Tarot Working, The Magician

Here is my report on The Magician.

Began on Friday morning by lighting candles and performing a little ceremony where I put down The Fool and picked up The Magician. As part of the exercise I pulled The Magician from every deck I own and put them all on the table with the candles. 8 Magicians; Rider Waite Smith Tarot, Thoth Tarot, Hermetic Tarot, Magickal Tarot, Tarot of the Holy Light, and 3 Tarot de Marseille Magicians. I closed the ceremony, put one of the Magicians in my pocket leaving the others on the table, and began my day. A short time later I was out walking and saw a flock of geese flying in formation, migrating south for the winter. As I looked at the flock it struck me that they were a symbol of The Magician as agent of transformation and change. And in my mind’s eye I had a vision of The Magician picking up items from his table and transforming them to gold with his wand. As he picks up each item, a knife, dice, he points his wand at it and changes into a gold coin which he tosses into his purse on the table. As he’s doing this he looks at me and says “wealth and poverty are in the judgments of others,” as he’s effortlessly turning random items to gold. And then the vision was gone.

Over the next 3 days I found it rather difficult to connect with The Magician in the informal way I’m most accustomed to. I was getting a little frustrated. With The Fool I felt that all I had to do was say “Fool” and he would be near, distracted and frenetic, but near. With The Magician I felt like there was more of a barrier between us. I was, however, trying and had a couple of very minor impressions that were very brief and tenuous to the point that I don’t consider them direct communication.

On Tuesday I had some time to myself and so decided to try a more formalized method of contact. I sat at my desk with a candle and the Marseille Magician card propped up in front of me. I gazed at the card calling to The Magician. There was not much happening for several minutes until I had a vision of a pale, thin, male face emerging from darkness. It was brief but I was encouraged that he was close. I tried visualizing the symbol from Friday to encourage the vision, like I did with The Fool. I pictured a flock of geese in my mind and as I gazed at the card the implied Mobius of The Magician’s arms became the path of the flock of geese. And I saw a flock of geese flying in the formation of an infinity symbol over snowy pine trees.

I ask The Magician “why are you so hard to contact?” The geese disappear and then he shrugs.

I ask “how can I use your energy in my life?” and I see his hair swirl and he tells me “mixing”. I see his eyes brighten and he tells me, “seeing”. And then I see that he is turning his face into shadow, into darkness, and words flow out of his mouth carried on the current of his breath.

I ask “what are the lessons you can teach me?” I see his face distort and then resemble a lion. I don’t know how to interpret this. Appearances? Shape shifting?

I ask him to help me be more adaptable in my magic. He tells me that his table is the barrier between us which I take to mean that reliance on tools or stuff interferes with his influence.

He shows me a correlation between his wand and the numeral 1 but I didn’t pursue that line of thinking. Perhaps a little later I’ll see where that leads.

I ask how I can use the tarot in my magic. He tells me that just as I am talking with him now I can communicate with all the cards to seek advice in their particular area. He can teach magic. I ask about a working I had tentatively planned for later that afternoon. He told me it was better to wait and gave me a couple of reasons for it.

I asked if he could help me with spirit communication. He said yes but others could also be asked and I got a strong impression of The Moon card.

Then I see his arms moving and he tells me to keep moving, keep juggling.

At this point I was getting kind of tired so I told him to be at peace and I wrapped up the session, made some popcorn, and watched a movie.