Does Power Come on Its Own?

Magical traditions of different eras and peoples clearly understood the importance of Power both in Magic and in everyday life. Naturally, the question arose — how to increase one’s Power?

There are several fundamentally important answers to this question.

1) Innate Power. Magical traditions proceed from the assumption that the ability to accumulate, use, and control Power is to a large extent an innate talent, much like a gift for music or painting. They also noted that talents in Power may differ — some possess the Power of healing, others the Power of enchantment, a third group the Power of vision, a fourth the Power of war, and so on.

Such innate Power is said to seek expression in a person’s path and to cause suffering if they avoid that expression. This approach is particularly characteristic of receptive traditions, for example shamanism. The shamanic notion of the “initiation crisis” — a kind of ritual sickness that arises when the Power reaches a certain stage of maturity and is ready to burst forth — is well known. This crisis usually ends in an awareness of one’s Power and a corresponding change in life.

If, despite the Call of Power, a person refuses to follow the path intended for them, they typically encounter difficulties and either eventually embrace their path or bury the Power deep in their subconscious, keeping it there in a latent state (much as the Aesir bound Fenrir) until it breaks out and consumes them, driving them mad or killing them.

2) Inherited Power. Several variants are possible here. Sometimes Power belongs to a Physiological egregore and is transmitted through the bloodline from ancestors to descendants, most often along a single line (patrilineal or matrilineal) and usually across a generation (from grandfather to grandson). In this case the kin’s common aim (the physiological egregore) is to accumulate Power for manifestation in one of the descendants endowed with a special mission, and the entire kin serves as a form of selection — both biological and energetic — of that descendant.

However, inheritance of Power is possible in other cases as well. It can be the transfer of Power by a Magus to a successor, either on the Magus’s own initiative or at the successor’s request. Moreover, it can be a “forcible” imparting of Power to a person suitable for it by a dying or departing Magus (or sorcerer, shaman). Beyond the “physiological” ancestral chains of Power, there are also purely magical Lines of Power, usually tracing back to some Deity or Hero who gave the line its initial impetus and continuing in chains of magical succession.

A Magus who carries the Power of a Line cannot leave their body without passing that Power to a successor, since it is precisely the Power of the Line that ties them to the manifested plane. Even village witches often require such a successor, and the custom of removing the roof over a dying witch — intended to ease her death in the absence of such a successor — in fact only helps her leave the physical plane; she then becomes bound to the elements and either imparts Power to the recipient from there, or turns into a Slua, a restless and malevolent elemental.

3) Power acquired through the Hunt. We have already discussed the importance of the Hunt for Power as a primary and sometimes the only source of its increase. Both archaic cultures (for example, in the form of the shamanic “Vision Quest” or the Scandinavian “Utiseta”) and more developed traditions (for example, essentially all ceremonial magic is such a Hunt, transformed from a Hunt for Power into a Hunt for Authority) have widely used this approach. On one hand, it allows those who received neither innate nor inherited Power to acquire it, and on the other hand, it helps those who already possess Power to increase it.

Thus, we see that the ability to realize one’s will (Power) may be present in a person regardless of their intentions, independent of their will, or be the result of conscious effort. Of course, Power acquired through the Hunt is the most manageable, since both the spirit of the hunter, developed during the Hunt, and their experience provide invaluable help not only in acquiring and mastering Power.