Wizards & More (Part 2)
Tools of the Trade Magic Wand
Hermes, the Tarot magician, and Merlin all used wands. Houdini, once he began to specialize in escapes, did not. Still, the magic wand is clearly the
most widespread of the various "tools" and/or "badges" associated with the magician. What, then, might it mean?
An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols contains the following entry: Wand Power; conductor of supernatural force; an attribute of all
magicians, shamans and medicine men. It is associated symbolically with the mace, scepter, trident and crozier.
As we have already seen in connection with Hermes and with the Tarot magician, the wand represents the specific power(s) of the magician who possesses
it. Its association with the mace and scepter, however, adds a new dimension of meaning. Using our imagination, we can picture primitive man using
club and spear to hunt and to kill and then using these same implements to threaten, that is to attempt to control by intimidation. From there, that
is, from the mace, it would be but a short step to the scepter, the badge of office of the chief or king. The trident and crozier would fit the same
pattern.
One primary use to the wand is to point to something and thus to focus attention and energy on it. As with all magic, this can lead to harm or to
good, depending on context and intention. For example, in Melanesia "pointing the bone" (or stick or arrow or wand), accompanied by the ritual
expression of negative emotion, may lead to the death of the victim.108 On the other hand, wands can focus emotional energy in positive ways, as with
the fairy godmother's wand, the wand used by Moses to strike water from the rock, or the wand used by Jesus (see below) to raise Lazarus from the
dead.
Wands have sometimes been identified with the divining rods used in dowsing. This practice, called rhabdomancy or rhabdoscopy, however, seems less
connected with the power which wands traditionally symbolize than with other means of divination (such as the use of a pendulum) which amplify one's
intuitive responses.
A more plausible interpretation of the magician's wand sees it as a type of phallic symbol. (Indeed, some men who know nothing of symbolism have
referred to their penis as their "magic wand.") The Druids of ancient Britain used wands of hazel or mistletoe with a pine cone attached to one end.
Such a wand was eventually called the "Priapic wand" in honor of the Greek fertility god Priapus. Perhaps the symbolism here is obvious.
There are parallels here too between the magician and his wand and the fool and his scepter or "bauble. And according to William Willeford, "Attached
to the bauble of the European court jester was often a bladder formed into a clear representation of a phallus."
This observations about the "phallic" nature of the magician's wand can be balanced by the claims of Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor in their book The
Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. Their argument is that the magician's wand was originally "a women's lunar calendar
stick, the first time-measuring device known, dating from the Ice Age. A male magician or shaman cannot be magic, i.e., female without it." By the
phrase "magic, i.e., female," Sjoo and Mor are referring to such wide-spread practices among shamans as dressing in women's clothes in order to
combine both male and female powers or energies. So in this sense it would not seem too implausible for a traditional shaman to employ a "power
object" characteristic of women. They discuss this "wand" again later in their book, contrasting their view with that of Abbe Breuil (the original
investigator of the Trois Fr res cave paintings and the one who named the central image the "sorcerer"):
Such sticks appear in Paleolithic cave paintings dating from 50,000 B.C. They are held by women and shamans. (And later became the magician's wand.)
Abbe Breuil named this stick, le baton de commandement, suggesting it was an insignia of male rulership or power. But in fact, as a lunar measuring
instrument, the stick derives from women's earliest moon-phase engravings on rock and bone. All of our reflections on the Paleolithic cave paintings
must remain speculative, of course. Still, it is true that it is a tradition for the shaman to combine qualities of both male and female, a tradition
similar to the Jungian stress on developing a relationship with one's contrasexual side, anima or animus, so such speculations are interesting.
As we can easily imagine, Christ has often been viewed as a kind of magician. And many older illustrations show Jesus using a magic wand of some kind
to perform his miracles. For example, this Fourth Century image from the Vatican library shows Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead by touching him
with a type of wand.
