Rulers are good at making and keeping a kingdom happy and peaceful. Magicians, on the other hand, can change the world by changing how people think and feel. Good Rulers know that their life and the kingdom are connected, but they can't fix themselves when they're hurt. That's where Magicians come in—they help heal the Rulers so the kingdom can change for the better.
Goal: Transformation of lesser into better realities
Fear: Evil sorcery (transformation in a negative direction)
Response to Dragon/Problem: Transform or heal it
Task: Alignment of Self with cosmos
Gift: Personal power
In stories, Magicians like Merlin advised kings like Arthur. But if the kingdom wasn't welcoming, they worked by themselves. People who act like Magicians in real life have many names: shamans, witches, sorcerers, healers, fortune-tellers, priests, or priestesses. Today, they might be doctors, psychologists, consultants, or even marketing experts.
Starhawk, who writes about Wicca—a nature-based religion that honors goddesses and shamans—says magic is "changing how you think whenever you want." Magic can be simple, like handing out flyers or going on strike, or it can be mysterious, like old ways of becoming more aware or intuitive. Either way, magic changes the world, sometimes faster than if we just worked hard.
Many people today think magic is strange or old-fashioned. But remember, religious leaders like Jesus, Moses, and Buddha did amazing things all the time. If we follow their examples, we can do amazing things too. These religions teach us to ask for what we need, and we'll get it. So, we should ask for what we want.
The Magician Within
We all have a bit of the Magician inside us, and it shows up in simple ways every day. In a book called Knowing Woman, Claremont de Castillejo talks about how in India, when there's no rain, they call a rainmaker. The rainmaker doesn't do anything special; they just come to the village, and somehow, it rains. They don't force the rain; they just create a feeling that lets the rain happen.
In Alice Walker's book The Color Purple, there's a character named Shug who changes everyone around her just by being herself. She's a woman who knows her own strength, and that affects others like ripples in water. She doesn't try to change people; she just lives her truth, and things change.
Many times, regular people use magic without even knowing it. For example, a parent who stays calm to help an upset child is like a rainmaker or healer. Calmness spreads, just like panic does. We all know people who make us feel peaceful just by being near them, and others who make us feel stressed because they're stressed inside. In this way, we're all a bit like Magicians.
When people use their talents, they often help everyone involved. Famous people who have made big differences in the world show this clearly. But when we accept our own strengths and what we're meant to do, we do a simple kind of magic: we grow and make the world better too. In a society where everyone has a voice, it's not just the well-known people who can do this—we all should.
To accept that we can change the world just by being ourselves, we need to be strong inside and know who we really are deep down.
We can change the world by understanding how our inside feelings and outside actions are linked. If we organize our thoughts and feelings, it's easier to keep our surroundings tidy too. (And sometimes, cleaning up our space can clear our mind.) If we want peace around us, we need to be peaceful inside first. (But also, acting peaceful can make us feel more peaceful.) If we want love, we should start by being loving. (And when we get love, it helps us be even more loving.)
This link between our inside and outside isn't just one thing causing another. It's more like meaningful coincidences, which Carl Jung called "synchronicity." It's like a magnet that pulls experiences to us that match what's going on inside us.
For the Magician, what's holy isn't something far away judging us. Instead, it's inside us, in nature, in society, in the earth, and in the universe. So, the Magician part of us helps us feel connected to everything and understand that what's inside us reflects what's outside. In magical terms, the big world and our small world are like mirrors of each other. We're all linked, maybe through what Jung called the "collective unconscious." The Magician's job is to become aware of that connection.
In Hawaii, shamans think of themselves like spiders in a huge web that reaches everywhere in the universe. They can move along the web without getting stuck, and they can send out vibrations that can change things anywhere, depending on their energy. These vibrations can heal people. When we get healthier and more full of life, we send out good vibes that help others. But if we close ourselves off and feel less alive, that also affects others in a bad way.
For the Magician, what's holy isn't something far away judging us, but it's inside us, in nature, in society, in the earth, and in the universe.
