Sam Keen was a philosopher, scholar, and author of life-changing books including Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination (1986), Your Mythic Journey (1990), and Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man (1991). He was also a mentor, friend, and colleague. The April 4, 2025 obituary in The New York Times, headlined: Sam Keen, Philosopher of the Men’s Movement, Is Dead at 93.
“Only men understand the secret fears that go with the territory of masculinity,”
Keen was quoted saying and the obituary went on to say,
“His message resonated: His book Fire in the Belly was a best seller.”
The article went on to say,
“Mr. Keen, who described himself as having been ‘overeducated at Harvard and Princeton’, fled academia in the 1960s for California, where he led self-help workshops and wrote more than a dozen books.”
Sam and I lived in the same area of northern California and were both in long-standing men’s groups, which I wrote about recently, “Why Joining a Men’s Group May Be the Most Important Decision of Your Life.” In my book, The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet, I said,
“The acceptance of weakness and strength is a crucial part of the warrior’s journey home.”
In his book, Fire in the Belly, Sam Keen gives a magnificent description of this phase of a man’s hero’s journey:
“This isn’t the fun part of the part of the trip. It’s spelunking in Plato’s cave, feeling our way through the illusions we have mistaken for reality, crawling through the drain sewers where the forbidden ‘unmanly’ feelings dwell, confronting the demons and dark shadows that have held us captive from their underground haunts. At this stage of the journey, we must make use of the warrior’s fierceness, courage, and aggression to break through the rigidities of old structures of manhood, and explore the dark and taboo negative emotions that make up the shadow of modern manhood.”
One of the most honest and revealing aspects of the modern male shadow that we discuss and explore in the groups that Sam and I were involved with is our ambivalence towards women. In my most recent book, Long Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to Humanity, I shared Sam’s revealing insights in section I titled, “Males Feel Engulfed by WOMAN.”
I said,
“I’ve known Sam for many years, and I believe he offers insights into why men are the way they are that can help us better understand men’s hunger for women, along with our anger and fear of women.”
In Fire in the Belly, Sam says,
“It was slow in dawning on me that WOMAN had an overwhelming influence on my life and on the lives of all the men I knew. I’m not talking about women, the actual flesh-and-blood creatures, but about WOMEN, those larger-than-life shadowy female figures who inhabit our imaginations, inform our emotions, and indirectly give shape to many of our actions.”
If you knew Sam, who was tall, good-looking, and successful, you might be as surprised as I was when he shared the deeper truth about his life.
“From all outward appearances, I was a successfully individuated man. I had set my career course early, doggedly stuck to the discipline of graduate school through many years and degrees, and by my mid-thirties was vigorously pursuing the life of a professor and writer. Like most men, I was devoting most of my energy and attention to work and profession.”
I could identify with Keen’s early experience. My own life trajectory was similar as was “the rest of the story.” Sam continues saying,
“But if the text of my life was ‘successful independent man,’ the subtext was ‘engulfed by WOMAN.’ All the while I was advancing in my profession, I was engaged in an endless struggle to find the ‘right’ woman, to make my relationship ‘work,’ to create a good marriage.”
Sam went on to say,
“I agonized over sex — was I good enough? Did she ‘come’? Why wasn’t I always potent? What should I do about my desires for other women? The more troubled my marriage became, the harder I tried to get it right. I worked at communication, sex, and everything else until I became self-obsessed. Divorce finally broke the symbiotic mother-son, father-daughter pattern of my first marriage.”
Sam’s story is like my own and that of millions of men. When we are engulfed by WOMAN, we are out of touch with our true selves. We project all our hopes for a life of passion, joy, and meaning on to this or that woman, but it never works out because we are really longing for the mythical WOMAN of our dreams. Yet, we continually deny the reality and the power that this mythical female figure exerts in our lives.
“I would guess,” says Keen, “that a majority of men never break free, never define manhood by weighing and testing their own experience. And the single largest reason is that we never acknowledge the primal power WOMAN wields over us. The average man spends a lifetime denying, defending against, trying to control, and reacting to the power of WOMAN. He is committed to remaining unconscious and out of touch with his own deepest feelings and experience.”
It took a long time for me to understand my anger and fear of women and to begin the journey of becoming my own man. Sam’s experiences and his words have helped me.
“We begin to learn the mysteries unique to maleness only when we separate from WOMAN’s world,” says Keen. “But before we can take our leave, we must first become conscious of the ways in which we are enmeshed, incorporated, inwombed, and defined by WOMAN. Otherwise we will be controlled by what we haven’t remembered.”
As long as we are controlled by what we haven’t remembered, we will continue to hate and love women, to hunger for them and also be afraid of them, to touch them tenderly and also want to hurt them. We don’t all have to get a divorce to separate ourselves from the hold that WOMAN has on us, but I do think that we need to be in a men’s group where we can, in the words of another friend and colleague, Robert Bly,
“Men need to be with other men in order to hear the sounds that male cells sing.”
My own men’s group lasted 46 years. My wife, Carlin, says that one of the main reasons we have had a successful 45-year marriage is because I have been in a men’s group for 46 years. I would add two additional words of wisdom. First, it should be noted that my wife has also been in a number of women’s groups over the years, which I believe have helped her deal with her own issues as well as contributing to our successful marriage.
Second, most men get themselves to a men’s group because someone cares enough to guide them to one. I was lucky to have found Sam’s books and gotten mentoring from older men. Other men find a men’s group because their wives, girlfriends, or other caring women have suggested, (or sometimes highly suggested, as in “if you don’t get in a men’s group this relationship is over”) that we go.
Unfortunately, my men’s group came to an end last year. Four of the seven members have died and the group needs more than three to be viable. I believe I have at least twenty good years ahead of me and I have a lot I’d like to share with other guys. I’ve put the word out and have gotten a number of responses, but I’m still talking with men who would like to join. I describe what I’m looking for here. Take a look and reach out if you’re interested.
Sam Keen will always be a mentor to the group, wherever his spirit may be flying. Thank you, my friend.
The post The Future of Men, Men’s Groups, and the Legacy of Sam Keen appeared first on MenAlive.