While ceremonial magicians use wands as a symbol of their power or authority, performing magicians have often used their wands to help them accomplish
magic tricks. Many special "gimmicked" wands have been available over the centuries, some of which are still sold in magic shops. These wands may, for
example, levitate or change their own appearance in some way (say, by changing color). They may also aid in the producing, vanishing, or transforming
of some other object. And magic wands may also assist the conjuror to "misdirect" the attention of the audience in various ways.
And then, of course, the expression "magic wand" is a relatively common metaphor in European languages. Here it is mostly just a figure of speech, but
one with an archetypal background (as many figures of speech have). For example, Jung wrote to Karl Ker‚nyi, praising his interpretations of Greek
mythology: "You touch the fragments with the magic wand of your intuition, and behold! they fly together into recognizable figures."
Magic Words
When asked if they know any magic words, the average speaker of English today will answer with either "abracadabra" or "hocus pocus" and, in fact,
these words each have a long history.
The Herder Symbol Dictionary contains the following entry:
Abracadabra It is a magical word that appeared in late Greek writings and was probably related to Abraxas [the name of the God of the Year]. It was
used as an amulet inscription, primarily to vanquish illness. In this entry, the origin and meaning of the word is not given. Aryeh Kaplan, however,
gives the meaning as "I will create as I speak" (ABRA K'ADaBRA). This translation clearly underscores the power that magicians attribute to the act of
speaking. This is, of course, evident from the Genesis account of the creation of the world: "And God said, 'Let there be light.'"
This particular magic word was often written as an inverted triangle, as follows:
A B R A C A D A B R A
A B R A C A D A B R
A B R A C A D A B
A B R A C A D A
A B R A C A D
A B R A C A
A B R A C
A B R A
A B R
A B
A
Just why it is/was written this way I have not seen explained. This arrangement, while visually interesting, is not anything like the traditional
"Sator Arepo" magical square device which was also often used on magical amulets.
"Hocus Pocus" is usually explained in one of two different ways. On the one hand, it is often alleged to come from the words hoc est corpus in the
Latin mass "this is the body" (of Christ) or hoc est corpus (meum), "this is (my) body." If this is so, it reflects a recognition of the magical
transformation aspect in the mass as well, perhaps, an intentional parody of "ecclesiastical magic. On the other hand, however, it sometimes alleged
to come from the name of a famous magician. Who's Who in Magic confirms that this was the
[s]tage name of the leading conjurer in England during the reign of King James (1603-25), as reported by both Ben Jonson (in 1625 & 1632, spelling his
name both "Hocos Pokos" & "Hokos-pokos") & Thomas Ady (in 1656). However, given that Reginald Scot mentions the use of "hocus pocus" as a magic word
in his 1584 book The Discouerie of Witchcraft, it seems likely the 17th century performer by that name simply adopted the already existing words as
his stage name.
Another bit of evidence which seems to support the view at the Latin mass rather than a particular popular performer is the source of this word is
that "hocus pocus" is known in almost all the European languages, something which the "hoc est corpus" theory could easily explain.
In any case, "hocus pocus" as an accompaniment of magic has a long history.
The very strangeness of magic words like "abracadabra" and "hocus pocus" may also be part of their charm. As Jung writes in discussing "our dependence
on words,"
Because words are substitutes for things, which of course they cannot be in reality, they take on intensified forms, become eccentric, outlandish,
stupendous, swell up into what schizophrenic patients call "power words. A primitive word-magic develops, and one is inordinately impressed by it
because anything out of the ordinary is felt to be especially profound and significant. And Jung elsewhere refers to the "unintelligible incantations"
used in magic.
Perhaps the primary use of magic words, however, is in the type of ritual known as "casting a spell. According to Malinowski, "the most important
element in magic is the spell." He analyses the words or sounds involved in terms of their phonetic effect (as for example when the wailing of the
wind or the sea is onomatopoeically invoked), their stating or commanding the desired aim (cf. "hoc est corpus" above!), and their mythological
allusions (for example, the history and traditions of the people involved). Because of the complexity of all this, Malinowski argues, "The slightest
alteration from the original pattern would be fatal."
