One is the loneliest number. But, the funny thing is, it wouldn't be lonely if weren't for two. If not for a second thing not being there, one wouldn't be alone, rather it would actually be all one. When something exists, by the fact of its distinction from the ALL, then it is another, i.e., "a second of two."
Being alone ("all "+ an "one") isn't bad if you are actually everything, like the unmanifest, unsearchable, eternal God. But once anything exists apart from the perfect Unity, which is what any created thing or creature is by its very nature, then being alone can be lonely. And any created creature is also by its nature more lowly than the creator.
This makes every person single from Latin singulus "one, one to each, individual, separate," from a form of the root *sem- "one; as one, together with," but not integer, that is, "untouched," from in- "not" + tangere "touch", from PIE *tag- "touch, handle." No, we are creatures tagged by God. We are very much touched, and very much separate as individuals.
Shem / Šem the oldest son of Noah, means "name" in Hebrew. We don't know what Noah and his wife had in mind in calling their son "Name", but surely they hoped it would be a good name. Perhaps there was even some connotation of this name as denoting their son as their first, #1, or *sem- "one" child. In any case, a person's(or a thing's) name can be either good; a name of fame or renown, or it can be bad; a name of ill repute or shame, given the particular state of their reputation. Even this name meaning "name," shem, could be a name of shame meaning "byword".
then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name [šem], I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword [šem] among all peoples. 2 Chronicles 7:20
One is actually perfection and a name of "God," Monad, the origin of everything, the source of everything else. One is frightening and powerful in that respect. Yet we, as creatures can only experience one in relation to other numbers, so it is also lowly, being the first, as in the lowest number of a sequence. Everything that comes after is bigger and more. Like 1 on a scale of 1-10. However, we also say "number one," as being the best, the top.
The Magician holds a bit of this duality of dignity in its history. In the earliest tarot decks it is Le Bateleur in French and Il Bagato in Italian, the mountebank, who might be a charlatan or swindler, who uses illusion, trickery and sleight of hand to gain money, power or position.
The Italian name Il Bagatto (a word derived from bagatelle, a little thing) refers to the card's roll in the game Tarocchi. It is the lowest-ranking card in the trump series, vulnerable to being captured by any other trump card. Eventually, the word came to mean sleight-of-hand tricks, deception, fraud and swindling. The French name, Le Bateleur, has the same meaning. Tarot Heritage -all about tarot history and historic decks
However, in more modern tarot decks the I card is sometimes named The Magus (a word derived from Latin magi, singular magus "magician, learned magician"). And in general, The Magician, whatever it is named, has a positive interpretation in tarot readings.
The Magician – (some) keywords: skill, self-confidence, will, creative power, control, dexterity, mastery, ambition, domination, strategy
So, sometimes the same word can be used at different times as a name of respect, or as a name of shame. Such is the case with magician. It can be applied to someone like Le Bateleur, the mountebank, or it can be applied to someone who is a knowledgable alchemist, someone is knowledgeable about causes, a worker of powerful magic, like Merlin, or worker of miracles like Jesus.
How do we tell the difference? It's not always clear at first, but we can always look to results or fruits. For example, Jesus preformed wonders and cured people of disease and sickness. The question wasn't whether he was efficacious or not, it was if he was "allowed" to be doing these things. When Jesus cured the man blind from birth. The man did not question Jesus' powers because he was cured as a result of them.
He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" John 9:25
And if we remember, back in the time of Moses, in ancient Egypt there were powerful magicians who, "did the same things" as Moses "by their secret arts."
So, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men[chakamim] and sorcerers[kashaphim], and [they] the Egyptian magicians[chartome / ḥartummê] also did the same things by their secret arts[lahatehem]; Exodus 7:10-11
Chartom חרטם is translated as "magician" [ḥartummîm "magicians"], however(according to the NAS exhaustive concordance), literally it has the meaning "engraver, writer," from the same root as cheret "engraving tool, stylus". Writing and words in general were considered to have magical power. In ancient Egypt this concept of magic was called heka.
