Drawn the Magician card in a tarot reading and want to know its deeper meaning?
The esoteric interpretation can be revealed in five words:
Your Will Is Your Power.
Whereas the Fool Trump represents potential, the Magician relates to the moment that potential begins to take form.
The Fool is associated with the initial emergence of consciousness, which may provoke an idea or spark of inspiration.
But at that point, conscious thoughts are still cloudy, and you are unsure of what to do, although you probably sense you need to do something.
That something is the role of the Magician.
When the first conscious movement of “Divine Will” starts to take shape in your mind, the potential for an idea to take shape becomes a real possibility.
It is still a possibility, but you are closer to manifesting the thought as a reality.
The Magician is a symbol of “magic”, which is a concept ancient sages used to describe how we create our version of reality.
However, the sages also realised that the Magician can appear in dual forms: the white magician and the dark magician or sorcerer.
The white magician is helpful, constructive and positive. The black magician is unhelpful, destructive and negative.
One magician reveals the Truth and delights you.
The other performs an illusion and confuses you.
Archetypes in the Magician Tarot Card
Experienced tarot readers associate the Magician card with the Greek god Hermes. Hermes is known as the Trickster archetype to Jungian analysts.
Occultists of the Golden Dawn noted that the Magician can also be Apollo. And this makes more sense when you recognise the duality of the psyche in relation to the tarot Trumps.
Whereas Hermes is the Trickster archetype, Apollo is the Sage.
The Trickster can deceive or illuminate the mind by making a fool out of you. When the mind plays tricks on you, it can make you believe something is possible which is beyond your capability.
It is often thought that the mind plays tricks.
It doesn’t.
The contents of your mind make you believe something is possible when the ego is inflated, i.e. arrogant, ignorant or narcissistic.
Consciousness doesn’t play tricks on you; it teaches you that part of your personality has not been developed.
Each of the archetypes performs a specific function. To perform the function successfully, you need certain qualities.
When archetypal qualities are not available to your neural networks, you can’t successfully manifest your intention.
The Trickster brings this to your attention by making you feel like a fool so you have a word with yourself.
Having a word with yourself is the function of the Sage. This archetype observes your thoughts, emotions and actions and uses intellect to reason, rationalise and plan.
In other words, you can learn the hard way, or the easy way.
The Magician’s Symbols
In the Magician tarot card, you will find four tools laid out on the table. Each tool bears the symbols of the suit cards in the tarot deck. In turn, each of the suits share a likeness with the four elements:
Wands — Fire
Swords — Air
Cups — Water
Pentacles — Earth
I’m not going to go into a full explanation of what the four elements mean here, but you can discover the esoteric meanings in the symbology course on alchemy.
All you need to know for now is:
Wands represent Will, creative force and inspiration.
Cups represent emotion, receptivity and patience.
Swords represent the discriminating mind and the power to cut through illusions with reason and rational thinking.
Pentacles represent the material world — your experience of reality.
The Magician’s work is therefore to assimilate thoughts, emotions and actions that enable you to manifest your intention.
This idea is accentuated by the red roses that hang above the Magician and the white lilies planted in the garden.
The red rose represents passion, desire and aspirations, which, hanging from above, can lead to a fall.
In esoteric symbolism, the white lily represents clarity emerging from the murky waters of life.
What lessons can you learn from the past?
Thus, when the Magician card appears in a reading, it’s a prompt to observe your thoughts, actions and emotions to determine how you are creating your experience of reality.
Self-observation can show you where you’re falling short in your attempts to bring your ideas, aspirations and desires to life.
Once you know which thoughts, actions and emotions are causing a block, you can identify the problematic archetype and the wound it is carrying.
Learn more about the patterns of the archetypes in this article: Description of the 12 Major Archetypes: Psychology 101
Essentially, the Magician represents the power in you to create or to destroy. And quite often, to fall short until you get it right.
But suffice it to say, when the Magician card appears in a tarot reading, the power of your Will is awakening.
The Power of Will
In the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, the Magician is traditionally associated in Western esoteric systems with Keter, the Crown, representing Primal Will.
He is also connected with Ain Soph Aur, the “Limitless Light” from which the creative force of existence emerges in Keter.
Notice where the Magician’s hands point. His raised right hand holds the wand towards the heavens, while his left hand points towards the earth. This is commonly associated with the Hermetic principle:
“As Above, So Below.”
The esoteric meaning of this gesture refers to the focusing of the mind: attention.
Where attention goes, energy flows.
The Magician directs energy, which at this point in the evolution of consciousness is felt as willpower.
In other words, you take an appropriate action that you feel, or think, will contribute towards manifesting your intention.
The deeper meaning of the Magician Trump serves as a reminder that creative energy is more effective when consciousness is focused towards specific goals rather than scattered by distractions.
The Awakening of Consciousness
Above the Magician’s head is the infinity symbol, while the serpent belt around his waist represents the eternal and regenerative nature of consciousness. Together they point towards a reality greater than the limited understanding ego.
The Magician therefore represents the emergence of Higher Conscious Nature into conscious awareness.
This is where Carl Jung’s concept of libido to describe vital energy becomes clearer.
Libido is not merely sexual energy; in Jungian psychology, it can be understood more broadly as the motivational drive towards life, growth and development.
The Magician reminds you to direct vital energy consciously and deliberately.
The Reversed Magician
When reversed, the Magician card can indicate that your Will is blocked. This could be due to confusion, inertia or delusion.
In relation to the archetypes, the reversed Magician has ties with the undeveloped Sage. There is an inability to translate ideas into right action. You don’t have adequate information for the Ruler to make the right decisions.
At its worst, the reversed Magician represents manipulation, deception and the abuse of personal power. This is the Trickster stepping in to fill the void left by the Sage.
Chaos is a potential outcome.
If creation is driven entirely by ego, the power of your will can become manipulated to do something you are already familiar with.
That may not necessarily mean you won’t eventually manifest your intention, but it will slow down the process until you can piece the missing parts of your personality together.
And if you feel unsafe, anxious and resistant, the slower path is sometimes the right path.
The Magician in the Sage archetype aligns creative power with the Self — the power that is greater than the ego, but has a quieter voice.
When the Magician appears in a tarot reading, therefore, the question to ask is not simply, “What can I create?”
It’s:
“How do I create this?”
The archetypes can show you how.
Magic, in its deepest esoteric sense, is transformation.
The Magician is the consciousness that begins the Great Work: taking possibility, focusing Will, engaging the heart and mind, and bringing the invisible into visible form.
You already have to the qualities you need to achieve your goal. You just have to let the ego know.
Illuminating Tarot Readings
When The Magician appears in a tarot reading, it’s a reminder that you are not a powerless observer of your life.
What’s more, it indicates you have the resources you need within you, and if you tap into the reservoir of your Superconscious, you will identify archetypal qualities you need to make the right choices.
Sometimes, you just need to shift perspective — but to do that, you have to become self-aware and acknowledge where you are going wrong.
A tarot reading with Rich at Libera Mente can help you explore the symbols, patterns and possibilities surrounding a situation you’re currently facing. Rather than simply telling you what will happen, it gives you an opportunity to step back, ask better questions and look at your circumstances from a different perspective.
If you’re at a crossroads and feel confused, a tarot reading invoking archetypes can provide you with clarity.
Rich performs a three-card tarot reading to identify the archetype causing the problem, the emotional wound or fixed belief causing the problem, and the solution which can help you to move forward.
Contact Rich today by completing the form below and requesting a tarot reading.