Believing in this connection can help us know if we're on the right path. For instance, when things go smoothly and what we want happens easily, like the way opens up for us, it usually means we're doing what we're meant to do. But if we're going the wrong way, we often run into problems.
When the Magician part of us is awake, we start to see meaningful coincidences. For example, when we need information, a book with exactly what we need might suddenly appear, or we might bump into the perfect person to help us.
Journeying Between the Worlds
Shamans travel to other worlds, which means they change their normal way of thinking to different states, like when we dream or sleep. They use things like drumming, meditation, dancing, or deep breathing to get into these different states.
Magicians go into these different states and learn about them, whether it's their own daydreams, night dreams, made-up stories, or the calm from meditation. We all go into these states sometimes, but most of us don't pay much attention to them.
To wake up the Magician inside us, we can start paying attention when we go into these different states. We can learn about them, like what they look like, what rules they have, and who lives there. Some people do this in dreams where they know they're dreaming and can control things, or when they're awake but imagining things on purpose. If you've ever had a daydream that helped you understand your life better, you've done something like what Magicians do. People who meditate a lot and feel connected to something bigger also know this. And people who pray every day and feel like they're talking to God are doing it too.
Things like meditating often, praying, or imagining stories can help people learn things they didn't think they could, even if they don't see themselves as Magicians. In today's words, going to these other places in our minds lets us use parts of our brain we don't usually use, like our subconscious or our creative side, and maybe even connect to something bigger that Jung called the "collective unconscious." For some, it also links them to spiritual things beyond themselves.
For example, in our imagination, we might picture fighting a dragon and winning. Then, in real life, that can make us feel brave enough to face a big problem. We can use that imaginary experience to figure out better ways to deal with our challenges without having to go through tough times in our mind.
When the Magician part of us is strong, we might get hints about what's going to happen in the future, like in dreams or sudden feelings.
When the Magician part of us is strong, we might get hints about what's going to happen in the future, like in dreams or sudden feelings. Some people learn that their inner mind knows things they don't realize. One woman was driving and suddenly heard a voice telling her to get off the road. She listened, and right after, there was a big accident that she would have been in if she hadn't listened. She couldn't explain it, but it changed her a lot. If time isn't fixed, like Einstein said, and if we're all linked, maybe we can sense things from the past or future.
Some people work on their gut feelings and learn to tell which ones are right. They might be called psychics or just really good at business because their guesses often work out. You can do this too by noticing which thoughts or feelings you have that turn out to be true later on.
The Magician as Namer
The Magician part of us can name things. If we don't truthfully say who we are and what our story is, others will decide for us, or we'll believe any crazy thought in our head. We start to take control when we tell our own story. But it's something we have to keep doing. If we let others' opinions or mean thoughts in our head take over, it's like we're letting them take away our true name with bad magic.
Magicians have told the stories of their people in the past, which helped everyone know who they were. The Magician inside us helps us find our own story that is true and makes us feel good about ourselves and our group. These stories can heal us and help us teach the next generation about our lives, so they can learn from what we've done.
When we name things in a way that comes from our true self, it can make us and others stronger. The words we use change how we see life. Calling a child "dumb" is hurtful. Instead, if you tell them what they could do better, you help them grow. Calling someone "crazy" for seeing things isn't helpful. If you say they can learn to handle those visions, they might become like a Magician themselves.
Whenever we say something that makes people feel smaller or less hopeful, we're accidentally doing bad magic. We're making them feel like they can't do things or be happy. Good Magicians learn to use words to help others feel strong and turn bad situations into chances to grow.
Not being mean to ourselves doesn't mean we ignore our mistakes or don't take responsibility. When we mess up, we can change how we think about it. Instead of being hard on ourselves, we can say, "Everyone makes mistakes. I learn from mine, so I'm always getting better." Or we can think that there are no real mistakes, just chances to learn why we did something and what we can gain from it.
A strong way to change your life is by changing how you talk about what happens to you.
