be exactly the same action as the man next to us, but it is the understanding and the love that we put into it which makes all the difference. This is the purity of intent aligning us with the natural, abundant, creative force of Spirit, which makes nature come up every spring.
The Magician is confronted with all the problems to be solved. Once he comes into matter, he knows that straight away he’s going to be faced with the sphinx; this is the work! If we look at Number 2, The High Priestess, her left arm is resting on a black sphinx which represents ‘the dweller on the threshold’, meaning all the dark shad ows of the subconscious. His life will be full of enigma, questions and problems that he has to understand in order not to be eaten by the sphinx; in other words not to be taken in by the monsters of the subconscious. If he sees all the misunderstandings and pictures that the subconscious has presented to him as real, then he will be eaten by the meaning and go down again into the illusion and form of the small self, or personality. The work of this first card is extremely important, because this is where he is tested to see whether he can go through to the next level, for if he goes through when he is not ready, he faces annihilation, so it is an eternal life or cyclic death matter. If he doesn’t pass that threshold he will stay in ordinary con sciousness and become the magician who plays games and tricks people.
Once he has grasped the secret and been able to take the key and open the great door, he knows that there is no return. If he can’t open it or chooses not to, he can retreat; that is the choice and this is what the average mass consciousness in humanity has done for thousands of years. Many who come to the door do not go through it, for they haven’t enough of that incredible sacrificial fiery quality that the Number 1 has to have, so they go back to survival mode. It is like being faced with ‘the fires of hell’ and being prepared to go through them; actually those fires are the purifying fires of love. Number 1 can have some fool-hardiness and pride, which may make them go into the fire of sensual passion and so into degenera tion and destruction, rather than the passion of the love of God of truth. But that is a choice and if we are foolhardy enough to take that choice, we should remember the message from eternity, that there is all the time in the world!
The Magician comes back realising that he holds all the possi bilities in him and he is completely aware of how he has to handle matter. He has the baton in his hand, which is the symbol for the wands and on the table in front of him he has the cup, the sword and the pentacle. These are the four elements symbolising the tools that we have to help us proceed from the lower to the higher states. The wand is fire, the pentacle earth, the sword is air and the cup is water. He holds the wand in his left hand and he’s pointing to the pentacle with the index finger of his right hand. He has contact with the wand of the active/masculine element, which is directed towards and received by, the pentacle of earth, the feminine/receptive element. The Magician himself is active, being a Number 1, because he acts on and in the world; he’s the alchemist guiding the transmutation of those parts of the world he’s going to expose. The sword, as air, is masculine/active, bringing Spirit into the receptive/feminine cup.
The wand is in his left hand. If we see a picture of someone in authority with a wand in the right hand, this is a false magician. This is because the right hand is the hand of rationalism and intel lect, whereas the left hand is about feeling and receptivity. The red upper tip of the wand represents the fire of Spirit coming down; the lower blue tip symbolises receptivity to that greater energy, which has to be translated by the mind. The order or command is received from above through the left hand, so it is not him doing the order ing. This gives him the possibility of receiving intuitive power and knowledge and then implementing the vision into the material world, which is represented by the pentacle, or element Earth. He is really a ‘way-through’, for he doesn’t do it himself. That is why he’s a true Magician, for he understands and acts, but knows that the greater energy is working through him. This is what it means when it says in Genesis that the power and domination of the world is given to man, so that it can be used to work in the name of God. This is of course an incredibly high degree of achievement and we have to go through the purification of all our mistakes, which are only misunderstandings, to eventually become a true Magician or juggler. The word ‘juggler’ is another good name for this card, for it doesn’t carry the pretensions of the ego that ‘The Magician’ does.
If we haven’t elevated our minds into the knowledge that the world of matter and form is an illusion, then we become the type of magician that does magic in an illusionary way. We need to look at the distinction between the two magicians, for the difference is quite subtle. It is about applying the word of God to everyday life, rather than playing at moving or manifesting objects in the air. The real work could be something so simple as to be unnoticed.
The Magician has to be completely open, supple and receptive, for he never knows when the order is going to come and he always has to be ready to obey the higher impulse from within himself. He is getting himself ready to knock on that great inner door with the purpose of finding the universal truth.
The wand is a symbol of order or command; it has been found absolutely everywhere on the planet, right back to prehistoric times wands are found in tombs buried with tribal chiefs. The wand would be given to the wise one in the tribe, because they would be recognised as having ideas that were always beneficial to the group and therefore coming from a higher place. This is the spiritual will coming in to inform matter and the power conferred to mankind to dominate, use and transform the material world. It is a great chal lenge and can have an inverse action, for in the acceptance of power a man is dragged into the world, which then may hold and imprison him. When he dominates his world from that place, he can be con fused if he focuses on that and starts to believe that he is ‘God’. This means that he’s not purified enough and his personality is being taken up by the idea of his own power.
Matter is not the prison for Spirit, rather it gives the freedom for Spirit to forever demonstrate and manifest new forms, new diversity, new beauty and new refinement. But if we haven’t felt the heaviness and the incredible lure of form, we shouldn’t