Heka referred to the deity, the concept, and the practice of magic. Since magic was a significant aspect of medical practice, a physician would invoke Heka in order to practice heka. The universe was created and given form by magical means, and magic sustained both the visible and invisible worlds, Heka was thought to have been present at creation and was the generative power the gods drew upon in order to create life. Heka, World History Encyclopedia
These wise men and sorcerers, "magicians", were the educated writers and engravers of hieroglyphs [from Gk. hieros "sacred" + glyphein "to carve"], called medu-netjer "words of the God" in the ancient Egyptian language, or the prescribers of such engravings, carvings and spells. The cheret "stylus" is a pointed instrument, like a wand, used to carve or write words, i.e. "to cut". This word is charats in Biblical Hebrew, meaning "to cut, sharpen, decide, utter, decree, determine." They were very skilled at their craft.
The magician-priest-physicians, cutting with sharpened tools made decrees and uttered spells of magic to determine outcomes. When acting as priest-magician-physicians the chartomim would have used carved amulets and wrote/"engraved" magical prescriptions (sometimes which words were even dissolved and eaten by the patient).
The sem priests were magicians who preformed ceremonies for the dead, ceremonies which include specific utterances, to promote safe passage in the afterlife and insure the use of the senses, such as the Opening of the Mouth ceremony where a specific ritual "cutting" instruments were employed such as a ritual adze and peseshkef were used to, what we might say, "cut"(charats), i.e. open the mouth of the deceased.
When participating in the funerary ceremony, the sem priest wore the leopard-skin mantel that covered most of the otherwise bare upper part of the body . . . The Opening of the Mouth ritual transformed the deceased into an akh, the reanimate spirit that was a crucial element of the ancient Egyptian concept of the soul. Preforming this rite on a mummy enabled the spirit of the deceased to breathe, speak, see, hear, and receive offerings of food and drink. Sem Priests of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Origins
The Egyptians were advanced medical practitioners for their time. They were masters of human anatomy and healing mostly due to the extensive mummification ceremonies. This involved removing most of the internal organs including the brain, lungs, pancreas, liver, spleen, heart and intestine (Millet et al., 1980). Herbal Medicine in ancient Egypt
Magic and medicine were not completely separate disciplines in ancient Egypt. The carving of a physician on the body, i.e. surgery, is arguably even more important than the carving of the words(prescriptions and spells), at least there is more immediately at stake for ones life going under the knife. It is very important to intrust ones wellbeing, both physical and spiritual, to a person who is skilled at their craft.
Carving is a type of craft, which is from Old English cræft "power, physical strength, might"(from the same Germanic root as the German Kraft "strength, skill" and Sweedish kraft "strength". It is the case that the thing a person becomes powerful(cræfty) at is also a the thing they are skilled(Kraft-y) at. And like all craftsmen, there are those who are very skilled and those who are not so skilled. And of those who are not very skilled there are some who are posers and pretend like they are more skilled than they are for their own advantage. We call these charlatans. There is not always a clear distinction between a true magician / the magus / miracle worker and, the charlatan. Rather there is a certain of amount of skill and efficaciousness one person displays compared to the next.
Charlatan "one who pretends to knowledge skill, importance, etc." is taken from French charlatan meaning "mountebank, babbler," from Italian ciarlatano "a quack." Mountebank is also taken from Italian, montambanco, a contraction of month in banco meaning "quack, juggler," literally "mount on a bench" (to be seen by a crowd)"[OE]. However, a juggler, beyond its modern typical meaning of throwing around balls and clubs, also can refer to, "one who preforms tricks or acts of magic or deftness [so someone we would generally refer to as an "illusionist" or "magician" nowadays]. Another meaning of juggler is "one who manipulates especially in order to achieve a desired end[Merriam-Webster]." In the original sense the term juggler was used to mean "magician" in the sense of a kind of trickster or "joker, the original term being taken from Latin ioculari meaning "to joke, jest." And they both, jugglers and magicians preform many of their tricks adeptly using their hands .
The connecting notion between "magician" and "juggler" is dexterity. Especial sense "one who practices sleight of hand, one who preforms tricks of dexterity" is from c. 1600 OE
So a juggler is a "magician" of a different sort than the more serious chartom of ancient Egypt, or magi of the east. A magician may be a charlatan who is a very skilled or crafty juggler of objects or words, but, finally, is not one who is a master of or the more subtle causes of nature, and who is thus able to produce alchemical transformation, wonders, cures, etc. Adeptly hiding a ball under a shell to make money off of passers by is a lesser kind of magic than bringing sight to the blind.
