Thoth - The Magus

[MystiqueMoonlight]

"The true self is the meaning of the True Will: know thyself through Thy Way. Calculate well the formula of Thy Way. Create freely, absorb joyously, divide intently, consolidate completely.
Wake Thou omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent in and for Eternity" (Aleister Crowley)


Correspondence:-

Colour: Purple

Herb: Ginseng

Astrology: Mercury (the God depicted on this card)

Rune: Fehu; this is the first rune. Indicates possesions, income won or earned. Wealth which must be calculated wisely to be of any relevance (be it social or monetary). Karmic wealth invested wisely.

Hebrew: Beth the symbol of habitations and receptacles of anything which "contains". It is viril and paternal, a glyph of active and interior action

Let us now analyse the card. For those who have the deck containing the 3 Magus cards we refer to that card depicting Mercury in gold colour upon 2 large wings and Thoth behind on lower right hand corner in the form of a baboon.

The card represents will, wisdom and communication on all levels. You may note he is juggling all the different tools of communication. The Magus is a genius at utilising his skill with these objects.

The Magus is on the border of the dark and the light. Completely aware of his abilities to use his power of communication and magick. He has no conscience and is apt to superiority and power, often tempted to misuse his talents. However in this card you will note The Magus wears a smile which is an indication of his positive purpose. The baboon in the lower right hand corner is the other image of Thoth. Thoth was associated with the Moon (in Ancient Egypt baboons only ever came out at night and with the Dawn they would howl at the Sun). Thoth of course is the God of scribe, written words and communication.

Take a look at the objects The Magus juggles:
- Coins;matter, finance
- Fire;inspiration, renewal
- Wand;religion, spirituality
- Arrow;aim, focus
- Scroll;the written word
- Winged Egg;ESP, intuitiveness
- Snake in Cup;sexuality, relationships
- Sword;logic, intellect

Again the Caduceus appears on this card (above The Magus' head) indicating health and well being within the process of thought. The Eye of Horus is indicative of perception and protection. Note also the blue/yellow beam of energy which runs through his centre from above his head through his feet. The Magus is receiving Universal inspiration. The Magus cannot react without remaining within the true service of the Univeral Law which empowers him.

[Kaz]

MystiqueM, i only have one magus in my deck, have you got the others?
could you attach them here?

kaz

[MystiqueMoonlight]

Kaz,

Thanks for posting the attachments, cause I have no idea how to do it.

The Magus you have attached is exactly the one as mentioned above. No matter which Magus is used the correspondences and general meanings are the same. I would suggest though the other Magus may have further intuitive influences.

[Strange2]

Originally posted by Kaz
i only have one magus in my deck, have you got the others?
could you attach them here?

Here's a link that shows the 3 Magician cards from the Thoth deck.

http://www.astroamerica.com/t-3mage.html

Only the smaller sized Thoth deck published by U.S. Games has the 3 Magician cards, and not the larger or pocket sized Thoth deck.

[MeeWah]

Mystique: The snake is twined above The Magus' head in such a way as to suggest "horns": the Horned God, the active principle or the yang. The caduceus could indicate the ability to wield the divine power that flows through him (the blue of spirit & the yellow of intellect); thus, he creates & manifests with an understanding of the power of thought.

The Magus looks to be a depiction of Mercury, the Roman (Hermes in Greek) God of messages & communication, he protected travelers & guided the dead to the underworld. He moves between the worlds of the living & the spirits or the dead at will.

[MystiqueMoonlight]

Meewah,

Yes that is correct. You echo my definitions above. Interesting your analysis based upon a pagan view point (the horned God association). It just goes to prove the Thoth deck can be used by many even if you do not have Thelemic or GD experience.

[MeeWah]

Strange2: I meant to thank ye sooner, so thanks very much for the link of all 3 cards! I was curious to see what they look like. I plan to get the smaller (non-green) deck :D

[SlyR]

To those curious about the 3 Magi (merry Christmas!), here's a link that offers a slightly different slant on each card:

http://www.angelfire.com/celeb/Crowley/thoth/majors.html

The three alternate names are the Juggler, De Mercurio, and the Lord of Illusion.

Personally, I use the Juggler and leave the other two out of the deck.

[MeeWah]

SlyR: I like that reference--the 3 Magi. Thanks for the link! It looks vaguely familiar. Someone, Mystique perhaps, posted it a while ago somewhere but until I started looking at this deck, the material did not relate. Much of it is beyond me at the moment...new territories to explore.

[isthmus nekoi]

The 3 Magi may also correspond to Hermes Trimegistus who 'wrote' the Emerald Tablet (as above, so below) writing, "... Hermes Trimegistus is my name, b/c I possess the 3 parts of the wisdom of the whole world." Very suiting sentence for a Magus to write!

Hermes corresponds to the god Mercury and is the ultimate transforming agent in alchemy. It is at once the highest and lowest element (very much like the Thoth deck itself w/its lofty associations w/esoteric structures to its shared reputation w/the wicked Mr. Crowley). Potent, fast acting and dangerous (poisonous), Mercury was revered by alchemists. As a substance and a god, Hermes is at once quicksilver and shapeshifter, rogue and trickster, animus and psychopompus.

As a figure of thought and communication, Hermes in this card is not merely the Divine messenger, but the connection b/w two worlds. He works here to make manifest what is not overtly physical, or to MTIV (make the invisible visible). Old Herm also presides over dice and divination. I think it was Apollo who got divination through word - the Oracle, but Hermes got dice, gambling and game and thus is a suiting representative for this deck of extremes - Tarot as game, as chance, and then simultaneously, Tarot as a channel to a greater structure of destiny.

