MANA, OR VITAL FORCE.

The kahuna recognized the magnetic, attracting force, and the opposite, repelling nature of vital force or mana. Both polarities are present in all such energies. Unfortunately no detailed exposition of the subject was left. The force was known as a thing which had to do with all thought processes and bodily activities. It was the essence of life itself. The kahuna symbol for this force was water. Water flows and so does vital force. Water fills things. So does Mana. Water may leak away—and so may the vital force. All thinking involves an “electrical-like” activity of the higher “voltage” of vital force. (Terms from the field of electricity are analogies only, not specific descriptions.) The kahuna associated all thinking process with MANA. The Hawaiian word mana‘o means “thinking,” the -o added to show that the process is one of using mana to produce thought. As each thought is formed, it is given its shadowy body (aka) and is fastened by a thread of the same substance to thoughts which came before it (the association of ideas in terms of modern psychology). Mana is taken from the food and air by the inner, basic self and is stored in its aka-body, but it is shared with the Middle Self and with the High Self.

The mana, when used as the life force of the Middle Self, is changed in some subtle way. The kahuna of old symbolized this as a dividing of the basic Mana into two kinds and called it Mana-Mana. Doubling the word indicates that the Mana is doubled in its power, so that it can be used by the Middle Self to command and control the Low or Basic Self. This is the force we know vaguely in modern psychology as “the will.” It is also the force which should at all times be strong enough to make the Low Self carry out every suggestion. It is seldom used in its full strength, and so the inner self gets out of hand or flits from one activity to another, without carrying out any suggestion or command fully.