When people feel “powerful” they can mean quite a few things. Some of them are not even actual powers with practical potential, but ephemeral sensations of powerfulness. Genuine power is demonstrated in application: what can it do? Here is a partial typology of powers, both imagined and real:

1) Power to inflict pain – sadistic power – the capacity to steal energy directly from another.

2) Power to coerce – tyrannical power – the capacity to render another will strictly instrumental to one’s own.

3) Power to evade other powers – freedom – the capacity to at least feel that one’s own will is independent and unrestricted by other wills in all relevant categories of action.

4) Power to understand – philosophy – the capacity to at least feel that through one’s intellectual efforts one is brought to an experiences of self-sovereignty.

5) Power to persuade – charisma – the capacity to harmonize other wills with one’s own will (to form consensus).

6) Power to organize desires into unities – leadership – the capacity to synthesize individual wills within one’s own overarching will (to align disparate interests).

7) Power to transcend – The capacity to identify one’s will with a will that includes and exceeds it, and to participate knowingly as a participant in what defies objective knowledge.