Tarot Magus

Tarot Magus and the Sphinx

Tarot Magus Caster of dice, caster of spells

Tarot Magus represents our realisation of personal power and responsibility, using both rational thought and magickal performance. The Sphinx’s riddle is a metaphor for our journey of self-discovery, through understanding one’s true purpose (their “word”). This allows an individual to become a Magus by integrating the four elements/powers. Failure to do so results in being lost in the mundane world without a higher purpose.

The tarot Magus emerges when an individual recognises their divine agency—akin to godhead—responsible for shaping their reality through perception and action. This echoes existential themes of self-empowerment and accountability.

It is important to understand that the Magus and the Artist are one of the same personality type, just as their disciplines, Magick and Art, are the same disciplines toward achieving an objective. This is because both disciplines stimulate creativity. Evocation, Invocation, storytelling expressions of the image-making faculty, which appears to create something out of nothing, in effect articulating the dreaming mind. What is articulated, whether written, painted, sculpted or scientifically discovered, are stories otherwise known as dream questing or astral projection.

In contrast, the tarot Fool is usually about beginnings, innocence, or taking a leap of faith. The Magus is the opposite, being more about conscious, logical responses instead of the Fool’s spontaneity. Logical magickal machine thinking is based on learned knowledge, using structured knowledge rather than intuition.

The magickal machine working induces the mental environment to communicate with ancestors, spirits, gods, etc, through visual and audible hallucinations¹. See Bicameral Mind.

Tarot Magus and the Formula of the Sphinx

The enigmatic sphinx is an appropriate iconic representation of the Magus. The four elements are the four powers of the Sphinx, “to will to dare to know to keep silent,” depicted as the four elemental animal beings of human, lion, bird and bull or serpent.

The sphinx is a representation of an enigma; it is destroyed upon the decryption of the riddle it represents. The individual who solves the riddle of the Sphinx destroys the conundrum and, in doing so, becomes the enigma, taking on the persona of the Sphinx.

To keep silent is to maintain your existence until the time your riddle is solved by another.

The riddle is the discovery of your “word”, your life philosophy that propels you through your life journey. For Oedipus in his encounter with the Sphinx, this was the life purpose of a man, meaning “know thyself”.

Failure to solve the Sphinx’s riddle is to fail to achieve the grade of Magus and therefore be condemned to the Abyss to be consumed by the beasts of the mundane.

The Magus represents the realisation of personal power and responsibility, using both rational thought and magickal ritual. The Sphinx’s riddle is a metaphor for the journey of self-discovery, where understanding one’s true purpose (their “word”) allows them to become a Magus, integrating the four elements/powers. Failure to do so results in being lost in the mundane world without a higher purpose.

Conclusion:

Tarot Magus represents the alchemy of integrating reason and magick, self-knowledge and action. Through mastering the four elemental powers and solving the Sphinx’s riddle, one transcends the mundane, avoids the Abyss, and ascends to a godlike role as both creator and enigma. This path demands continuous self-interrogation, ritual practice, and the courage to embody one’s “Word” in silence until the next seeker arises.

Footnotes

¹ This mirrors the bicameral mind’s hallucinatory dialogue with ancestors/spirits.

See The Magus, QBL, Sphinx, Tarot Knights

Revised and expanded second edition Tarot of the Morning Star deck available now. 

Tarot of the Morning Star Book reprinted