Each culture will have its own set of spells, naturally. However, the range of the purposes for which spells have been cast is remarkable. Included
are virtually all things which humans might desire but have difficulty obtaining. For instance, in just one ancient culture there were spells for
memory, for foreknowledge, for attracting love, for restraining anger, for producing a trance, for inducing insomnia (presumably in others!), for
keeping bugs out of the house, for requesting a dream oracle, and for gaining control on one's shadow (although not, presumably, in the Jungian
sense), along with many others. There were also, naturally, spells to protect one from spells cast by others.
Note also that to be "magic" words do not have to have a mysterious sound, an esoteric meaning, or a special history. Robert Neale provides a moving
example of this in his chapter "Many Magics" in the book Magic and Meaning:
Magic occurs between parent and child. I recall awful nights as a fledgling father with a crying infant, my first child. Night after night, she would
scream and I would yell just as wildly in my mind. But magic occurred. Sometimes, I would pick her up, hold her close to me and say, "It is all right.
It is all right. This is word magic. It was not all right from the everyday-life point of view. She was miserable and I was too. Besides, she could
not understand what I said. Furthermore, I could not understand it either. But both of us were made content. "It is all right. That was a conviction
about her, me, our relationship and our future. This is very basic magic. Many years later, I spent six months in a hospice, caring for those who were
dying. They did die, and they did so while I was in their company, sitting beside them, often holding their hands or resting my hand on their
shoulders. As I sat for hours and watched them die, it became clear that, you guessed it, "Everything was all right. How could this be? It was not all
right. The person might be young with a family and career. The person might be older and have serious issues about their lives that were unresolved.
And I was not very all right myself in my life, family and work. Even so, I said, "Everything is all right," and it was so. At the end, as well as at
the beginning, of life, such primary life magic is commonplace. Our words can make a difference. We are all magicians. Magic Circle
According the Herder Symbol Dictionary,
In magical practices, the circle is valued as an effective symbol of protection against evil spirits, demons, etc.; the protective function ascribed
to such items as the belt, ... ring, hoop, and circular amulet probably derives from the symbolic value of the circle. So in this sense a magic circle
is what in German would be called a "Bannkreis," a circle which keeps something out, which "bans" or "banishes" it. This seems to be the idea behind
the image below, showing Faustus within his magic circle and Mephistopheles being kept at bay.
In the novel The Last Temptation of Christ, Kazantzakis has Jesus draw a circle around himself in the sand when he has to confront his tempters. In
Dracula there is a similar image of the circle as magical protection. And the Handw"rterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens reports a wide variety of
similar practices. In his Tavistock Lectures, Jung mentions the customs of making a magic circle around a field both when digging for a treasure and
when protecting the harvest.
But there is also a sense in which a magic circle serves to keep something in. The Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery, for example, describes the magic
circle as "a circle of nine feet: the area within which the magician has contact with a spirit, and which he cannot leave before he has broken the
spell." In both traditional and so-called "Neo-Pagan" rituals, the "casting of the circle" serves mainly to keep a certain energy or focus within the
gathering rather than to protect against "evil" forces from outside.
Of course, a magic circle often has both the function of keeping something out and keeping something else in. Circles as such can always do both
whether they are "circles of friends" or circles of barbed wire. Again, as Jung puts it,
The vas bene clausum (well-sealed vessel) is a precautionary measure very frequently mentioned in alchemy, and is the equivalent of the magic circle.
In both cases the idea is to protect what is within from what is without, as well as to prevent it from escaping.
When the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 I happened to be in Europe and I visited Berlin to see this wall. The Western press had only mentioned the
wall as an attempt by East Germany to keep its citizens from escaping. The rationale I was given in East Berlin, however, was that it was more an
attempt to keep out the pernicious influence of Western European culture. Although I doubted that this was the real reason for the wall, it did strike
me at the time that walls actually do both.
