Mane

The Mana-Personality. My initial material for the discussion that now follows is taken from cases where the condition that was presented in the previous chapter as the immediate goal has been achieved, namely the conquest of the anima as an autonomous complex

Jung defines the Mana-personality as the psychic inflation arising when the ego absorbs the numinous power of the depotentiated anima, marking a critical and dangerous stage of the individuation process.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953thesis

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Mana. Spiritual being of pure divinity, also the divine spirit in man: the Great Mana (also Mana of Glory) is the highest godhead. Original meaning probably ‘vessel,’ ‘jar.’

Jonas identifies Mana as the Mandaean term for both the supreme divine being and the divine pneumatic principle within the human individual, providing the mythological substrate for Jung’s Mana-personality concept.

Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity, 1958thesis

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mane surgamus ad vineas, videamus si floruerit vinea, si flores fructus parturiunt, si floruerunt mala punica

Von Franz cites the alchemical injunction to rise at dawn (‘mane’) to inspect the vineyard, encoding morning wakefulness as the ritual readiness required for the opus of psychic transformation.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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I am the most prudent virgin coming forth as the Dawn, shining exceedingly, elect as the sun, fair as the moon

The Aurora Consurgens figures the feminine wisdom principle as the dawn-arising presence, contextualizing ‘mane’ within the alchemical symbolism of illumination and the coniunctio.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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the common people at Rome that the ‘star with hair’ (stella crinita, cometes), which appeared during the games celebrated soon after the death of Julius, was the soul of the latter thus shown to be inter deorum immortalium numina receptam

Onians’s discussion of the fiery genius manifesting in the head and hair provides an analogous Indo-European substrate for the concept of a luminous, individualized spiritual substance comparable to Mana.

Onians, R B, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988aside

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