The Fool's Journey Read online

  Tarot follows a similar, yet hybrid, tradition. In Tarot, in line with the human factor of the ‘as above, so below,’ maxim of Hermes Trismegistus, the focus is on the below: on the creative aspects of humanity, or, in other words, on the ‘pouring forth’ of the Magician within us all.

  Through his ideas or thoughts the Magician gives form and shape to the formless, but he is only able to do so through the channelled energy of the Strength card. Without Strength, the Magician’s thoughts would remain as force concepts. It is only when their joint potencies are interfused that the force of Strength, channelled and controlled, is locked into patterns of form as conceived of by the initiating intelligence: the Magician.

  The Magician stands before a four-square table, poised, ready to perform. He is the showman, the great entertainer. Holding aloft in one hand his magic wand he initiates proceedings. The spell is cast, the performance is about to begin, an idea to be given expression.

  On the table are displayed the four symbols of the minor arcana: a cup, a sword, a disc and a wand. These are the Magician’s tools, the four powers with which he measures out and separates the one into the many in the creation of Maya: delusion. Maya, so Campbell informs us, is from the verbal root ma,[†] meaning ‘“to measure out, to form, to build,” denoting in the first place, the power of a god or demon to produce illusory effects, to change form, and to appear under deceiving masks; in the second place, “magic,” the production of illusions...the illusions superimposed upon reality as an effect of ignorance.’[5]

  Waving his golden wand the Magician casts his spells, hypnotising, weaving Maya – the magic that fools us into fooling ourselves. The Magician is, in his Hermes aspect, the archetypal trickster god, baffling and bemusing, and never quite what he seems.

  Originally this colourful character may have been portrayed as an itinerant pedlar-performer, a tinker figure trading on the borders of the established mores of society and cunningly pitching, along with his strange and wonderful wares, a vein of unorthodox teachings. Dealing in truths and in trickery, this face of the Magician reveals the quick-witted character who, like the Mercurian shape-shifter, astutely adapts to his circumstances. Sharply confident, he is also the supreme confidence trickster. It should not be forgotten that Hermes/Mercurius was also the patron of thieves and of charlatans!

  This controversial trickster, this creator of Maya, this guide and god of revelation is, more simply, the dream-maker. This is the card connecting us to our dreams and to the knowledge within our dreams. Rolling onto our inner screens in a manner typical of the playful trickster, our dreams come to us in forms obscure and veiled. Yet their obscurity conceals much self-knowledge, dormant potential, and, in their revelatory aspect, probabilities and future possibilities.

  If we are ever to unravel their secrets and release this hidden knowledge, however, it is necessary to concentrate and employ patiently and deeply the powers of thought and meditation, to use, in fact, the Magician’s own tools.

  Here we touch upon a crucial factor, of the Magician, as of all the cards. For, however much he may mystify and puzzle, he is also prepared to provide us with answers to the puzzles, if only we are prepared to listen, and to decipher.

  The Magician is, at one and the same time, the teacher who, often in unexpected guise, deals out the lesson, and he is the lesson we most need to learn, usually without realising we are learning.

  Entangling us in the world of things, he veils us in illusions and taunts us to penetrate through them, pushing us on to knowledge and self-knowledge through the crucible of experience in the world. The Magician makes us wonder in order to arouse our curiosity. He prods us on from wonder-ment to wonder-how – how was the trick performed, how does it work, what lies beyond this apparent reality imposed before us? Transforming matter back into energy, and again into matter, (form into force into form), he makes things ‘disappear,’ thereby bidding us recognise the mere semblance of solidity to this seemingly solid world, the impermanence of the seemingly permanent, and so to the eventual question of the nature of the apparent ‘reality’ of the so-called ‘real.’

  We cannot comprehend the how and why, on whatever level, without employing the powers of our inner Magician, both to find and to recognize when we have found, a key to the locked conundrums. The Magician entangles us in a maze of intricate complexities that we may eventually become aware of an ‘I’ that is beyond such entanglement. Yet it is also he who provides us with the golden clew of yarn to lead us both to the centre and back again, that we may discover that the Magician who deludes us dwells within and that our delusions are therefore self-delusions, delusions which, furthermore, being self-created, only the self can destroy.

