The concept of ‘magic power’ occupies a wide and contested terrain in the depth-psychology corpus, ranging from its archaic roots in mana, taboo, and animistic world-views to its transformation into psychological categories such as affect, will, and archetypal energy. Freud situates magic within the omnipotence of thought characteristic of the animistic stage of mental development, while Jung and those writing in his tradition — particularly von Franz, Albertus Magnus as quoted, and Moore — locate magic power in the soul’s capacity to alter external reality through the intensity of its affective states, a view inherited from Avicenna. Rank’s philological investigations identify magic power with the sovereign word, the primal utterance that commands the elements. Benveniste’s linguistic analysis reveals that the Greek kudos names a specifically magical power of victory belonging to the gods and temporarily granted to kings. Moore recasts magic power as the Magician archetype’s ability to channel unconscious energies — a force so potent it can destroy the ego if improperly metered. The Tarot commentators (Nichols, Pollack, Jodorowsky, Place) trace the same psychic dynamic through the figure of the Magician as one who consciously directs cosmic force through will and imagination. Von Franz, critically, warns that this power degenerates into mere ego-trick when dissociated from genuine interiority. Tension runs throughout between magic power as numinous gift and as instrument of inflation.
rooted in the magic power of the word, of the secret primal word; it is the belief (which lies at the base of all magic) in the power of the bound over the unbound, of rigid knowledge over swarming perils.
Rank identifies magic power as fundamentally residing in the sovereign word, whose mastery over the unbound constitutes the foundational logic of all magical practice.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932thesis
kudos does not depend on men but is the exclusive possession of the gods and forms part of the apanage of these gods. It is a magic power the possession of which confers superiority in certain circumstances, often in battle, where it is a guarantee of victory.
Benveniste demonstrates through Indo-European linguistics that kudos designates a divine magic power temporarily granted to favored mortals, linking magical potency to the archaic institution of sacred kingship.
, Indo European Language and Society, 1973thesis
a certain power to alter things indwells in the human soul and subordinates the other things to her, particularly when she is swept into a great excess of love or hate or the like.
Jung, citing Albertus Magnus’s reading of Avicenna, argues that magic power is the soul’s intrinsic capacity to alter external reality through the force of its own extreme passions.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960thesis
the affectivity of the human soul is the chief cause of all these things, whether because, on account of her great emotion, she alters her bodily substance and the other things towards which she strives
Von Franz, drawing on alchemical sources, locates magic power in the soul’s affectivity — its passionate emotional excess — as the primary causal agent behind magical transformation.
, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966thesis
The power of the unconscious energies is so great that if they are not controlled, contained, and channeled, if they are not accessed at just the right moment and in just the right dose, they may blow the Ego structure to bits.
Moore reformulates magic power as the Magician archetype’s dangerous charge of unconscious energy, which must be carefully metered lest it destroy the ego that receives it.
, King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, 1990thesis
To him magic was ‘a science which confers on man powers apparently superhuman.’ But this science was not meant to be used for vulgar tricks; the true initiate, Levi reasoned, used his will to transform himself.
Place summarizes Lévi’s doctrine that magic power, properly understood, is not supernatural but a disciplined science of will applied to self-transformation rather than external manipulation.
, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, 2005thesis
Knowledge, if linked with a state of higher consciousness, is perhaps the greatest means of fighting evil; dissociated from consciousness, it is just one magical trick against another.
Von Franz distinguishes authentic magic power — rooted in heightened consciousness — from its debased form, in which knowledge becomes mere technique deployed in unconscious power contests.
, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974thesis
power sneaks into everything again and again, and turns that which has been a living spiritual manifestation into a trick, a technical trick in the possession of the ego.
Von Franz warns that what begins as genuine spiritual or magical power is perpetually at risk of being appropriated by the ego and reduced to a manipulative technique.
, Puer Aeternus: A Psychological Study of the Adult Struggle with the Paradise of Childhood, 1970supporting
power sneaks into everything again and again, and turns that which has been a living spiritual manifestation into a trick, a technical trick in the possession of the ego.
A parallel passage to the above confirms von Franz’s consistent thesis that the corruption of magic power lies in its capture by ego-driven power complexes.
, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus, 1970supporting
Waite’s Magician seems to experience the transcendent power as located ‘up above.’ His rigid body stance and gestures indicate that he will bring illumination to earth by an act of will according to established ritual.
Nichols contrasts two pictorial traditions of the Magician to show how conceptions of magic power differ: one verticalist and will-directed, the other inclusive of the horizontal dimension of imagination and relationship.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
the Magician means will-power; the will unified and directed towards goals. It means having great strength because all your energy is channelled in a specific direction.
Pollack identifies the Magician’s magic power with the psychological concept of unified will — directed energy — and its practical consequence as the capacity to achieve one’s ends.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting
the wand that, by its touch, accomplishes every task and brings a touch of magic. The notions of magic, the magical realm of the psyche and the magical expectations of curing and healing provided by anthropology, have not varied very much from primitive to modern man.
López-Pedraza traces magic power in its healing dimension through Hermes’s wand, arguing that magical expectation is a constant in the human psyche from archaic to contemporary contexts.
, Hermes and His Children, 1977supporting
He who knows the dying round the holy power, round him the rivals that vie with and hate him die.
Zimmer documents a Vedic magical formula in which knowledge of the holy power (brahman) functions as a lethal weapon against rivals, illustrating the deadly efficacy attributed to metaphysical magic power in Indo-Aryan tradition.
, Philosophies of India, 1951supporting
None has so completely overcome magic in its characteristic world of thought as has the Greek. In the Homeric world, magic possesses no importance, whether we look at gods or men.
Otto argues that Greek religion is uniquely defined by its decisive rejection of magic power, making the Homeric world the counterexample against which all other cultures’ reliance on magic must be measured.
, The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion, 1929supporting
He not only uses the physical world for his magical operations (the four emblems are all objects used by wizards in their rituals), but he also creates the world, in the sense of giving life a meaning and direction.
Pollack characterizes the Magician’s magic power as both instrumental — employing physical objects as ritual tools — and cosmogonic, in that it confers meaning and direction upon existence itself.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting
The hand is central to all magic. It is symbolic of man’s power to tame and shape nature consciously, to put its energies to creative use.
Nichols locates magic power in the symbolism of the human hand, which represents conscious mastery over natural energies and their redirection toward creative ends.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
The embodiment of invisible personal power in the numerous seal-marks of numerous people, of the animate in the inanimate, is a form of magic, and seals may for instance be worn to provide magical protection.
Seaford invokes magic power in its projective, apotropaic form — the inscription of personal invisible power onto material objects — as a structural parallel to the social logic of early monetary tokens.
, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, 2004aside
For The Magician all is possible. He has a series of elements on the table in front of him that he can use as he pleases, and a pouch that is easily imagined to be inexhaustible, like a horn of plenty.
Jodorowsky characterizes the Magician’s magic power as an inexhaustible creative potentiality — the capacity to deploy any available element toward any desired end — associated with androgynous intelligence.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004aside
By visualizing the crystal imprinted with a Tarot archetype (expressed in its highest ideal) you can expect to draw on great transformative powers. You are calling upon and expecting extra-normal things to happen.
Greer presents a practical application of magical power through Tarot archetypal visualization, framing transformative efficacy as the result of deliberately invoking the highest potential of a given archetype.
, Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey, 1984aside