The sorcery empowerment pattern comes to us in modern-day drugs and alcohol. The great storyteller Robert Louis Stevenson captures the sorcery-empowerment pattern beautifully in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The novel describes drug addiction and the needs of the drug taker. The good doctor makes a secret formula that will give him power and self-confidence. At first, Dr. Jekyll is in control of the formula, but as time goes by, the formula controls him. Later, Mr. Hyde consumes the good doctor with his lust for the formula. Mr. Hyde becomes the beast, spiraling into crime, depravity, and destruction.
The insecure soul wants to feel complete and transformed by a secret formula or magic tonic and hopes to strengthen his weakness and become confident. The powerful effects of the magic tonic are largely illusionary. They happen in the mind. He is no more powerful than he was before he took the substance. It is an illusion.
Men in pubs and clubs can find themselves involved in a fight they would have avoided if sober. Those mild-mannered Clark Kent’s will become Supermen, able to leap a tall building in a single bound, if they consume the magic formula. While sober, those who seek the magic tonic of empowerment feel rather ordinary, perhaps powerless. Given the tonic, they feel confident and strong, and they assert their strength and confidence on others. However, they often release their pent-up anger and frustration from their feelings of being non-praiseworthy.
Learn more in chapter 9 in the book Grace V Self-esteem.