Of course the magic circle of the magician as shaman and as conjuror is the area in which his "performance" takes place, whether it be a simple
clearing or a formal stage. The function of having a well-defined space of this sort is to focus the attention of the spectators or participants and
to show that something special is to happen here. In this sense, the circle or stage is similar to putting a frame around a painting and hanging it on
the wall, a point returned to in the discussion of "audience," below.
A related way of conceptualizing the function of the magic circle is to imagine it dividing the secular from the sacred or the ordinary from the
extraordinary. This is expressed in a quote from The Magician Within by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette:
Ancient cities were sacred spaces, usually roughly (and sometimes precisely) circular by design, with the palace-temple complex always located at the
circle's center. Thus the King dwelt at the organizing center, from which the created world radiates. Sacred mountains, sacred trees, and inner
sanctums all were the "power spots" through which an energy exchange took place between the various dimensions of reality. The center was always
bounded and contained by impregnable walls or "magic circles" or some other device designed to separate ordinary from extraordinary time and space.
The concept of the "temenos," so important to our understanding of the process of Jungian analysis, is clearly related to this function and will be
returned to in the next chapter.
Audience
It is, of course, possible for ceremonial magic to take place in private. In such a case, the magician will either be attempting to affect himself (or
something in his surroundings) or he will be addressing his magic to some spiritual power, such as God. In the typical case of magic, however, an
audience of some kind is assumed. Hermes, the Tarot magician, Merlin and Houdini all work their wonders before an audience. Why and how is this
significant?
Just as magic circle and the performer's stage set off the realm of magic from the ordinary, secular world, so too does the presence of an audience
contribute to the success of magic of all kinds.
Magic, both ceremonial and performing, is, after all, a kind of theater. And theater people are very familiar with "the roar of the crowd" and its
effect on the performance. Having an audience is not just incidental. Metaphorically if not literally, there is a reciprocal flow of energy between
the performer and the audience. This must be so if the performance is to be successful at least.
For there to a spectacle there must be spectators. Shamans and magicians have long realized this and have devote considerable attention to gathering
and preparing (or "conditioning") their spectators.
Because shamans use ecstatic techniques (such as drumming, chanting, and, often, drugs), it is often the case that, as Rogan Taylor writes,
... the psychological fusion between the shaman and his people is almost total and discrimination between the performer and the audience becomes
almost impossible. ... In the sophisticated civilisations the very definition of an "audience" revolves around an increasing discrimination between
performers and onlookers. It is really only when the onlookers no longer know the mystery which lies behind the performance, and to which it
constantly refers, that they become an audience. In certain contexts, it might be true to say that the audience only comes into existence when it
stops taking the same drugs as the performers. And when all are "in on the secret," they are colleagues or comrades, members of the same "community"
or "tribe."
In general, for there to be a distinction between performer and audience there must be some way of marking the one off from the other, some way of
showing that we are confronting a performance or a work of art. The frame around a painting and the pedestal under a piece of sculpture show is this,
for example.
It has long been recognized by aestheticians, of course, that the stage with its proscenium arch (or the circular platform of theater-in-the-round) is
analogous to the frame around a painting: it makes the statement, "This before you is a performance/a work of art. And because of this we take a
different attitude towards what we are given.
A concept related to this is the changing of the frame or framework in which something is understood. Thus both psychotherapists and negotiators speak
of "re-framing" an issue. Part of Jungian analysis consists in doing just this.
The Analyst as Magician
Jung's way of approaching the psyche was distinctive in its heavy use of imagery. As he once put it:
In describing the living processes of the psyche, I deliberately and consciously give preference to a dramatic, mythological way of thinking and
speaking, because this is not only more expressive but also more exact than an abstract scientific terminology, which is wont to toy with the notion
that its theoretic formulations may one fine day be resolved into algebraic equations.
