Tarot – The Magus (I)

The Logos and its Creation
Mercury is the bearer of the Wand and is attributed to the Magus. That is, Mercury or the Magus is the director of energy. This energy is the Logos or the Will of God. As it has been written, “In the beginning was the Logos” or the word. This word is the word of creation and it is silence. It is the manifestation of the idea of the All-Father.

This card represents the second emanation from Kether and is therefore a more complex and developed manifestation of the Fool. The emanations proceeding from the crown are the manifestation of the one into the diverse universe.

“Therein was this virtue, that the One became the all.”

Liber LXV.2.6

The Fool is the Unity and the Magus is its complement — the godhead in its manifestation as the diversity. The magus is thus continuous creation and the substance of that creation.

The Magus proceeds from Kether to Binah or from the Crown to Understanding. Because of this, the attributed Mercury is messenger of the gods. Mercury transmits their will by hieroglyphs intelligible to the initiate and records their acts. Thus his association with speech and writing.

These artifices (those of speech and writing), however, represent an illusion as the Word or Logos is silence. The utterances come from the unconscious psyche and manifest or is perceived as either wisdom or folly. Such a duality is confusing and is the reason why Mercury has been dubbed the Trickster.