Journal Entries-For Beginners-TheMagician

Journal Entries-For Beginners-The Magician

Welcome to THE MAGICIAN

Please try to include the following in your entries...

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CARD NAME / DECK:
FIRST IMPRESSION: (the first thing that comes to your mind when you see your card - positive/negative, like it or don't...)
CARD IMAGERY / INSIGHTS: (describe what's on your card and what you think it means TO YOU in relation to other things shown on the card. Why is this particular thing / colour / flower / image there and what does it speak to you?=
KEYWORDS: (short phrases / adjectives / verbs / nouns deduced from your insights)
NOTES/ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. (anything else that bothers you - how you would use it in a spread, what could be the message for yourself / querent for love / past / present / future...

The IMPORTANT thing is to USE YOUR OWN INSIGHTS. Don't use the LWB or anything you have read from the books. Let your thoughts flow, tell us a story, share your meditations.

Thank you for participating and sharing. I really do hope we'll benefit from this and help each other understand the sybolism of Tarot better.
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copied from Spunch's original thread.

Repost - The Magician

Rider Waite Deck

I also see that the querent seems to know what he/she is doing. However, he looks young to me, like a student, like he's still learning. The white wand in his right hand and the white clothes he wears seems to say he is still pure at heart and maybe even a little naive. And the red cape screams of the passion he possesses to keep his world in balance. At this point of his life, his world is still rosy and fertile with lots of opportunities.

He seems to understand that he possesses two opposite type qualities as reflected in the position of the right hand and left hand - one up the other down. As above, so below...

Here he has his eyes open in this card, and sees the 4 suits clearly. However, I it seems to me as if he has a better grasp of thinking, emotions, and material issues than he has of his spirituality. I say this b/c it seems as though the wand is a little further out of his reach than the other 3.

I can feel his confidence in the knowledge that he has the potential to reach a higher spirituality - Just by knowing this his world seems to still be in harmony - in balance.

RTSP The Magician

Here is my entry for The Magician.

First Impression= A man seeking to master his own world thru magic. Learned and creative he controls his world thru his actions.

Imagery/Insights=The elements are represented through the presence of the four suits on or around the table Air & Fire the sword on the table and the club in his raised hand like a magic wand. The cup on the table..water and finally the coins both on the table and the ones he is putting in the cup. The symbol above his head ..I have no clue as to it's name .. kind of a winged sideways 8 ...says higher knowledge. The roses and coins he's putting into the cup ...is he casting a spell of some sort? Attempting to cause change to some situation around him or could he be making an offering of some kind? How does he know what to add or what words to say if this is the case as he has no apparent book or any instructions to follow. Is it learning or instinct? Either way he seems to know... with all the time as I have been spending with my cards I have been dreaming about them some lately maybe I could ask him. IT WORKED ... I shouldn't be surprised. In the past I have dreamt about something I was focusing on intently as I was falling asleep, but this is the first time I have been able to do it when I have tried to do it. I was standing in the shadows watching him. "You wish to ask something?" I heard him say when he looked over where I was standing. I nodded and said "when you have a moment yes please." "You may ask" he said. "What should I know about the meaning when your card comes into a reading?" He looked back at his work and said " The knowledge is within and the tools are all around. You have only to make use of them." At that point one of my dogs jumped on the bed and I woke up.

Keywords= umm for the time being I think I will go with the phrase he gave me... The knowledge is within, the tools are all around you have only to make use of them.

I know this sounds strange but every time I look at this card I hear the same voice as in my dream repeating the phrase.

I will most likely add to this page at a later time after I do some more reading on this card but for now this is where I am choosing to end.

The Number 1

I've decided to do some reading on the number 1 -

Character traits: Exceptionally powerful and dominating personality. Individualistic and intensely original and creative. An inspired and inspiring leader and a pioneer. Efficient and determined and good at initiating new projects.

LEADER, original, independent, courageous ACHIEVER, strength, creative

The number 1 symbolizes the principle of BEGINNING or initiation. It signifies that a person must learn to stand alone, be assertive, and achieve recognition for his or her talents.

Therefore, the 1 is ambitious, an achiever, and fares best when it is allowed to demonstrate its own ideas. It is self-sufficient, inventive, willful, and dominant. Its energy is masculine, focused, and rational. Gifts: Self-sufficiency, invention, mastery

Challenges: Stubbornness, egotism, bluntness, ambition, dominance, willfulness, impulsiveness and contrary. Resenting authority, rarely seeking advice or follow it. Single-minded, wilful, impatient and possibly quick tempered. Obstinately proud and possibly difficult to deal with.

Personal Goal: Establishing individuality; making a name Fears: Being overlooked; not using talents

Succeeds as: Writer, director, inventor, president, public figure, business owner, designer

CARD NAME / DECK: The Magician, Tarot Of The Cat People
FIRST IMPRESSION: This card is intensely beautiful, but it is also frightening. Again, the figure is somewhat androgynous, but again I believe him to be male. He holds in one hand an illuminated wand while the symbols of the other three suites float before him, causing me to wonder if the wand is more connected with magicianship and the unknown than the other three suits. His eyes are white and vacant, and his face is tattooed and overall he is a bitter, aged, dangerous, and mysterious figure.
CARD IMAGERY / INSIGHTS: This card doesn't really speak to me, except to make me feel panicked and worried. This card speaks to me of the uncertainty in my life which I so much fear.
KEYWORDS: Danger, Mystery, Darkness, Bitterness, Wisdom, Reverence
NOTES/ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. This, to me, is a card that could be broadly interpreted in a spread, depending upon the cards around it.

