The Magician card in Tarot represents focused consciousness and will. As a card relating to the planet Mercury, the Magician represents the principles of communication and our thinking patterns. This includes our rationality and reasoning, our abilities for adaptability and variability. The Magician is a symbol of spirituality within physicality.
The Magician can represent multiple lessons for humanity. That we have, at our disposal, all of Nature’s natural elements and their strengths. That we can choose to utilize these tools as we navigate our material world. In the image on the card the Magician stands before a table on which are laid a Wand, a Cup, a Sword and a Pentacle. These symbols represent the four suits of the Tarot which correspond to the elements of natural life: motivation (fire~wands), intelligence (air~swords), imagination (cups~emotion) and action (pentacles~earth).
Representing someone who has mastered these natural skills and uses them effectively in their life, the Magician card urges us to take action and accountability for our own experiences. Compare this to The Fool, who also has everything they need, but doesn’t yet have the skill, know-how and discipline to use them. The Fool now encounters the Magician, becoming student as they test their power and grit. The Fool’s task is to learn how to master their power in the physical realm and, how to build circuitry and connection to the spiritual realm. Thereby manifesting their own desires; transforming the Fool’s dreams into their reality.
In the image the right hand of the Magician holds a scepter, or magic wand, up toward the heavens representing the ego-consciousness reaching up for power, while the left hand points to the earth, as if the Magician wills the earth’s forces to be subservient to them. It could also be said that with the right hand they reach up seeking connection to the Infinite or higher realms, while reaching down with the left hand signifying manifestation from higher realms to the material realms – thus uniting spirit and matter.
The horizontal figure 8 above the Magician’s head is the Lemniscate, a symbol for infinity. Representing that what goes around, comes around and that energy never dies. The Lemniscate also represents that we are pure energy and we are born and reborn again and again. Taking this meaning further, some see the Lemniscate as a symbol for Karma with a nod toward the energy and effort we put into something is dependent upon that something’s outcome. We must put in the work, creating practices and honing skills around these natural elements, these innate gifts, in order to reap the benefits in our outer world.
We also see a snake eating its own tail, wrapped around the Magician’s waist. This is the symbol of the Ouroboros, representing the cycles of life and death. The white tunic worn by the Magician represents purity of thought (as do the white lilies), and the Ouroboros cinching the Magician’s tunic is said to represent the birth, death and rebirth of our thoughts and beliefs. That our work is never complete, but comes in cycles of beginnings and endings, deaths and rebirths. Each cycle leading us toward a new cycle, even creating cycles within cycles.
Our thoughts create the emotions and feelings needed to manifest our desires into the physical. Learning to choose how and what we think and dwell on are part of our task, as Fools, to becoming Magicians. These thoughts and beliefs are part of our higher potentiality. Choosing wisely the seeds we plant and cultivate within our minds is relative to what we experience in our physical world.
Both the symbols of the Ouroboros and Lemniscate represent the unlimited possibilities and potentiality available to the Magician. The Magician reminds us that having all elements, or tools, available for manifesting our desires into reality is only part of the equation. Each individual must hone their skills with focus, determination and consistent practice in order to convert spiritual energy into real-world action. It’s nearly impossible for me to work with The Magician and not ‘hear’ the words of the legendary Hermes Trismegistus: “As above so below, as within so without, as the Universe so the Soul.”
The red cape worn by the Magician and the red roses overhead and in the foreground of the image represent the Earth element and our physicality within both the seen and unseen worlds. Our Root Chakra tethers and grounds us to Mother Earth, reminding us that not only are we part of nature, we are Divinity expressing through us in the physical world.
The bright yellow background on the Magician card is symbolic of the state of consciousness required for manifestation to occur. Yellow is traditionally associated with optimism and positivism and is also represented of our Solar Plexus Chakra. This Chakra represents the fire element and is our source of personal power as well as our center of hope, inspiration and confidence. The color yellow used in Tarot represents the fire element and potentiality of uniting our intellectual and spiritual mind.
The Magician card offers many aspects for contemplation and meditation around our connection to our Higher Selves, collective consciousness and to God. Representing human will in union with the Divine, the Magician offers us a call us to action; to move ourselves forward seeking knowledge and power, through conscious self-awareness, to bring our desires into manifestation.
With individuation and self realization we have the great ability to deepen an already ‘knowing’ within our souls; that we create our own reality. That we are the consciousness that gives meaning to synchronicities, we are the spiritual breath that animates our physical bodies.