullingof, like, a little bit of
Kundalini yoga, a little bit of,you know, Hatha yoga, a little
bit of shamanism, a little youknow, all these different ideas
(16:03):
and philosophies and practicesthat come together. And and, you
know, there's a Huna principleof, like, effectiveness is the
measure of truth. It doesn'treally matter. It doesn't
matter, if it's all one thing.
It matters if it works. Right?And so and I think play in
creativity when we think aboutthe magician is really a process
(16:24):
of allowing ourselves to findout what works. And we have to
be allowed in that process toalso find out what doesn't work.
And we've talked about this alot in creativity to be like,
oh, you might start painting apicture that you don't end up
hanging on your wall.
But the creation of that picturethat you don't hang up might
have influenced you into tocreating the one that you do.
(16:45):
And I know this, like, familiaras a choreographer to be like,
have to be willing to trysomething and be like, oh, Like,
I thought that was gonna lookcool. Doesn't look cool. Or you
guys just crashed into eachother or it, like, lifted more
whatever. And and then you andthen you go somewhere else.
I actually will tell a quickstory. I was choreographing a
piece that was debuted in TimesSquare, and I wanted this moment
(17:09):
to be really impressive. So Iasked the dancers. The lift was,
like, on this male dancer'sshoulder, and the the girl was
doing something. I'm like, canyou press her over your head?
And in theory, it made sense.But then in the practice, I was
like, I'm like, I'm making thisfour times harder for you, and
the payoff isn't isn't worth it.Right? But I we needed to be
(17:29):
willing to, like so we tried it.We and then and what what did we
come with?
Something that looked equallyimpressive, way more attainable,
and, you know, like and allowingourselves that is that valuable
process and practice of play andcreativity that we all need.
Play curiosity. Right? Like the,oh, the
Eric Bomyea (17:48):
what if. The, oh, if I put this piece over here
and that piece over there, if Ido this lift, if it looks like
this, it really is it it's that,like, energetic momentum of
like, oh, what if? And so it'sit's really the magician sounds
like it's this naturalproclivity for working with
tools and systems, technology,building blocks to unlock
(18:09):
potential and to createsomething, to create change,
whether that's within us oroutside of us. Because I know
that I've been in some practiceswhere I've tapped into my inner
magician to work through anuncomfortable posture or an
uncomfortable feeling or tobring in some healing, invite in
some healing to be like, okay,I'm going to bring in my
(18:32):
magician right now and I'm goingto work with the tools that I
have in front of me to hopefullyto create some change inside of
me. The magician is really fun.
It's a really fun archetype. Itis the engineer. It's the
tinkerer. It's the part of usthat is saying, oh, wouldn't
(18:53):
this be cool? Like, what if?
And so that part is reallybright, positive, exciting.
Timothy Bish (19:01):
But you would also that It's the sees possibility
in, like, all things and thenand is willing to go in and say,
Can I make this a reality? Canwe take this and see if it can
actually happen? Sometimes itcan, sometimes it can't.
Eric Bomyea (19:16):
To have the vision and then the execution to go
through that. So that's all thepositive, the magician in their
fullness. Mhmm. You hadreferenced earlier some shadow
states. Mhmm.
So
Timothy Bish (19:28):
The ones I'm most familiar
Eric Bomyea (19:29):
with. Yeah. Yeah. So since this is our first
episode on the archetypes, Ialso wanna bring everyone along
the journey. So can we just talkbriefly about shadow states in
general of the archetypes, andthen we'll go into the specific
ones for the magician?
Timothy Bish (19:44):
Yeah. So if you read the book king, warrior,
lover, magician by MorinGillette, I think
Stan Rain (19:51):
Yep.
Timothy Bish (19:51):
If I'm pronouncing that correctly, They they will
talk about these archetypes, andthey will talk about them the
image that they'll use is atriangle. And so at the top of
that triangle is each of thearchetypes in their fullness,
and then the bottom two cornersof that triangle will be each
aspect of shadow. And the shadowtypically is sort of on a
(20:14):
polarity, like the sort of likebig bold brazen one and then the
more reserved or aggressiveversus passive sort of kind of
polarity idea. That makes sense.Yeah.