In her book Energy and Personal Power, Shirley Luthman explains this well. She tells about a woman who was in a tough relationship and felt bad about staying. Luthman asked if she was getting anything good from it. The woman realized that the hard times pushed her to do more outside, like going back to school and getting involved in activities. Oddly, once she saw that and stopped being mean to herself, she could leave that relationship and find better ways to keep doing the things she liked.
A strong way to change your life is by changing how you talk about what happens to you. In our culture, we often blame ourselves a lot. Instead of thinking you're bad or always messing up, you can trust yourself completely. Believe that everything that happens to you is for your own growth. This makes life feel more meaningful and exciting, and even bad things can become chances to learn. If you think you pick what happens to you for good reasons, it helps you see the good in everything.
There are lots of books that teach us to say positive things instead of negative ones, both in our heads and out loud. They say our words can change how we think and act without us even knowing. We can change our inner talk to change our outer life. If you want to try, use words that are positive and in the now, like "I am smart," not "I'm trying not to be dumb." Experts say our inner mind takes things literally. If you say you're working on something, it might keep you working forever without finishing. And it doesn't understand "not," so it hears "dumb" instead.
But be careful not to use these positive sayings to pretend problems don't exist. They work on our thoughts, but if we don't deal with our feelings too, we might end up with big hidden issues. We need to let ourselves feel and show our emotions. Sometimes, we can't just think away bad feelings; we have to let them out and change them.
Don't use positive thinking to ignore when you've hurt yourself or others. If we do something wrong, we should say sorry to ourselves, to God, and to the person we hurt, if it's right to do so. And if we can, we should try to make things better. Saying positive things can help, but forgiving is even stronger and helps us face the truth.
Exorcism and Transformation
Long ago, shamans would remove bad spirits from people. Now, psychologists say that our bad feelings come from pushing them down. Instead of trying to get rid of them, we should let them out in a safe way to change them.
We can change by letting out our bad feelings. For example, if we cry a lot or hit pillows until we're done, we'll feel different afterward. Crying might turn into anger, anger into laughing, and laughing into a peaceful feeling.
One woman let out all her anger and then started laughing a little, and then she sang a beautiful song she'd never heard before. She felt like she was singing with the stars. By letting out her pain and anger, she turned it into a happy, peaceful feeling.
We can learn to change our feelings without big outbursts if we learn to really feel them. They can pass through us until we go from sad to happy. We see this when we talk about our anger or hurt with someone and end up feeling closer and more loving.
Some people can take in others' bad feelings and give back good ones. In Buddhism, there's a meditation where you breathe in the world's sadness and breathe out love. You don't keep the sadness; you change it with kindness and send it back as something better. Some people do this without thinking, just by being with someone and feeling their pain together, and both end up feeling better.
Our bodies can hold onto pain, which can make us feel stuck and even sick. But they can also hold onto wisdom that we haven't used. When we let that wisdom out—by moving, getting a massage, letting out feelings, dancing, or anything physical—we need to do something with it. The best thing for our body and soul is to act on what we know inside. Usually, our bodies feel blocked because we don't let our true selves show in our lives. Doing what we really want and know is the strongest way to heal.
Magician as Healer
It's hard to accept that we're in charge of our lives and that our problems show what's wrong inside us, especially when we can't fix ourselves. So, we feel bad. We know our outside issues come from inside, but we can't change without help. Most of us need to find healers to help us, and later, we learn to heal ourselves.
When our lives don't feel special, usually something is out of whack.
Healing can start with our body, feelings, thoughts, or spirit, but most healers today focus on just one. But we have the most magic when all four are working together. A famous Native American healer, Sun Bear, says we should make our bodies strong with good food and exercise, our feelings strong by being open, our thoughts strong by thinking clearly, and our spirits strong by finding our own way to connect with something bigger.
In tarot cards, the Magician is often shown getting energy from both the sky and the earth. The sky stands for ideas and dreams, and the earth stands for real-life things. Both are important, and that's how the Magician can change the world.
