Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Tarot Meanings: The Magician versus the High Priestess

Whatever way you use Tarot cards, you have to have some knowledge and experience of the tarot meanings for each card. People often ask us what the difference is in the tarot meanings of the Magician card and the High Priestess card. This is a good question as both can represent a magical person. But there subtle differences and knowing the tarot meanings of each card can help you select which one is appropriate to use as a signifier in a reading or how to interpret it in a spread or just as a card individually selected from the stack. You can find full details of the tarot meanings of all the cards in our Tarot homestudy course, but here are a few differences in The Magician card and the High Priestess card to consider and get you started.

The Magician
This card is all about high level magic of the "hard magic" variety as opposed to "soft magic" which is more of the psychic or intuitive type. It would be used in the case of a person who has mastered the four elements and is able to control them by intellect and will. This is a person who practices magic and magical spells and knows the procedures well enough that he is able to produce results over and over again. If The Magician or Magi card turns up in a spread or reading, it could indicate that a spell has been done or needs to be done. That spell could even be one that has followed a person from a past lifetime. If the card shows up in a reading in a Reverse position in the past or present line, then it usually does mean there has been spell work done against them or that some inappropriate use of magic has come into play. The Magi card also carries tarot meanings for anything dealing with intentional miracle working or deliberate creation, working with magical tools, magical groups, teaching or studying magic and synchronicity.

High Priestess
The tarot meanings carried by this card can refer to a female magician or her use of magic. But it is also a women's power card and deals with intuition and religion. This card refers to subjects more on an emotional level than an intellectual level and deals more with issues of "soft magic" whereas the Magi is more appropriate for "hard magic". Other tarot meanings carried by the High Priestess card include religious social values or scripting as in the case of a religious "do-gooder" or people who pray for others without being asked for help or permission. It can be used as a signifier for a person adept in magic, especially a female, like The Magician card, depending on the person, the type of magic they practice and the skill level they are at. This is a card that would be more appropriate to use for a person coming from a religious base (whatever religion that may be) rather than from ritual magic training. It can also indicate, like the Magi, that spellwork has been done or needs to be done and can be used as a substitute for the Magi card if it is already being used in the reading in another position.

Summary
Now that you have an idea of what each card's tarot meanings are, you can see that the Magician card is a bit "higher" in the magical hierarchy. It would be used to indicate a very skilled and more formally trained magical practitioner whereas the High Priestess card is used more for someone operating in the intuitive, religious or psychic realms of magic. Both cards showing up in a reading can indicate that there is spellwork involved, either good or bad, but when the Magician card shows up reversed in the past or present line of a reading, it almost always indicates spellwork done on you or something inappropriate that magic has been used for. To decide which card to use in any given situation or to decipher tarot meanings from either of these cards that show up in a reading, this will give you an idea of the types of situations or people to look for that they could be representing.

If you are drawn to studying the Tarot, tarot meanings, and learning how to do different types of readings, check out our Tarot homestudy course. It allows you to move at your own pace in your own time while you take your journey into this fascinating study.

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