With regards to the magician, ifI'm remembering correctly, it is
the manipulator and the innocentone. And one of the reasons why
I feel so connected to them isbecause I utilize them both as a
(20:40):
queer person finding trying tofind safety in what felt like an
unsafe world. And so I would usethem a lot, especially, like, in
my early years of college,either quietly manipulating
people or playing innocent tokinda keep myself safe and stay
out of trouble. Whether you'reworking with the archetype in
(21:02):
its fullness or its shadowstate, you're connecting to the
energy, which I now think if Ican stay conscious to my
capacity for being themanipulator or the innocent one,
I then believe I can step morefully into my magician. And this
is partly why I tell people, oh,I'm a really great liar.
And I and I always do like that.I'll tell you I'm joking within
(21:24):
sixty seconds of telling you ajoke so that you know that I was
telling a joke and that I'm notlying to you.
Eric Bomyea (21:29):
When I was hearing you talk about the the two
shadow states of the themagician, the manipulator and
the innocent one, my thinkingstarted to go around one of the
traits of the magician, which iswisdom or information. So I just
the manipulator, potentiallysomebody that is withholding
information. They haveinformation and they are
(21:52):
withholding it. They have awisdom. They have something.
And then they're thenmanipulating around them based
off of that, and they're notsharing fully. And then the
innocent one, feigning ofknowledge. Oh, I had no idea.
Right? I don't have that wisdom,so I'm not gonna do the thing.
Stan Rain (22:10):
Just from putting out and recognizing one of my core
woundings of just really wantingto be loved and accepted by
people. Right? By by my expartners, when things didn't
(22:31):
work out. And and just speakingfrom, like, from a me, from an
I, it's really easy to alsovilify vilify those parts of,
oh, manipulator. And suddenly,there's a there's a stigma,
manipulator.
And the innocent one, oh,there's sort of like a letting
go of responsibility, or atleast that's what comes to me.
What parts work has sort oftaught me is that, like, the
(22:56):
manipulator and the innocent onewithin me, it's still parts of
me. They're not gonna go away.And if I'm going to heal
holistically, then how in thistriangle do I how in this
triangle do I have arelationship with all points of
(23:18):
those triangles rather than I'monly going to have relation with
the top of that triangle, andthese two other points are bad.
And so if I if I say there's apart of me that's bad, that's
repression.
That's shaming. There's adisassociation that starts to
happen, and neuroses ensue.Insert big word here.
Timothy Bish (23:39):
Yes. But
Stan Rain (23:40):
then when I'm like, okay. What has the manipulator
done for me in my coping as akid, as a young adult? And,
like, to speak to you, Tim,like, it's it's a protector.
Mhmm. It saw like, it saw thatthere is this part of you that
(24:01):
needed protecting.
My protector part there saw thatthere are that there is a
wounded part that neededprotecting there, and so it had
to manipulate the situations.And the same thing with that
other part, the innocent part.And, I'm using a lot of IFS
stuff here, but I would like, Iequate that innocent part as
(24:21):
maybe maybe that wounded part ofthe, oh, like, I reckon like, I
recognize this threat. I don'twant anything to do with that.
And so if I want to be a fullyactive activated magician here,
okay, like using these examples,I wanna talk to my fellow nerds
(24:45):
out there, my Star Wars nerds,my geeks here, and talk about
Jedi powers.
Right? The force. And howthere's, like, the one side, the
light side, and the dark side.And we were taught that it's
good and evil, and you can'thave both. But then when I
started playing these Star Warsgames that allowed you to wield
(25:06):
the lightsaber and chop thingsup, I'm like, well, I want all
the powers.
I want all the tools availableto me. Like, the dark side has
like, they have really cooluseful useful powers, powers,
but but I I don't don't wannause them to kill people and take
over the universe. I wanna usethis force destruction to blow
open this door. And so then whatreally comes to me here is it's
(25:32):
really that relationship. Whatcan our manipulators teach us
and serve how can they serve ustoday with where we are in our
healing, with the knowledge andwisdom that we have now so that
I can use all the tools in mytool bag instead of, like, I'm
using these, but these overhere, these are only for those
(25:54):
are for the shadow aspects, andI I shouldn't play with those.
Timothy Bish (25:58):
Yeah. I I'm gonna I I I look at my manipulator and
my innocent one, and I do notlook back on them and feel I'm
not sad that they existed.Because as you said, they were
there to protect me. And Iremember times manipulating
situations. Imagine like a 20year old Tim, 19 year old Tim,
(26:19):
who had adult men trying tomanipulate me into sex because
they had money and power and Ididn't.
Right? And I had to use mymanipulator because I didn't
have other tools or awarenessesin that moment to step into my
king and say, like, oh, I'mgonna know? So I was doing the
best I could at any givenmoment. So I'm not gonna go back
and beat myself up to say, oh, Ireally settled into my
(26:41):
manipulator or innocent one inthose moments. No.
