Magician's Roses

Laurelle

So I am sitting here meditation on the Rider Magician. I have counted 17 roses. What does this mean?

In the BOTA version there are 10 roses. 5 above and 5 below because As Above, So Below. And it corresponds to the 5 senses. We need the 5 senses in order to concentrate to cultivate those roses. Okay. So this makes sense.

But what about Rider. 1 + 7 = 8. There is an infinity sign above his head, which is a horizontal number 8. There are 11 above and 6 below. In Rider's book he makes reference to "8 is the number of Christ." So through Christ Consciousness we can cultivate our desires?

Any ideas?
 

Thirteen

Sub Rosa

Whenever we're talking Waite, we have to bring in that secret society thing. Waite has secret handshakes all though the deck; symbols that only member of his club are supposed to see and understand. So, someone seeing the 10/Swords for example, just sees a guy dead with 10/Swords in his back. But secret club members see it and go, "Ah, the story of Solomon's architect..."

It makes the deck a bit of an easter egg hunt ;)

Which brings us to those roses. From Wiki: "In Rome a wild rose would be placed on the door of a room where secret or confidential matters were discussed. The phrase sub rosa, or "under the rose", means to keep a secret — derived from this ancient Roman practice." So, see all those roses over the Magician there. He is both "sub rosa" (meaning speaking confidences) and bringing down "secrets" from above to Earth...but not all of them. Now, the question is, do we view him as #1, giving new initiates their first bit of secret information? Or do we view him, Cabalistically, as almost at the "crown" of the tree, and so giving those who've passed a lot of tests and gone up the ladder some of the last, most important secrets?

I'm not sure myself. What I think we can say is that the Magician wants to instruct and tell things, inspirational, divine things that pass on down through him, the conduit and messenger, from above. These are confidential things he is revealing, and the initiate is not supposed to spread them around. They're only for those deemed worthy. And what we also know, given the numbers, is that there are still some secrets to discover. The Magician may know all, but he isn't being allowed to tell all.

Add in to this that roses were, as you said, related to Christ (five roses were the five wounds; and the rose itself is about blood and sacrifice), and the Virgin Mary. Also Isis (HPS is Isis, so the roses lead to her, in a way). Three roses in Free Masonry stand for love, light and life, and we can't forget that Waite is English and the Rose is the national flower of England. So there may be a not-too-subtle "England rules the world" element to all those roses.

But there's not just roses down below are there? There's also lilies. So. Why roses only above but roses/lilies below? :confused:
 

Sunbrook

Wow! Fascinating. Thank you, Thirteen.
 

Laurelle

Whenever we're talking Waite, we have to bring in that secret society thing. Waite has secret handshakes all though the deck; symbols that only member of his club are supposed to see and understand. So, someone seeing the 10/Swords for example, just sees a guy dead with 10/Swords in his back. But secret club members see it and go, "Ah, the story of Solomon's architect..."

It makes the deck a bit of an easter egg hunt ;)

Which brings us to those roses. From Wiki: "In Rome a wild rose would be placed on the door of a room where secret or confidential matters were discussed. The phrase sub rosa, or "under the rose", means to keep a secret — derived from this ancient Roman practice." So, see all those roses over the Magician there. He is both "sub rosa" (meaning speaking confidences) and bringing down "secrets" from above to Earth...but not all of them. Now, the question is, do we view him as #1, giving new initiates their first bit of secret information? Or do we view him, Cabalistically, as almost at the "crown" of the tree, and so giving those who've passed a lot of tests and gone up the ladder some of the last, most important secrets?

I can see that in Waite with the Roses. He is bringing down the Christ Consciousness into the earth. The earth is represented by the Lilies, which speak of the Virgin Mary and have a very intoxicating smell, something you don't get much of in the astral world. Scent is a powerful sense, i believe. Scent is also a tie between our conscious and subconscious minds. Scent can bring back a memory, scent can help relax us and it is a great aid in spell work. Scent is tied to the Lovers card, which is another way of saying that something from above is being brought down to earth. But for me scent is a physical construct that leads back to the subconscious world.

I'm not sure myself. What I think we can say is that the Magician wants to instruct and tell things, inspirational, divine things that pass on down through him, the conduit and messenger, from above. These are confidential things he is revealing, and the initiate is not supposed to spread them around. They're only for those deemed worthy. And what we also know, given the numbers, is that there are still some secrets to discover. The Magician may know all, but he isn't being allowed to tell all.

Indeed, tarot is a very wise valuable tool that is slightly misused I believe, but that's not the fault of the user, for we all have to start somewhere. It is a connection to our subconscious and in our subconscious lays all of our memories, even if our conscious mind doesn't remember them. Rose and Lilies are contrasted against the wide, vast openness of the Fool. First we have the fool, which is everything and nothing, which is wide, expansive, with him we take our first breath. But the Fool is unguided, he lacks concentration and he is too far "above" looking to the sky (astral) for the answers. So we have the Magician who is centered, cultivated and through concentration makes things happen. It's as if he is pulling the fool to the ground and says..."Here smell those lilies..."

