2 - Bacatus - The Magician

Trump: 2 - Bacatus - The Magician

You must not seek power; it is power that must seek you.

-initiatic axiom

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The creator of the natural or sensible universe is a wielder of "illusion." It is in the stead of this god that magicians act when working their wills upon the natural universe to cause changes to occur according to their wills...

The original meaning of this image was probably that of the magician, the primeval creator of the world according to will.

-Stephen E. Flowers, The Magian Tarok, 47-48

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By means of willed performative or operative acts/speech the operator/magician (subject) is able to manipulate, or to participate in a complex of symbols which have an analytical ("sympathetic") connection to the indirect object of these acts. Because of the psycho-cosmological and social frame of reference for such operative acts ascribes a grammatically subjective nature t this indirect object of the action, it is considered a partner in a phenomenologically communicative process, and it in turn becomes the subject/agent of an action of which the magician or some other person(s) or thing(s) become the object...

[Magic is] a technique by which the human being is able, by the power of volition, to affect events in subjective and/or objective reality.

-Stephen E. Flowers, Runes and Magic, 14-15

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¨There are three types of knowledge, Luke. First, there is knowledge acquired through experience, as in the case of the craftsman. Secondly, there is knowledge acquired through study, as in the case of the scholar. Finally there is knowledge acquired through initiation, and this is the special province of the Jedi Order.

Initiation does not teach you to know or do anything in particular. It is rather a process of awakening certain latent sensitivities within rare individuals. These sensitivities enable the Jedi to see situations and events around him with a clarity and objectivity unknown to non-Jedis. Thus he is able to impress his Will upon situations in a manner that is as effective as it is subtle. This Jedi characteristic, mysterious as it is to others, has resulted in our being suspect to those in positions of social power...

Now, the knowledge of the Jedi requires two factors. The initiation process is one factor; it is the deliberate sensitizing of the individual to the abilities that lie within his-or her- consciousness. This initiation may be encouraged and to some extent guided by others, but it is essentially a poersonal, private experience. Hence at the Citadel of the Jedi we never spoke of ´training´ Jedi - but rather of recognizing their respective levels of initiation.

...The other factor is the raw material. We have found that not everyone can respond to initiation, or respond to it at comparable levels. Nor is the capacity for initiation tied to the ability to acquire knowledge of the other two kinds, though of course a Jedi with such knowledge is all the more effective. In certain individuals - beings of all species throughout the galaxy - there is...the ´Force´, as we generally call it. It is the raw material, that, when refined through initiation, enables the Jedi to effect change in accordance with his Will...

The Jedi´s commitment is to change as something desirable in itself...but of course there are value judgments involved. There is nothing to be gained by influencing a peaceful, progressive society to disintegrate into war, for example. But a peaceful society which fails to progress may benefit in the long run from a destabilizing shock. The art of the Jedi lies in the ability to estimate when and if a change in the existing situation will stimulate positive evolution.

The strength of the Jedi lay in their ability to set processes in motion, not necessarily to force those same processes to conclusion...

Michael Aquino, The Dark Side, 47-8

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There is a twofold reason that we want to retain the term "magic."

First of all, we want to emphasize the character of an experimental science and technique that is essential to the initiatic path in general and which distinguishes magic from everything that is mysticism, mediumism, and the like. In passing, we may note that in the body of positive religions the magical component is present in everything that is ritual with a definite and objective character, as opposed to the purely subjective and psychological domain of faith, sentiments, and states of mind.

The second reason is that despite all its counterfeits and fairy-tale adaptations, the figure of the magus retains in a highly visible way the ideal of spiritual virility, which is most essential for the higher type of the initiate or adept. The magus has always called to mind the ideal of a dominating superiority.

-Julius Evola, from Introduction to Magic, 258-9