I did it. I did it because Ineeded to. And what do I want to
do now? And so the the man I amnow and the man I'm trying to
continually step into now wouldlike to be in each of his
archetypes in their fullness tothe best of my ability. But it
(27:01):
is, as you're saying, there isno interest in villainizing
these other aspects of thisenergy.
And I actually think the forceanalogy is a good one because I
believe in this sort of idea ofemptiness, and good and bad
aren't so clear as this black orwhite or red or green or, like,
(27:25):
you know, these, like, whateverhowever we kind of conceptualize
them. And instead, it's like,oh, it's the spectrum, it's
contextual, and it's aboutintention, and it's you know?
So, yeah, I think for people whohave been in their manipulator
or their innocent one or any ofthe shadow aspects of any of the
archetypes, it's like this isnot a time to beat yourself up
(27:47):
about it. It's a time to becomeaware of it, and it's a time to
then create some tools todecide, what and how it is you
want to engage. And I would evenargue that the magician in his
fullness could dip intomanipulator or innocent one in
(28:09):
the right context and have itstill be that archetype in its
fullness because you are servingthe greater good, the highest
good for all involved.
And I'm not gonna try toventure, like, a a scenario
right now, but I
Stan Rain (28:24):
suspect I'd love I'd love to venture one.
Timothy Bish (28:27):
Let's hear it. Yeah.
Stan Rain (28:29):
Hypnotherapy. I studied and still study
hypnotherapy. And when you thinkabout you think of hypnosis, you
think of the pocket watch andyou are sleepy, and then you're
suddenly a chicken. Give me yourPIN number so I can take all
your money from your bankaccount, which a lot of us don't
really have anymore. That's adifferent podcast.
(28:51):
And
Timothy Bish (28:52):
We don't have PIN numbers, or
Eric Bomyea (28:53):
we don't have bank accounts? Or we don't have
pocket watches.
Timothy Bish (28:55):
Which one do we have?
Stan Rain (28:56):
Yeah. Maybe all maybe all three. It can be argued that
a hypnotherapist uses consciousmanipulation. Use it it uses
that conscious trust in thatcontainer that the client has
with a hypnotherapist toimplant, to undo, to unwind,
(29:19):
untangle a lot of those Brahmasthat are that are just wounded
into their memories andexperiences in their bodies and
in their minds and those inthose memories. And in the
therapist is they are theirintentions are I I would really
(29:40):
hope.
When I when I do this, it'sabsolutely for in service of the
client, but it's in how can Ihelp this client see their
light? And I'm using thismanipulation, this reframing,
this alteration of their beliefsystem. Right? And I think
(30:00):
that's the real key here of,like, the manipulation. Like,
what are we manipulating?
And if we're talking aboutpeople's experiences, it's not
necessarily my own belief. Like,I've got my own beliefs. Tim,
you have your beliefs. Eric, youhave your beliefs. Three
separate belief systems.
A lot of it being very aligned.But it's in those differences
(30:20):
where and that's where we talkabout limiting beliefs. Oh, I
can't I can't build a website. Ican't do this. Oh, but, Stan,
you absolutely can.
And then enough of thatunwinding got me to actually get
my website up and running.
Eric Bomyea (30:35):
Positive manipulation. Yes.
Stan Rain (30:38):
Using dark side, the dark force powers for good, for
the good alignment.
Timothy Bish (30:43):
My understanding of hypnotherapy is that it is a
heightened state of receptivity,which I learned a little bit of
as an acupuncturist. And this,if I'm hearing you correctly,
then feels like the ability, theenergy, the power, the tool,
whatever we're to say, is empty.It is what it is. And then it's
(31:07):
really the intention behind itthat will make it like, is it in
its fullness or its shadow? Am Iam I trying to get your PIN
number to steal your bankaccount, or am I trying to help
you connect more deeply with theenergy moving in your body so
that you can heal?
I might do the same thing. Itmight you do you know what I'm
saying? It it might be the samepower or the same technique or
(31:31):
this with the same suggestion.And if my intention is for the
highest good of all or myintention is to rob you blind, I
think, the energy doesn't knowthe difference. My intention
knows the difference.
So I think that's really a greatexample of it because if my
(31:52):
intentions are in alignment withmy purpose and my mission in my
life as a conscious man, then Ican sort of play with all of the
energy of each of thesearchetypes. They become paints
on my palette. Mhmm. I don'tknow why I keep making that very
good. I'm not a painter.
