What does The Magus mean reversed?

The Thoth Tarot is traditionally read without reversed cards: the reader judges from the cards around it whether a card is well or ill dignified. This is its ill-dignified or blocked reading: Abilities that are present but unused, or used with too much calculation; words that never become action. Possible deception, including of yourself.

What are the Kabbalah and astrology correspondences of The Magus?

In the Golden Dawn system The Magus corresponds to the Hebrew letter Beth, path 12 of the Tree of Life between Kether and Binah, the element Spirit and Mercury in astrology.

Thoth Tarot · Major Arcana

The Magus

will · skill · creative word · communication · tools

A reflective starting point

What is The Magus asking you to look at?

Meaning changes with the position, the surrounding cards and your question. Take what follows as a language, not a verdict.

Read this card in a ritual Draw it from your own deck

Upright

You have the tools and the skills to act: the key is clarity of intention. Conversations, contracts, learning and initiatives that call for skill are favoured.

At first sight

Dexterity, intelligence and the ability to use the tools at hand to give shape to an intention. It points to communications, negotiations, study and initiatives guided by ingenuity.

Within you

The mind that names, connects and directs; the consciousness that knows it can act on the world. It invites you to recognise your abilities without mistaking them for omnipotence.

On the path

Path 12 from Kether to Binah, the letter Beth (the house, 2) and Mercury: the Logos that carries primordial unity toward the Mother who will give it form. It is the creative Word and the messenger who transmits the Will without altering it.

The shadow

Ill-dignified, it signals cunning, manipulation, lies and mental scatter: intelligence placed at the service of deceit or self-deception.

Reversed

In the Thoth tradition a reversed card is read through its dignity with the neighbouring cards; this is its shadow side.

Abilities that are present but unused, or used with too much calculation; words that never become action. Possible deception, including of yourself.

In love, work and spirit

Love. Brilliant dialogue and intellectual seduction; check that the words are matched by facts.

Work. An ideal moment to present, negotiate, teach or launch technical and communication projects.

Spirit. Practice as the alignment of thought, word and action with your True Will.

Correspondences

Beth ב · path 12 (Kether – Binah) · Spirit · Mercury

Crowley's note

In the Thoth deck the Magus is Thoth-Mercury himself, juggling his tools in the air; beside him the ape of Thoth mimics and distorts the message, a reminder that every Word risks being misunderstood.