So the idea of trying to understand the Jungian analyst better by considering him or her as a kind of "magician" is in keeping with the approach
encouraged by Jung. He himself once referred to "the psyche and its box of conjuring tricks" and was personally fond of magic shows.
Therapists of many schools have already looked for connections between magic and psychopathology and between magic and psychotherapy. Rather than
summarize their suggestions here, I shall offer some thoughts based on my own observations.
What about the goal(s) of analysis itself? Freud's remark that his goal was to transform neurotic suffering into ordinary sadness comes to mind. But
to stay with the magician metaphor, one Jungian has described the process as "how bewitchment is transformed into enchantment."
In discussing the "mana personality" in Chapter III above, I quoted Jung's remark about "the well-known archetype of the mighty man in the form of
hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint, the ruler of men and spirits, the friend of God." In one sense, of course, there are saints and heroes.
But to a large extent such titles are the results of projection, that process "by which a subjective content becomes alienated from the subject and
is, so to speak, embodied in the object." So, as has been said, considering another person as a "magician" involves projection. In analysis, the
analysand's projections on the analyst are referred to as "transference" and as we shall see (and as we might well expect), seeing the analyst as a
kind of magician is not uncommon.
Such projections are sometimes helpful to the process of analysis, but not always. Jung writes:
One of the greatest hindrances to understanding is the projection of the shaman the savior. As soon as you are elevated to such a rank, you are
powerless, lost in a sea of mist. ... You are just as unable to perform miracles as a shaman as a rule is.
To give structure to the present chapter, I divide it into sections related to the "tools of the trade" discussed in Chapter V: Wand, Words, Circle,
and Audience.
Wand
In "A Study in the Process of Individuation," Jung tells how his patient was overcome by a fantasy-image as she was trying to paint a landscape:
... she saw herself with the lower half of her body in the earth, stuck fast in a block of rock. The region round about was a beach strewn with
boulders. In the background was the sea. She felt caught and helpless. Then she suddenly saw me in the guise of a medieval sorcerer. She shouted for
help, I came along and touched the rock with a magic wand. The stone instantly burst open, and she stepped out uninjured. And the resulting painting
of this situation which she brought to Jung has become famous in its own right.
But how are we to understand this "magic wand" being used? Like the drum of the shaman, the wand of the magician is both a badge of office and a tool
to assist in transformation. The wand focuses the magician's power so that, as in Jung's patient's dream, that which the magician touches with his
wand is changed.
In the above case, the patient's dream credits the analyst with possessing such a wand. In a different case, we might imagine the analyst asking a
client who is "stuck" and cannot imagine how things might change, "If we had a magic wand, what could we do with it?" (The analyst might, of course,
have said, "I" instead of "we" or, perhaps, "you.") Such a fantasy of having a wand could, with the right client at the right time, stimulate the
imagination in a helpful way.
In general, such techniques resemble the "active imagination" which Jung recommended, a topic which others have begun to explore.
With other clients, of course, the above techniques might be more likely to stimulate a regression to a level of passivity and "magical thinking. A
colleague told me of saying to such a client (presumably in a moment of frustration), "I don't have a magic wand, you know."
Words
In Jungian analysis the typical therapeutic intervention is with words. (Actions, of course, such as declining to answer the telephone during a
session, can also be important; but this is not as "typical" as the use of words.)
Russell Lockhart begins his stimulating essay "Words as Eggs" by quoting Leonard Cohen:
I've been listening to all the dissension I've been listening to all the pain.
And I know that no matter what I do
It'll all come back to you again.
But I think that I can heal it
But I think that I can heal it
I'm a fool, but I think that I can heal it
With this song.
Lockhart then continues: As an analyst, I, too, hear stories of dissension and pain. And, yes, I know, too, that no matter what I say or do this pain
will come back again. Yet, in face of this inevitable return, the poet and analyst share a common vision, a common hope. Like the poet, the analyst,
too, is a fool and feels that this pain and dissension can be touched and healed with his particular form of song: the curing word, the healing
speech, the therapy of the word we call psychotherapy.
