Il Mago

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Il significato principale di Il Mago è Il potere di manifestare la realtà. Al dritto, solitamente indica Manifestazione, forza di volontà, abilità, concentrazione. Simboleggia che ogni ; rovesciata, potrebbe suggerire Inganno, manipolazione, talento sprecato, scarsa pianificazione. Può indicare l'.

Immagini della carta

Un mago vestito di rosso sta davanti a una tavola apparecchiata con una coppa, una bacchetta, una spada e un pentacolo, simboli dei quattro elementi. Una mano alza una bacchetta verso il cielo mentre l'altra punta verso la terra. Sopra la sua testa fluttua il simbolo dell'infinito e un serpente ouroboros gli circonda la vita.

Significato al dritto

Manifestazione, forza di volontà, abilità, concentrazione. Simboleggia che ogni risorsa è ora nelle tue mani, pronta a trasformare le idee in realtà.

Significato invertito

Inganno, manipolazione, talento sprecato, scarsa pianificazione. Può indicare l'uso di abilità per fuorviare gli altri o il possesso di abilità che rimangono inespresse.

Amore, carriera, denaro e crescita

Amore

Innamorato, Il Mago indica Il potere di manifestare la realtà. Rileggilo confrontandolo con il modo in cui si comporta effettivamente la relazione e con ciò che scegliete entrambi.

Carriera

In materia di carriera, Il Mago indica Il potere di manifestare la realtà. Inizia individuando quali risorse controlli e quale sarà la tua prossima mossa.

Soldi

In materia di soldi, Il Mago indica Il potere di manifestare la realtà. Non considerare una lettura simbolica come una conclusione di investimento: segui i fatti, il budget e la tua tolleranza al rischio.

Crescita personale

Per la crescita personale, Il Mago indica Il potere di manifestare la realtà. Annota la domanda che solleva, quindi trasformala in un'azione che puoi effettivamente verificare.

Sì o no

Diritto

Sì

Rovesciata

No

Questa è la nostra lettura veloce, basata sulla direzione in cui tende il significato della carta. Le tradizioni non sono d'accordo sulle singole carte, e un "Forse" deve essere valutato rispetto alla posizione nello spread e alla situazione reale piuttosto che essere preso come una risposta di una sola parola.

Testo originale di Waite (1911)

Simbolismo interiore (originale)

A youthful figure in the robe of a magician, having the countenance of divine Apollo, with smile of confidence and shining eyes. Above his head is the mysterious sign of the Holy Spirit, the sign of life, like an endless cord, forming the figure 8 in a horizontal position ∞. About his waist is a serpent-cincture, the serpent appearing to devour its own tail. This is familiar to most as a conventional symbol of eternity, but here it indicates more especially the eternity of attainment in the spirit. In the Magician's right hand is a wand raised towards heaven, while the left hand is pointing to the earth. This dual sign is known in very high grades of the Instituted Mysteries; it shows the descent of grace, virtue and light, drawn from things above and derived to things below. The suggestion throughout is therefore the possession and communication of the Powers and Gifts of the Spirit. On the table in front of the Magician are the symbols of the four Tarot suits, signifying the elements of natural life, which lie like counters before the adept, and he adapts them as he wills. Beneath are roses and lilies, the flos campi and lilium convallium, changed into garden flowers, to show the culture of aspiration. This card signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God, the will in the liberation of its union with that which is above. It is also the unity of individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought, in the fixation thereof. With further reference to what I have called the sign of life and its connection with the number 8, it may be remembered that Christian Gnosticism speaks of rebirth in Christ as a change "unto the Ogdoad." The mystic number is termed Jerusalem above, the Land flowing with Milk and Honey, the Holy Spirit and the Land of the Lord. According to Martinism, 8 is the number of Christ.

Significato originale al dritto

Skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety; sickness, pain, loss, disaster, snares of enemies; self-confidence, will; the Querent, if male.

Significato originale invertito

Physician, Magus, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet.

Citato da A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrato da Pamela Colman Smith. Il testo è di pubblico dominio.

Origini del mito e dei simboli

The figure on the card began as a fairground conjuror. The face of Apollo is Waite's own addition.

Documented imagery

Attested by surviving objects or texts

He started out working a trestle table

In early Italian decks this card is Il Bagatto, and in the French decks Le Bateleur — both meaning a fairground performer, a street entertainer. On the old cards he stands at a trestle table set with cups and small balls: the props of a cups-and-balls sleight-of-hand routine. In the order of the trumps he is the first of the triumphal procession, and also the lowest of it. So this card starts not from "the mage who commands the elements" but from "a man who makes his living with his hands."

Fonte The early Italian and French card names Il Bagatto / Le Bateleur, and the cups-and-balls props on the old cards

Esoteric correspondence

A sourced traditional claim, but constructed inside an occult system

The countenance of Apollo: Waite says it himself

Describing this card, Waite writes of "a youthful figure in the robe of a magician, having the countenance of divine Apollo." It is one of the few places in the book where the author names a Greek god directly, so nothing here has to be taken second-hand. The same paragraph also gives the infinity sign above his head, the serpent biting its own tail at his waist (the Ouroboros), and the four suit emblems laid out on the table. His right hand raises a wand to heaven and his left points to the earth; this, he says, shows "the descent of grace, virtue and light" from above to below.

Fonte Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1911, The Magician (compare the original in the source panel on this page)

The Mercury-Hermes chain

The Golden Dawn assigns the Magician to Mercury (Hebrew letter Beth). Mercury is Roman Mercurius, counterpart of Greek Hermes — god of messengers, boundaries and skill, and the source of the name Hermes Trismegistus in the Western esoteric tradition. The one-hand-up, one-hand-down gesture is often read as the Emerald Tablet's "as above, so below." That reading holds inside the esoteric system, but what Waite's own text gives is grace descending from above, which is not the same claim.

Fonte Golden Dawn Book T planetary attributions for the trumps; the Emerald Tablet belongs to the Hermetic literature

Modern reading

Popular only since the twentieth century; unrelated to where the card came from

The manifestation reading is contemporary

Reading the Magician as the law of manifestation, as "you are the creator," is what came of late-twentieth-century self-development language entering tarot. The fairground conjuror has none of it, and neither does Waite — what he wrote about was the divine motive in man. The contemporary reading has its uses. Just do not take it for what this card originally meant.

Fonte Modern popular reading, no historical basis

Scritto da BESTAROT, non citato da fonti storiche. Ogni affermazione è contrassegnata da quanto bene è dimostrata; gli strati interpretativi moderni sono utili per la lettura, ma non costituiscono l’origine storica della carta.

Studia il tema: Mito e origini dei simboli (Accademia capitolo 6)