Magus is a term taken from Latin magus(pl. magi) meaning "magician, learned magician" from the Greek term magos, used to describe the Persian learned and priestly class as portrayed in the Bible, from Old Persian magush "magician" possibly from PIE root *magh- "to be able, have power."
In this respect we might say that God the Creator is the best magician (and therefore best craftsman[or we might even say, carafe-man like the ancient Egyptian Khnum the "Divine Potter," "Lord of created things from himself," whose hieroglyph was a large water jug(khnm), aka a carafe]) of all, or The Magician par excellence. [I previously explored magic/heka in this post, excerpt below, He's a Magic Man, July 31, 2020]
Creation is a dark mysterious statement. All that is, was, and ever will be was fashioned in a single moment, or named [or spoken(spelled)] in a single Word of perfection. It is this concept that allows for magic. There is a single template(the Logos/Word/OM) we are traveling in, around and through at every moment. It is because of this fixed reality of ordered infinity that we get magic(heka) as the offspring of the omnipotent creator of the universe. An unmagical world is not the product of an omnipotent Magh-ician. Magic is the result of the self similarity and nature of oneness which makes up the universe. The image which is creation at all levels(both the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels) is perfect and can never be compromised or altered in any way fundamentally. It is an image of the ALL. He's a Magic Man, Chthonic Kore
Just because there are a lot of quacks and charlatans, does not make magic a base thing or a hoax. Rather those who claim to be magicians, but are really jokers, tricksters, charlatans and quacks give the word "magician" a bad name. This is why different terms are applied(or different names given) to make distinctions along the way. Such as saying Jesus preformed miracles instead of saying he preformed magic, a term which is too caught up with its association with charlatans and entertainers. Miracle itself simply comes from the idea that what Jesus did was astonishing, amazing and wonderful, coming from Latin miraculum meaning "object of wonder." Jesus was a wonder worker.
In this sense we could say that Jesus himself was a powerful wizard. Wizard being from Middle English wys "wise" + -ard. Jesus is shown many times in early Christian art preforming his miracles with a wand in hand. So this would make him a type of chartom(magician) as well.
[1] The raising of Lazarus, Sarcophagus in Lateran, forth-century, [2] Fresco, Raising of Lazarus, Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, early to mid-third century, [3] Multiplication of the Loaves, Via Anapo catacomb, third- or fourth-century, [4] Jesus Raising the Dead, Marble, sarcophagus fragment, fourth-century
Which brings us back to the term Le Bateleur.
Bateler has the meaning in French "to conjure, do magic tricks; to juggle," and these are people who often have things like batons, from French bâton "stick, walking stick, staff, club, wand," in their hands doing tricks and preforming magic.
While the magician[in order to focus / direct energy . . . or distract /divert attention] uses a wand for a different purpose than the juggler[to throw and catch], they both must be very skilled with their use of their wands. The best magicians and jugglers make it look easy.
Both the magician / illusionist / sleight of hand artist and juggler must be so practiced at their craft that it becomes second nature, in order to impress their audience. Success, for the magician / juggler comes in this form of what is called "concentration without effort" as described in Meditations on the Tarot.
Concentration without effort is the transposition of the directing center of the brain to the rhythmic system – from the domain of the mind and the imagination to that of morality and will. The great hat in the form of a lemniscate which the Magician wears[in the Tarot de Marseille], like his attitude of perfect ease, indicates this transposition. For the lemniscate (the horizontal 8: ∞) it is not only the symbol of infinity, but also that of rhythm, of the respiration and circulation – it is the symbol of eternal rhythm or the eternity of rhythm. The Magician therefore represents the state of concentration without effort, i.e. the state of consciousness where the center directing the will has "descended" (in reality it is elevated) from the brain to the rhythmic system, where the "oscillations of the mental substance" are reduced to silence and to rest, no longer hindering concentration.
