Western Esotericism · Dreams & the Unconscious
Tarot · Major Arcana
The Magician
Manifestation, Power, Creation
Skill and will turned on the world — the same power that manifests can also manipulate.
What it meansOne hand to heaven, one to earth: the figure is a conduit, not a source. The four suit emblems lie ready on his table and the lemniscate floats above his head, so the power is borrowed and unlimited at once — which is why the same gesture reads as creation or as conjuring.
Symbol · The Ancient World · 1323 BCE
Ouroboros
The Serpent of Eternity
The end feeds the beginning: nothing is lost, only transformed — or nothing ever escapes the loop.
What it meansThe earliest drawing of it carries the legend hen to pan — the all is one — written inside the circle. The serpent eats itself and is not consumed, which is the alchemists' figure for a process that supplies its own material and therefore never has to stop.
Tarot · Suit of Cups
Seven of Cups
Illusion and the Labyrinth of Choices
The dazzling and deceptive realm of the imagination, where myriad desires cloud spiritual discernment.
What it meansSeven cups rise on cloud, holding a face, a shrouded figure, a serpent, a castle, jewels, a wreath and a dragon. Waite calls them reflections. Not one of them is a thing in the world, and the card's warning is that desire renders its objects beautifully.