Tools of the Magus
This time out I want to look at the four tools of the Magician. In the image of The Magician as we find it in the Waite-Smith Tarot, we see four implements: The Pentacle (all that we can touch, see, weigh and measure), The Wand (all that grows and transforms, including our passions), The Cup (all that contains and brings things together) and The Sword (all that separates and removes).
These represent knowledge of, and an ability to work with the four elements. But this knowledge and ability should not be thought of as important only to those who practice Magik. Indeed, all actions undertaken with will and intention require this knowledge and ability. Another way to say this is that there is an element of magik in all human endeavor.
The Magicians tools can be divided into two sets of two: The Pentacle and Wand, the Cup and the Sword. This arrangement follows the “principle of Gender”. There is a long tradition in occult traditions of separating the powers that move and shape the world into masculine and feminine aspects. To understand this we must consider that nearly every thing and process we encounter in the world falls into two broad categories – those which draw things together, contain and protect and those which probe, expand, separate and set things against one another. The first are feminine, the second masculine. The Pentacle is feminine, The Wand masculine. The cup is feminine, the Sword masculine.
Finally, notice that the two pairs, Pentacle and Wand, Cup and Sword occupy the “light” and “dark” halves of the year. The Pentacle and Wand represent a season of growth, of big things unfolding from small. The Cup and Sword, in the dark season, are concerned with how things are isolated and gathered together. This process is key to all change and transformation. These two “seasons” can also be thought of as “gendered”, the light half of the year is a “masculine” season of expansion and diversification, the dark “feminine” season is one of selection and specification, of shelter and protection. This conception of light (masculine) and dark (feminine) will be familiar to anyone familiar with the Yin and Yang philosophy which underlies Taoist thought as well as the I Ching. With these categories in mind we can move on to a study of the individual tools.
The Pentacle
The Pentacle is feminine in the way a fruit or an egg, a pregnant woman or the Earth itself is feminine. A coin, for example, represents a condensate of value, either of labor (which releases material potential and is coined as compensation for work) or as the “value” of some other material thing (what, and how much this coin can buy). As a seed or an egg or a pregnancy is the material form of something conceived in the past and bequeathed to the future, so The Pentacle represents the completion of one thing which holds within itself the potential of things to come.
This tool is all about “earthly” matters. Our health, home, food, our livelihoods and money. But even this most earthly of tools has its metaphysical dimension. A patent, for example, has no material form other than the paper upon which it is printed or file in the patent office computer. Yet a patent can be bought or sold and implemented to shape the conditions of material reality. We are talking about “ideas” which determine the way people interact with the material world. Indeed, other than “natural resources” such as timber, minerals, water, etc., nearly every THING we interact with began as a thought in someone’s mind. There are no knives, air planes or computers without the idea of these things.
Closer to the ground, the Pentacle teaches us about the nature of material things. Stone can be shaped into statues or building blocks or anything which must last long and resist change. But these qualities make it difficult to work with and transport. One of the most important lessons of The Pentacle is that, in the material world, nothing is free, one thing is always exchanged for another. The stone has desirable virtues, however, these virtues must be purchased with hard labor, another aspect of the feminine, (nothing is born without labor). Those who quarry, transport and work the stone into useful forms must be clothed, sheltered and fed. Food, fiber and timber also have their desirable virtues of durability, nutrition and aesthetic appeal and in regard to these, and all virtues, one must always ask what they are worth. How much and how many of the things from one domain of the material world can be exchanged for those from another domain. How much rice for how many tons of stone, how many coins for how many hours of labor.
Since all material things are subject to change over time. We must “harvest” things at the peak of ripeness, that is to say, when they are likely to yield their maximum material benefits while avoiding, as much as possible, the limitations that might make them less useful. There is a time to harvest strawberries and for harvesting timber. Nowhere is the understanding and management of material transformation more apparent than in the most archetypal Pentacle like thing, money.
Imagine you are in possession of some amount of money. There are many things that you might buy with this quantity of money but you can’t buy everything that it might. Any number of things might guide your purchasing decisions, but all of these things will reflect limitations that you yourself experience as a material thing in the material world. Wants and needs and the importance of meeting these are in a constant state of flux following the fundamental flux of the material world. One person will buy a car, another an expensive painting, a third, enough food to last a year. Decisions will be a balance struck between the immediate material conditions and the resources abailable by which these needs might be met.
Some might choose to save the money and amass a fortune. But this fortune, no matter how great, will only find its value at the moment it is spent – transformed into what it might purchase. In other words, you can hang onto your money forever but it will remain only potentially valuable. In fact, its value could be lost overt time due to factors like inflation and fluctuation in what is considered valuable by the market. This is, of course, the appeal of interest on deposits or return on investments. Interest and returns, in fact, come from spending. The bank or brokerage firm invests in money making enterprises based on its holdings and the depositor or investor earns a yield. To use an analogy, if your cash deposits were seeds, the bank plants these seeds, harvests a crop which (hopefully) produces more seeds than were planted, and you get extra seed in your account. Unless seed is planted or used for food, it simply becomes infertile or nutritionally “dead”.