Most of us don't fix our problems by ourselves. We look for help from different kinds of healers—for our body, feelings, thoughts, and spirit. As we do this, we start to wake up our own inner Magician and learn to take care of ourselves better. We learn about eating well and exercising, how to be honest and close with others, how to think clearly, and how to stay connected to our spiritual side.
Invoking the Aid of a Mentor, Guru, or God/dess
We can also ask for help from someone else in healing, like how Catholics pray to saints. We might get healing power from a teacher, a wise person from history, or a god or goddess. Here, it's not our own power but our connection to someone stronger that helps us heal. This is like when Christians pray "in the name of Jesus Christ" or when people ask for help from God, Mary, a saint, or a spiritual leader.
In many old cultures, shamans have animal spirits that guide them. Finding your special animal is key to getting the power to change or heal things. Shamans often dance like their animal, or let the animal's spirit move through them, so the spirit wants to stay with them because it gets to be in the real world.
It's important to keep a good connection with whatever gives you your power to keep your inner Magician strong. And you need to make sure that power comes from good things, so you don't hurt yourself or others.
Magicians should find their own group of people they feel close to, like a healing circle or coven. This helps them see how they're connected to special people, things, animals, and their own spiritual way.
You can't force a connection with someone or something if it's not meant to be, and you can't break a true connection. It's like peeling an onion—layer by layer. We might feel connected to everything eventually, but we don't have to rush it. Start by noticing the special connections you already have with people, places, times, things, work, or your spiritual path that make you feel strong and happy.
To be a good Magician, you need to feel connected spiritually, emotionally, and physically to everything around you. Strangely, real power comes from knowing we need the earth, other people, and our spiritual source. That's why many shamans start their work by thanking the earth, the directions, their loved ones, their teacher, and the spiritual power they follow.
Sometimes, magic is just like praying. Magicians ask for what they need, like health or forgiveness, and then they accept whatever happens, knowing it's from a wiser power than themselves.
Transformation Through Ritual Action
Magicians often use special ceremonies, or rituals, to change how people think or to make things different. In the past, Magicians made ceremonies to keep the group together and connected to their spirit. Rituals can also help with healing or changing things by making everyone focus on letting go of the old and welcoming the new.
Rituals help our minds change how we think, like Starhawk said. They can be big or small, but they always show that something is different now. Graduating from school can change how graduates see themselves, from students to adults, if the ceremony works. Weddings can make people see the couple as together, not just separate people. Funerals help us say goodbye to someone who died so we can keep living after some time.
In our society, there aren't many set rituals, but more people are making their own. Many have had ceremonies to change their names, showing they're starting a new part of their life. Some older women have "croning" ceremonies to celebrate becoming wise, usually between 50 and 65. This shows a big change and fights against the idea that older women aren't valuable.
In religions, there's a move to have services that are more flexible and equal, based on what people need now, not just old ways. Good bosses know that meetings work better if they have some ritual parts that help everyone feel connected to the same ideas and goals.
Rituals can also help with healing. For example, a therapist might ask clients to imagine putting their problems on a table, then give them a pretend magic wand to make the problems go away in their mind. Others might do small ceremonies to say goodbye to a relationship, a bad habit, or a mental issue. These rituals don't actually make the problems disappear, but if they're done carefully, they can help the person feel ready to let go of old patterns and make therapy easier and more hopeful.
Even doctors in the West now know that our thoughts can make us sick or help us get better. For cancer, some treatments include imagining the cancer cells dying or going away. Rituals that help us think about getting better, especially with a group's support, can make this happen. That's part of why healing ceremonies can sometimes do amazing things.
Rituals make people feel close and connected. If we do the same rituals over and over, it connects us to the past. If we change them to fit what's happening now, it helps us feel alive and creative. Rituals can also help us feel in tune with the universe or God. When a group of people all want the same thing, like a change or healing, their combined energy can make it happen. Rituals bring people together like this and help everyone support each other's goals.
Doing rituals by yourself is important to keep your inner Magician awake and connected to your true self and the universe. Things like praying, meditating, or focusing your mind help you feel whole inside, so you can do things without confusion. Different people do this in different ways, but the point is to make sure your thoughts, feelings, body, and spirit are all working together. When they are, and you're in tune with the right time and positive energy, things usually go smoothly. If not, it might mean you need to try something else.
