25/07/2025
About the ritual masks, persona and accessing collective unconscious.
A mask is an ancient and powerful magical mediator among the worlds of the living, the dead, and the spirits. Masks have been worn for magical, religious, and entertainment purposes since the beginning of recorded history. Masks actually reveal more than they conceal.
Ancient peoples understood well the power of the mask. Evidence of mask-wearing in prehistoric societies shows that masks may have been intended to transform the wearer magically to achieve or acquire something. Perhaps the first prehistoric masked dancer is the “Sorcerer,” a Neolithic-Age cave painting at Trois Freres in France. The masked figure is half-human and half-animal, wearing stag antlers and poised in dance step. The image suggests a Ritual for a successful hunt. His mask reveals and liberates the animal nature within the man, which would have enabled him to come into contact with supernatural forces or the spirit of animals and petition them for help.
The mask has been revered as a sacred object of power, a living thing that either has its own persona or represents the persona of another being. It enables the wearer magically to bring to life, and even become, the persona or spirit being represented by the mask. While the mask is on, the wearer is no longer completely himself or herself but shares his or her identity with that of the mask. He or she has freedom—and permission within society—to act differently, even outrageously. The transformation has its limits and controls: The wearer cannot go beyond the bounds of the mask itself and is transformed only during the wearing of the mask. When the mask comes off, the wearer must return to ordinary reality.
Members of secret societies usually conduct the rituals of initiation, a time during which young people are instructed in their future roles as adults and are acquainted with the rules controlling the social stability of the group. Totem and spiritualistic masks are donned by the elders at these ceremonies. Sometimes the masks used are reserved only for initiations.
High priests and healers, or shamans, frequently had their own powerful totems, in whose masks they could exorcise evil spirits, punish enemies, locate game or fish, predict the weather, and, most importantly, cure disease.
The transformative power of the mask can be explained in Jungian terms. A mask connects its wearer to archetypal powers residing within the collective unconscious. The mask is a mediator between the ego and archetype, the mundane and the supernatural, the sacred and the comic. It connects the present to the past, the individual to the entire collective of culture, country—and humanity.
“A mask tells us more than a face.” — Oscar Wilde
HPGrimoire🔮
