Zan and BC's Excellent Thoth Adventure: The Magus

ravenest

Le Fanu said:
A key question; why was this Magus (I refer to the standard Magus as Majorette surfer dude) chosen over and above the others? This Magus must have something which the other two rejected Magus cards don't have and I would like to be able to distil it for my own understanding of the deck, as it is such a key card.

I definitely feel a difference in the movement & energy of the image, but more and more I have come to prefer the 8-armed Magus and now my most used Thoth tends to be the 3-Magus versions (I have three copies of them). I know I'm at odds with Crowley but there is something about those Shiva arms and the looming baboon which really gets me. I like the fact that he is really multi-tasking whereas the standard Magus has his tools and accessories airborn.

Just thinking out loud.
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I like the juggling aspect - I posted about it at length somewhere. yeah, it woukld be good to have multiple arms, to do multiple things, but we dont, we have two, so we have to learn to multi-task (especially in magick) with what we got. For this, THIS Magus offers good advice - the Juggler.
 

thorhammer

I've copied this wholesale from a post I made on the online course. It's mine, never fear, I'm not plagiarising.

I think that all the Magi have things going for them, to be honest. My aesthetic preference is for the one with the scaly background and only two arms and all the "gold" effect (heretofore the gold one). The 8-armed one is soothing, though the background Ape of Thoth is profoundly disturbing.

I'll offer some possible "reasons" from my own point of view for AC having discounted the extra two:

8-armed:
- the caduceus finishes at groin level which suggests, to me, that the rest of the Magus is above Kether. We can't be doing with that, can we?
- the face looks altogether too much like The Fool
- the figure's torso doesn't convey the feeling of gender-ambiguity and youth - it looks like an admirably well-toned male figure to me. While we speak of the Magus as being "he", it's meant to be more androgynous as far as I understand it. The torso gives the *wrong* impression.
- Ape of Thoth is superimposed or underlying, which to me conveys the wrong impression again. The *right* impression is in the approved version - that of a sneaking influence from without.

Gold:
- Too static in feel
- Ape of Thoth seems to be supporting, wrong again
- Maleness again a little overwhelming
- there isn't the trans-dimensionality that he seems to have been wanting, which has come through in the approved version
- no lemniscate

What positive reasons for the approved version?
- transdimensionality
- Ape and physicality of Magus convey right feel
- caduceus extends all the way behind the Magus
- lemniscate is implied by snakes

When I say *wrong* and *right* - clearly the wrongness or otherwise was in large part a subjective decision that AC had to make (and FH had to live with!). I'm so used to the approved version now that I can't really imagine working with either of the other two.

\m/ Kat
 

Grigori

zan_chan said:
I was under the impression that there were many cards that were painted multiple times and the Magus just happens to be the one with surviving alternates. No? Anyway, with 78 cards to not understand, asking "why" rather than "why not" feels somehow more consequential at the moment :p
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That is correct, though there are others with surviving alternatives, and in fact there are other surviving Magus's it seems. These 2 extras are just the ones the publisher picked when printing the deck. Or possibly the keys to the secrets of the universe, depending which side of that argument you fall on ;)

You can see some other drafts and rejects here

As to why the "standard" one was chosen over the others, I don't know, but wonder if any of the correspondence between Harris and Crowley discusses it specifically?
 

Le Fanu

thorhammer said:
I've copied this wholesale from a post I made on the online course. It's mine, never fear, I'm not plagiarising.

I think that all the Magi have things going for them, to be honest. My aesthetic preference is for the one with the scaly background and only two arms and all the "gold" effect (heretofore the gold one). The 8-armed one is soothing, though the background Ape of Thoth is profoundly disturbing.

I'll offer some possible "reasons" from my own point of view for AC having discounted the extra two:

8-armed:
- the caduceus finishes at groin level which suggests, to me, that the rest of the Magus is above Kether. We can't be doing with that, can we?
- the face looks altogether too much like The Fool
- the figure's torso doesn't convey the feeling of gender-ambiguity and youth - it looks like an admirably well-toned male figure to me. While we speak of the Magus as being "he", it's meant to be more androgynous as far as I understand it. The torso gives the *wrong* impression.
- Ape of Thoth is superimposed or underlying, which to me conveys the wrong impression again. The *right* impression is in the approved version - that of a sneaking influence from without.

Gold:
- Too static in feel
- Ape of Thoth seems to be supporting, wrong again
- Maleness again a little overwhelming
- there isn't the trans-dimensionality that he seems to have been wanting, which has come through in the approved version
- no lemniscate

What positive reasons for the approved version?
- transdimensionality
- Ape and physicality of Magus convey right feel
- caduceus extends all the way behind the Magus
- lemniscate is implied by snakes

When I say *wrong* and *right* - clearly the wrongness or otherwise was in large part a subjective decision that AC had to make (and FH had to live with!). I'm so used to the approved version now that I can't really imagine working with either of the other two.

\m/ Kat
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Wow! What a fascinating post! Details I would never have picked up on. It (the 8-armed one) looks like an admirably well-toned male figure! LOL. That's maybe why I like it and Crowley doesn't. But definitely not androgynous; and I also like that disturbing quality of the looming ape. Never thought that about the lowered caduceus. Mind if I wrote that in my Thoth notebook? (I´ll credit you ;))
 

Bat Chicken

thorhammer said:
What positive reasons for the approved version?
- transdimensionality
- Ape and physicality of Magus convey right feel
- caduceus extends all the way behind the Magus
- lemniscate is implied by snakes

\m/ Kat
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My favourite was always the approved. But this was a great explanation, Kat. Thank you. And now that I have done the reading, it makes so much sense - especially one thing that popped into my head literally when I woke up this morning and I found repeated in your post here. - The transdimensional!

