Mana

“ However, among these events of daily life, there are some so insignificant and familiar that they pass unperceived: they are not noticed and consequently no need is felt of explaining them. The concept of mana is applied only to those that are important enough to cause reflection, and to awaken a minimum of interest and curiosity ”

“ No man, however, has this power of his own; all that he does is done by the aid of personal beings, ghosts or spirits; he cannot be said, as a spirit can, to be mana himself . . . he can be said to have mana.’ [3]
Class 3. Perhaps a special class should be made of the cases in which the magician feels as if his will-effort was the efficient factor. ”

“ Mana plays a leading part in the ability of a leader, or successes in war of celebrated warriors. When a man frequently undertakes daring deeds, which ought under ordinary circumstances to fail, but none the less prove successful, he is said to possess mana, and thereafter is regarded as one peculiarly favoured by the gods, and in such cases it is held that he can only be overcome by some act or default ”

“ It is true that if certain phrases of Codrington are taken literally, mana should be the cause to which is attributed "everything which is beyond the ordinary power of men, outside the common processes of nature." [675] But from the very examples which he cites, it is quite evident that the sphere of the mana is really much more extended. In reality, it serves to explain usual and everyday phenomena; there is nothing superhuman or supernatural in the fact that a ship sails or a hunter catches game, etc. ”

“ Without multiplying illustrations which will spring to the mind of everyone, I venture to suggest that in man’s emotional response to his environment, in his interpretation in the terms of personality of the objects which encountered his attention, and in their investiture by him with potentiality, atmosphere, orenda, mana—call it by what name you will—we have the common root of magic and religion. ”

“ And he concludes that magic, invented under the pressure of need, is only the objectivation of desire under the form of an extended force, singular, bound to gestures representative of the phenomenon desired and mechanically producing it. If the savage externalize this magical force so far that he ends by personifying it, we have the genesis of a god; the god, in fact, may be a personified mana. ”

“ Altogether, in mana we have what is par excellence the primitive religious idea in its positive aspect, taboo representing its negative side, since whatever has mana is taboo, and whatever, is taboo has mana. ”

“ Because, it would seem, mana, the egomaniac or megalomaniac element, cannot get satisfied with real things, and therefore goes eagerly out to a false world, the supersensuous other-world whose growth we have sketched. ”

“ Having that power, it is a vehicle to convey mana to other stones. In the same way certain forms of words, generally in the form of a song, have power for certain purposes; a charm of words is called mana. But this power, though itself impersonal, is always connected with some person who directs it; all spirits have it, ghosts generally, some men. If a stone is found to have a supernatural power it is because a spirit has associated itself with it. A dead man’s bone has with it mana, because the ghost is with the bone ”

“ Mana is itself, strictly speaking, a scientific biological conception, but it necessarily enters into alliance with religion. Belief in it exists along with belief in ghosts, spirits, and gods—it is not a rival of these, but an attachment to them. As a thing desirable, it is one of the good gifts that the great Powers can bestow, and it thus leads to worship. It is found in distinct form, as is pointed out above, only in superior tribes—it has not been discovered in very low communities, and appears not to belong to the earliest stratum of religious beliefs. ”

“ Thus all conspicuous success is a proof that a man has mana; his influence depends on the impression made {50} on the people’s mind that he has it; he becomes a chief by virtue of it. Hence a man’s power, though political or social in its character, is his mana; the word is naturally used in accordance with the native conception of the character of all power and influence as supernatural. ”

“ Note, All inferior creatures are, and move, and act, as the Creator, by the ministration of angels, directs and influences them. Visible effects are managed and governed by invisible causes. The reason given of this is because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels; the same wisdom, power, and holiness of God, the same will and counsel of his, that guides and governs the angels and all their performances, does, by them, order and dispose of all the motions of the creatures in this lower world and the events and issues of them. ”

“ I entirely agree with you in the opinion that we must admit the existence of the Deity as a fact as well established as that of the law of gravitation, and that in doing so we must further admit that mind may and does exist, independently of bodily organization. Be it also remembered that mind, in its humblest form, is still mind, and that, immeasurable as the distance between them may be, it must nevertheless be regarded as being of the same essence with that of the Deity himself. ”

“ By Heaven's decree it was given to me,
⁠And no power to give is higher.
From land or sea God hath chosen me,
⁠And a favored bird am I—
The gifted of Heaven, to whom power is given
⁠Over earth, and sea, and sky.
I care not for earth, though I had my birth
⁠On the proudest height she owns ”

“ If the law which determines the phenomenal world in the great Beyond, be the same as that according to which the Divine of the Lord forever descends to ultimates, according to which the inspired Word was composed, according to which creation is effected,—namely, the law of correspondence between the interior and exterior, or between cause and effect,—then we should expect to find in the teachings of the seer precisely the harmony to which we have referred, and which actually exists there. ”

“ These Absolutes seem to supersede matter, to transcend mind, and to supervene spirit. I am constantly confused and often perplexed by my inability to comprehend these complex transactions which I attribute to the presences and performances of the Unqualified Absolute, the Deity Absolute, and the Universal Absolute. ”

“ But those who have more understanding do not look at the garment but at the body beneath it (i.e., the moral) ; whilst the wisest, the servants of the Heavenly King, those who dwell at Mount Sinai, look at nothing else but the soul (i.e., the secret doctrine) , which is the root of all the real Law, and these are destined in the world to come to behold the Soul of this Soul (i.e., the Deity) , which breathes in the Law.” (Sohar, iii, 152 a.) ”

