1. The Magician

Manifest it.

Upright

Manifestation, power, willpower.

Reversed

Destruction, misleading, external to internal.

Element: Air or Earth

The Magician stands before a table holding signs of each of the suits. They hold up one hand to show how they are channeling the intangible into the tangible. This is a powerful person who not only understands the energy of the world, but who can use it to make things happen. This is the card of manifestation: taking the intangible and making it tangible, taking the unconscious and bringing it to the surface. It represents a time for action, a call to step into your power to transform and manifest your goals.

Many practitioners think of The Magician as The Fool’s potential realized, or The Fool grown up. Liz Dean suggests that The Magician holds the same element as The Fool (Air), while Benebell Wen suggests that the Magician is an Earth card, being concerned with tangibility and making things material.

When reversed, The Magician suggests that someone (perhaps you?) is using your power destructively. You may be misleading others, or focusing too much on yourself. When reversed, The Magician changes from pointing to the ground to pointing in the air. Rather than making things tangible, perhaps we are taking too much from the conscious world into our unconscious. Perhaps we are thinking too much, bringing too much inside ourselves and causing it to get trapped and chaotic. Perhaps it is time to turn The Magician upright, and find release.