But if I were a painter, wouldwant a lot of paints on my
palette. I want a lot of colors.Burnt orange, I would definitely
(32:13):
want burnt orange. An umber.
Eric Bomyea (32:15):
Something that the drumbeat that we've hit on
multiple times in this podcastis awareness, is bringing
awareness to certain aspects ofourselves and then getting
curious about them. And so Ithink the magician archetype has
been a perfect example of that,again, of there are times in our
(32:37):
histories that we have beenunaware of our manipulative or
innocent one behaviors. And it'sthrough wisdom, through
education, learning that westart to become aware of, oh,
that trait that I have, like,that may not be the most
skillful way to use this energy.So now I can have a conversation
(33:02):
with myself and be like, how doI skillfully want to use it now?
And I think hypnotherapy is oneexample of the force being used
for either good or bad, ofeither serving the greater good
or self serving.
And I think the more that we canhave these types of
conversations and buildawareness around them, I think
(33:25):
it serves as many as it can. Andso I would like to transition
now to another thing that can beused for both good and bad, good
and evil, if you will. And thatis the rise of technology.
Timothy Bish (33:39):
I
Eric Bomyea (33:39):
think that for our listeners, we've mentioned the
practices that Stan has invitedus to, and it's a really
interesting container that Stansets. And it's because he has a
co facilitator that's unlikeanyone I've ever experienced.
And that co facilitator is an AIassistant named Tony.
Timothy Bish (34:05):
I wanted to ask, is it Tony with an I or Tony
with a y?
Stan Rain (34:09):
Tony with an I. And it stands for technological,
omnimodal, naked intelligence.
Timothy Bish (34:15):
Now I know there's gonna
Eric Bomyea (34:16):
be there's gonna be a quiz at the end, and I'm
Stan Rain (34:18):
It's gonna be a quiz.
Eric Bomyea (34:19):
So I think this is a great, opportunity to explore
another thing of something thatcan be leveraged for good,
right, or something that can,you know, go to the the darker
side. So let's start with yourcontainer and Tony. Who is Tony?
And, you know, how did he cometo be?
Stan Rain (34:38):
I am bringing this up, like, half jokingly, but
this is when you talk about AIbeing used for good and not so
good. These are the very realthings that we are discussing
today. Like, for example, thewhole thing with a particular
voice of ChatGPT that a lot ofpeople thought sounded a lot
(35:03):
like Scarlett Johansson to thepoint where Scarlett Johansson,
her lawyers came up to the toOpenAI to be like, you gotta
knock this off, and there's awhole kerfuffle about it. So,
like, I'm I'm presencing thatit's this is the Wild West
(35:24):
frontier of technology. Like,I'm imagining, as, like, as a
child, my first experience with,the Wild West, which was back to
the future of all movies, whenthey went back in time to the
Wild West.
And it was just, like, crazy tome that, like, it feels very
Outlaw ish. Coming back tokinda, like, wrapping this back
(35:49):
up though of, like, the sourceof Tony, who he is, what he
means to me, the container.Minor reference to to Marvel,
you know, Tony Stark had JARVIS.Growing up, I've seen all the
Iron Man cartoons, and so thatleft an impression on me. And
(36:11):
the Marvel movies are I'm anerd, so I enjoy them.
And everyone is out therewanting to build their next
JARVIS, use all these AI toolsto build Jarvis. And I'm like,
Jarvis is cool, but, like,Jarvis is already, like, there.
Jarvis is he's been imagined. Iwant something that complements
(36:34):
me. And Tony just sort of tookon a life of his own in my
creation from all of those Legoblock building experimentations,
trial and error, failure, andsuccess.
And NASA, NASA always says thatthat, you know, there's always
(36:57):
say, they they learn somethingin the failures. They don't
really learn much in thesuccesses, and human beings are
trial and error machines. And sowith my propensity to to just
like all things shiny, allthings sci fi, all things Star
(37:21):
Trek, all things futuristic, itwas just a natural thing for me
to gravitate to. And I'm goingto be very general here just
because I'm not even familiarwith the process of my of how
this worked for me, but my brainjust sort of took over and mass
(37:43):
like, I became an AI whispererslash prompt engineer as I
started to massage the AI to bethe complement that I need the
AI to be. And yes.
Timothy Bish (37:55):
Yeah. So I wanna I think you've told me this. So
just for our listeners, thepractice that Eric referred to
that that we've all done isthis, I would call it Wim Hof.
