The glow of Telesphoros: a brief enquiry into the sense of the term 'mana personality' and the dynamic of experiences behind it

摘要

In this article, I begin by outlining the qualities and attributes associated with experiences of mana, focusing particularly on the way the term 'mana' was used by C.G. Jung in his published work. I note that Jung associated mana with the accumulation and transfer of psychic energy (libido), with the appearance and appropriation of elemental fire, and by extension, with the metamorphic experience of constellating consciousness. In this context, informed by Jung's accounts and modes of expression, the term mana personality becomes a provisional designation for a recurrent dynamic of archetypal experiential configurations whose telos appears to be the reorientation of consciousness to its origin.