In discussing magic words in the previous chapter, I cited Robert Neale's use of the words "it is all right. Now I provide three clinical examples,
but examples from sessions where I was the analysand rather than the analyst.
First example: In the "acknowledgments" section at the beginning of this thesis, I referred to one example of an analyst's words which proved magical.
In discussing my associations to a dream in which I was traveling first class, my analyst simply asked, "And what would it mean to go 'first class.'"
The result was a breakthrough in my thinking about my life.
Second example: Prior to my beginning in Jungian analysis, I saw a Freudian for "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" for several years. For one session I
arrived terribly upset and told him that my pre-teenaged daughter had been sitting in my car, had accidentally released the parking brake, and I had
witnessed the nightmare-ish scene of the car with my daughter rolling backwards down a hill and crashing into a tree. Although no one was injured and
the car was insured, I remained quite upset. My analyst simply said, "Thank God she wasn't hurt. And his words transformed the situation for me.
Third example: I have noticed that many times during my years with my current analyst I have resisted doing (or even feeling) things which conflicted
with my previously "set" ways of looking at the world. Sometimes, in such instances, I would fantasize about some new way of acting or of
understanding a situation. My analyst's words, "And why not?" were often the key which opened new possibilities for me. Like magic. Circle
The "magic circle" discussed in the previous chapter has its counterpart in the Jungian concept of the "temenos. The Greeks used this concept to mean
a sacred, protected space, such as in a temple a place where the divine presence can be safely felt. Jung and his followers applied this notion to the
analyst's consulting room.
In addition to the magic circle as temenos, there is another sense of circle which is relevant here: the mandala, the type of geometric figure usually
involving both circle and square. Such images can appear spontaneously in dreams and paintings and have often been employed in traditional meditation
practices. But whether produced by the client or offered in some way by the analyst, working with mandalas can be healing and "magical. Jung writes:
... mandalas mostly appear in connection with chaotic psychic states of disorientation or panic. They then have the purpose of reducing the confusion
to order, though this is never the conscious intention of the patient. At all events they express order, balance, and wholeness. Patients themselves
often emphasize the beneficial or soothing effect of such pictures. ... Most mandalas have an intuitive, irrational character and, through their
symbolical content, exert a retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess a "magical" significance ....
One final sense of "circle" comes to mind in connection with the practice of analysis: the analyst's own "circle" of friends and colleagues. Perhaps
it goes without saying that analysts who lack such a circle risk falling into a form of "co-dependency" with their clients simply due to the human
need for contact with others. And it is also clear that consultation with one's professional colleagues can help one escape that other kind of circle,
the "vicious circle," of limited imagination and understanding.
Unfortunately, it is also true that some Jungians see themselves as part of a circle of what might be called "the elect" in comparison with other
psychotherapists. In such circles, "The term 'analyst' is used repeatedly ... in a special, almost magical, sense to separate such individuals from
other psychotherapists."158 So we see here again the danger of inflation.
Audience
Two senses of "audience" may well concern the analyst: the analysand as a kind of "audience" in the analytic hour and the public in general as a kind
of "audience" for the insights and concepts which arise from the Jungian tradition. Some comments about each.
In a way, the analytic relationship involves "an audience of one," to use a phrase suggested by Rogan Taylor. Sometimes, but not always, it is the
analysand who is the audience. At other times it is the analyst. After all, listening is one of the characteristic activities of the analyst. And yet
even listening is part of the role of the analyst, part of his or her performance if you will. To be fully present in the analytic hour the analyst
must be "on" and have "stage energy," as actors might say.
The analyst's relation to a broader, public audience is also significant. Some analysts (James Hillman and Verena Kast come to mind) have chosen to
discontinue seeing individual analysands so as to concentrate on writing and speaking for a broader audience. Other analysts try to combine their work
with individuals with their concern for larger groups. Some analysts, of course, limit their activity to working with their individual clients. Still,
the concept of having an audience to connect to is important.
