Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings! For today’s post, I have decided to focus on the Magician card in the Tarot. The card of the Magician is numbered 1 in the major arcana, following the card of the Fool which is left numbered zero. He is the first of two Divine Masculine cards of the major arcana of the Tarot, with the Emperor being the other (numbered 4). I view him as the Divine Masculine in the Spiritual or Ephemeral sense, while the Emperor is the Divine Masculine in the psychical realm!
The Magician is the balance point to the High Priestess, who is the Divine Feminine in the Spiritual or Ephemeral sense. While the High Priestess is about Esoteric Knowledge and Occult Insights, the Magician signals the active aspect of magick. After all, masculine in the traditional sense is active, while feminine in the traditional sense is passive, but we all have both energies within us to varying degrees. It is even why we can see this Magician energy represented in Goddesses associated with magick, as much as we can see the High Priestess energy! A prime example of this is my most beloved Goddess, Morgan le Fay, as she has both the Esoteric Knowledge and Occult Insights of the High Priestess, as well as the active force of weaving spells and glamours within her tales embracing the Magician energy! The Magician being shows the masculine and active aspect of magick, in that he is known as the Master of Manifestation within the Tarot! He signifies the actions that can be taken utilizing the magickal tools and is associated with each of the four minor arcana suits. In fact, in most versions of the card, he is depicted with all four tools, a wand, a sword, a cup, and a pentacle.
The Magician goes beyond being the active masculine force of magick within the Tarot, and into being magick himself! He is so spiritually evolved that he has made the necessary choices to live his life as a work of magick. However, it must be remembered that the immature Magician can have a dark side where he may use this innate magick to act more like a Rock Star gone awry, taking what he wants and misusing his gifts for frivolous reasons.
With all this being said, the appearance of this card can signal a time of great spiritual and magickal potency for the querent! I find him to be a signal of a time to set plans into motion, as he is the Master of Manifestation. He can also appear in a reading as a powerful guide to embracing your own path and pushing you to transform into a new and better version of yourself! We should remember that this is a card about self-development as it is the first step on the Fool’s journey when we read the major arcana as a story.
Finally, I want to end my analysis of the Magician card by mentioning some of the alternate names given to this card in some of my favorite decks. In The Arthurian Tarot, he is represented by Merlin, unsurprisingly. In The Llewellyn Tarot, he is represented by Gwydion, one of the Magicians who created the Goddess Blodeuwedd to marry Lleu Llaw Gyffes. In The Wildwood Tarot, he is called the Shaman, which does bring a woodland flavor to the card. No matter what he is called, he is one of the most potent cards in the Tarot, holding the knowledge and insights that I have shared within this post, as well as many more that will be individual to the reader! I hope that you have enjoyed reading my thoughts on the Magician card in Tarot. What do you feel when the Magician appears in a reading for you? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is an artwork of the Magician card. I found the image on https://liminal11.com/2018/09/12/tales-of-the-tarot-chapter-1-the-magician/.
Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services! I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon! Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/
Further Reading
- The Only Tarot Book You’ll Ever Need by Skye Alexander
- The Arthurian Tarot by John & Caitlin Matthews
- The Llewellyn Tarot by Anna-Marie Ferguson
- The Wildwood Tarot by Mark Ryan & John Matthews
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