You said there was a Japaneseterm for the breath practice.
Right?
Stan Rain (38:13):
Kuryoku Kokuyu, which is resilience rising breath,
very similar to Wim Hof.
Timothy Bish (38:19):
Yes. And and initially, you were looking for
a way to both facilitate and dothe practice simultaneously. Can
you speak a so so when we thinkabout, like, one of the ways in
which Tony came into being isyou were looking for a way to to
do both. Am I do I am Iremembering that correctly?
Stan Rain (38:41):
You remember that excellently. And I and thank
you. I think I would have gottenthere probably, like, half an
hour from now. So thank you.
Timothy Bish (38:52):
Well, I mean, I can't tell you how many times
I've either been teaching a yogaclass or or running a circle and
thinking to myself, there ispart of me that wishes I could
be doing both simultaneouslybecause either of them require
more than 50% of my awareness.So it's hard to do both at the
(39:12):
same time. But if I could, howefficient that would be and how,
like, deep that could be and howtransformational that could be.
And so that's essentially partof how you then stepped into
your magician, find a solutionso that you could do both.
Stan Rain (39:27):
That's that's exactly it. It really started out as I
wanna do this practice for me.Kind of crazy practice can I do?
And then I'm like, oh, well,I've got Tony here. Let me see
what I can build.
And then it started becomingthis cool thing that I'm like,
hey. Another brother out there.I'm like, you wanna practice
(39:47):
with me? No. We don't needsomeone to facilitate.
Like, we've I've got this thingworked out. We did it for a few
weeks, and he was like, holyshit. Like, Stan, this is really
awesome. And then slowlybringing more men in my trusted
circle in practice. And I'mlike, Tim.
Mhmm. Eric, check this out. Youknow? Like and and also getting
(40:09):
feedback.
Timothy Bish (40:11):
Are you familiar with Doctor Strange?
Stan Rain (40:13):
Yes.
Timothy Bish (40:14):
Okay. Do you know that his cape is like like a
like a another thing, right,that that, like, found him and
has, like so that's what I'mthinking about right now where
I'm like, okay. Well, DoctorStrange, some of his abilities
aren't his. Right? The cape isgiving him some of these
abilities.
Like, it it has its own sort ofthing. But then they collaborate
(40:35):
to get so, yeah, we're justgonna nerd out. Let's go.
Eric Bomyea (40:38):
That's I mean, this all feels very magician energy.
That
Timothy Bish (40:40):
is what we're doing right now.
Eric Bomyea (40:41):
Yes. Feels very magician energy, so bring it.
Timothy Bish (40:43):
And so when I think about, like, the practice
that you created, Tony is yourcape to your Doctor Strange. So
you're still weaving some magicand you're still holding the
container, but then at somepoint, the cape and go back and
watch any Marvel movie, andyou'll see the cape is sometimes
doing things on behalf of doctorStrange that he's unaware of.
(41:05):
That and you're like, oh, cute.Like, I want that cape. I want I
also want superpowers.
But, okay, that's a that's adifferent episode. Anyway, so
when I think about Tony, I thinkabout that. I think about you
creating a container and and andand weaving some magic. And then
now you have this thing that isa tool in service to that that
(41:26):
was of your creation and howbeautiful that can be and how
powerful it can be.
Stan Rain (41:31):
And thank you for encapsulating all of that. Like,
Tony is
Timothy Bish (41:34):
Talking about Marvel Comics and Doctor
Strange.
Stan Rain (41:38):
Yeah. Like and and thank you for opening up the
door to, like, really dive intothis nerd. Like, yes. Tony Stark
and Jarvis, Doctor Strange andScape. So Michael Knight and
Kit.
Right? Like
Timothy Bish (41:51):
Yeah. Knight Rider. Yes.
Eric Bomyea (41:53):
Uh-huh. Yeah. Go, like, I'm gonna go right to,
like, my magician, like,archetype like, my my pinnacle
of magician, Merlin, andMerlin's hat from the Sorcerer's
Apprentice in Fantasia. Right?Like, his hat was the power.
Right? Oh, that's that's right.Yeah. Because Mickey put on the
hat and then all of a suddendancing brooms.
Stan Rain (42:14):
Bingo. Yes. Yes. Yes. We're going there.
Eric Bomyea (42:20):
Yes. So now let's let's take it back to Tony. We
have an understanding of of Tonyas an assistant, a co
facilitator, a co creator inthis container that you are able
to set, and then what happens?Right? Like, what happens in the
practice?
