The Magus and The Priestess: an alchemical pairing

By Sarah Taylor

Since I started a year-long investigation into the art of Hermeticism, I have found that The Magician (also known as The Magus) and The High Priestess (The Priestess) have been featuring rather more in my own readings and the readings I do here every Sunday. (The Priestess appears at centre of the past Weekend Tarot Reading — a repeat of the position she held on November 25. The Magician appeared a week after that, on December 2.)

The theme that these two cards are introducing is one of stepping into mastery, and how the specifics of that work out for each of us.

But first, a little groundwork.

The Magus and The Priestess are cards 1 and 2 of the major arcana. The major arcana is comprised of 22 cards, and each card is what is known as an archetype: a word that is hard to describe because it really describes the indescribable. The best shot I can give it is that an archetype is a particular expression of energy, and embodies the sum total of the expression of that energy.

An archetype is transpersonal in nature; an archetype is limitless. We, on the other hand, inhabiting finite and limiting bodies, are in the realm of the personal, and therefore cannot hold an archetype fully. What we can do, however, is to align with and harness some of its energy (whether consciously or unconsciously) to bring it into being.

From The Fool at 0 to The World at 21, the major arcana could be said to describe the evolution of consciousness and how it is manifested in the world around us. Yes, this cycle is repeated many times in our lives, and not all steps are taken, nor is it always in chronological order, but the major arcana presents us with the choices that we and our souls make in order to grow and become more fully realised human beings — which, in actuality, is the journey of spiritual realisation.

Card 6 in the major arcana is The Lovers. This marks the point where duality comes into play in the form of a second figure (or a second and third figure, depending on the deck). Until now, each card has only featured a single figure. The Lovers is the birth into the physical of the experience of the self through another. It begins to bring the archetypal journey down into this world — the horizontal world.

To explain further: our physical world is based on the principle of time, which is linear, and in practice (so far) moves in one direction — let’s say from left to right. We might, then, draw a line from left to right to represent the notion of horizontal. In The Lovers, we meet with others, interact with them, and we are faced with choice.

But what of the preceding cards? They represent archetypes that refer to a state that does not rely on interaction with another person. They are how we relate to the inner planes, how we make sense of the world, how we choose to create meaning, and what we bring to — and how we relate to our lives on — the horizontal.

The first two of these are The Magus and The Priestess. They are counterparts — two different approaches to this inner experience. They might be referred to broadly as a ‘masculine’ and a ‘feminine’ approach.

The Magus and The Priestess cards from The Rosetta Tarot, which accompany this article, are a case in point. They are both naked. They both hold their bodies in similar positions, except the perspective is different. Both images contain a lemniscate (infinity symbol), meaning that they work outside of space-time. The Magus works with the tools of his trade: Wand, Cup, Sword, Pentacle — each of the four suits. The Priestess, being lunar, works as a reflector. The Magus is active; The Priestess is receptive.

Essentially, The Magus and The Priestess are the archetypes that we embody when we connect with Spirit, which resides in the vertical. In my Hermetics group, we have come to see each as defined by the following verbs: to dare, and to know.

As The Magus, we dare. When we are Magus, we venture into the world of Spirit in order to contact with it. We become magicians because we are contacting with something that transcends the everyday — which is ‘magical’. We become the principle of action. We have props, we stand on ceremony. Our accoutrements are what ease our passage to the encounter.

The Magus is ‘1’. If you hold one finger up — let’s say your index finger — you’re already halfway to the position assumed by many of the magicians depicted in tarot (you can see the Rider-Waite Smith version here). You are pointing up, while your other hand would be pointing down. As above, so below.

When we embody the shadow Magus, we use sleight of hand to dupe and control. Our gods are made in our image: the very tools of our trade that have now become ends in themselves: power, veneration, acknowledgement, riches — none of which are bad, but here have assumed absolute importance. Above is used in service to below.

When we are Priestess, we become the principle of non-action. We are still. We sense. Like the Moon, we reflect the Light of consciousness. We know. We need no props because all that we use is non-material.

The Priestess is ‘2’. Hold up your index finger again, and now bring your thumb into contact with it. Two digits — one indicating the ‘above’, the other experiencing it — touching it. The thumb knows the index finger — but it is felt rather than thought.

When we embody the shadow Priestess, we manipulate and warp our vision, we disbelieve ourselves, we work in service to our human desires and needs. In other words, we are not working on the vertical: we are enmeshed in our everyday world and we confuse that with the realm of Spirit. We also define ourselves as the shadow Priestess when we are driven by the need to have others validate our experience. We become shadow Priestess when our self-worth lies in being believed.

Both The Magus and The Priestess operate beyond thought. When this archetype appears in our lives, we are working intuitively. Intuition originates inside us — hence both cards precede The Lovers, where instead we find ourselves in relation to what is outside us.

Nevertheless, many a true Magician and Priestess would argue that these two archetypes are of little use operating in isolation. Their connection to Spirit is a fundamental part of the human experience in that it lies at the foundation: it is the basis for a process that is far greater and which is shaped on the journey through the major arcana. Namely of taking what one dares to know and making something of it — of manifesting that knowledge in physical reality. No less and no more than bringing heaven to Earth.

M. M. Meleen’s website: www.rosettatarot.com

To purchase the Rosetta Tarot or The Book of Seshet: http://shop.rosettatarot.com/

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.