Oh my, there's so much to write about Hermes. He's one of my fave gods.

Thoth as the Divine scribe has been likened to Hermes on many an occasion. I've yet to read deeply about Thoth himself though...

[MystiqueMoonlight]

Isthmus Nekoi -

I am interested in your phrase "..... the wicked Mr Crowley..." could you explain what you mean?

:)

[isthmus nekoi]

:) I was refering to Crowley's reputation in the English press as the most evil man alive, but of course there's the pun. I haven't read very much about Crowley, so I know very little about the man except that he made a damn good tarot deck, as well as having connections w/Andrew Danger who has made many a fine film....

[Richard]

Personally, I leave all three Magi in my deck...no more than one has ever shown up in a reading, but Mercury's so fast I wouldn't be surprised to find him in two places at once. They all seem to have different "energies," but I'm at a loss on how to put it into words.
About the primary one - I think one very important thing about him is that he's on tiptoe. The Fool was falling (or floating) in empty space, but the Magus has at least a bit of ground to work with. I also think the snakes around his head form a vertical infinity symbol (all three Magi have it...the most obvious is the eight-armed one, but the wings above the Egyptian-looking one also form one).
I also wonder about this Harald Schulze-Theiler mentioned in the Banzhaf/Akron book...I can't find a reference to him anywhere online, but I'm fascinated by the idea of two "invisible" cards. The explanation they provide involves most number systems being based on 24 (?) of which 10% is often invisible (??). It made no sense to me whatsoever, but I'm wondering if the two extra cards couldn't perhaps be paths to and from Daath, the phantom Sephiroth?

[coldsuns]

I just saw that there is something on the Magus' leg to toe. Is it for decoration?? And there is an animal on the right. What is it??

[Richard]

The things on his legs are wings, since he's Mercury. Since he's also Thoth, he has the Cynocephelus (sp?) Ape (or, if you prefer Hindu religion, it's Hanuman) with him.

[coldsuns]

I see..but what does Thoth means?

[Pollux]

Maybe Thoth is a god of the Egyptian pantheon; but I am not so sure... :confused:

[coldsuns]

I see..but i hope to know more about the word "Thoth". What language is it? Where is it from? And so on..

[Macavity]

Thoth is the Greek version (as indeed are most common names) of the Ibis God of Wisdom/Magic etc. whom the Ancient Egyptians (probably) called "Djehuti"? Of course we don't know EXACTLY how they said that word, 'cos Ancient Egyptian (Kemetic) was another language - like Hebrew, where only the consonants were written - in Hieroglyphs.

There are a LOT of links to such information on the Web... try a search on some above terms and you will find... MANY :D Lemmesee:

http://www.kemet.org/home.html

http://www.touregypt.net/

and perhaps the one with almost every link known to man or the gods... http://www.egyptology.com/reeder/ :)

Macavity

[coldsuns]

Thanks alot for your great informations. I have always wonder what is Thoth..not anymore now ^_^

[Moongold]

I wonder whether someone could quickly explain why there are 3 cards in this version of the deck.

I'm not sure that I understand all that well from the comments in this thread. It sems to be OK to use all three at the one time? I actually gor two in my daily reading this morning.

I'm very new to the Thoth and don't yet have the book so please excuse the fairly basic question.

Many thanks

Moongold

[Kaz]

moongold,
just someones observations of the 3 magus cards here:
http://www.enchantedspirit.org/Tarot/PsychologyoftheMagus.php
that doesnt answer your "why" though....

~kaz

[Emily]

I've only got the two books on the Thoth deck and neither of those explains why there are three versions of the Magus but in the LWB it does say that Lady Frieda sometimes painted a card at least 8 times to get it right, she wanted to produce the finest deck she could. :)

Edited to add:-

When browsing to find the different colour versions of the Thoth deck, I came across this site about Lady Frieda Harris, it shows, and seems to be selling, some other versions of different cards.

http://www.occultartgallery.com/occultartgallery/harris/harris.html

[Richard]

From what I understand, the "as many as eight times" quotation was an exaggeration on Crowley's part, but there must be at least some truth to it, based on the pictures on that website. I really love that Harpo Marx Fool...
And thanks for the link, Kaz. I'm not sure that I fully agree, but it's got me thinking about the three Magi, and what possible interpretive differences there could be among the three of them. I think the first one is definitely Mercury, and the third is definitely Thoth, but I'm wondering about the second...

[Cascade_Jon]

Wait, I thought this was a settled issue. The 3 versions of the Magus cards are three different pictures done by Lady Harris... Crowley was unsure whether he wanted to represent the Magus as a Greek, Egyptian, or Hindu deity. In the end he settled on the card featuring Mercury (with the baboon as a subtle reference to Thoth, who had a pet baboon and also could take the form of a baboon). The Egyptian and Hindu cards were not to be used.

The 2 non-Mercury cards are rejects and while they're interesting from an artistic perspective to see how the deck was made, should be removed if you care about preserving the traditional Tarot symbolism. Crowley never intended his deck to have 80 cards, and unfortunately I think U.S. Games has confused many many people on this point by releasing the deck with the 2 extra cards included as a "feature."

You can read about some of this in Crowley's book of Thoth (published online at this great website):

http://www.angelfire.com/celeb/Crowley/thoth/juggler.html

Crowley makes clear his decision to use the Greek/Egyptian symbolism of the Mercury / Thoth baboon card, and rejects "the Hindu conception of Mercury, Hanuman, the monkey god" as "abominably degraded." To quote Crowley, "The present card has been designed principally upon the Graeco-Egyptian tradition; for the understanding of this idea [the nature of creation personified by the Magician] was certainly further advanced when these philosophies modified each other, than elsewhere at any time."