Could a single Tarot card convey secrets on how to turn our dreams into reality? Meet The Magician, master of manifestation. The Magician card, also known as the Juggler or Mountebank, is linked to Mercury. This planet rules over communication and intellect, reflecting the Magician’s power to turn ideas into reality. I associate the Magician with January due to its themes of new beginnings. What new opportunities are you eager to manifest this year?
Janus: The God of Beginnings
January gets its name from Janus, the two-faced Roman god. In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. Janus is usually depicted as having two faces. I like to think that one gazes into the past, the other to the future. Before venturing further into the Magician, I want to point out that the Major Arcana cards in their chronological sequence depict an archetypal journey of initiation, beginning with The Fool, who represents at a macrocosmic level an in-forming or incarnating spirit. Its number is zero to illustrate that in it exist all potential, all possibilities. While card meanings may be understood individually, based on symbolism, imagery, number and so forth, a deeper stratum of meaning is found via understanding each card in its sequential context.
The Fool’s Journey: A Path of Transformation
Without the Fool card, the 21 remaining cards of the Major Arcana comprise three horizontal rows of seven cards each. The first seven cards depict the Solar Way--the developmental path of every human being from birth to adulthood. The second group of seven cards symbolizes the lunar path, the path of individuation, of integrating unconscious contents and developing greater psychospiritual maturity. The final seven cards epitomize the path of higher wisdom and working with archetypes of the collective unconscious, culminating in the mystical awakening depicted in the final card of the Major Arcana, the World.
Archetypal Dualities: The Magician and the High Priestess
Within these seven-card sequences of the Tarot are card pairs comprising psychological dualities. For example, the Magician traditionally symbolizes consciousness, will, and the archetypally masculine. Archetypally, the Magician represents the Ego, the persona or mask we adopt in childhood. The next card in the sequence, The High Priestess, symbolizes the unconscious, intuition, receptivity and the archetypally feminine. Both attributes need to be integrated within the developing psyche for maturity to occur.
The Magician refers to the human being as director of the force through which consciousness is transformed. The number one, geometrically symbolized as a point, signifies concentration and attention. Without concentration, one may make little progress along the path that alchemists call The Great Work. The roses of the arbor imply desire, the motivating force of evolution. The white lilies represent faith, faith that is illustrated in the card by the Magician’s raised right hand, holding a wand toward the sky in a gesture signifying his ability to channel the promptings of spirit into the physical world, toward which his left-hand points.
An important aspect of the Magician is the recognition that will is dependent upon, and inseparable from, a vaster intelligence than one’s conscious mind. As well, will can do little without imagination, for it is axiomatic that one rarely accomplishes something one did not first imagine possible.
As Above, So Below
A central message of this card mirrors the hermetic dictum, “As above, so below,” a phrase attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the Greek name applied to the Egyptian god Thoth as the reputed author of Hermetic writings such as The Emerald Tablet--works of revelation on occult subjects and theology. The dictum implies that what happens on one level of existence is reflected on other levels. The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm. The patterns and forces that govern the universe also operate within everyone. The spiritual realm (above) is interconnected with the material (below). Spiritual truths manifest in the physical world and vice versa. The universe is a coherent and harmonious whole, where everything is interrelated.
In the Tarot of the Old Path (pictured left), the Magician is depicted as a shaman, casting runes. The elements are represented by the chalice (water), the stone upon which it sits (earth) the sword (air) and the flaming torch (fire). The mountaintop in the background depicts Stonehenge, a location steeped in the numinous. The white unicorn symbolizes the spirit which unifies, in contrast with the flesh which diversifies. White is the color of essence or spirit, which unifies all the colors on the spectrum. The moon represents the feeling function, the collective unconscious, and the imagination.
In the Rider-Waite-Smith card, the lemniscate (figure eight) above the Magician’s head represents infinity, signifying the infinite nature of mind. According to William Toro, the infinity symbol refers to our true nature as spirit on a journey of infinite transformation. Arthur Edward Waite, the designer of the Rider Waite Smith deck along with artist Pamela Coleman Smith, described this card as “the divine motive in man, reflecting God, the will in the liberation of its union with that which is above.” Psychologically speaking, the Magician represents the urge to give our lives directed activity. We are purposeful creatures. We find meaning in cultivating intentions and goals, from the most visionary to the more mundane.
Common divinatory meanings for the Magician include success, accomplishment, human will, and purposefulness. The Magician invites us to inquire how much intentionality are we bringing to our life today? What is our vision for our life, and how does our behavior align (or not) with it?
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