“ If, therefore, you take into your consideration the system of things above the heavens or of things below the earth, or of things at the boundaries of the universe on either side, everywhere the presence of Deity anticipates your thought as the sole observable power that in every part of existing things holds in a state of being all those things. Now whether we ought to call this Existence Deity, or Mind, or Power, or Wisdom, or any other lofty term which might be better able to express Him Who is above all, our argument has no quarrel with the appellation or name or form of phrase used. ”

“ After this attempt to reconcile the contradictions, the irregularities of nature, by establishing a duality of gods whose respective provinces are the happiness and unhappiness of the human race, the step was easy to the conviction of the superior activity of a malignant god. The benevolent but epicurean security of the first deity might seem to have little concern in defeating or preventing the malicious schemes of the other. ”

“ Above the laws of nature there rules the Divine Will, which [Pg 93] can do what Nature cannot do, and which we can only begin to understand when we bear in mind the fact that by the side of the visible order of the world or above it, there exist spiritual laws as well as spiritual beings. In a miracle, powers are rendered active which ordinarily remain inactive, but which exist none the less permanently in the world. ”

“ This sevenfold Deity personalization in time and space and to the seven superuniverses enables mortal man to attain the presence of God, who is spirit. This sevenfold Deity, to finite time-space creatures sometime power-personalizing in the Supreme Being, is the functional Deity of the mortal evolutionary creatures of the Paradise-ascension career. ”

“ Thus in the acuter minds magic is gradually superseded by religion, which explains the succession of natural phenomena as regulated by the will, the passion, or the caprice of spiritual beings like man in kind, though vastly superior to him in power. ”

“ Do ye not profess to derive your knowledge and power of interpretation from the gods? Then let the same gods reveal unto you the dream itself."
"This is a strange demand, indeed," answered the alarmed astrologers. "There is not a man on earth that can grant thy desire, and show thee this matter. Be assured, O king, that thou requirest impossibilities at the hands of thy servants; and there is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not in the flesh." ”

“ Law, in this sense at least, must be and is the result of dictation by the highest wisdom, and necessitates the existence of Deity. I use the term because it is the only one which is pertinent to the subject and idea to be expressed. The word God is the outcome of the earlier ages of comparative intellectual darkness. ”

“ Is it not true that all things are ordered according to God’s will, and that His providence governs all things? Is not everything which happens in the universe, whether it be the work of God, of angels, of other demons, or of heroes, regulated by the law of the Most High God? ”

“ The tension-presence of the Universal Absolute signifies the adjustment of differential between deity reality and undeified reality inherent in the separation of the dynamics of freewill divinity from the statics of unqualified infinity. ”

“ No idolatrous creed, however powerful be its conception of one god of the hills and another of the valleys, could thus represent a single deity as wielding all the arrows of adverse fortune, able to assail us from earth and sky and water, formidable alike in the least things and in the greatest. ”

“ A spell follows for summoning a visible deity. Then we have a recipe for making a ring which will enable the owner to know the thoughts of men. The god is threatened if he does not serve the magicians. ”

“ And being Divine,—they are consequently infinite in meaning; for whatever is Divine, is infinite. The Ten Commandments are, in themselves, a summary of all the Divine Commandments, as, when they are traced through their derivations and conclusions, may be seen to be true. ”

“ These subaltern gods were prodigiously multiplied; each man, each town, each country, had their local, their tutelary gods; every event, whether fortunate or unfortunate, had a divine cause; was the consequence of a sovereign decree; each natural effect, every operation of nature, each passion, depended upon a divinity, which a theological imagination, disposed to see gods every where, mistaking nature, either embellished or disfigured. ”

“ The higher ones guide the lower ones, and in this manner, the influence descends until we find ten degrees of angels, which possess a subtle spiritual form. The influence continues to cascade until the celestial bodies are formed by the power of the Creator, blessed be He, at the beginning of His actions, starting with the earthly point consisting of the four elements. From these, the composite entities are formed, influenced by the initial four elements, as they are structured based on the order of the four elements. ”

“ And the Lord made them the Three Ruling Gods. The heavens make things, the earth completes things, and the waters create things. The Three Ruling Gods sent out the current of their primal power to aid in ordering all to this end. Therefore they are also known as the primal gods, and temples are erected to them all over the earth.
If you go into a temple you will find the Three Ruling Gods all seated on one pedestal. They wear women’s hats upon their heads, and hold scepters in their hands, like kings. But he who sits on the last place, to the right, has glaring eyes and wears a look of rage. ”

“ The most divine of visible natures therefore, are, as we have said, from their own nature indissoluble; but they are likewise so from the demiurgic power which pervades through all things, and eternally connects them. For this power is the guard and the divine law which connectedly contains all things. ”

“ A vestige of the transition from magic to religion may perhaps be discerned in the belief, shared by many peoples, that the gods themselves are adepts in magic, guarding their persons by talismans and working their will by spells and incantations. ”

“ Magnified be Thy name, O Thou Who hast power over all that are in the heavens and all that are on earth, Whose dominion embraceth whatsoever is in the heaven of Thy Revelation and the kingdom of Thy creation. None can equal Thee in Thy created realms; none can compare with Thee in the universe Thou hast fashioned. The mind of no one hath comprehended Thee, and the aspiration of no soul hath reached Thee. ”

“ On the Seven Minor Planes of the Great Spiritual Plane exist Beings of whom we may speak as Angels; Archangels; Demi-Gods. On the lower Minor Planes dwell those great souls whom we call Masters and Adepts. Above them come the Great Hierarchies of the Angelic Hosts, unthinkable to man; and above those come those who may without irreverence be called "The Gods," so high in the scale of Being are they, their being, intelligence and power being akin to those attributed by the races of men to their conceptions of Deity. ”