Tarot and Doctor Who - The Magician
The Magician
The Magician is the second card of the Major Arcana and it is given the number 1 as he is the first fully realized being in the story. In the Rider-Waite deck, pictured above, we have a Magician with his right hand and wand pointing to the sky and his left hand pointing to the earth conveying the idea of “as above, so below”. He has a lemniscate, or infinity symbol, above his head. His belt is an ourobouros (snake eating its tail, a symbol for eternity). On the table, we have elements of the four suits of the minor arcana which also coincide with the four elements of Earth (pentacle), Air (Sword), Fire (Wand), and Water (Cup).
We see elements of this in the Doctor’s costume. It is very interesting that Matt Smith picked out a bow tie. A bow tie is very similar in shape to the lemniscate. The middle of the bow tie represents the ourobouros. Alternatively, his watch. He wears an analog device with hands that go around and around, completing a revolution and beginning again. Why does a Time Lord need a watch? To represent the nature of his being. He is a being that is born, dies, burns, and rises again, much like the phoenix. We can also see this in the seal of Rassilon, the symbol of Time Lord society. In the seal, we see an intricate lemniscate surrounded by a circle.
Also, we can’t forget about the sonic screwdriver. It is the most blatant parallel between The Magician and our Doctor. The sonic screwdriver is a character in its own right. It has been a part of Doctor Who since 1968. It has been praised and criticized for its ability to affect just about anything (except wood). Most often, it is used to unlock doors. This is the spirit of the Magician, to uncover new realities, secret realities, bringing mysteries out into the open. In The Eleventh Hour, the Doctor raises his sonic to the sky, much like the imagery of the card, and activates it causing all the lights and electrical devices in the town square to spark and malfunction to draw the Atraxi to his location because, as the Doctor explains, “Nothing says non-terrestrial like a sonic screwdriver.”
The sonic screwdriver manipulated the heavens and brought the aliens below the atmosphere. This is also part of the Magician’s role, to bring heavenly down to earth, to make it tangible. “As above, so below.” It is also a psychic device, operated by thought. The phrase “point and think” is used in Let’s Kill Hitler to describe the functionality of the screwdriver. It transforms thoughts into actions. It doesn’t get much more blatant than that.
The wand acts as a transformer, transforming the infinite, formless creative potential into something tangible. This is part of the Doctor’s character too. All of time and space has infinite potential to him because he is a time traveler. Certain events are fixed (and even those can be reshaped to a certain degree) but the rest is in flux and can be reshaped at will by him. The universe is clay in his hands.
We moved from Amy/The Fool to the Magician. In the same episode, we are introduced again to our Doctor. He has a new face, a new personality but the same memories and experience. In The Eleventh Hour, there was a theme of zero and of the clocks turning over. This is a foreshadowing of the end of the season (and the end of season 6) where the entire universe is reset and rebooted. In The Eleventh Hour, the clocks were reset, the Doctor was reset, the TARDIS was reset, and the sonic screwdriver/magic wand was reset. Everything was made new again. It’s the circle of life, zero, 0, O, the ouroboros. The journey begins and ends and begins again. The clock circles back to 12 completing a revolution, starting a new day. Are you ready for this?
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