Roles: The Link between Essence and Personality

by Stephen Cocconi © 2012

The Role is the primary archetypal frame-of-reference that a person’s inner world is motivated to express, achieve, or stylize themselves. In the Michael Teaching, the phrase “Essence in Personality” reflects the fact that the Role was taken at the time of original creation, or “casting from the TAO”, which is the process of ensoulment.  Hence, the Role is the continuous, unchanging, characteristic that a Being possess for all of their incarnations.

In the Michael Personality Trait System, the Overleaves; there are seven Roles: Artisan, Sage, Warrior, King, Server, Priest, Scholar. No role is singularly a job skill. Not every King is royalty, nor every Warrior a soldier, or all Sages wise, Priests a member of some clergy, Servers neither helpers or slaves, or Artisan’s assumed to be craftspeople. However, some of the more defining traits of those types of people, imperious and grand for the King, and loyal and pushy for a Warrior, for instance, or perhaps a Scholar’s need for order might apply. As the Soul Age and other Soul desires of the individual being (Michael calls us “fragments”) emerge, then a unique formulation of that type will flourish. In the same way that in a garden you may have one species of plant, but its fruit may vary in size, flavor, and appeal.

Of all the Overleaf categories present in this system, the Role is the aspect of Essence that is strongest internal driver. It is not true in all cases that it is the most evident. As mentioned above, Roles are played out in the aspects of cultural archetypes. All societies have representations of the seven Roles. Often, like in India which has a version of these embedded in it’s caste system, certain Roles tend to get a certain veneration (like Kings and Warriors) while others (Scholars and Servers) can be viewed with little favor and possible contempt. These preferences tend to be biased by the Human and Earthly predisposition toward the more masculine qualities of Dominance, Aggression, Power, and control.

Knowing your Role: Artisan, Sage, Warrior, King, Server, Priest, Scholar, which means understanding the range of thoughts and drives which pertain to that type can offer a deep validation and understanding for emotional and behavioral patterns and habits towards which you naturally gravitate.