Tarot card meanings · Major Arcana 1
What does The Magician mean in tarot?
In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Magician upright means “Skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety”.
Upright
Skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Reversed
Waite gives no reversed meaning for this card that our rules let us quote.
What does the picture show?
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 8.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 2
Where does the Magician fall in a reading?
The Magician belongs to the Major Arcana. On this site you draw three cards, which take three of the places in the ten-card method Waite describes: “This covers him”, “This crosses him”, “This is before him”. The same card reads differently in each place, and the I Ching cast beside it may agree or disagree.
Ask one question. Draw three cards, and cast an I Ching hexagram beside them to see where East and West agree. Free.
Draw three cardsWaite's words are quoted as printed, and left out where they speak of money, law, illness or disaster. The pictures are the 1909 deck drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. For entertainment and self-reflection.