I was lying in bed and my first and last thoughts lately, have been of the Thoth. The card 'animated' in my mind moving simultaneously in two directions all the while juggling the items that include Thoth's tools. I could see space, up and downward movement and forward movement in relation to the card. I can't get it out of my head - the moving grid! :bugeyed:

Something that occurred to me last night was the idea of "Son" in relation to Le Fanu's other question. I'll have to check my DQ again, but I think it was a Crowley quote that identified the Magus as the "Son"/ Prince? This is probably off base, but, I immediately thought that the Magus's tools were airborn because he is not fully functional without the Daughter. This doesn't entirely jive with the rest of what I have read - and I am not finished with the BoT Appendix on the Juggler, but there it is anyway.

Great thought provoking stuff, La Fanu!

I have some thoughts and questions of my own - but later.
 

Le Fanu

After my readings on Crowley on the Magus, it is quite clear to me know why the 8-armed Shiva Magus was rejected in favour of the Surfer Majorette one. The fascinating features which thorhammer points out are all relevant. I particularly like the thought that it puts the Magus beyond Kether. I was a bit unsure on all the Tree of Life stuff but this comment really made me go and look hard and think about this. Thank you.

But I think the main reason is that, to quote Crowley, "any stasis contradicts the idea of the card" and the 8-armed Magus, much as I like it, is way too static. Thorhammer mentions this and I think it is probably the main reason. The card needs movement, "Energy sent forth" (which conjurs up a sense of something shooting, which the 8-armed Magus doesn't have)
 

Bat Chicken

Le Fanu said:
After my readings on Crowley on the Magus, it is quite clear to me know why the 8-armed Shiva Magus was rejected in favour of the Surfer Majorette one. The fascinating features which thorhammer points out are all relevant. I particularly like the thought that it puts the Magus beyond Kether. I was a bit unsure on all the Tree of Life stuff but this comment really made me go and look hard and think about this. Thank you.

But I think the main reason is that, to quote Crowley, "any stasis contradicts the idea of the card" and the 8-armed Magus, much as I like it, is way too static. Thorhammer mentions this and I think it is probably the main reason. The card needs movement, "Energy sent forth" (which conjurs up a sense of something shooting, which the 8-armed Magus doesn't have)
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I would take it further than that. After reading the Appendix on the Magus, I am inclined to think that the 8 armed Magus looks a little too much like the "Destroyer" and that might send the wrong message in the card even if that element of duality is relevant. Just a thought... :)
 

Bat Chicken

I had a nice post going and then accidentally erased it... I wonder what that means??? :confused:

The path in the Qabala here is very elegant, BTW.

A discussion in another thread (see Lillie's brilliant post here ) had me thinking about the element of Magic in writing - the Magus/Thoth's domain. I was also thinking about his role as messenger of the gods. If the Magus is the adult form of the Fool and the unconscious Will, perhaps all the confusion and the power of writing lies in the difficulty in getting the message of our True Will straight. Hence the Ape. There have been wars fought over whether Christ's message was 'this' or 'that'. Ironic really... :laugh: Crowley talks about chaos and cosmos - peace and order... and I keep thinking of V for Vendetta (anybody see that?) and the horrors that the Magus can show along the way.

His style is the weapon of deceit - perhaps a part of the thinking behind the "pen is mightier than the sword"?

This card is the inkling of manifestation and is still high above the world. There is constant motion and the idea of great discipline and things that flash through my mind but I cannot seem to articulate at this stage. The whole cycle of birth, death (destruction*) and rebirth is moving now in this card. There is so much more and so much that has me asking questions about my thinking on my own idea of myself...

The Magus is a complex character!

* That idea that being torn asunder and smashed together is the same thing in that 'marriage' is so violent and primal.

ETA - The key (or emphasis) that I got from the reading is the idea of the Magus as "creative and dualistic" and that "manifestation implies illusion". So the illusion is us? And to be creative is divine....
 

Le Fanu

Bat Chicken said:
I would take it further than that. After reading the Appendix on the Magus, I am inclined to think that the 8 armed Magus looks a little too much like the "Destroyer" and that might send the wrong message in the card even if that element of duality is relevant. Just a thought... :)
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Interesting! That Shiva touch? Creation and destruction when the Magus only creates?
 

Aeon418

Bat Chicken said:
The key (or emphasis) that I got from the reading is the idea of the Magus as "creative and dualistic" and that "manifestation implies illusion".
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The Truth symbolised by the Fool is beyond duality. This unitary Truth cannot be communicated. It can only be directly apprehended. So the Fool gives an idiot grin and puts his finger to his lips in the Sign of Silence.

The Magus speaks Truth. But at the very same instant he utters his Word, the exact opposite of that Word is formulated like a mirror image. It's almost as if he were being Aped. ;)
Liber B vel Magi

1. In the beginning doth the Magus speak Truth, and send forth Illusion and Falsehood to enslave the soul. Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption.
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1 + (-1) = 0
 
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