Another tarot card. Today the Magician. Card 1.
The Magician is the first step on the journey of enlightenment represented within the major arcana. It indicates a person who first sees their discrete self and begins to apply willpower for the ends of the self. You see it reflected in the toddler yelling “no!” in an attempt to assert their will. It’s in both the defiant teenager and the earnest seeker applying themselves to study. It is the person who sets a goal and does what is needed to achieve it.
As such, it is a card of both positive and negative consequences. It is important to understand the self if one is to understand the Self. Yet, with the advent of power, there comes a corrupting force. The temptation to use one’s power to benefit the discrete self over others, thereby losing the compassion inherent in the Fool.
This card features a two-dimensional rendering of Metatron’s Cube.* In Sacred Geometry, the cube is said to contain all the geometric shapes that exist. It is associated with magic and alchemy traditionally, and a whole host of other things within the broad New Age movement. I see it as a reflection of the self as being one with the Self, the idea that we all contain buddha nature or a piece of God or however one might conceive of the oneness of the All. We contain magic, the entirety of the Universe. The question is, what will we do with it?
Keywords upright: Willpower, asserting the will, setting a goal and working to attain it, the beginning or foundation of alchemical work.
Keywords reversed: lack of willpower, inability to set a goal or stick to it, using power for ill
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