Concentration without effort – that is to say where there is nothing to suppress and where contemplation becomes as natural as breathing and the beating of the heart – is the state of consciousness (i.e. thought, imagination, feeling and will) of perfect calm, accompanied by the complete relaxation of the nerves and the muscles of the body. It is the profound silence of desires, of preoccupation, of the imagination, of the memory of discursive thought. One may say that the entire being becomes like the surface of calm water, reflecting the immense presence of the starry sky and its indescribable harmony. . . Meditations on the Tarot, A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, Letter I The Magician, p.10
So all these different types of "magicians" whether juggler, charlatan, or magus, must be so practiced and skilled at their craft, whatever it is that it comes almost effortlessly and fluidly.
Some skills, however, come more easily and readily to certain people than to others. For example, one person may pick up an instrument and learn to play it better than another who practices for an equal length of time, given their particular natural "God given" gifts and talents. Therefore to become a great musician, or "magician" of a craft is admirable especially to those who do not possess the same natural skill sets and would never reach the same level of mastery(craft) even with years of practice and effort. To these(those unskilled or less skilled in the same craft), the ability of the magician does seem truly magical, and for the magician their own ability is a source of power(*magh-) and magnetism.
The magician, the one with power and craft, creates and makes things happen. The magician is a handy(skilled) maker. Make is said to be from PIE root *mag- / *mak- "to knead, fashion, fit." Here again, the maker, par exelence, would be God.
Does a clay pot dare argue with its maker, a pot that is like all others? Does the clay ask the potter what he is doing? Does the pot[poal "the work"] complain that its maker has no skill[yadayim "hands; ability"]? - Isaiah 45:9, Good News Translation, [see Hebrew]
The Divine Maker took a mass "irregular shaped lump, body of unshaped coherent matter," from Old French masse, from Latin massa "needed dough, lump, that which adheres together like dough," from PIE root *mag- / *mak- "to knead, fashion, fit," and magically fashioned it into the first humans, i.e. the adam, ha.adam (who was made out of the "dust" of the adamah Gen 2:7),
male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. Genesis 5:2 ASV, Hebrew Interlinear
What has mass is what is malleable and therefore the lump, the massa was formed by the creator/maker to make a mas, which means "male" in Latin, and is the root of the English word male. A male is a mass made into flesh and bone like Adam. Interestingly enough, this male named "man," that is, Adam, then acted as "female," when God took or "sucked" [the fe in female is from PIE dhe(i) "to suck"] from his flesh and bones, i.e. his mass, to make Eve. The female, which is said to mean literally "she who suckles," therefore the "mas that suckles(fe)," or we could say, perhaps even more properly, the mass that is sucked from (even while suckling young). The female is the one who creates and sustains new life through a transfer of matter, as a woman does when a baby is gestating in her womb (and then furthermore through milk production), which is definitely very magical.
And in this respect even if a man gestates a baby in his womb he is still acting as "female" according to the etymological origin of the term. He is still giving of (or being sucked[fe] from) his own mass to create a new person. In this way we could say what matters for the term male and female is matter. Basically every person is a lump of matter and some people get matter sucked from their own mass to make new individuals. The vast majority of the time the people who do this identify as female and are women, so the terms take on assumed meanings and connotations which can give these words a bad name or loaded meaning, not unlike the word "magician." A lot is assumed about a person through these terms "male" "female" "masculine" "feminine" "man" "woman" etc. This is why words / names matter, and naming is itself a form of magic. Naming is creative. Naming is powerful. Words can and do hurt, and words can and do heal.
The Egyptians believed that if you knew someone's name, you had power over it. If you wrote the name of a dangerous animal or evil spirit on pottery and smashed it you were symbolically killing the evil. So called "execration texts" have been discovered all over Egypt particularly near burial areas. According to one myth all Egyptians were given a secret name at birth by the goddess Renenutet* which was never disclosed to protect them from harm. Names in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Egypt Online
*Ren [pl. renu] meaning "name, identity" was one of the parts of the soul in ancient Egypt.
In ancient Egypt names[renu]were protected within "magic / heka circles" called shen / šn, meaning "encircle" [and if people were given new renu, it was a kind of magical renewal / renu-al]. A cartouche is a type of shen ring encircling a persons name / ren
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