  Just as it was Thoth who restored the sun and moon to the world after battling to rescue them from the darkness of Set, (Set, or power misunderstood, representing, as we shall see in card fifteen, the Magician’s shadow side), so the Magician represents a new dawning: the dawning of greater awareness after battling to overcome the darkness’ of ignorance and confusion, constraint and inertia within ourselves.

  The Magician’s wand is, like Kether, the burning Will. It is a symbol of willpower and purposefulness, designating the use of wisdom and energy for, externally, the transformation of the world, and internally, for the transformation of consciousness. He is, as in the French title of the card, Le Bateleur, the Juggler. With a juggler’s playful adeptship, he maintains a constant equilibrium between all facets of his being, between conscious and unconscious, the outer and the inner realities. In the external world he promotes equilibrium through a thoughtful, planned use of resources: an important feature in an age slowly awakening to environmental responsibility.

  The Magician is inventive, imaginative and creative. He is always ready to try out new ideas and stretch the limits of the possible to see what can be done. For this ‘Will’ is also the ‘Will-to-be,’ or, as in the Indian conception of creation already referred to - ‘the Will-to-be-more.’ With the Magician in a spread we should never impose limitations on ourselves. We must be prepared to break down our fear-made barriers to discover just what, often surprising ourselves, we can do; and therewith, we are constantly rediscovering and recreating ourselves and so transforming the self-image we have, hitherto, locked ourselves into.

  With his arms pointing one up and one down, the Magician is a visual display of the hermetic maxim ‘As above, so below.’ He is a conscious link between the world of spirit and of man, the worlds above and below.

  As man is composed of a body and spirit, mind and emotions, all occupying the same space at the same time, so, according to Qabbalistic belief, the tree of life exists simultaneously in each of four worlds: Atziluth, Beriyah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. These are the Archetypal world, the Creative world, the Formative world and the Material world respectively.

  Equally, in Tarot too the Magician operates simultaneously on many levels. Although Tarot is based primarily in the formative world of Yetzirah, it opens with equal comfort the mystical paths of consciousness to the greater abstractions of the higher levels for any who wish to follow. From the Atziluth of Qabbalah, the level of pure spirit, to the material world of Asiyah, the Magician symbolises the one life force constantly forming itself. He is divider and divided, changing yet remaining unaltered. Just as the number one is the only number we can use as a multiplier without altering the value of the number multiplied, so the Magician is unity and diversity in one, self-multiplying yet forever the same.

  In harmony with the creative and formative levels of Beriyah and Yetzirah, the Magician contains force within the patterns of form and contains the forms within his own being. Yet it is part of the enigmatic nature of this figure that, as trickster and transformer, the Magician is himself both contained within (at the qabbalistic level of Asiyah) and yet beyond containment within, any set patterns or constraints.

  For Hermes is Mercury, and what we are dealing with in the Tarot Magician is the alchemical Mercurius: the world-creat
ing spirit and the spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. Mercurius is, in alchemical lore, ‘the spirit which becomes earth,’ and ‘the spirit which penetrates into the depths of the material world and transforms it.’ He is the ‘soul of bodies,’ the anima vitalis, and yet he is man himself. For, in alchemical teaching as in gnostic teaching, it is man himself who is both captive and creator, transforming spirit, and spirit to be transformed.

  Mercurius is, finally, the magician who ‘opens with his understanding the locked problems of the work.’[6] With this we are back full-circle to the figure of the wise magus who builds up our illusions in order that we, in turn, will strive to penetrate through them.

  In the journey to see through our illusions we will discover the knowledge to reach and redeem our inner magician, thereby reaching the undifferentiated centre of our selves: the Kether of our being. In Jungian terms the Magician’s aim is, precisely, to lead us to individuation.

