INIVEA
The Magician is the path from Kether to Binah. Anyhow, why would the Adam Kadmon be transmitting energy from Kether to Hod specifically?
Try out my exercise that I posted above, see what happens
The Magician is the path from Kether to Binah. Anyhow, why would the Adam Kadmon be transmitting energy from Kether to Hod specifically?
Is the tree of life 3 dimensional instead of 2 dimensional? Spheres instead of circles - more like a molecular model?
I have really learned much from this thread of comments and questions. I went back to Case's chapter/essay on the "Magician." What an amazing range of detailed coverage. It impressed me that he made sense of the number(1), the letter(Beth), the planet(Mercury), the color(yellow surround) , the red roses with five petals, the white lilies with six petals, and the table (with its four tools). He emphasized how the "superconscious" is channeling through the "concentration" of the "conscious." He noted the upper and lower tips of the wand as "Above and below." Case certainly covers much more about the grand image/s than does Waite. As to an earlier inspired comment by Inevia, the Magician is producing a field of energy, no doubt, but mental, I think, by way of willed intention and concentration, to join Spirit and matter. But what specifically is his focus of thinking? Is this Buddhist, Platonic, Kabbalistic, or what, as to the very thinking actually there?
Is the tree of life 3 dimensional instead of 2 dimensional? Spheres instead of circles - more like a molecular model?
How wonderful that Ficino saw Eros as a Magician, and it fits right in with the card."Why is love called a magician?" asked Ficino.
"Because" he replied, "all the power of magic consists in love."
"And what is this magician `love'? The mediating power uniting heaven and earth, gods and men."
Ficino is echoing Socrates from Plato's Symposium:
"And what is he [love]?”
"He is a great spirit, and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And what is his power?" asked Socrates. "He interprets," she replied, "between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love."
How wonderful that Ficino saw Eros as a Magician, and it fits right in with the card.
The quote from Socrates is more specifically talking about the God, Eros. His role is very apparent in the 15th century Italian Lovers card and in the Marseilles, and loses a bit of his raw power as the Waite archangel who seems to be blessing Adam & Eve.
I talk about this quote from Socrates in my article on the history of the Lovers card iconography in Tarot in Culture, vol. 2.
Are you referring to the Hermit-like figure in the back of the Lovers card? Yes, it's fascinating because Mercury/Magician rules both Virgo/Hermit and Gemini/Lovers. But the Hermit doesn't look like Eros.there is a Mercurial connection between the Magician/Magus and the Hermit.