Thoth Crowley/Harris — I - The Magus

Buddha Tarot — I - Asita — The Seer

The Magician evolved from the "trickster" in Renaissance decks to the loftier idealistic Magus of today. The transformation generally occured around the advent of the Golden Dawn. The Magician has become synonymous with wisdom, creative energy, activity, strength of will, vitality.

Divinatory Keywords

In Smith-Waite Style Decks

• Action • Conscious Awareness • Power • Focus 

In Buddha Tarot

• Pointing the way to improvement • Advice • Scholarship and Skill  

In Thoth or Golden Dawn Decks

• Activity • Strength of Will • Vital Energy •  Cunning •  Power • Creativity • Trickery • Impulse • Sometimes "Occult Wisdom or Power"

Archetype

Procreating masculine • Heavenly Father

Numerology

1 - Unity, yang

Letter

Beth or B

Tree of Life

Path from Kether to Binah

I Ching Attribution

I - Ch'ien - The Creative

Planet

Mercury

The Evolution of the Magus

We've come to accept as the modern-day archetype, the Waite-Smith Magician, with the "as above, so below" pose, powerful wand in the right hand as the left hand gestures to earth. On a table are the powerful instruments of the Magus — which are also the suits of the Minor Arcana.

Of course in earlier decks, we had the wide-brimmed hat of the Marseilles Juggler and the sense of a "trickster." And Later, mystically, in Thoth, the Magician becomes the ultimate expression of the Magus whose body actually forms the alchemical glyph of Mercury. In the Buddha deck, Robert Place's ingenius Buddhism themed deck, Asita the Seer becomes the honored Magician. Asita was one of the greatest seers of his time.

What links these uncommon threads? Juggler, creative and powerful magician, mystical magus and seer?  

Manifestation, whether it be manifestation of the trickster (juggler), magical practitioner (magician), cosmic mage (magus) or respected seer. Manifestation of thought, creativity and energetic will. 

From Paul Foster Case's Oracle of the Tarot (1933): 

In the Words of Arthur Edward Waite

A youthful figure in the robe of a magician, having the countenance of divine Apollo, with smile of confidence and shining eyes. Above his head is the mysterious sign of the Holy Spirit, the sign of life, like an endless cord, forming the figure 8 in a horizontal position infinity symbol. About his waist is a serpent-cincture, the serpent appearing to devour its own tail. This is familiar to most as a conventional symbol of eternity, but here it indicates more especially the eternity of attainment in the spirit. In the Magician's right hand is a wand raised towards heaven, while the left hand is pointing to the earth. This dual sign is known in very high grades of the Instituted Mysteries; it shews the descent of grace, virtue and light, drawn from things above and derived to things below. The suggestion throughout is therefore the possession and communication of the Powers and Gifts of the Spirit. On the table in front of the Magician are the symbols of the four Tarot suits, signifying the elements of natural life, which lie like counters before the adept, and he adapts them as he wills. Beneath are roses and lilies, the flos campi and lilium convallium, changed into garden flowers, to shew the culture of aspiration. This card signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God, the will in the liberation of its union with that which is above. It is also the unity of individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought, in the fixation thereof. With further reference to what I have called the sign of life and its connexion with the number 8, it may be remembered that Christian Gnosticism speaks of rebirth in Christ as a change "unto the Ogdoad." The mystic number is termed Jerusalem above, the Land flowing with Milk and Honey, the Holy Spirit and the Land of the Lord. According to Martinism, 8 is the number of Christ.

The Fool more than any other card contains a vast vocabulary of "meanings" that also vary from deck to deck. In most traditions, the major arcana in total is the "Fool's journey" and every other of the 21 "trumps" relate directly to the Fool. This is why he is often assigned a zero or no number at all.

Divinatory Keywords

In Smith-Waite Style Decks 

• Beginning a journey  • new adventures • carefree • leap of faith • fresh hope

In Thoth or Golden Dawn Decks

• Ideas, thoughts, spirtuality • Endeavours transcend earth • sudden impulse, intuition • creativity • insight

Archetype

Pioneer — totality — universal egg

Astrology

Aries (Pisces in transition to Aries)

Numerology

0 

Letter

Aleph = A  (ox)

Tree of Life

Path 11 from Kether to Chokmah (Thoth) 

I ChingAttribution

25 Wu Wang (Innocence) translated as "Correctness" 

Element

Air

Special Day

April Fools Day? 