Add in to this that roses were, as you said, related to Christ (five roses were the five wounds; and the rose itself is about blood and sacrifice), and the Virgin Mary. Also Isis (HPS is Isis, so the roses lead to her, in a way). Three roses in Free Masonry stand for love, light and life, and we can't forget that Waite is English and the Rose is the national flower of England. So there may be a not-too-subtle "England rules the world" element to all those roses.

Did not know that about the rose as the national flower, but now that saying "An English Rose," makes a lot more sense! And yes, Mary, who is a construct of Isis. I love Isis and to get off track for a moment. I found it sacrilegious that that terrorist group was being coined ISIS because it was originally IS, then ISIL and I almost felt it was a way that the male energy wanted to destroy the female. Because let's be honest, we live in a male dominated world, whose time is actually chronologically over. And perhaps it was one last attempt to destroy the divine female.

But there's not just roses down below are there? There's also lilies. So. Why roses only above but roses/lilies below? :confused:

That is a great question about the Lilies only being below.

"The first Christian use of the rose appears in scenes representing the next world, that is, Paradise, together with other flowers, like lilies. These flowers also became symbols of virtues (the rose for reserve) or for categories of the elect: the red rose for martyrs, lilies for virgins." http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/rosarymarkings36.html

I think we definitely have a lot of biblical references. Waite was associated with the Rosicrucians as well. Indeed, he wrote a book about them, which I found here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/sro/rhr/rhr00.htm Which ties into what you said about secret societies and the roses being the symbol of that.

So essentially, Waite also may have seen the roses as Christ being born and brought down to earth via the lilies, which represent the Virgin Mary. (Read the campus link)

But the number 17 intrigues me. 17 is a prime number and can only be divided by 1 and 17. If you count ALL the flowers there are 23. 23 is also a prime number. Perhaps the Magician can't be divided. He is the unity....

Perhaps the 17 is the nakedness hidden in plain sight like the nakedness in the Star. Or perhaps 1 + 7 = 8 harks back to taming the beast in the Strength card. And the Magician needs calm power to tame the roses.

There is some symmetry to the picture as well. The roses above and below, the Magician pointing above and below. The orbos. The balance of the 4 elements on the table because 4 is a very stable number. Roses take balance and concentration to cultivate. They need a balance of many things.

Just some morning thoughts. :)
 

Samweiss

So I am sitting here meditation on the Rider Magician. I have counted 17 roses. What does this mean?

In the BOTA version there are 10 roses. 5 above and 5 below because As Above, So Below. And it corresponds to the 5 senses. We need the 5 senses in order to concentrate to cultivate those roses. Okay. So this makes sense.

But what about Rider. 1 + 7 = 8. There is an infinity sign above his head, which is a horizontal number 8. There are 11 above and 6 below. In Rider's book he makes reference to "8 is the number of Christ." So through Christ Consciousness we can cultivate our desires?

Any ideas?

Paul Foster Case mentions something that red roses represent Venus and desire nature. Roses also have 5 petals so they symbolise man and microcosm (I guess because it's relation to the pentagram). White lilies represent purity, and because they have 6 petals, they symbolise macrocosm. So there's your above and below.

This is what I remember right now. I recommend reading PFC's The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages as it's a treasure trove of knowledge even for RWS deck.
 

Thirteen

Well, regarding the number 8, the Magician and the Lady in strength are the only ones with infinity halos, and, thus, indicate getting power beamed directly into them from the divine; ideas for the Magician, fortitude for the lady. 8 also breaks down into two sets of 4, and 4 is very important. That's the number of the Hebrew letters spelling out the name of god. And it's all those other fours in magic--four seasons, four directions, the four fixed signs we see on wheel of fortune/the world, four elements, etc.

BUT! as you mention, it's not just that we've got 17 (1 + 7 = 8) roses here. We also have their break up. If eight was the key number here, then why not split them eight above, eight below and one in-between? We've got 11 above and 6 below. That, I think, makes the 1+7=8 element less important than 1&7 (both magic numbers), or the number 17 total, or 11 above and 6 below.

As for 17 straight up, there are a lot of connections to Christ in the number. See here: http://mysteriouswritings.com/the-hidden-meaning-behind-the-number-17-and-the-path-to-beyond/

And as for the split: 11 is 1+10. That's first and last; Magician 1 to Wheel 10. And that is what is above. The whole of that first cycle of the tarot. 6 below is 3+3--and 33 is a super important number. It's the most important number, for example, in freemasonry and its the age at which Jesus died (and this doesn't even include the importance of "3" on its own--father, son, holy ghost; hope, faith, charity...).

Of course, we may be missing something critical by just not knowing Waite and his buddies well enough. Maybe there was 17 of them ;)
 

Gofannon

That link about 17 is amazing, thank you. Card 17 Star is astrologically opposite card 8 Strength. The article ties in with my thoughts on Fibonacci and the World card on this thread: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=250775

The 8/17 axis is the rose, the 5/13 axis the lily? The rose is chokmah (wisdom), the lily binah (understanding)?
 

