The Magician

The Magician

“The practice of magic consists in making what is not understood understandable in an incomprehensible manner.”

— Carl Jung, The Red Book

 

The Magician - number one in the tarot’s major arcana

The wizard. The sage. The shaman. The alchemist. The guide. The prophet. The seer. The innovator. The scientist. The wise old man. It wouldn’t be correct to say they’re all the same person. Instead, put more precisely, they’re all the same archetype - The Magician. One that appears in folklore and mythology since time immemorial that’s more important today, than ever.

The Magician is the active masculine principle in us all - the archetype of the ultimate achiever. With The Magician, we see The Fool as number zero in the tarot’s major arcana tick over to number one, going from boundless potentiality to boundless actuality. The Fool sets out on his adventure of individuation knowing anything is possible; The Magician, knowing his ability, sets his tools out on his table and gets to work, not walking away until he’s finished. Just like The Fool is not fearful of a fall, The Magician is not fearful of a failure. Why would he be? He’s The Magician, for god’s sake.

When undertaking the task of understanding The Magician archetype, it would be unfair to not first consider the Jungian idea of archetypes. Carl Jung, arguably the most infamous psychologist to date, coupled only with Sigmund Freud, built upon Freud’s work and theories of the unconscious mind. Jung believed Freud’s theories incomplete, negative and too focused on the idea of repressed sexual instincts. Instead, Jung built out his own view of the unconscious world in a more holistic manner. Believing, first and foremost, that there was indeed a personal unconscious. But, on top of and as well as that, there existed a collective unconscious, consisting of instinctual and universal human behaviours that came to the surface (the conscious mind and material world) through symbols, archetypes, mythologies and rituals that humanity has worked with throughout time. His life-long explorations into the mystical, esoteric and alchemical schools of wisdom no doubt motivated this view at the same time as reinforcing it. Luckily, since Jung’s passing, groups of psychologists have specialised and expanded on Jung’s ideas, who are known as Jungian psychologists. As it turns out, one in particular named Robert Moore unpacked The Magician archetype within us all, at depth.

“Magic is the only honest profession. A magician promises to deceive you, and he does.”

— Karl Germain, American magician and lawyer (1878-1959)

The Magician as one of the core masculine archetypes

Robert Moore, this Jungian psychologist I speak of, and mythologist Douglas Gillette – in their book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine – propose that masculinity is made up of four archetypal energies and, to become complete, a man must develop all four archetypes in order to be wholly mature in his masculinity, as opposed to being wholly or partly immature in his masculinity. All aspects of Moore's masculine and immasculine King, Warrior, Magician and Lover can be seen in the pyramidal structures in this image.

They are pyramidal due to Moore’s belief that each male archetype consists of three parts: the full and highest expression of the archetype (at the top of the pyramid) and two bi-polar dysfunctional shadows of the archetype (the bottom corners). Like Jung, Moore believed that men and women possess both feminine and masculine archetypal patterns, this is the anima (feminine) and animus (masculine).

Moore and many other Jungian psychologists argue that the problems we see with men today, specifically their violence, shiftlessness and aloofness are a result of men not adequately exploring and integrating the primal masculine (animus) and feminine (anima) within them. Moore, and other psychologists, do not believe that the feminisation of men is an inherent problem and that it only becomes a problem when the development and integration of the feminine (anima) comes at the expense of the development and integration of the masculine (animus).

So, if it is the case (which it may be) that the modern western world suppresses the masculine archetype and encourages the feminine archetype, this is only a problem if the suppression is taken with a pinch of salt and encouragement is received; with the awareness that any suppression of masculinity in culture is likely down to the externalisation through the last generations of the immature masculine archetype, not any mature masculine behaviours, which are inherently positive and healthy.

“The Magician archetype in a man is his bullshit detector; it sees through denial and exercises discernment. He sees evil for what and where it is when it masquerades as goodness, as it so often does. In ancient times when a king became possessed by his angry feelings and wanted to punish a village that had refused to pay its taxes, the magician, with measured and reasoned thinking or with the stabbing blows of logic, would reawaken the king’s conscience and good sense by releasing him from his tempestuous mood. The court magician, in effect, was the king’s psychotherapist.”

— Robert L. Moore, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine

The Magician must hold knowledge and the capacity to use it, bringing forth its shadow

Now we understand the masculine archetypes from a holistic perspective, we can hone back in on The Magician archetype itself.

As an active masculine archetype within us all, it exists as an innate yearning to hold, hand in hand, the understanding of knowledge and the ability to manipulate it to control and create desired outcomes. In Moore’s words, “The Magician is the knower” of “secret and hidden knowledge of all kinds” that is “not immediately apparent or commonsensical”.

