Power and Magic

A few thoughts today on the close relationship between power and magic, a subject that concerned Jean Gebser — the convergence, for example, of instrumental or technocratic rationality with older forms of magic (ie, the sorceric) which, following Algis Mikunas (one of Gebser’s translators), I’ve referred to in past posts as “technocratic shamanism”. In Gebser’s terms, the dangerous synthesis (or confusion) of instrumental rationality with older forms of magical consciousness or technique, in their “deficient modes” of functioning, results in the corruption of both — the mental-rational and the magical structures of consciousness.

The deficient (or decadent) mode of the mental-rational (which, we may say, is the decay or devaluation of the reasonable into the merely rational) tends to revert to equally deficient forms of the magical consciousness structure. That is so because both structures are concerned with power — the ability to make happen. The ability to make happen may be said to be the essence of power, and this is shared by both the mental-rational and the magical structures of consciousness. Recently, concerns with this (con)fusion of instrumental rationality and the sorceric or magical has arisen in works I’ve already referred to in past posts on technocratic shamanism — Stirk’s Technology as Magic, Bailey’s The Enchantments of Technology, or Romanyshyn’s Technology as Symptom & Dream, and also, in politics, Gary Lachman’s book on “Chaos Magick” in contemporary politics, Dark Star Rising.

Earlier, we noted this resurgence of older, legacy forms of consciousness following the “death of God” — a phenomenon referre to as “the return of the repressed”. Older forms of mythical and magical consciousness, previously proscribed and suppressed, begin to make a resurgence, since the inhibitions against their expression have been removed. It isn’t a coincidence that Nietzsche’s announcement of the “death of God” is followed, subsequently, by Freud’s (and Jung’s) “discovery of the unconscious” or even the discovery of “deep time” and also Einstein’s disclosure of time as the fourth-dimension. These are related dynamics.

What Gebser calls the “irruption” of time into consciousness, even as “deep time”, altogether is what we call “return of the repressed”. Essentially, what we call “the unconscious” (or “collective unconscious”) is the time “dimension” itself. That means, also, older legacy psychic structures that continue to constitute us also “irrupt”, generating a condition that Gebser describes as “chaotic emotion” and a “maelstrom of blind anxiety”, for the present ego-consciousness does not have an adequate framework for integrating these “irruptions” or the return of the repressed. This framework, calle “the integral”, is in process of being developed. We have discussed this new framework in many past posts in The Chrysalis — citing, especially, William Blake, Jean Gebser, David Bohm, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and others in this respect.

Since, as mentioned, instrumental rationality and magic share the same goal — power and technique — they thus tend to converge, with the familiar result called “magical thinking”. Gebser notes that structures of consciousness, such as the mythical, the magical, the mental-rational, have both their effective forms of expression as well as their “deficient” modes of expression — in other words, the healthy modes and the unhealthy or diseased modes. “Technocratic shamanism” is a diseased mode of consciousness. If you are familiar with Jacques Ellul’s critique of the technological milieu and drive, you will perhaps understand then why such technocratic shamanism is a diseased mode of consciousness. It is especially evident in techniques like “perception management” (ie propaganda) or in various technologies of social and psychological control.

“Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold”, as Yeats put it in The Second Coming. As the numerous crises of Late Modernity prove insoluble by conventional instrumental rationality, their will be a tendency to revert to magic or magical thinking — symptomatic of the sense of uncertainty, insecurity, and the loss of “command and control”.

Now, we do know that what we call “magic” is effective. We know that through the phenomona of the placebo and the nocebo effects, which are today the subjects of much medical and psychological research. As Gebser notes, magic is essentially spell-casting (and propaganda is a contemporary technocratic form of spell-casting). Magic is involved in almost everything we do. The word “grammar” is related to old words for spell-casting — a “grammarye” was a magic spell. To speak at all always involves some ancient form of spell-casting.

Interestingly, the word “fascism” has old connections with spell-casting. In Latin a fascinum was not just “bindings” or “bonds”, but a fascination — ie, a magic spell, or “the binding power”. Fascism is, in that regard, a symptom also of the return of the repressed. We may say, then, that “technocratic shamanism” is the official style or mode of discourse of fascism, largely perfected by Goebbels and Hitler.

The pursuit of power has been a basic theme of Modernity, expressed as instrumental rationality. Francis Bacon gave the Age its marching orders with his formula, Scientia potens est (knowledge is power). Power is desirable, but not at the expense of other considerations where the balance or equilibrium of things is disturbed, as it is currently. Rosenstock-Huessy worked out the proper place and role of power within his quadrilateral “cross of reality” model — those other factors necessary to moderate the place of power in our activities. It’s our tendency to be one-sided that eventually makes the pursuit of power a disease, something that Blake called “Single Vision” as antithetical to “Fourfold Vision”. We see this problem in neoliberalism and current economic policy, the problem of what Lewis Mumford once called “the Megamachine” — a rational economy is not necessarily an ethical economy. In fact, ethics, which respects the equilibrium of things, plays hardly any role at all in technocratic economic theory.

Interestingly, the very words “machine” and “make” are related to the word “magic”, as is the German word “Macht” — meaning force of power. The German verb “machen” means to do, or to make. As such, you may now know why Gebser describes magic simply as the power to “make happen”. As Rosenstock-Huessy noted, likewise, we can hardly utter a single sentence without invoking older elements of myth and magic. It is also notable that the word “grimoire” — a book of spells — is related to the word “grammar” (as is the word “glamour”).

The cult of power and the culture of narcissism make for a terrible combination, presently called “pathocracy”. Narcissism is essentially also called “the empathy deficit”, and so power without empathy portends disaster. When power is not moderated by other factors such as respect or empathy, it becomes demonic, and a demonic expression of the Shadow.

Before we can learn the positive handling of the forces involved with return of the repressed, we must deal with the Shadow, both individually and collectively. The Shadow is otherwise known as “the dark side”, our “Mr. Hyde”, as it were. For both good and ill, the emergence of the Shadow is also involved with the return of the repressed. Facing the Shadow soberly and lucidly is the part of all this process that takes great courage. But what often appears today as mass psychosis or as “pathocracy” is the rampage of the Shadow, without those so possessed even being aware that they are in the grips of the Shadow.

Facing the Shadow is especially when the Buddhist practice of non-attachment becomes supremely important — to face the devil himself without losing your marbles. This is sometimes referred to as “the dark night of the soul” or “the valley of the shadow of death”. It is also symbolised in Hermeticism as the Sol Niger of Black Sun, which is the intended meaning of Lachman’s aforementioned “Dark Star Rising” — the advent of the Shadow, who is not only, essentially, Yeats’ “Rough Beast” of his famous poem, but also the themes of movies like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.

Power in the hands of the Shadow — especially technological power — is a terrible thing.

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