The Magician Tarot definitions

Mercury predominates with the Magus. He is bisexual, ambidextrous, flirty, exasperating. Ever willing to communicate. He can fit in with the ambience of the situation. The Magus takes on the energies of the cards around him, and broadcasts that energy to all and sundry. The Magus makes deals. He wangles things. He tricks people. He says one thing and means another. He is a thief, but what is he stealing?

He is ever restless, circling close around the Sun. He brings down knowledge, communications and diktats from on High, but is he reliable? Can we believe he really is being truthful, or is it ever more propaganda?

The Magus loves gossip and news, however trivial... after all, you never know when those tidbits will come in useful. In conjunction with the Death or Moon card, he represents the intelligence gathering of the Secret Services, but since they are unaccountable, it is impossible to know the veracity of what they have gleaned.

If you want go get your message across, the Magus is the card for you, but beware... make sure those emails really did turn up. When the Magus is weak, expect communication problems, crossed lines, an inability to speak, or torrents of words spewing out that make no sense.

• Rider-Waite: The Magician

  A youthful figure in the robe of a magician, having the countenance of divine Apollo, with smile of confidence and shining eyes. Above his head is the mysterious sign of the Holy Spirit, the sign of life, like an endless cord, forming the figure 8 in a horizontal position . About his waist is a serpent-cincture, the serpent appearing to devour its own tail. This is familiar to most as a conventional symbol of eternity, but here it indicates more especially the eternity of attainment in the spirit. In the Magician's right hand is a wand raised towards heaven, while the left hand is pointing to the earth. This dual sign is known in very high grades of the Instituted Mysteries; it shews the descent of grace, virtue and light, drawn from things above and derived to things below. The suggestion throughout is therefore the possession and communication of the Powers and Gifts of the Spirit. On the table in front of the Magician are the symbols of the four Tarot suits, signifying the elements of natural life, which lie like counters before the adept, and he adapts them as he wills. Beneath are roses and lilies, the flos campi and lilium convallium, changed into garden flowers, to shew the culture of aspiration. This card signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God, the will in the liberation of its union with that which is above. It is also the unity of individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought, in the fixation thereof. With further reference to what I have called the sign of life and its connexion with the number 8, it may be remembered that Christian Gnosticism speaks of rebirth in Christ as a change "unto the Ogdoad." The mystic number is termed Jerusalem above, the Land flowing with Milk and Honey, the Holy Spirit and the Land of the Lord. According to Martinism, 8 is the number of Christ.

  Skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety; sickness, pain, loss, disaster, snares of enemies; self-confidence, will; the Querent, if male.

  Reversed Card meanings

  Physician, Magus, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet.

• Book of Thoth - Magus

  The True Self is the meaning of the True Will:
  know Thyself through Thy Way.
  Calculate well the Formula of Thy Way.
  Create freely; absorb joyously; divide intently;
  consolidate completely.
  Work thou, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omni present,
  in and for Eternity.

  Skill, wisdom, adroitness, elasticity, craft, cunning, deceit, theft. Sometimes occult wisdom or power, sometimes a quick impulse, a brain-wave". It may imply messages, business transactions, the interference of learning or intelligence with the matter in hand.

  The Magician or Magus represents Mercurial knowledge, communication and magic.

  More information

• Golden Dawn - The Magus of Power

  Skill, wisdom, adaptation. Craft, cunning, depending on dignity. Sometimes occult wisdom.

• Mathers: THE JUGGLER

  Will, Will-Power, Dexterity.

  Reversed Card meanings

  Will applied to evil ends, Weakness of Will, Cunning, Knavishness.

• Etteilla: Illness (15)

  Infirmity. Trouble, Sadness, Anguish, Evil, Displeasure. Harm, Pain, Misfortune, Disaster.

  Reversed Card meanings

  Mental Illness, Head Injury, Unfortunate Situation, Disgrace, Trouble, Anxiety, Affliction. Physician, Magician.

• Thierens: I. The Magician. Aries.

  The first sign or house in the Zodiac is the first step in the direction of Manifestation, and Aries is the High Priest as well as Avidya or Ignorance, standing before, c.q. above cognition. Potency and power are its attributes, because all and everything is immanent in this stage of Beginning. Power abstract, undeveloped, simple, but for that reason mightier than every detail or phenomenon, and the master of Nature. The ultra-positive, the very superior, and in the lower human sense the ultra-egotistical. Like the first note of a composition in music, it determines the tone and gives the key. From the First spring the Four, and so the symbols of the Four Elements appear on the table of the Magician, though his action, as far as action goes in this card and principle, exists in potency only and is indicated consequently in the wand in his right hand. In his superior abstractness he is eternal in relation to the phenomenal world, which is indicated by the symbols of Eternity above his head, the lemnescate, and around his waist, the serpent.

  W.: "This card signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God, the will in the liberation of its union with that which is above."

  M.: "He symbolises Will." — This is exactly Aries.

  P.: "The Unity principle, the origin of which is impenetrable to human conceptions, is placed at the beginning of all things." His upright attitude indicates "the will that is going to proceed into action."

  The First house or Ascendant gives the key-note of the physical self, reflection of the Higher Self, and thus in the practice of divination the Magician denotes the consultant, personally. In every figuration of cards it is further the 'beginning' and initiative.

  As far as we may ascribe siderial meanings to the cards of the Greater Arcana, the Magician should rule the month of Aries, i.e. from the 21 March to 20 April. It appears gravely doubtful, however, if this may be considered to determinate incidental occurrences in time. It will certainly relate to properties of the sign Aries in general and in particular and consequently owned by people born between those dates. But for the rest definition of time, date or hour must be sought in the cards of the Lesser Arcana, as far as we know.

• Ouspensky: Card I. - THE MAGICIAN

  "Man" Superman. The Initiate. The Occultist. Higher consciousness. Human Logos. The kabalistic "Adam Kadmon". Humanity. "Homo Sapiens".

  ---

  I Saw the Man.

  His figure reached from earth to heaven and was clad in a purple mantle. He stood deep in foliage and flowers and his head, on which was the head-band of an initiate, seemed to disappear mysteriously in infinity.

  Before him on a cube-shaped altar were four symbols of magic - the sceptre, the cup, the sword and the pentacle.

  His right hand pointed to heaven, his left to earth. Under his mantle he wore a white tunic girded with a serpent swallowing its tail.

  His face was luminous and serene, and, when his eyes met mine, I felt that he saw most intimate recesses of my soul. I saw myself reflected in him as in a mirror and in his eyes I seemed to look upon myself.

  And I heard a voice saying:

  - "Look, this is the Great Magician!

  With his hands he unites heaven and earth, and the four elements that form the world are controlled by him.

  The four symbols before him are the four letters of the name of God, the signs of the four elements, fire, water, air, earth."

  I trembled before the depth of the mysteries A touched... The words I heard seemed to be littered by the Great Magician himself, and it was as though he spoke in me.

  I was in deep trepidation and at moment I felt there was nothing, before me except the blue sky; but within me a window opened through which I could see unearthly things. and hear unearthly words.