“All knowledge that takes special training to acquire is the province of the Magician energy. Whether you are an apprentice training to become a master electrician and unraveling the mysteries of high voltage; or a medical student, grinding away night and day, studying the secrets of the human body and using available technologies to help your patients; or a would-be stockbroker or a student of high finance; or a trainee in one of the psychoanalytic schools, you are in exactly the same position as the apprentice shaman or witch doctor in tribal societies. You are spending large amounts of time, energy, and money in order to be initiated into rarefied realms of secret power. You are undergoing an ordeal testing your capacities to become a master of this power. And, as is true in all initiations, there is no guarantee of success.”

So, The Magician must not only be the one who holds the wisdom but the one who knows what to do with it, in all circumstances. And, if you understand the law of polarity, this means that The Magician has the capacity to, essentially, create all scenarios - good and bad. Now, in order to truly understand the archetype of The Magician, one must look deeply into the shadow of it.

In Moore’s terms, the shadow of The Magician is a bi-polar shadow. Meaning - a shadow is present that has two sides, an active and a passive one. The active shadow of The Magician is known as the Detached Manipulator. As, with the power to create, comes the power to destroy. But, it’s only when The Magician is detached and indifferent from the reverence that the non-shadow side possesses that he finds himself able to do such things. Think of the difference between Gandalf and Saruman in Tolkien’s Middle Earth trilogies and you are looking at the difference between The Magician matured and The Magician in his shadow.

The passive shadow of The Magician, on the other hand, is known as the Denying Innocent One. While the active side of The Magician’s shadow plays the trickster, out of amusement, the passive side plays the helpless victim, in the same vein. The Denying Innocent One, as The Magician’s passive shadow, keeps us from opening our eyes and seeing reality as clear as it actually is. Parents can, consciously or unconsciously, activate this side in their children by praising them when it is not due; reinforcing a false self image and the child’s lack of ability to see the Truth in their own character and story. It is this Denying Innocent One that is the primary force inside all charlatans and behind all false goodness of spiritual teachers and religious authorities. It is, also, the unconscious driver behind our modern era’s phenomenon of virtue signalling, and it’s precisely the unconsciousness of it that makes it so dangerous and destructive.

“Whenever we are detached, unrelated, and withholding what we know could help others, whenever we use our knowledge as a weapon to belittle and control others or to bolster our status or wealth at others’ expense, we are identified with the Shadow Magician as Manipulator. We are doing black magic, damaging ourselves as well as those who could benefit from our wisdom.”

— Robert L. Moore, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine

The Magician is the primeval alchemist

It isn’t ominous that The Magician has a shadow. On the contrary, it’s auspicious. The Magician archetype, at its fullest, is a great alchemist. And, alchemy – esoterically speaking – is the process of transmuting lead (a base material) into gold (a pure material) through illumination; put another way - alchemy is the inner process of purifying your shadow into light through awareness. When the Magician archetype is fully integrated, one looks for ways to turn disappointing external situations into opportunities to learn and grow. Not only this, one looks inwards first before looking outward. Which, you might argue, is the definition of responsibility. Therefore, The Magician, in order to be as competent as he is when he springs into action, must be as thoughtful and contemplative as The Hermit and find strength in their aloneness. After all, as we will learn through understanding The Magician tarot card, The Magician is the conduit between worlds.

The history and origins of The Magician in tarot

Before The Magician tarot card that we know today can be fully understood, we must first unpack it’s history. Although the magician as an archetype is arguably something that has been since time began, it being expressed through a card, on the other hand, is a much more recent event, relatively speaking. To be exact, The Magician tarot card has been evolving and iterating to become the card it is today for almost six hundred years!

The earliest name of The Magician was his original Italian name ‘El Bagatella’ which translates to the noun ‘trifle’, meaning ‘a little thing’ i.e. the relationship with that girl was just a small thing. There’s a utilitarian meaning behind The Magician being called El Bagetella, and that’s because it’s a reference to the game of tarocchi. Tarocchi was the card game that the early tarot cards that first appeared in Ferrara and Milan were used for, of which El Bagatella was the lowest ranking card in the trump series leading him vulnerable to being captured by any other trump card that an opponent might use. Not long after The Magician’s tarot card history is kicked off by El Bagatella, The Magician goes from ‘El Bagatella’ to ‘Il Bagatto’ or ‘Il Bagat’, though the change is likely nothing more than a short hand development. The French occultists later called him ‘Le Bateleur’, which translates to ‘street performer’.

The pictorial representation of The Magician archetype has also gone through phases of being expressed as a juggler, a mountebank, a trickster, and an artisan. We, though, now call him one name - The Magician. So, let’s unpack, chronologically, the full history of The Magician tarot card which we know today as the the number one tarot card in the tarot’s major arcana.