Finally, as mortal beings in a material world of constant change, we ourselves count as Pentacles. Each of us carries some potential. Through our labor we express this potential. This is why it is so important for us to discover our purpose in life and to bring this purpose into the market place of the material world. Thus, The Pentacle not only helps us to understand the value of all that surrounds us, but, most importantly, our own value. Each of us has virtues that can be leveraged to build “interest, for ourselves and those around us. But, like stored grain, we remain viable but a short time.
The Wand
The Wand represents the element of Fire. It is the potential released from The Pentacle as a shoot grows from a seed. When we burn a stick or eat a potato we are releasing the energy stored therein. When a bird hatches from the egg or the shell of the seed is ruptured by the emerging plant, the perfect stable form of the egg or seed is lost to a flow of onrushing life force, what poet Dylan Thomas called “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower”. With all this pointing and bursting forth it seems almost beside the point to mention that the Wand and the power it represents is masculine.
Unlike the power of The Pentacle, which is stable, The Wand and it’s Fire is volatile. Fire transforms all it touches. It releases light and heat, it brings the child our from the mother as the flower from the bud. What emerges is eager to expand but fragile at first. Like a weak flame which might become a raging fire but might just as easily be blown out or quenched by the smallest drop of moisture. But once established, the Wand’s power can expand far and wide.
If Fire is allowed to grow it can easily get out of control. Fire accelerates all processes. When we experience rage or lust or a powerful conviction, we become inflamed. These passions can drive us forward to accomplish great deeds but can also destroy and exhaust if not carefully managed. Like kudzu vine or forest fires, the Wand can do TOO MUCH. For this reason, the stream of transformative energy which The Wand embodies must be directed. Like the conductor's baton, The Wand directs tension and attention, like the shepherd’s crook, it prods, restrains and guides.
We might remember the story of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The apprentice becomes bored and impatient being assigned the menial tasks of sweeping up and hauling water while the sorcerer simply waves his Wand and causes marvelous things to happen. One day while the sorcerer is away, the apprentice decides to use the sorcerer’s wand to cast an enchantment on the broom he uses to sweep up. Things work well at first, the broom takes on a life of its own and dutifully, if perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, sweeps up while the apprentice lounges and feels pleased with himself. Then the apprentice tasks his animate broom with bringing buckets of water. This is where things start going wrong. The broom keeps bringing water until the sorcerer’s abode begins to flood. In desperation, the apprentice takes an ax to the broom only to find that all the pieces come to life as new brooms and continue to bring water. At the last possible moment, the sorcerer returns and, using his Wand, neutralizes the army of water baring brooms. He turns a withering gaze on the hapless apprentice whom, we presume, has learned an important lesson about power and its’ proper deployment.
As with the Pentacle, the prudent use of the Wand rests on a pivot. In this case, it is the balance between restraint and recklessness. If we are too aggressive in our efforts to expand and transform, we may end up “burning out”, perhaps causing collateral damage to the world around us. On the other hand, almost all of us feel an inner drive to shine. We must find realistic and appropriate outlets for this energy in order not to become stagnate. When a fire does not receive sufficient fuel (a call back to Pentacles here), it will simply die out. If we do not allow it sufficient air it will smolder, perhaps releasing a plume of suffocating smoke. The will that keeps us alive is the will that can burn down the world. We must learn to direct this will since we can not abandon it without abandoning life itself. Such is The Way of The Wand.
The Cup
The Cup represents the power of Elemental Water. Water and fire balance one another. Water can quench fire but Fire can dry up Water. These elements, although seemingly antagonistic, can be brought into balance to produce steam or soup. When we temper a Sword, we expose it first to the intense heat of Fire that it might be shaped, then to the extreme cold of Water to lock in this shape. With The cup we begin to see how the ever expanding and transforming power of The Wand is tempered by an impulse to arrest transformation at a specific stage. The cup can contain only so much of what might come to fill it. Thus The Cup is the tool that specifies the quantity of the expansive power of The Wand might be carried forward.
The Cup is the joyful welcome and the generous sharing. The Cup sets the example for the harvest basket, the cauldron where the fruits of that harvest are transformed into rich stews and healing medicines. The Cup holds the intoxicating wine that brings joy and warms the blood as the cold approaches.
The Cup is the “open” aspect of femininity. It should go without saying that this aspect, although beautifully symbolized in the bride who welcomes with her charms, is not the exclusive domain of women. Each one of us has our “Cup like” aspect. The Cup is where we gladly welcome the good things of life into ourselves to enjoy, share and blend together into new things that “do not grow on trees”. Hard plant and animal foods become delicious and nutritious when we cook them in a pot. Grains and grapes and herbs become beer and wine and medicines that can cure a cold or bring us into contact with the spirit world.