Re: Journal Entries-For Beginners-The Magician

CARD NAME / DECK: The magicioan (witches tarot)

FIRST IMPRESSION: it brings together both negative and positive, it's ur choice (or I guess from it's interactions with other cards in the spread) what u choose to do with the *great power*... quite powerful in it's area of action, influential on others, revered


CARD IMAGERY / INSIGHTS: Fair man, dark hair, white robe, in his early 50's, summoning everything around him. Pentacle, sword, wand and cup in front of him on a table. Wind is blowing as if he was making it blow. A Violet symbol of infinity over his head and he looks into it. A white sphere as the moon to his left (left arm raised) and a black sphere to his lower right, near his other hand that is lowered. I don't know if it was a mistake of the artist or there is actually a meaning behind this but the shadows casted by the magician and the cup are the other way around ¿?

The magician is a master at his craft, usually involving people under his guidance. He can bring everything together and has the ability to influence or manipulate by different means. And he IS conscious of this

Can also be someone with actual *powers* and *gifts* (not necessarily aware of them.

In any case someone who being aware of his potential can also fall into the not so good side of life, being this using it for his own benefit or for actions that are perhaps not the best, but that he things are the way to go under certain circumstances

ahead of his time

KEYWORDS: self rightheousness, mystic, power, potential, leader, talented, knowledge, wisdom, good teacher but bad student, misunderstood


NOTES/ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. makes me think of having a lot of baggage, in this or in another life ( u know, u don't get that far up just for having a pretty face, obviously not his case)

Hi VerseJunkie,

Very good pondering point with the wand association. Besides the obvious "magic wand" connection, I have taken the suit of Wands to be more of a growth or expansion of ideas. In the decks I have been studying, whether called wands or clubs or rods they all seem to have what looks like budding leaves on them. It seems to me that the Magician is always practicing or learning or creating something with the objective being infinite knowledge and or skills.

There are some interesting things im reading here. I always found hard to connect with this card, but hopefully tomorrow i will post my look on it.

Witchywomyn: Thanks for that information on number 1. It is very helpful.

LadyMedusa: Sounds very nice the experience you had with that dream.

The Magician

First of all, I have to say I have problems understanding this card. I dont feel really connected to it, and it seems to be full of contradictions.

1-. CARD NAME/DECK – The Magician. (Rider-Waite & Marseille).
Im using both decks while studying the cards, so what i write its based on one or on the other.

2-. IMPRESSIONS/INSIGHTS
The Magician is a young man, full of energy and astuteness. He is intelligent, but his weak point is he believes he knows more than what actually knows. He still needs to learn.

In both decks he has the infinite sign over his head, in the Marseille its his hat that makes this shape. He has the energy from an universal source that involves everything. Its infinite because is the conexion between the cosmos and the innerself. The spark of life in the more simple sense.
In both decks he is outdoors. The Magician has his influence in outside and public life. He is focused towards comunication with exterior world, not towards inside. He can control the situations and what is sourrounding him with his mind and inteligence. He is a natural leader.

In the table he has all the elements that conform the tarot pips. He knows them and can master them. He can take control emotions, mind, energy and matter. In the Marseilles deck, there are dices on the table, wich to memeans all this is easy like a game to him.

In the Rider-Waite, his belt is a snake, wich can take many differents meanings: cleverness, knowledge, poison, bad intentions, subtlety,... He has a wand and his hands are pointing one to the sky and the other to the earth (in the Marseilles he is holding a coin). Under and above, little and big things: all are related and in connection.

But theres a problem with this card, this guy is not what he seems to be when you look closer at him.
The table and his attitude makes me think he wants to show us something. He is perfoming. He has high self-steem and feels secure about himself. He is skilled to speak and sell his ideas and points of view. Is a good communicator and has charisma. But he is not completely honest. He says half of the things, only what people want to hear, not the complete true. And this is what makes him in control and the people listening to him, because he says what the others want to believe.

Hes not a real magician, he is an illusionist that shows what is better for his own interests. He needs the admiration of the crowd to make grow his ego. He believes he is in control, but he’s not really because he its depending of the approval of the others. Anyways he has capacity of action and determination.

3-. KEYWORDS
- Skillfull.Self-reliant. Charisma. Communicator. Adaptation skills. Sharp. Ambition. Cleverness. Determination.
- Thinks are not what they seem to be. Taking control of the environment. Needing the approval of the others.
- Business. Shop. Transaction. Game. Gambling.
- Extravangance. Funny. Weak personality.
- Cunning. Trickster. Gossipy. Chatterbox. Liar.
- Negotiator. Salesman. Alchemist. Illusionist. Actor. Bachelor. Artesan. Politician.

4-. RELATED THINGS
For some reason this card makes me remember about the Baroque Art, because it plays with ambiguity and tricks to get the desired effect on the viewer eye.

5-. WHAT THE CHARACTER ON THE CARD SAYS
- You can do it.
- Little things can turn on big ones.
- Show them what they want to see.
- Everything is possible. Nothing is what seems to be.

I have noticed that the portrayal of The Magician varies greatly from deck to deck. In more traditional decks, he seems to be a fairly positive figure, but in my deck he's very menacing... does anyone else have a deck in which The Magician seems to vary from these two characteristics?