The Magician in the Visconti Sforza tarot commissioned by the Duke of Milan (c. 1430)

The Magician’s tarot history begins with the Visconti Sforza tarot which was commissioned by the Duke of Milan in circa 1430 and is now, fortunately, being conserved in the Morgan Library in New York. The exact year (and even decade) that the Visconti Sforza tarot was created seems to be debated frequently online; providing answers of 1440, 1450, 1454, and more. However, as detailed by the British Museum, the first Visconti Sforza tarot came into existence circa 1430 after being originally commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan (reigning 1412-1447). However, his successor, Francesco I Sforza, was also commissioning after the original commission!

The original set was painted by Bonifazio Bembo (active 1447-1478) and it wasn’t until circa 1480 that six missing cards were replaced by Antonio Cicognara (active circa 1480-1500). It is the Bonifazio Bembo art work that we’re looking at here in our oldest The Magician card.

Wearing a full red dress edged with ermine, this outfit does not only represent a seemingly high social status but also indicates at a a royal origin. Perhaps that’s why his face is so serious! On the table in front of where he’s perched, we have five total elements that can be split into two descriptions. Firstly, the standard four elemental elements represented by: the two coins (earth) showing the suit of coins, a cup (water) showing the suit of cups, a knife (air) showing the suit of swords and a wand (fire) in his hand showing the suit of batons; now commonly referred to as the suit of wands. The fifth and standout feature on the table is the hat, which is believed to represent trickery and deceit, as if The Magician was prone to hiding things under it to make some cash on the side!

This hat, despite it being merely one object in the tarot card, plays a key role in The Magician’s earliest days, as if you were to remove what this hat represents then, then he would be The Magician that he is today. As, it’s only later in the timeline of The Magician’s history — around the time of the French occultist tarot makers, in fact — that The Magician only has four elements on his table and the archetype of The Magician has his conjuring trickster characteristic removed so that he can become the master of the elements.

The Magician from the Ercole I d'Este tarot deck (c. 1473)

The second earliest (and recovered) tarot deck, made circa 1473 in Italy, features heraldic emblems of Ercole I d'Este and his wife, Leonora of Aragon, and is conserved in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the Yale University in New Haven.

In this tarot of Este deck, The Magician seems to have exchanged his role of being a royal for that of being a performer, doing tricks to entertain the children in front of him. With, importantly, coins scattered on the table with a lifted cup in his hand that may have just been lifted to reveal them hidden underneath.

The Magician from the Budapest Tarocchi tarot deck (late 1400s)

The Budapest tarot is currently being preserved at the Szépmuvészeti Múzeum (The Museum of Fine Arts) in Budapest, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and The Cary Collection of Playing Cards at the Yale University Library in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. In this early version of The Magician, we can see the same event being played out - that of a crowd being entertained by the way objects are being used.

It’s clear that in The Magician’s earliest days his archetype was different to what it is today. In the modern day, The Magician is a well-willed wizard. Back then, he was seen as a conjuring trickster. was seen depicted as a conjurer.

A key historical fact then is that the most common ‘magic trick’ that was performed for gambling crowds throughout the middle ages was carried out with nothing more than cups-and-balls and a table, that coincidentally facilitated the spectators funds to be laid down on, for a guess on which cup the ball was hiding under. With the character of the conjurer doing his conjuring, The Magician is creating a world in-between worlds that any onlooking person can participate in where anything is possible. It just so happens that he’s profiting, of course.

The Magician in The Conjurer (late 1400s) by Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch (1453 - 1516), a Dutch painter from Brabant, shows the conjurer (The Magician) creating a scene of spellbinding tension that ultimately tricks the spectators concentration so that their coin can be grabbed.

Using cups and balls on a table, the conjurer (The Magician) is seemingly focusing all his trickster efforts on the man in front of him that is hunched forwards, folding himself over, in a bid to be even more spellbinded, all while unaware that his pocket is being picked.

Bosch brilliantly uses beasts in his painting of the conjurer (The Magician) to symbolise the human traits that are on display. Namely, the frog on the table, in front and below the main spectator’s gaping mouth — seemingly having just jumped out of it — representing the extent to which the victim lost control of rationality and became subdued to his irrational and unconscious impulses. Also, the owl in the basket that hangs from the conjurer’s (The Magician’s) waist that symbolises the intelligence being utilised, even if nefariously. The relationship between the child and the victim encapsulates the Flemish (renaissance Netherlandish) proverb: "He who lets himself be fooled by conjuring tricks loses his money and becomes the laughing stock of children.” Hieronymus Bosch is known to have used other proverbs as motivations and contexts to his paintings; firstly: "No one is so much a fool as a wilful fool.” and secondly: “The world is a haystack, and each man plucks from it what he can”.

FAQs about The Fool

What does The Fool tarot card mean in terms of love and relationships?

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Key takeaway: The Fool is an invitation to embrace love fearlessly, but with a touch of self-awareness.

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In terms of career and finances, The Fool heralds opportunities, fresh starts, and the courage to explore new paths. It might be time to embark on a new job, start a business, or pursue a passion project you’ve been dreaming about. This card encourages you to take calculated risks and trust that your leap of faith will be rewarded.

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