  In the terms of Jungian psychology we are, in Tarot, wholly in the realm of archetypes. ‘Throughout the whole cycle of life, the archetype stands behind the scenes, as it were, as a kind of author-director or actor-manager, producing the tangible performance that proceeds on the public (and the private) stage.’[7]

  It is at the level of the archetypal world, the highest of the four qabbalistic worlds, that the Magician and Strength claim their status as divinities, or more precisely, as divine archetypes. What Jung has described as the foundation stones of the psychic structure are equally the foundation stones of the Tarot structure. For together Strength and the Magician are equivalent to the anima and animus: the projection making factor within each of us.

  Jung described the anima and animus as a divine pair wielding immense influence over human fate from the deepest depths of the psyche:

  One of whom, in accordance with his Logos nature, is characterized by pneuma and nous, rather like Hermes with his ever-shifting hues, while the other, in accordance with her Eros nature, wears the features of Aphrodite .... Both of them are unconscious powers, ‘gods’ in fact, as the ancient world quite rightly conceived them to be. To call them by this name is to give them that central position in the scale of psychological values which has always been theirs whether consciously acknowledged or not.[8]

  The Magician and Strength are, then, two poles of creation, yang and yin, part of the primal One. Both are cards of powerful, underlying forces operating from deep within us and it is as the balanced forces of becoming that they merit their place qabbalistically alongside Kether, at the summit of the pillar of equilibrium. In Sufi terms they correlate to the invisible head: the Qutub, meaning pivot, or polestar and designated by the thrice repeated unity: 111, the three-fold affirmation of truth.

  Strength, the card of force controlled and channelled, is a mirror of the energies abiding in Kether which emanate, through the sefirot, down the Tree. The card, depicting a common mediaeval image of a young woman gently, but firmly, grasping the open jaws of a powerful lion, is rich with symbolic imagery. In keeping with the ambivalence of the card, the title of Strength, or Fortitude as it is often known, has a dual reference. For the lion, a theriomorphic symbol of the self, has long been a symbol of courage, strength, spiritual watchfulness and fortitude; while all these attributes apply equally to the female figure holding the open jaws. The strength on the part of the woman is not physical - she is not physically stronger than the lion. Hers is a spiritual strength. She has overcome the resistance of the lion through the inner qualities of love, patience and gentleness, and thus the strength of the lion has become an ally rather than a foe.

  The main underlying theme here is the power of love. Love is signified as an underlying force in all aspects of relationships.

  Denoted here is the daring of direct personal involvement with the power of the ‘gods’ within and without. The card relates to the magic of companionship, and the communion and strong bonds forged through the fulfillment of mutually reciprocal involvement.

  Yet almost immediately one senses the polarised tensions of the card rear in opposition. For there is, at face value, a reading directly hostile to this. On this reading, complementing the elemental natural forces on the Magician’s table, the lion represents the forces of instinct, the natural forces of the body. Hence, at this level the card conveys a very basic lesson: to control rather than allowing ourselves to be controlled by our primitive instinctive drives.

  The two readings, however, need not necessarily be in conflict. Channelled properly they can be, as love and desire can be, or as need and want can be, simply different expressions of the one united force: the gift of Aphrodite. Hostilities arise only where the flow of interactive energies has not become, or has ceased to be, mutually reciprocal. Balanced and fused, the voluntary union of instinctive and spiritual forces represents immense power.

  Love and desire are of course both attributes used by Aphrodite in subduing mankind, gods and beasts. Prior to her demotion, when for many she was still one of the representations of the original Goddess, Aphrodite, goddess of love, was also goddess of wild animals. She was the natural force uniting one and all, enfusing the world of nature, animal nature and human nature with the experience of the divine. She was, in qabbalistic terms, Kether experienced as Malkuth: the marriage of the opposites.

  In Strength, neither the woman nor the figure of the lion is in a position of inferiority. The lion has been neither cowered nor subdued by the forces of violence but, on the contrary, won over to the woman’s side by the gentler forces of love, friendship, and mutual respect. This is important, for both figures are of equal relevance – both represent Strength, and it is the cooperation between them that allows for the progression of force or energy down the Tree, into manifestation.