Stages in the Magician’s Journey
Becoming a Magician often starts with getting hurt in some way, like being sick. By healing themselves, Magicians learn how to heal others. Today, it's often a physical, mental, or emotional problem, or an addiction, that first makes someone open to spiritual things.
Not all Magicians heal others, but they all learn to trust their gut feelings, which might be a sense, an urge to do something, a voice inside, or a vision. In the movie Field of Dreams, the main character hears a voice saying, "If you build it, he will come." He makes a baseball field, and famous players from the past appear, but most importantly, his dad, who died long ago, comes back, and they fix their relationship.
Becoming a Magician often starts with getting hurt in some way.
When we start doing what feels right inside, even if others think it's weird, we wake up our inner Magician. Many Magicians say that when they were young, they had special experiences but felt strange because others didn't understand, so they hid them or kept quiet. Often, it takes a big problem, like a bad illness or feeling really lost, to bring those experiences back into their lives.
Many times, we ignore or push away our inner Magician for a long time. Some think it's too big a deal and don't want to seem full of themselves. Others are afraid of going against what society thinks, which might not believe in miracles. Some worry about being alone, thinking Magicians have to be by themselves. And some are scared they can't tell good gut feelings from bad ones. Often, we stop ignoring it when we meet or learn about a Magician who is down-to-earth, accepted by others, works with a group, and knows how to tell what's real. Sometimes, we look for teachers or read books to help us.
This time of waiting is also a time for the new Magician to get stronger and smarter before starting. Being a Magician needs a lot of self-confidence, which can be good or bad. They need it to do their magic, but they might also become too proud or selfish at first. In the book A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, the young wizard Sparrowhawk tries to show off and accidentally brings a demon into the world. He has to fix it, and when he does, he realizes the demon is part of himself.
When Sparrowhawk accepts that the demon is his own dark side, it becomes part of him in a good way. Le Guin says he didn't win or lose but became complete by knowing all of himself. Now, no one can control him, and he lives for good things, not bad ones.
Levels of the Magician
Shadow: Evil sorcerer or wicked witch, synchronistic negative occurrences, calling negativity to oneself, or turning positive into negative occurrences
Call: Physical or emotional illness, or extrasensory or synchronistic experiences
Level One: Experiencing healing or choosing to notice extrasensory or synchronistic experiences
Level Two: Grounding inspiration by acting on your visions and making them real; making your dreams come true
Level Three: Consciously using the knowledge that everything is connected to everything else; developing mastery of the art of changing physical realities by first changing mental, emotional, and spiritual ones
To safely wake up your inner Magician, you need to have gone through your own growth. You should have a strong sense of self, but not let it control everything. It should be like a strong box that holds you, but your true self, connected to your soul and spirit, should be in charge.
Since the Magician inside us can be very powerful, we need to deal with our dark side so we don't accidentally or on purpose use our power for bad things. The dark side is made up of parts of ourselves we've hidden, and they can control us like monsters. When we accept them, we become more complete and less controlled by things we don't know about. Seeing our dark side and how we might hurt ourselves or others can be hard, but it makes us more humble and loving. Then, when we help others, it's more likely because we really care, not because we want to feel important.
The biggest dark thing Magicians have to face is that they will die. When they really accept that, they feel free to live in the now without worrying too much about the future. Death can even help them make big choices. This helps them say no to using their power just to get rich, famous, or have fun. It doesn't mean they can't have those things, but they don't let those things control their power.
Magicians grow better when they find others who believe in amazing things and can keep each other down-to-earth, humble, and kind. When they find this group, their path isn't so lonely or hard. Instead of just healing or being healed, they help each other all the time, and they can grow much faster. The strongest Magicians know they're part of a big connected world and that even with their power, they need others just like everyone does. When they listen to their friends, their own wisdom, and their spiritual guide, they can use their power without getting too proud or using it wrong.
