See that weird little symbol in the lower left hand corner? The one that looks a little like a backwards C with a thing hanging down. That's the Hebrew letter 'Peh'. Peh is not the letter associated with the Magician by the Golden Dawn, but I think Peh makes more sense here than Bet/h, the letter the GD puts onto the Magician card (sorry, guys, just an opinion, really. ;-) (Bet means "house".)
Ok, so why Peh? Simple: In most of versions of the Sepher Yetzira that I’ve seen (which admittedly boils down to only a couple), Peh is crowned with ‘dominance’ or ‘power’ and connected to the planet Mercury in the Heavens (whom the Greeks correlated to Hermes and the Egyptian God Thoth) -- and the Magician, to me, is definitely a dominant personality in the tarot! He is the master of the tools, or suits of the deck, the coin, the cup, the staff and the blade.
As the inventor of writing, Thoth was certainly a master craftsman. In some stories He is also depicted as the closest things the Egyptians had to a trickster god, other than perhaps Bes. Order was pretty high up on the Egyptians’ list of priorities, so trickery wasn’t something especially prized most of the time, except when it was used extremely judiciously. Isis used trickery quite successfully against both Re and Set.
The Magician, then, is as much a crafty master as he is a master craftsman and his craft is all about words—and that’s what Peh is all about. Spoken language. The power to create through articulation. Peh even looks like a little mouth with a waggling tongue inside.
The other planetary symbol I put on the card is for the asteroid Athene. Athene is very much a Goddess of intellect and strength, and like Hermes, She's on the gender neutral side. This is important, because the Magician doesn't have a 'female' counterpart; the card must embody both masculine and feminine qualities. (I know many people pair up the Magician and the High Priestess, but the Hierophant is her real counterpart in the deck.)
The zodiac sign associated with this card is Gemini, whose ruling planet is Mercury. Gemini is mutable Air--Air of Air and all about communication and persuits of the mind.
Having the Magician crop up in a reading means that someone, either the querant or someone close to him, has the tools necessary to get the job done, regardless of what that job happens to be—and you can bet that however the job is to be accomplished, words, creation or the power of the intellect will figure into it. The Magician is *not* about brute strength or overwhelming emotion. The question, however, is how are you going to use those tools… are you (or someone in a position to assist you) a wise teacher, an earnest student, or a snake oil salesman looking to make a quick buck? When the Magician comes up reversed, it can be a good indication of the latter. Or it can mean that there is some block to your ability to use the tools you have—and again, you can bet that block is going to be intellectual because Hermes is all about the powers of the mind. By the way, He’s also the God of thieves.
The Rune on this card is Ansuz. Ansuz is all about messages, insight, the power of words and communication. Go figure, huh? Ansuz is associated with the Norse God Odin (who is often seen as being similar to Mercury—yes, Mercury, no, not Zeus. Odin is a God who concerns himself, amongst other things, with commerce, travel and good fortune. He’s also seen as somewhat duplicitous in that he always has his own agenda, just like the Magician. If his agenda and yours are in harmony, cool, if not, best be mindful.) Ansuz, when it comes up reversed, is also associated with Loki, who is also often associated with Hermes/Mercury in both his capacity as a messenger and a trickster. (And just for the record, I think Loki, just like Set, gets a bit of a bad rep. There were very few “all-bad” Gods in the ancient world.)
Rather than the Ogdoadic colours, I have used the “of” colour for each element (in other words, Earth of Earth is green, Air of Air is grey and so on) because the Magician is truly a “Master of the Elements.” Likewise, the Zodiac glyphs are pictured over His head, along with the familiar Mobius Strip.
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