Power as a Drug

As we have already said, any movement of Power within a person is subjectively experienced as pleasure. Yet it is not only the loss of Power that is dangerous for a Magus; acquiring Power without being prepared for it is dangerous as well.

We discussed that a necessary condition for acquiring Power is the creation of a “place” for it, a receiving vessel.

In the course of traditional training in Magic the Master always ensures that such “vessels,” the needs for Power, arise within the student sequentially and are filled with Power in turn. However, in some cases this order may be violated.

Most often this happens when an unprepared person acquires an object of Power or when someone spends a long time at a Place of Power. Another case is the Lines, which have become fairly widespread today, do not respect the Magus’s discipline and indulge his weaknesses.

In such cases, the external background creates a pseudo-vessel in the person, and Power begins to flow into him. Being in contact with the high potentials of Power that surround him, the person is pushed to a higher level of being for which his consciousness is not yet ready. He cannot retain or effectively use the Power that flows into him. At the same time he develops, on the one hand, a sense of his own power (which is in fact false, since the source of that might lies outside the person), and on the other hand the pleasure produced by the flow of Power.

In turn, these sensations create an intense dependence on the inflow of Power, since he is entirely dependent on external sources. A “Gollum syndrome” develops: the person becomes addicted to an object or a Place of Power, jealously prevents others from interacting with that Power, and, in the end, becomes behaviorally unbalanced.

There are many known examples of directors or staff of nature reserves who began to jealously guard Places of Power against all visitors; similar situations occurred with museum workers who handled magical artifacts. The most striking case of this kind is Hitler’s obsession with the power of the Spear of Destiny, from which he could not free himself until his death.

In order to avoid such dependence, it is very important for a Magus to watch over himself, to be aware of the sources of his Power, and to not allow the predominance of external sources of Power over internal ones.