The Shadow Magician
When Magicians go bad, they become evil sorcerers who hurt people instead of helping them. Really, anyone who doesn't accept their own power to change things has a bit of that bad sorcerer inside.
When the bad Magician takes over, even if we want to do good, we might end up being mean or hurtful. Instead of saying things that make people feel good, we say things that make them feel bad. When something nice happens, like getting a gift, we might think there's a bad reason behind it or feel bad because we didn't give something back.
In our imagination, we might think about bad things happening to us or others. We might even feel happy when something bad happens to someone else, and we often do things that hurt ourselves, making good chances turn into bad ones.
Good Magicians use their charm to help kids, students, or people they work with. But bad Magicians just want to control others. In the worst cases, instead of helping others change and grow, they use their power to make themselves stronger.
Magicians can name things right or wrong. In school, if a student is trying to figure out who they are and we just say, "You're an A or B student," we're accidentally doing bad magic by making them think they're only as good as their grades. In hospitals, if we see patients as just their illness, like "the kidney patient," we make them feel less human and less likely to get better. In therapy, if we label someone as "schizophrenic" like that's all they are, we're taking away their true name in a very bad way.
In ads, companies often use strong pictures and ideas to trick people into buying things they don't need or that might be bad for them, like alcohol, cigarettes, or too much sugar. Ads make people feel bad about themselves, like worrying about dandruff or bad breath, so they buy things to feel better. Using ads to make people stop thinking about their lives and just buy stuff is a big way that bad magic is used today.
If we don't accept our own ability to change things, we're more likely to be taken over by the bad side of this power and use it without knowing, in ways that aren't good. We can't ignore this power; it's always there, and it either helps or hurts, even if it's just a little.
If we don't accept our own ability to change things, we're more likely to be taken over by the bad side of this power.
Even though we might be scared to admit we have magical power because we could hurt people, the solution is usually to be more like a Magician, not less. The Magician connects us to something amazing, like God's power to save or forgive. Maybe the strongest thing a Magician can do is to change things by forgiving ourselves and others. That can turn bad situations into chances to grow closer and learn more.
Whether we use our power for good or bad depends on how wise and honest we are—how well we can see and handle the truth about ourselves and the situation. To really know if and when we should try to change things, we need to be wise and fair, like a Sage.
Exercises
Give some thought to when, where, how, and how much the Magician expresses itself in your life.
- How much or how little is the Magician expressed in your life? Has it been expressed more in the past or present? Do you see it emerging more in your future? Is it expressed more at work, at home, with friends, in dreams or fantasies?
- Who are some friends, relatives, co-workers, and others who seem influenced by the archetype of the Magician?
- Is there anything you wish were different about the expression of the Magician in your life?
- Since each archetype expresses itself in many different ways, take some time to describe or otherwise portray (e.g., draw, make a collage, use a picture of yourself in a particular costume or pose) the Magician as it is expressed or could be expressed in your life. What does or would it look like? How does or would it act? In what setting does or would it feel most at home?
Daydreams
Be aware of someone with whom you have difficulty. In your daydream, contact your higher or deeper, wiser Self. Then in your imagination, talk to that person’s higher or deeper, wiser Self. Work the issue through on that level. When you return to your ordinary level of consciousness, simply observe whether there is any change in your relationship with that other person the next time you meet him or her.
Begin listening to your internal conversation. If you note yourself making a negative comment about yourself, others, or events, stop and turn the statement into a positive one. For example, if you find yourself thinking, "I’ll never attract the kind of person I want to love; I’m short, fat, and not bright," turn the statement into, "I’m attractive in mind and body, and I attract to me people equally as attractive." Allow yourself to feel the positive emotions that surround the second statement. If at first you are too skeptical to have good feelings about your positive statement, play around with it until you find a form that does make you feel good. For example, if you are not ready to see yourself as attractive yet, you might say, "I eat small amounts of healthy food and I study good books, so I am attracting love from people who also care about health and intelligence." Notice how changes in your thinking change your life.
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