53 THE ALCHEMIST/MAGE

Magical rituals and sorcery, genetic engineering, attempts to create life (test-tube life); positive thinking, perfectionism (striving for perfection).

Leo/Scorpio

Sun/Pluto.

Ego + Tempter.

At the intersection of the Ego and Tempter archetypes, an almost deadly pride is born. In his study, within a magic circle, stands a furnace on whose fire the alchemist heats a flask with a human figure inside. The room is in twilight, and outside the window in the sky is a solar eclipse.

The picture is somewhat ominous. The alchemist's goal is to create life. His desire is to become a creator, to liken himself to God. In the flask he grows a homunculus - a creature resembling a human. Can one imagine a higher level of pretension?!

This card is a tribute to the pride of a scientist who, in his research, strives to rise above the world. We know science's successes in cloning plants and animals (remember Dolly the sheep), in vitro fertilization (IVF), artificial insemination, organ transplantation, plastic surgery and so forth.

These are important medical and scientific-practical results, and the Alchemist card often denotes precisely these.

However, it also sometimes points to charlatans, pseudo-mages and other fraudsters who declare themselves omnipotent.

In a dark laboratory room, away from human eyes, the Alchemist conducts his terrible experiments. His goal is to be like God, to be a creator. In the flask he grows a Homunculus.

There is an eclipse in the sky. The stove he uses in his work stands on an inverted pentagram. On his cap is also a pentagram (inflated ego serving dark forces). He is in a circle.

In the center is a furnace, on which a Homunculus grows in a flask. In his research he strives to repeat God's work, but what emerges will be only a soulless imitation of a human. This card is a tribute to the pride of a scientist who in his searches strives to elevate his ego.

Hence such unviable results emerge.

The pentagram on the cap - inflated ego serving dark forces. The Mage is a person who considers himself godlike.

The human in the flask - fruit without soul.

Positive meanings: enthusiasm, complete devotion to the cause. Negative meanings: artificiality, pride, shortsightedness, obsession.

Today a person will be doing something that requires complete immersion in the process.

If you begin doing anything, then to get results you need to completely immerse yourself in the process - without being distracted by anything. A good day for magical rituals, for working with energies.

Not everything we passionately want benefits us.

When doing something interesting, immerse yourself in it completely, without reservation.

You will strive to surpass someone from your circle at any cost.

Ambition, inner pride that a person hides. Transforming the world according to one's own ideas.

Belief in one's own power. Using secret knowledge for selfish purposes. Using magic not to help one's neighbor become better and higher, but to elevate oneself.

Enthusiasm for one's work. Understanding of deep processes. Pride in one's own knowledge. Striving to surpass the creator. Interest, often scientific. Desire to try and ability to take risks, enthusiasm for work, understanding of deep processes.

However, here there can also be intellectual pride, denial of ethical principles, using secret knowledge for selfish purposes, working with magic not to help one's neighbor, but for one's own elevation.

Requires special conditions, will not develop on its own. The card may indicate the presence of someone else's magical influence on the situation.

Relationships created on illusions - a person created an image for themselves and fell in love with it. Absence of spiritual connection. A person tries to remake their partner, wanting to fit them to their ideal. Love spell is possible.

Relationships of the Pygmalion and Galatea type. Once, the king of Cyprus, Pygmalion, managed to carve from precious ivory a statue of a young woman of amazing beauty. The more often Pygmalion admired his creation, the more virtues he found in it.

It began to seem to him that none of the mortal women surpassed his statue in beauty and nobility. Jealous of anyone who might see her, Pygmalion let no one into his workshop. In solitude, the young king admired the statue, whispered tender words to her, adorned her with flowers and jewels, as lovers do.

He named her Galatea, dressed her in purple and seated her beside him on the throne. During the festival of Aphrodite, celebrated by all islanders, Pygmalion in the goddess's suburban shrine offered her sacrifices with the plea: 'Oh, if only I had a wife like my creation.'

Aphrodite heeded Pygmalion's pleas, for she knew there was no one on all of Cyprus who loved so ardently and sincerely as he did, and she brought his creation to life. Inequality of partners. The Alchemist recognizes no one as his equal.

After all, he challenges God himself, so what can be said about his 'other half'! Love and feelings are not his sphere; he is a logician and an ambitious person. Less often, the card indicates that one of the partners tries to 'create' the other, as Pygmalion created Galatea.

As long as both are satisfied with this state of affairs, the union is strong.

The problem of the ethics of what is happening. Loss of divine spark. Artificiality of what is happening. A person exalts knowledge and does not want to accept that knowledge without love, without soul, is dead.

Take the situation into your own hands, do as you think necessary. Take risks and act.

Obtaining the desired (possibly through magical influence), but something valuable will be lost in the process.

Artificial insemination, surrogate mother. Organ transplantation.

- Temptation - I am stronger than God. - Magical influence. - Love spell. - An educated person whose faith in their own power exceeds all boundaries.

- A person exalts knowledge. - Knowledge without love, without soul is dead. - Working with energies. - Artificial insemination, surrogate mother. - Organ transplantation. - Ability to take risks and act. Pride should be a shield, not a sword (Monterlant).

- Everything depends on the environment. The sun in a clear sky thinks much less of itself than a tallow candle in a basement (Ebner-Eschenbach). - Ambition is like a hungry stomach - it obeys no laws except its appetite (Shaw).

- It is impossible to imagine all the ways in which vanity destroys its own plans (Chesterfield). - Pride is a fierce beast living in caves and deserts; vanity, like a parrot, jumps from branch to branch and chatters without concealment (Flaubert).

- Tall trees are more subject to wind gusts than others; just so ambitious people are more subject to fortune's whims than others (Penn).