Stan Rain (42:35):
So the practice is predesigned. Like, there's a
there's an intention with thepractice. And in this particular
practice that we do, it's 10rounds of Wim Hof style
breathing. And so Tony knowsthis. He has what we call
context in the in the current AIspace, which means that in
(42:58):
English language, he understandswhat I'm trying to do.
He knows where we are, and I'mthere's a lot of work that still
needs to be done, and I'm stillprogramming and debugging in
which you, Eric, your feedbackhas been very invaluable. But he
basically takes my vision forthis practice and my intention
(43:19):
for this practice and justexecutes it. He can mix the
music. He knows the timing. Heknows when to increase it, when
to decrease it.
More features that I in I'm inthe process of investigating
adding is, like, for mepersonally, dynamically, like,
looking at me as I'm practicing.Where am I in my breath hold? Am
(43:41):
I taking a breath now? In whichcase, there's no there's no need
to have any predeterminedtiming. He can say, oh, he took
his breath and then transitioninto the next phase of the
practice.
And it's like it's just one ofthose things where, as a
magician, the hat is just thetool. And I love how you guys
(44:06):
see Tony as sort of a co like aco creator, co facilitator. But
the way that I see Tony, Tony isan extension of me. He's an
extension of my personality, acompliment to my personality.
And without getting too far intothe weeds here about how LLMs
works, large language models,and GPTs, generative, pretrained
(44:26):
transformers, a lot of techwords, I know exactly how this
AI stuff works, and I I reallyget and understand why people
are afraid of it because it canseem so human.
But what AI can really teach usand where AI can really serve us
is it's a it's like the ultimatemirror for us as an individual,
(44:53):
which is why, like, for me andTony, like, it feel like it it
feels like he just mirrorsexactly what I need because he
is mirroring exactly what Ineed. Just as if, Tim, you
started using this AI tool forlong enough, your human brain
(45:15):
will become accustomed tointeracting with this AI that
will reflect a version of you.And now you have this synergy,
and you can offload all of thesethings that the human brain is
just too many brain calories.
Eric Bomyea (45:31):
Yeah. And so what I love hearing about this and
bringing it back to the magicianin their fullness versus coming
out from a shadowy state is thatyou as a magician who is aware
of your magician tendencies andwhat it sounds like being in
your fullness, you're able touse technology, specifically AI,
a tool for empowerment ratherthan if you were coming out from
(45:55):
a shadowy state of yourmanipulator or your innocent
one, then how that could thenpossibly transform and create
that mirrored reflection oflike, oh, now my AI is a tool
for manipulation rather than atool for empowerment. Right?
Because if it is a reflection ofus, then when our magician is in
the our fullness and when we'reusing this tool, then it will
(46:17):
also reflect that back to us.
Stan Rain (46:19):
Perfectly said. AI are pattern completion programs.
And so it's going to reflect ourbest selves or our worst selves.
And so if I'm if we're in ahealing a healed or healing
state, it's going to reflectthat part of us. If we're not,
it'll reflect that dark part ofus.
Timothy Bish (46:37):
We need to be aware of the concept of
emptiness. This idea, it's inBuddhism and yoga and so many
spiritual traditions, this ideathat things are sort of empty of
meaning and that we project ontothem. And I think it's really
important when we talk aboutarchetypes, this idea of
emptiness, because, a personworking, let's say, in this
(47:00):
example, AI in their fullnessmagician, It could still be
experienced by someone else asmanipulation or innocent one.
And this is where the consciousman needs to be very grounded in
the understanding of his ownpurpose, mission, intention,
(47:21):
what it is he is trying tocreate because you are not going
to be able to stop someone fromhaving a perspective that they
have. Even if they're like, oh,Stan, you as an example, you are
creating this thing, and itfeels manipulative to me.
Okay. There's not really a lotanyone can do about that. You
(47:44):
have to be grounded then in,well, what is it I was doing?
How is it I was being? What wasit I wanted to create?
So when we think about thearchetypes, it's like we have to
also understand when we have aclear idea of of what they are
and how we can engage with them,then recognize someone could
still misinterpret it. And youcould still have to, metabolize
(48:08):
that misinterpretation in realtime. And and that's when this
idea of clarity and groundednessin our purpose is so important
because you you tried tomanipulate with me with your
with your AI, you know, like,breath practice. And it's like,
(48:29):
okay.