Thirteen

The rose is chokmah (wisdom), the lily binah (understanding)?
That would certainly make Cabalistic sense :) But then, why only roses above? It makes sense that on the way down they should go from one flower into two, indicating those two pillars. But if they go up, they should unite into one, right? The Magician is one step down from the crown of the tree, where all is unified into a singularity. So, why would the lily and rose become a canopy of roses rather than some other flower to show their unity?

Excepting, of course, that Waite really does want the Magician to be "sub rosa" there ;) It reads to me quite clearly as secret society stuff with the Magician offering confidences to initiates.

And you're quite right about the astrological opposition between Strength (Leo/8) and the Star (Aquarius/17). Perhaps the numerology (17 = 1+7 = 8) is yet another reason that Waite went for Strength as #8 rather than #11. One site notes that Strength, as Leo, is about personal values, while the Star, as Aquarius, is about social values. Both are fixed signs, and among those we see in the Wheel and World card representing the four elements.

And it's not at all surprising that Air and Fire would be the elements for the Magician;
 

Gofannon

He brings the divine wisdom from above. The return path is through da'at (knowledge), wisdom understood.
 

Abrac

The Magician represents the coming together of the divine in the universe with the divine in humanity. Waite defines Mysticism in Azoth, or, The Star in the East:

"What is Mysticism? And why mystic? Almost every educated person is now aware that Mysticism claims to be the synthesis of those arcane methods and processes by which the divine in man is brought into immediate communication with the divine in the universe."​

The rose symbolized a lot of things for Waite but he mentions it quite frequently in connection with the Paradise above, and not just roses but flowers in general.

In Zoharic tradition the Garden of Paradise was not of this earth but somewhere in the spiritual realm of God. It was there Adam and Eve originally resided before the Fall. In his paper The Symbols of the Rosy Cross, Waite makes this interesting statement:

"The same Zoharic text says that when Adam was located in Paradise to cultivate and watch over the Garden his work was to tend roses, regarded [symbolically] as research into the deep mysteries of grace and wisdom behind the Sacred Names. In a somewhat fantastic sense of symbolism, it might be said that this is also a work of adeptship, for the letters of all sacred books have been put into the hands of the mystics, and it is for them to form them into roses of inward meaning, sacred names of true and deep things in the spiritual life, roses of Hod and Netzach, Shekinah roses, roses of understanding and wisdom and when the Great White Light shall so help the culture which is the practice of the Presence of God, then the one true rose of all comes into manifest being, which is the Rose of Kether."​

And from The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross:

"We are told elsewhere that Adam, while still unfallen, tended the Roses of Paradise."​

There's a footnote that goes with that which reads:

"See my Secret Doctrine in Israel, p. 72. Compare Dracontius: Carmen de Deo, Lib. I, v. 437. He says of Adam and Eve walking in the garden: lbant per flores et lata rosaria bini, i.e. amidst flowers and great bosks of roses."​

If you got to page 72 of Waite's Secret Doctrine in Israel, there's another footnote:

"We are told in Gen. ii, 15 that 'the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.' With this it is interesting to contrast the Zoharic ideas of those duties which fell to Adam in his original state of radiance. He was set to offer sacrifices in the Garden, and for this purpose an altar is postulated therein, which he profaned by his fall, and so became a tiller of the ground. It is said in another place that he was set to grow roses."​

It's my understanding the roses above probably refer to the Paradise above, the divine in the universe. They are symbols of Light and Truth and the Magician's quest for Truth. Or they might be the "roses of understanding and wisdom" from Waite's previous quote, a reference to Binah and Chockmah perhaps. The roses being on the left and right in the card would seem to support this. The roses and lilies below represent the Christ [the "flos campi and lilium convallium" in the PKT], or divine consciousness within, which the Mystic aspires to awaken.

Waite not only believed in a Paradise above but a Paradise here on earth, toward which all of humanity is evolving. The Magician's aspiration is toward that end. One of Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross rituals puts it poetically:

The Priestess of the Rite: The soul is a rose awaiting consecration by the Spirit.

Una Ancilla Templi: The rose of our desire becomes the Holy Rose.

Ancilla Alia: Rose of Jericho, Rose of Salem, Rose of the world below, Rose of the Paradise above: hide us in Thy sacred petals.​

To me the number of flowers doesn't hold a significant meaning, but they seem to add beauty. Beauty and Truth were to Waite two sides of the same coin and inseparable. In Azoth, or, The Star in the East he goes into considerable detail on his philosophy of beauty. Here are some examples:

"In all things, therefore, let us act and think with reference to the standard of the beautiful. A perfect correspondence with the law of beauty is life perfect, life sanctified, life glorious; it is life in Christ and God."​

"Our position, after all, is one that is extremely simple, that has been never denied, that is true at all times and in all places, for it is this, namely, that as there is a splendour of truth, so also there is a beauty of goodness, an outward lustre which manifests an inward virtue."​

"Now, in the order of idealism, beauty and harmony are the touchstone and the test of truth."​