magician



  • The Magician is associated with Mercury and, as such, with Hod. Hod receives the influence of Geburah. Above the head of The Magician, in fact, we see 5 red roses. Five is the number of Geburah. According to Dion Fortune’s Mystic Kabbalah, one of Geburah’s attributes is the five-petaled rose of Tudor. Just as Geburah is above Hod, the five roses are above the Magician’s head. Below him is the garden, a symbol of the subconscious and Yesod. The hand of The Magician is not pointing downward, but downward, slightly to the right, in the direction of Yesod, relative to Hod. In the garden the 5 roses of Geburah are reflected but, in addition, we have the 4 lilies of knowledge. The subconscious, in fact reworks through its associative powers what, passing through the intellect, comes from the higher planes. These associations responding to impulses from the transpersonal planes create a network. Knowledge, in fact, is a network of symbols that serves as a dress for meaning. In this case, it is spiritual knowledge that becomes an idea in the human mind. The lilies, in fact, are 4 and each has 6 petals. 6 multiplied by 4 is 24. The theosophical extension of 24 is 300, value of the letter shin and Ruach Elohim, the Divine Spirit.
  • The cup is an object created by the work of man. The act of attention is an act that creates a form that, as does the cup, will be filled with mind-substance/water. The water is MEM, the subconscious ocean, which will be drawn to the cup and allow the irrigation of human consciousness with mental images.
  • The Magician is the meeting point between the Fool and the High Priestess.
  • Through concentration, superconsciousness can manifest in the subconscious. This reasoning arises from observing the yellow in the background as a cause and preceding factor, the Wizard in the middle ground as a law, and the garden in the foreground as an effect.
  • The Magician is associated with Mercury. Mercury in the human body is located, among other areas, in the higher brain and pineal gland, the former associated with objective consciousness and reasoning, and the latter with the experience of superconsciousness. This card stimulates precisely those processes, and this can be inferred from one of the tools that are on the table, the wand. It represents attention and at the top, on the tip, it bears a diamond-like crystal. Is this perhaps a reference to the philosopher’s stone meant as a crystallization of the brain sand found in the pineal? In fact, the gemstone is yellow in color and, like the pommel of the sword, it sticks out slightly from the confines of the table, the field of attention, signifying that concentration causes us to emerge to a higher level of awareness when the third eye is awakened.
  • The red robe hangs from the shoulders, another area connected to Mercury (Gemini).
  • The mantle is red both to indicate action and desire and to indicate Mars. Mars is associated with reproductive energy and muscular activity. The shoulders, on which the mantle rests, are one of Mercury’s secondary locations and are the junction between the static organs of the trunk and the “organs of action.” The mantle is merely leaning, since desires change and are changeable. There is also an indication that concentration allows the sublimation of sexual energy when it is set in motion, a process of which the shoulders are a symbol. To be able to translate concentration into a practical act requires symbolically putting the red cloak on the shoulders and transforming the energy through action. Without the energy of the serpent, and thus the action of the red cloak on the shoulders, the magician would not have the strength to raise his right hand and lower his left.
  • To activate the Magician’s mercurial powers, the basis of superconsciousness, we must follow the advice given to us by his left hand, and make concentration and acts of attention a habit.
  • The serpent, Teth, the vibration, is fastened to its waist and swirls/gravitates around it. Concentration makes us centers that collect and channel universal vibratory energy.
  • The moment the superconsciousness, acting through us, transforms the subconscious, it is able to mirror itself in it and witness, in that laboratory, its attributes, to enjoy and love itself in infinite different ways.
  • Flowers are the reproductive organs of plants and the precursors of fruits.
  • Beth, as a letter-name, means house, but also tent and temple. Temple comes from latin templum. It originally denoted a circumscribed space within the sky that was observed by haruspices for divinatory purposes. The circumscription of a space is what happens when we concentrate.
  • 5 roses + 4 lilies = 9. The Magician is the beginning of the travel that will bring us to the heights of the Hermit. The Magician is The Hermit at the beginning (Bereshit starts with Beth) of his travel. To become the Hermit we must work on our garden/subconscious, which is cultivated by the power streaming through our attention and coming from above/within.
  • The path of the Magician is called “The Intelligence of Transparency”. A successful concentration is the one where our personality becomes transparent, like a clear glass.
  • The eyes of the magician are closed, because he is not tainted by delusion (eyes - Ayin - The Devil)
  • There is a connection between the Magician and the Chariot. One is the house, the other is the Intelligence of the House of Influence. The house is the personality. The influence is Mezla, an energy streaming from Kether. In fact, in the diagram of the Tree of Life, Key 1 joins Kether and Binah.
  • There’s a double meaning associated with the roses above the Magician’s head. There could be 5 or 6 roses. 5 is associated with Geburah, the personal will. 6 is associated with Tiphareth, the image-making power (which is not the same as imagination, but it’s its source). Since the magician is mercury, it’s associated with Hod, kokhab, the Sphere of Mercury, where both an influence from Geburah and from Tiphareth descend. That’s to say that the intellect is the receptacle of both will and Self-direction. In deep concentration we become aware that the Self is the one aware, and also that we are projecting a will. Also, 6 and 5 make the number 65, which is a blind for LVX. In latin numerology, in fact, L is 50, V is 5 and X is 10. 65 is also the Divine Name ADONAI, associated with Malkuth.
  • The Magician seems to point toward the lower wand. That’s because the will from above stirs the will from below. One is placed vertically, the other horizontally. Their meeting makes a cross.
  • Beth is the first letter of the Torah (Bereshit), while lamed is the last (Israel). The two letters form the word leb, which means heart and has numerical value 32. 32 is the number of the paths of wisdom through which God created the world, and, in fact, the Torah encapsulates the exposition of these creative paths. Beth and lamed, taken as suffixes, mean in and to, respectively. The letters that make up the Tetragrammaton are three, yod, heh and vav. Assessing their value as suffixes of personal pronouns they mean me, her and him respectively. The only letters that according to Hebrew grammar can join the letters of the Tetragrammaton to form a meaningful construct are precisely lamed and beth. lamed-yod = to me lamed-heh = to her lamed-vav = to him beth-yod = in me beth-heh = in her beth-vav = in him This teaches us that just as on the grammatical level it is lamed and beth that can approach the letters of the Tetragrammaton, so on the level of reality it is the heart (leb) that is the instrument through which man can make contact with God.