Personality Types | King, Warrior, Magician, Lover
Old-Fashioned
Personality types intrigue me. And various theories of these have been around at least since the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, developed a theory known as The Four Temperaments.
I know; they should’ve been a Motown group. What a wasted opportunity!
Ah, there’s time yet. Let’s make ‘em a boy band:
1. Phlegmatic (aka, Phleg-Leg): the shy one
2. Choleric (aka, Alpha-Dog): the bossy one
3. Sanguine (aka, Shiffy-Shiff): the party animal
4. Melancholic (aka, Idea Man): the brooding one
If you were phlegmatic, it meant that you were mostly relaxed and quiet. Choleric meant that you were ambitious and leader-like. Sanguine meant pleasure-seeking and sociable. And Melancholic meant introverted and thoughtful.
New-Fashioned
In the twentieth century, several corresponding theories developed; most notably, Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s take on Jungian archetypes, known as King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. Phlegmatic became King. Choleric became Warrior. Sanguine became Magician. And Melancholic became Lover.
More recently, psychiatrist Paul Dobransky created a system, loosely based on Moore and Gillette’s categories, known as KWML.
The best way to comprehend this stuff is by looking at a diagram:
It’s a circle divided into four equal quadrants. No shit, right? The King personality type goes in the top-left quadrant. The Warrior goes in the lower-left quadrant. The Magician, in the lower-right; and the Lover in the top-right.
The left half of the circle — meaning, the Kings and the Warriors — are the analytical personality types. And the right side — the Magicians and the Lovers — are the creative ones.
The top half of the circle — Kings and Lovers — represents the nurturing personalities. And the bottom half — Warriors and Magicians — contains the assertive ones.
Nurturing-Analytical
Assertive and Analytical
Assertive and Creative
Nurturing and Creative
Gut-Level Attraction
The primary reason this stuff intrigues me is because of how the different personality types interact. Some say that opposites attract. Others insist that like attracts like.
Which way lies the better path? In my experience, neither is always true. But both are usually present, on different psychological levels.
And what I mean by that is, when it comes to gender instincts, opposites complement each other. Thus, the phrase from the movie Jerry McGuire that makes all women melt:
And what I mean by that sentimental cliché is that a Magician completes a King (and a Lover completes a Warrior) in the sense that the one is strong on the personality traits in which the other is weak; and vice versa. The assertive personalities embolden the nurturing types, and the nurturing personalities ground the assertive ones.
Likewise, the analytical tend to be more logical, and the creatives tend to be more spontaneous. Together, they make wiser choices.
Higher-Brain Compatibility
When it comes to intellect and spirituality, however, like is typically better off with like. A religious Fundamentalist of one faith is probably not going to be happy in a romance with anyone of any other faith. Nor will someone whose primary passion is Russian literature be contented in a long-term relationship with a barfly. Our higher brain faculties crave like-minded companionship.
Let’s Continue This Discussion
So . . . that’s the nuts and bolts of personality types (one theory, anyway). We’ll dig into the details in the comments (below).
Interesting article. I don’t know exactly where I see myself in this, but perhaps I can say that I go between lover and king most times:)
https://www.kwmltest.net
Here’s a test (link above) you can take.