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Mana-personality

Mana-personality — Descent Press Index (entry forthcoming).

Jae Botávn

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Mana-personality
  1. Etymology

Mana-personality (Melanesian mana: bewitching / numinous power) names a personified archetypal image of supernatural force—hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint, friend of God. Related: wise old man; charisma; inflation.

  1. Plain summary

A mana-personality carries magical charge: the mighty one who rules men and spirits. Historically it becomes hero and godlike priest; the doctor still wears mana, Jung joked to analysts.

Psychologically it names what happens when ego assimilates autonomous unconscious contents—especially anima/animus—and feels suddenly important. Often the ego has not truly conquered; it is adulterated with an archetype. Mana can guide through liminal states, then must be wrested back for the individual’s own purposes. Related to transference idealization and numinous attraction (not identical with the divine numinosum).

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma common mana-related figures and motifs named across Jungs essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jungs CW contains only these):

personified archetypal image of supernatural force; dominant of collective unconscious; hero / chief / magician / medicine-man / saint / ruler / friend of God; Melanesian mana / numinous quality; inflationary assimilation of anima/animus contents; ego adulterated with archetype; mana not working on others as proof; doctor as mana; charisma; liminal susceptibility; projection of power then integration; second confrontation after anima/animus depotentiated; distinct from numinous as divine presence; wise old man See-route in Samuels; trickster / holy fool as mana carriers; inflation; shadow of the healer.

  1. Academic elucidation

  1. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Mana-personality. A personified archetypal image of a supernatural force. … the well-known archetype of the mighty man in the form of hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint Mana is a Melanesian word referring to a bewitching or numinous quality… Jung used it to describe the inflationary effect of assimilating autonomous unconscious contents, particularly those associated with anima and animus.

(Sharp, 1991, p. [provisional — unverified])

mana personalities … extraordinary and compelling supernatural power… modern equivalent is ‘charisma’ should not be confused with numinosity which pertains only to the divine presence… magician, mediator, priest, doctor, trickster, saint or holy fool… during liminal periods particularly susceptible…

  1. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

…the conquest of the anima as an autonomous complex, and her transformation into a function of relationship between the conscious and the unconscious…

…the ego has taken over the mana. Thus the ego becomes a mana-personality. But the mana-personality is a dominant of the collective unconscious, the well-known archetype of the mighty man in the form of hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint, the ruler of men and spirits, the friend of God.

…I therefore call such a personality simply the mana-personality… Historically, the mana-personality evolves into the hero and the godlike being, whose earthly form is the priest.

See also: wise old man; inflation; anima; animus; numinous; transference; trickster; archetype; ego; self; child.

References

Jung, C. G. (1966). The relations between the ego and the unconscious. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 7, pp. 311–312, 319–320, ¶374, 377378, 388–389). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1928)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.

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