Having an "audience of one" rather than a larger audience has economic implications as well. Being in analysis is a major expense for most analysands,
something like having "private lessons" with a master teacher rather than taking group lessons in a public institution or private lessons from a more
"ordinary" teacher. If the audience for Jungian analysis and insights is not to be limited to the financial elite, perhaps more conscious attention
needs to be given to various types of Jungian group work and to the creative use of new media as well as to the traditional work of the analyst.
Finally, the suggestion that we look at the analyst as a type of magician raises the interesting question of whether the basis of analysis, the
theories of Jung himself, need to be true for the "magic" to work. There is evidence from the field of magic itself that all that is necessary is that
the persons involved believe in the process in order for it to work. (Perhaps something similar is true of the healing power of prayer.) There is no
question but that the psyche is remarkable and only partly understood. So perhaps this comment from Richard Smith can be somewhat reassuring to us as
analysts:
Given the extraordinary ability of the human mind to make sense out of things, it is natural occasionally to make sense out of things that have no
sense at all.160 This does not mean that we can offer suggested interpretations of dreams in some random or unprincipled way, only that a motivated
analysand, being human, may well accept and make sense of things we say regardless of the truth or falsity of the theory behind them. Much magic is
based on this fact. It is a fact. So analysts can surely afford to recognize it and to accept that the analytic process may work better because of it.
This is one more way of learning from the magician. (As one recent writer has put it, "the history of medical treatment until relatively recently is
the history of the placebo effect." And, given the demonstrated effectiveness of the placebo even today, one might well question the physician who
refused the use of placebos.)
But now, really, what is analysis and how can thinking about "magicians" help us understand the process? Michael Harner quotes Albert Schweitzer as
having observed,
The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason all the rest of us [doctors] succeed. Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us
not knowing this truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work. Or, as a different writer
put it, "Somewhere along the way our inner Magician is awakened ...."
CONCLUSION
The data and the arguments presented in this thesis constitute an extended circumambulation of the image of "magician" in the human psyche. Perhaps
the examples of magicians and their tools which have been discussed will find some echo in the psyche of the reader. Perhaps, too, the suggestions of
ways in which analysts are magicians will prove stimulating to those working in this field. In the final analysis, however, there remains something
mysterious about the psyche and its images just as with magic and magicians. I began this thesis with a reference to my father taking me as a boy to
the meetings of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Let me end with another personal story.
I first visited Zürich in the summer of 1961, just after Jung had died. I went to the Jung Institute on the Gemeindestrasse, the very building where I
have now lived for the past two years, but somehow I was afraid to enter. "What would I say?" I asked myself. Many years later I returned to Zürich
and visited the Institute, which by this time had moved to Küsnacht. This time I arranged interviews with several Zürich analysts to discuss my
interest in the training program. One of these was Dr. Hilde Binswanger. We spent an hour discussing the training program at the Institute and my
insecurities about giving up my career as a philosophy professor to enter it, feeling somehow embarrassed about making such a major change in my life.
Finally she said to me: "Jung used to say, 'Follow your Schlange, follow your snake.'"
I took her advice, and my ®Schlange led me back and forth between America and Zürich for many years until now I find myself at the end of this
training program. During my ten semesters of training I never found a passage where Jung wrote about "following one's snake," but then just as I was
finishing this thesis I noticed a reference in the index to Jung's Collected Works under "wand, magic": "see also caduceus" that is, the magic wand of
Hermes, Asclepius and others. And in looking this up I found the following passage, with which I end this thesis: ... the right way to wholeness is
made up, unfortunately, of fateful detours and wrong turnings. It is a longissima via, not straight but snakelike, a path that unites the opposites in
the manner of the guiding caduceus, a path whose labyrinthine twists and turns are not lacking in terrors. And in rewards.
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