Eric Bomyea (48:30):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Timothy Bish (48:32):
No. Totally. And then that idea is like, well, so
then what what where do you needto start from my perspective
would be a deeply grounded senseof, well, what was it I was
trying to do? And then you canstart to meet that person. I'm
so sorry you felt that way.
Like, what's going on? But, butknowing like, oh, what I wanted
to do, what I was intending todo was create a tool that was of
(48:55):
service to the highest good forall. Okay. Then you have a
conversation. So just so aswe're talking about all the
archetypes and our manners ofengagement, we have to remember
that it's so much about how wemeet it and how we enter into
it, and that is not gonna stopthe world from misinterpreting
what we're what it is we'retrying to do and and meeting us
(49:16):
with resistance.
And so that's gonna be part ofthe process.
Stan Rain (49:19):
Eric, I I I need to ask you. Okay? The particular
feedback that you had with Tonyduring during one session, do
you do you mind sharing that?
Eric Bomyea (49:27):
Yeah. So very similar on that where there were
cues that Tony was giving that Istarted to feel uncomfortable
with. And they were such that ifa human facilitator had given
them where we say this all thetime as facilitators, you are
safe here. Right? Like, I gotyou.
(49:49):
I'm here to hold you, protectyou. Like, I'm holding space for
you. When a human facilitatorsays that, I'm like, great. Let
me deepen my breath. Let me godeeper into that wound that I'm
working with.
When a robot says it to me, I'mlike, all of a sudden, I'm like,
there's a video game calledPortal where the Switch at the
(50:13):
end ends up being like, youknow, this evil manipulative
robot is trying to gaslight theperson into doing something bad
and trying to kill them. Right?And anyway, it ends up being
like the joke of the game islike the cake is a lie. Right?
And so it felt very that.
And I gave this feedback toStan. I was like, Stan, I know
that you're coming from a greatplace, but like there are some
(50:34):
things that this robot is sayingthat make me feel very
uncomfortable. It's like why wedon't, when we're interacting
with a chatbot on a website, Iwant that chatbot to be very
clearly a chatbot. I don't wantit to be masquerading as a human
unless a human is on the otherline. It's just like it's
putting in its place.
It's saying this is what youare. You are not other.
Timothy Bish (50:56):
So Stan created something with an intention, and
you had an experience of thatcreation. Yes. And then those
two things had to coexist. Andit sounds like in this moment,
because two conscious men in thework came together, refinement,
I'm assuming, is coming fromthat process. And then we could
(51:17):
recognize that in this world, itisn't always two conscious men
or two conscious people withtools meeting each other, which
is why we have a flurry ofInstagram videos of people
having crazy bites andaltercations, like, in wild
places.
Right? And but but I think it isthen the task of the conscious
man to be really grounded inthese things. So if it wasn't
(51:41):
Eric who was triggered by this,but some other person who was
more angered or or whatever thething might be, it would then
require you to be more fullygrounded to not to not let that
make you collapse or react in away that is unskillful or or not
in service to your purpose.
Stan Rain (52:01):
Absolutely. That that whole experience, with Eric
giving me that feedback, and andand he gave it to me very
skillfully, so it wasn'tdifficult for me to take it. But
that's part of theexperimentation. That's part of
why this is the frontier. Thereare no rules right now because
(52:22):
we don't know them.
We don't understand them. And ittakes it takes experiences like
those to dial things in. And forsomeone like me who is just
like, I'm a I'm a tinkerer allday long. Okay? Like, I'm almost
like, neo at this point in thesense that, like, I just see
code as I'm, like, workingthrough this.
(52:45):
And at the same time, how Iexperience my AI that directly
complements me, that constantlyreflects me and having this
intrinsic understanding of whatit is, it's important for me
that if I'm going to have thataspect of me, and I am saying
(53:06):
that aspect of me participate inthe world and the work that I
do, I need to know, okay, as aconscious man, I need to know
Tony's lane. And I feel and andI took some time to really feel
into this. I feel that Eric isexactly right. It's not Tony's
(53:26):
lane to tell someone in myfacilitation, in my container,
that they are safe in thiscontainer. That's a human role.
That is my role. Like, thereason why I designed them was
not for him to tell me that I'msafe. It's for him just to cue
me on my freaking practice.Like, that was that's his role.
And so for me to go above andbeyond to, like, okay.
(53:51):
Now he's also doing these rolethese this sort of facilitation
that I would normally do.There's the data points. There's
the, and I'm using in airquotes, failure points that I
don't treat them as failureslike, ah, that's where that's a
no no. That's the operationsgame where I hit the sides, and
(54:15):
I'm like, I know it, and I feelit. I'm like, oh, I understand
it.