Colors

Bright pale yellow, sky blue, blue emerald green, emerald, gold

Colman Smith Illustration

Pamela (Pixie) Colman Smith's illustrations re-intrepted a few centuries of Renaissance illustrations in arguably the most famous tarot deck illustrations of all time, certainly the most popular. Most decks since then followed three main directions:

• Colman-Smith derivative (including various thematic explorations of the universal archetypes)

• Thoth-Harris derivative

• Thematic unrelated (more for fun) 

Overall, though, Colman Smith, "love her or hate her" — and aside from a few cynics, most loved her, at least secretly — influenced nearly every deck since 1910.

The Fool, Enlightenment 

In Pixie's Fool, we see a traveling youth, all spring-like and colorful, so enraptured with life he is focused on the sky above, the great Universe, instead of the cliff at his feet. Yet this is not carelessness, but merely idylic questing. He's not indanger of falling at all, but utterly fearless. He wears a floral tunic and green leggings, all the trappings of spring, indicating he is the very soul and spirit of spring, youth, vitality, new birth, the egg of the very Universe. It appears that all his worldly possessions are carried at the end of a staff in a bag, but in fact, he carries the very universe in the bag, all the elements.

 The bag is decorated with the symbol of the hawk, HORUS the Egyptian sun god. His hair is also golden, as the sun, and his cap is green for spring.

He is the universe new born, the ultimate adventurer, the very spirit of the Doa and the entire universe. The sun is bright in a yellow sky, again his colors, the glow of life-giving heat and light. The sky match his tireless walking boots, also yellow. The red feather, the symbol for air, points to the sun showing that he is fully enlightened. He is the Buddha, after enlightenment.

Colors

Even in variations, such as Carol Herzer's magnificent and spiritually insightful hand painted ILLUMINATED TAROT (shown above), the enlightenment of the universal fool is clearly expressed, although without the yellows and glaring sun of Pixie. Instead, Carol, a spiritual guide and teacher herself, shows waves of energy emanating from the Universe in forceful waves, absorbed in the pure essence of The Fool. The flowers on his tunic truly shine with supernatural essence, super-spring. The sun is almost eclipsed, in a sense symbolic of the Fool's illumination. When Buddha became enlightened, he came to understand nothingness and illusion, and here the Fool seems to express this higher sense of Buddha-enlightenment. Now, the Fool is the glow which illuminates the Universe, just as the Buddha became the illuminating center of everything and nothing. The energy of Carol Herzer's interpretation is unmatached, even in Lady Harris's Thoth Tarot Fool (seen above).

The Fool is completion. He is zero, the ultimate position in the Majors, in some traditions he falls before The World, in Waite's tradition before the Magician. Yet he brings the journey full circle. As a new journeyer, much like spring in the ancient legends, he is about to embark on a dangerous quest of knowledge and life, about to "step off the cliff." Yet, as a master, the very master of the Universe, he has climbed this summit to be at the sacred center of the Universe, to recapture his innocence AFTER the long journey. Full circle.  

In his hand, a pure, white rose, a Golden Dawn symbol for silence and rebirth. He is, in fact, the sun reborn, the Universe reborn, spring. Rebirth in the Daoist and Buddhist or Hindu belief systems. The little dog at his feet is a joyful companion on his journey. Ultimately, all the trumps in the deck, from 1 through 21 represent the Fool's journey to this point. This card can be looked upon as the beginning of the journey towards enlightenment AND the attainment of enlightenment at the same time.

His face is youthful and innocent, but hardly foolish. His pose, skyward glance and timeless beauty make it clear that the Fool is ageless, both ancient and new born. 

Divinatory Meanings 

 Upright

A new journey • fresh hope • a new phase • expanding outlooks or opportunities • starting something new • spontaneity • impulsive wisdom • trusting intuition • being carefree • being true to your real self • taking chances but for the noble journey (enlightenment) • TRUSTING your intuition • having faith in yourself  • being protected  • utter joy of life and embracing enlightenment • recapturing the innocence • believing/reinforcing that you can do anything

Reversed

Many of the same ideas, but implying hasty or wrong trust or decisions, foolishness, faith in the wrong things.