The Magician (Tarot card)
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The Magician, The Magus, or The Juggler (I) is the first trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination. In divination it is considered by some to succeed the The Fool card, often numbered 0.
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[edit] Iconography
In French, the Magician is called Le Bateleur, "the mountebank" or the "sleight of hand artist", a practitioner of stage magic. The Italian tradition calls him Il Bagatto or Il Bagatello, words of uncertain derivation, which may mean "the cobbler". The Mantegna Tarocchi image that would seem to correspond with the Magician is labeled Artixano, the Artisan; he is the second lowest in the series, outranking only the Beggar. Visually the 18th-century woodcuts reflect earlier iconic representations, and can be compared to the free artistic renditions in the 15th-century hand-painted tarots made for the Visconti and Sforza families. In the painted cards attributed to Bonifacio Bembo, the Magician appears to be playing with cups and balls.[1]
In esoteric decks, occultists, starting with Oswald Wirth, turned Le Bateleur from a mountebank into a magus. They took the curves of the magician's hat brim in the Marseilles image for the mathematical sign of infinity, adding other symbols according to changing tastes. The essentials shown in the illustration (below), are that the magician has set up a temporary table outdoors, to display items that represent the suits of the Minor Arcana: Cups, Coins, Swords (as knives). The fourth, the baton (Clubs) he holds in his hand. The baton later stands for a literal magician's "wand".[2]
The illustration above is of the Tarot card "The Magician" from the Rider-Waite tarot deck developed by A. E. Waite for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1910. Waite was a key figure in the development of modern Tarot interpretation, though not all interpretations follow his theology.
[edit] In the tarot game
In the games of tarocchi and French Tarot, Le Bateleur is the lowest ranking trump card. He is one of the bouts, or "ends", in the French game of Tarot; taking a trick with these cards has a special scoring significance.
[edit] Esoteric significance
Some frequent keywords are:
- Action — Consciousness — Concentration — Personal power
- Practicality — Energy — Creativity — Movement
- Precision — Conviction — Manipulation — Self confidence
- Being objective — Focusing — Determination — Initiative[3]
A youthful figure in the robe of a magician has the face of the divine Apollo, the sun god, with a confident smile and shining eyes. Above his head is the mysterious sign of the Holy Spirit, the sign of life, like an endless cord, forming the lemniscate of infinity. About his waist is a serpent-cincture or girdle, the ouroboros, the serpent devouring its own tail. The ouroboros is an ancient symbol of eternity, eternal becoming, or transmutation and transformation, but in this case it indicates more especially the eternity of attainment in the spirit.[citation needed] In the Magician's right hand is a wand raised towards heaven, the sky or the element æther, while his left hand is pointing to the earth. This iconographic gesture has multiple meanings, but is endemic to the Mysteries, symbolizing divine immanence, the ability of the magician to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. On the table in front of the Magician the symbols of the four Tarot suits signify the Classical elements of earth, air, fire and water. Beneath are roses and lilies, the flos campi and lilium convallium [4], changed into garden flowers, to show the culture of aspiration.[5]
[edit] Divination
When the Magician appears in a spread, it points to the talents, capabilities and resources at the querent's disposal. Depending on the card's placement in relation to other cards, the message is to tap into one's full potential rather than holding back, especially when there is a need to transform something. There are choices and directions to take. Guidance can arrive through one's own intuition or in the form of someone who brings about change or transformation.[6]
The card can mean that a manipulator is floating around, usually if it's reversed. He may be a beneficent guide, but he does not necessarily have our best interests in mind. He may also represent the querent’s ego or self awareness. He can also represent the intoxication of power, both good and bad.[citation needed]
[edit] Interpretation
[edit] Qabbalistic Approach
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According to Waite's The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, this card signifies the divine motive in man. It is also the unity of the individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought. With further reference to the "sign of life", i.e. the infinity symbol and its connection 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.
In other traditions this card can refer to scholarly knowledge. The Fool (card 0) has learned something about the workings of the world and now sees himself as powerful. Perhaps the reputation of the Magician is derived from the Fool misunderstanding what is happening while the High Priestess (the next card) is looking back, thinking that the Magician is missing the point of spiritual knowledge.
[edit] Mythopoetic Approach
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Some schools associate him with Hermes, especially Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic Egyptian/Greek figure who is a combination of Hermes and of Thoth, a god of the moon, knowledge, and writing. In this aspect, The Magician guides The Fool through the first step out of the cave of childhood into the sunlight of consciousness, just as Hermes guides Persephone out of the Underworld every year.
He represents the potential of a new adventure, chosen or thrust upon one. A journey undertaken in daylight, in the Enlightenment tradition. He brings things out of the darkness into the light. He explores the world in order to master it. He is solar consciousness.
He is associated through the cross sums (the sum of the digits) with Key 10, The Wheel of Fortune (Tarot card), picking up on Hermes as a Trickster figure and a god of chance, and Key 19, The Sun, bringing us back to Apollo and to enlightenment.
He embodies the lesson of “as above, so below," the lesson that mastery in one realm may bring mastery in another. He also warns of the danger of applying lessons from one realm to another.
The Magician transcends duality. He has learned the fundamental elements of the universe, represented by emblems of the four suits of the tarot already broken apart and lying on the table before him. Similarly, in the Book of Thoth deck, he is crowned by snakes, another symbol of both infinity and dualism, as snakes have learned from Gilgamesh how to shed their skins and be reborn, thus achieving a type of immortality; the blind prophet Tiresias split apart coupling snakes and as a result became a woman, transcending the dualism of gender.
[edit] Alternative decks
The Vikings Tarot depicts Tyr as the Magician; he is lifting his arm that was severed by the Fenris wolf.
The Osho Tarot calls this card Existence and depicts it as a naked figure viewed from the back sitting on the lotus of perfection, gazing at the beauty of the stars.
In the Shining Woman Tarot, the magician is a shaman.
In the X/1999 Tarot, made by CLAMP, The Magician is Kamui Shirou (the main character of the story).
The Magician is a monster card in the Yu-gi-oh! card game, as part of a group of cards called the Arcana Force.
[edit] Trivia
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- In the game Persona 3, The Magician's social link is that of a young man named Kenji who is in love with a teacher. Junpei, a member of your party, is also aligned with The Magician arcana in his persona. The Magic teacher says that THE MAGICIAN represents action and initiative, but also immaturity.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Bill Butler, Dictionary of the Tarot. (Schocken, 1975; ISBN 0-8052-0559-4)
- ^ Butler, supra.
- ^ Butler, supra
- ^ This is a reference to the Song of Solomon, Chapter 2, verse 1 - ego flos campi et lilium convallium (I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys) [1]
- ^ Refer the Language of flowers.
- ^ Annie Lionnet, Secrets of Tarot, Dorling Kindersley (DK series) p 41
[edit] References
- A. E. Waite's 1910 Pictorial Key to the Tarot
- Most works of Joseph Campbell.
- Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes this World: Mischief, Myth, and Art (1998).
- Juliette Wood, Folklore 109 (1998):15-24, The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making (1998)
[edit] External links
- Magician cards from many decks + iconographical articles
- The History of the Magician Card from The Hermitage.
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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1910 book Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite. Please feel free to update the text.