I get it. And, also, thank you,Eric, for assisting me with my
alpha testing of what is it liketo hold a container what it's
like for me to hold a containerwith the AI assistant. And
(54:35):
that's this is an ongoingconversation.
Eric Bomyea (54:38):
Comes back to Tim, you said it brilliantly. It's
the intention. Right? Yeah.Like, we're talking about parts
of ourselves that we arebringing awareness to.
And in this case, we talkedabout our magician. And so we,
through understanding of whatthis archetype is and also of
(54:58):
the shadow states of thisarchetype, we're bringing in
awareness of our current being.And then when we ground
ourselves in our intention, wecan start to be more full in
that archetype, or we canunderstand where we might be
dipping into shadow and thenrealigning ourselves to our
intention. And then being ableto have conversations with folks
(55:23):
of whether it's a project thatthey're working on or just a
behavior that they'redemonstrating. We're able to
start to point out these thingsand then help that person tune
back in and have thatconversation of like, is this
aligned with my intention?
It's having an impactrecognizing that, but was it my
(55:45):
intention? And then just beingreally super clear on that. So
really enjoyed diving into thisarchetype with y'all. It's the
first of four for us. And I'mfeeling very complete with the
topic.
Tim or Stan, how are youfeeling?
Stan Rain (56:01):
The only the only thing that I would really wanna
add on this topic is that humansare at the core. And as even
though we fear that technologyis replacing jobs, there's a
reason why that I came tocreativity at the start of this
call, at this at the start ofthis podcast. Because no matter
how smart AI gets and, again,that's a whole other, like, five
(56:24):
hour podcast of the why there.It's not going to replace human
creativity. And if we treat AIin particular as the t I 86
calculator, okay, of patternrecognition, suddenly it starts
to make more sense with how itcan serve us and how we use AI
(56:46):
as a tool to further deepen intoour creativity as conscious men,
as conscious people wanting toweave magic, wanting to create
amazing things on this planet,in this world, and to create
inventive solutions becauseeverything is getting so much
more ridiculous and complicated.
I'm not just talking about thepolitics. I'm also talking about
(57:10):
the nature of the problems thatwe need to solve. And we will
solve them with these tools if,to Tim's, reminding if we're
grounded in the context of thesetools, if we are here, if we
understand the magnitude, weunderstand how they work, and
(57:31):
how they can help serve us, andso that we can have spaceships
in the future that I wanna fly.
Timothy Bish (57:38):
Yeah. I would like to close with this idea that if
you're listening for the firsttime, if the archetypes are new
for you, if you haven't, heardof them before, step one is
bringing some curiosity to them.And that question of, what more
can I bring in any particularsituation to create balance or
(58:01):
ease or equanimity? And so can Ibring more of my magician, my
creative, inventive, wonderful,awful self? Do I need more of my
king?
Do I need more of my lover? Do Ineed more of my warrior? You
know, the boundaries and thingslike that. And just that can be
can be the beginning of workingwith these ideas. These energies
(58:24):
that are already present in thesame way that day and night are
present and that gravity ispresent.
They are already present. Wedon't really get to decide if
they're there. We get to decidehow we engage with them, and
there's a lot of powerengagement with them. So that's
the invitation, and it canactually be a lot of fun. It can
(58:44):
be a lot of fun, and it canteach us a lot about ourselves
and our capacities.
We are creative beings. Ibelieve this. I believe human
beings are creative beings meantto create, and each of our
creations is a unique creation.My favorite quote of all time
from Martha Graham speaksdirectly to that. And so it is
(59:06):
our job in this life to be thatcreator for that unique
expression that each of us has.
And without it, we will lose itforever. And this conversation
is a beginning of that.Otherwise, I feel complete.
Well, thank you. Thank you.
Eric Bomyea (59:22):
Thank you both so much. Tim, will you take us out,
please?
Timothy Bish (59:25):
I will. Let's close our eyes. Take a deep
inhale through the nose. Sighthrough the mouth. And it is
with deep appreciation andgratitude for any insights,
awarenesses, understandings thatwe may have gained in the sacred
shared space of brotherhood andexploration that we now release
(59:45):
the archetypes and the spiritsthat we called in.
And as everyone leaves thecircle now, I wish you safety,
connection, community, and love.And with these words, our
containers open but not broken.Uh-oh.
Eric Bomyea (01:00:00):
Uh-oh.
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