  In the language of symbolism the lion has long been associated with wisdom. In Buddhism the lion represents spiritual zeal, the wisdom of the Buddha. The lion’s roar is the Buddha’s fearless teaching of the Dharma, while the Buddha himself is ‘the lion of the Shakya Clan.’ In Christianity the lion is used as an allegory of both Christ, ‘the lion of Judah’[9], and of the devil, ‘a roaring lion ... seeking whom he may devour.’[10] It is both good and evil, or perhaps it is more appropriate to say, as with Kether, that it is beyond all opposites of good and evil as we are able to comprehend them.

  With its golden mane, the lion is, further, a symbolic reference to the fiery energy of the sun, as in the zodiacal sign of Leo, the sign of August heat. The sun too is seen as a creative, beneficent and destructive force, thus both sun and lion are symbols of the same underlying mystery. In ancient times the strength and majestic appearance of this ‘king of beasts’ caused it to be associated with divinity (and thus with royalty).

  As the sun it is solar energy, the creative fiery principle we shall meet again in the suit of Wands. It is also, in its divine aspect, time and destiny devouring with its open jaws all things. In this it connects to the darker aspects of the goddess consorts this card also symbolises.

  For the card portrays a scene universal in mythology: that of the Great Mother accompanied by a lion or lioness. Be she given the name of Tara, Inanna, Ishtar, Cybele, Atargatis, Devi, Durga, and so forth, there is the ever-repeated theme linking the Great Mother of the various mythic systems with the ‘king of beasts.’

  ‘The mystery of the “mother”’, Jung tells us, ‘is divine creative power.’[11] The accompanying lion or the lion throne of the goddesses on the other hand, represents the subjugation of cosmic forces. Symbolically represented, therefore, through the initiating cards of Strength and the Magician, we have in the Tarot system the pictorial images of cosmic creation, equivalent to, qabbalistically the crystallising force of Kether, or to the initiating cosmic creative powers -the gods and goddesses - of other systems, such as the union in the Hindu pantheon of Shiva and Shakti.

  Kether is known as ‘Existence of Existences,’ and ‘The Primordial Point.’ Similarly, Shiva is the ‘One Existent,’ the perfect timeless point. Yet
only when Shiva embraces Shakti, his feminine side, can creation begin.

  From Shakti, the equivalent of Tarot Strength, comes the playful energy of all creation: Maya, already met with in connection with the Magician. With Maya a world is created that is real, yet illusion; that is, and yet remains eternally consumed in Shiva, or, in Tarot terms, in the play of the Magician. In her Shakti aspect, Strength too then is an intensely creative card, signifying with the Magician a pouring forth, the pouring forth of libido, or of the creative intelligence of Kether from the unity within. In the dynamic energy of Strength we find that vital Shakti power known in India as Kundalini. Kundalini is quite simply ‘the Power,’ the ‘World Mother’ or the ‘Mystic Fire.’

  Shiva and Shakti, however, are not the only mythological pairing to throw light on the connecting bond between the Magician and Strength cards. We could, equally profitably, turn our eyes to Egyptian myth for a similar pairing: that of Ptah and Sekhmet. Mirroring the relationship of Strength to the Magician, Sekhmet is the one who gives power to the word that Ptah speaks from his heart. To hand over to Joseph Campbell:

  The reference of both symbolic systems [that of Egyptian Ptah and Indian Shiva] is to the mystery of the god who is transcendent (the Self before it said “I”) yet simultaneously immanent (the Self, split in two, begetting the universe). And the analogy goes beyond all mere chance when it is known that the animal vehicle of the goddess consort of Shiva is the lion, whereas the goddess consort of Ptah is the great and terrible lion-goddess Sekhmet, whose name means the ‘Powerful one.’ Her Indian counterpart is called the ‘power’ (sákti) of Shiva.[12]