The Cup contains a measure of the infinite unfolding of nature – it can not contain all of it. The Cup is filled selectively. In order to make a soup, brew a potion or even forge a tool, we must use both the welcoming power of The Cup, and the limitations it sets on what and how much can be contained there in. We might see this as another of the feminine aspects of the Cup. She decides what she will welcome, nurture and bring to bear. It is this selectivity which guarantees the flavor and potency of what she holds out to us.
The cup is also a symbol of intoxication. When we are in its’ thrall we want to keep drinking, keep being filled. This is how celebration and enthusiasm turns into obsession and addiction. Lots of unplanned babies and other ill conceived things can arise from over indulgence in The Cup. The Way of the Cup challenges each of us to find a line between satiety and gluttony, between ecstasy and stupor, between generosity and promiscuity. Owing to the Watery nature of the Cup, which eschews boundaries, we must learn The Way of The Cup with the aid of the final tool in our kit.
The Sword
The Sword is the most dangerous of The Magicians tools. Whether wielded by a killer or an eye surgeon, any sharp blade makes a wound. The diamond cutters chisel might easily destroy the gem it shapes. More than any other tool, The Sword demands skill in its use.
Nor are we free to shrink from learning what The Sword has to teach us. Without the tooth and claw, the plow that cuts the earth, the scythe that reaps the grain, the hunters arrow and butcher’s cleaver, how would any of us eat. The hard truth of The Sword is that all life is purchased with blood and death. But it is only by learning this truth that we can learn the most essential aspect of The Way of The Sword – knowing when NOT to raise it.
This is especially important in the use of the intellect. Like the blade that cuts, the mind makes distinctions between things, seeks patterns and logical consistency. We discern the harmful from the helpful, the useful from the useless, right action from wrong, by the sharpness of our mind. It is by The Sword that self is cleaved from other. This sharp point is most fearsome to those who seek oneness with all things, but most pressing when the question of boundaries, personal and group security and autonomy are at issue. The Sword is always a tool of alienation. But it is essential to life.
No learning can take place, no plans hatched nor science delineated without an ability to discern relevant facts, discover causal relationships, and make predictions about what might happen based on experience of what has already come to pass. These abilities allow us to understand what can be done and how, but not what should be done and why.
It is humbling to the mind to recognize that it receives its’ marching orders from the heart. Far from the mastery that we have come to believe conferred upon us by our superior intellect, reason is but the servant of life. Far from the universal truth that reason promises to lead us toward, all of the truths we know are predicated on things we choose to believe. This choice comes down to what we would like to fill our “CUP”, (the suit of Cups is traditionally equated to the suit of Hearts in normal playing decks). and what we would like to be excluded from it.
We are left with the understanding that when ever we raise The Sword, whether a literal blade or a theoretical tool that cleaves truth from untruth, we are doing so in the service of a “Heart’s desire”. There is simply no certainty that guarantees the “rightness” of our cause, factual or moral. We do well to hear again the words of Chaung Tzu:
“Whom shall we get to decide what is right? Shall we get someone who agrees with you to decide? But if he already agrees with you, how can he decide fairly? Shall we get someone who agrees with me? But if he already agrees with me, how can he decide? Shall we get someone who disagrees with both of us? But if he already disagrees with both of us, how can he decide? Shall we get someone who agrees with both of us? But if he already agrees with both of us, how can he decide? Obviously, then, neither you nor I nor anyone else can decide for each other. Shall we wait for still another person?”
Or even more poignant, the words of Lao Tzu:
“Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are dear to his heart.
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.”
Chaung Tzu shows us the limits of understanding, Lao Tzu the price of pressing the point. But even Lao Tzu leaves a small opening for The Sword: “He uses them only when he has no choice”. But isn’t there always a choice. Isn’t non-violence a noble option. Well yes, but even this option requires a decision and therefore, The Sword. Upon what shall we base the choice of non-violence when, as we have said above, there is no firm ground of “rightness” that might justify any choice we make. We turn here to the words of Mahatma Gandhi for clarification:
“It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent.”
What is this “potency” of which the Mahatma speaks. I submit that it is the potency of The Heart, (The Cup). What is in that Cup? Is the brew sweet or tart, stimulating or sedative? Does it nourish or does it poison? The truth is always MY truth. I must live or die by The Sword I wield. I raise it in the conquest and service of The Cup, my Holy Grail. Nothing but the call of this Cup justifies my quest. BUT, nothing guarantees the outcome. The Way of The Sword demands we recognize the limits of its power and the impermanence of it victories. We can not live without The Sword. For even when we refuse to raise its’ blade, this refusal is nothing if we do not posses this sword.
But what ever we apply the discernment of The Sword to, we must recognize that it can never justify itself. Only the call of The Cup, which is the source of our potency - the energizing medicine that sends us upon our quest and the intoxicating wine that rewards its completion, justifies the action of The Sword. If this Sword represents knowledge and insight, then the ancient philosophical commandment “know thyself” is the beginning of The Way of The Sword.