One: "Magician"

If The Fool represents wholeness and the great cycle of cosmic potential and perpetuity, the Magician represents our infinite number of points of departure. Each formation is a willed expression of learning, leaping forth as a matter of distinction before returning back to formless origin.

The Magician casts a revealing light - in fact, The Magician is the revealing light. He/she becomes the channels through which will is expressed. In a sense, The Magician is the last piece of a cosmic circuit, recognising the ability to increase, decrease and direct universal flow to allow new form and complexity.

The imagery used in The Cosmic Tarot symbolises this "universal-ness" perfectly. Here the light of infinite mind finds focus externally in the classical elements of earth, air, fire and water. The latter, represented by their corresponding Tarot symbols, are the tools of distinction and balance employed in his/her work. The dark, serene face of the magician himself lies in background shadow, reinforcing the notion of universal light as something passing through rather than self-generated.

Notice too the balance of the image, with pure infinite mind at the top moving down to form, illuminating us with the ancient teaching "as above, so below." Notice also how the universal magic is symbolised as a triangle just in front of the third eye, repeated as a bigger triangle created by the form of the elements and the two connecting beams from the magician. Here there is recognition of the vitality of the trinity, be it alchemical (mercury, salt and sulphur) or God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or Osiris, Isis and Horus). Through these acknowledgements mind is expressed, consciously and unconsciously. At the foot of the card we see flowers around the altar, as if to remind us of the natural endpoint, in flesh and blood, of this universal work.

The Magician also represents our classical active principle and in that regard has more of a typically masculine quality, something balanced by the more feminine, passive energy of card two of the Major Arcana: The High Priestess. Ultimately, the Magician is concerned with the directed universal flow towards expression, our self-actualisation through the acknowledgement of mind.