#ive been slowly working on this tarot meta series and have enjoyed seeing your edits!

[archivistsammy]

"What, you really haven't heard of us? What kind of angel are you, we're- we're the freaking Winchesters."

In my last post, I looked at how I felt Castiel embodied the energy of the tarot card the Fool, card #0. Today I want to continue the tarot conversation by looking at the next card in line, the Magician. There are a lot of characters who fit this archetype, including Rowena, Lucifer, maybe even Gabriel or Jack. But for me, the real Magician is Sam.

I mentioned the Magician comes right after the Fool, our official card #1. Some people see the major arcana as a journey the Fool takes, taking different roles as the journey progresses, and some people see the figures that follow the Fool as characters that he encounters. Regardless, the Magician represents the same things, especially in relation to the Fool. Where the Fool indicates potential, faith, and naivety, the Magician indicates intention and direction. 

The card is usually depicted with a figure pointing one finger to the heavens and one to the earth, a table laid out with each of the four suits (or elements). The figure holds a magician’s wand, and bears an infinity symbol above their head. The imagery suggests access to resources and the infinite possibility for combining and using them. There’s a sense of manifestation, action, and willpower, but there’s no moral imperative for what kind of action is taken. This is why Bakara Wintner talks about the Magician as someone who "toes the line between the true miracle-worker and the trickster."

Sam has this resourcefulness. How many times has Sam tried something in the moment, based on previous knowledge and experience, and had it work out. Directing Dean to park on the hallowed ground of a fallen church in “Route 666.″ Painting their faces in blood to mask that they’re alive when Samhain is raised in “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester.” His impulsive—but successful—reverse-exorcism in “What’s Up, Tiger Mommy.” 

I think one of the key aspects of Sam’s resourcefulness is his confidence. He believes in the power of past experience to inform the present, and he trusts in his instincts. This is also part of being a Magician. I love how Melissa Cynova talks about the power of the Magician in a reading, how the card “represents self-love, self-awareness, and confidence. It's one thing to know for certain that you're going to do something. It's something altogether different to know for certain that you're going to succeed.” When I brought this up with Katharine, she brought up Sam’s response to Alistair in the final act of “On the Head of a Pin” when Sam cockily dismisses Alistair’s comment about Sam sending him back to Hell. “I’m stronger than that now,” Sam says with a smile. “Now I can kill.” And he does. 

Confidence, of course, doesn’t have to mean cockiness or arrogance. It doesn’t have to mean domination. And for Sam, his confidence is usually of a much softer sort. Katharine, our resident Sam-Whisperer, reminded me of this when she also brought up Sam’s words in “It’s a Terrible Life” regarding his life and hunting. "All I know is, I got this feeling in my gut. And I know—I know that deep down, you gotta be feeling it too. We're supposed to be something else." Sam’s sense of self is unshakeable, and his confidence in his own instincts in this moment is powerful. 

Then we have the quote I used to open this post. I was sort of iffy on using it—it falls a little back into that arrogant category that demon-blood-bender Sam really lives in. But the more I think about Sam stating what, in all honesty, I’m shocked neither Winchester says more often, the more I like it. Because Sam asking Metatron in “The Great Escapist” incredulously if he really hasn’t heard of them gets at the inherent Magician-ness of both Winchesters pretty neatly. We’ve stopped the Apocalypse, Sam seems to be saying. Defeated the Mother of All Evil, saved the world from Leviathans, survived Purgatory and Hell! What haven’t the brothers achieved? What magic haven’t they worked to still be standing after the horrors that they’ve faced? Sam has a right to wonder why the scribe of God has somehow missed the memo on God’s most chosen of children. 

Thinking of confidence and sense of self also makes me think about Benebell Wen’s take on the Magician. “To wield the intensity of concentration needed for omnipotent power, one must be strong in both spirituality and character,” she writes. “Thus, the Magician card often appears in spreads for those who are strong in spirituality and character. It is the card of individuality.” “Strong in both spirituality and character” alongside “the card of individuality” really calls Sam to my mind. Sam’s faith in those early seasons, his willingness to believe God may be talking to him even in season 11 after God has proven time and time again to be largely uninvested. Sam wanting to be a lawyer, wanting to help people. Taking charge and guiding the folks of Apocalypse World. Sam forging his own way after loss, after grief, after anguish. That is all evidence of his strength in spirit. That is strength of character. Sam maintains up until the final episodes of the final season that he and Dean’s righteous positions will find purchase, even when they are challenging God himself. Of the two brothers, Sam is ever the optimist, always willing to find a way to make a situation work. He will use what resources he has, what willpower he can still muster, and he will make something work or die trying. He’s both trickster, and miracle-worker, and his heart is always in the right place.

I want to close out this post by thinking of the Magician and Sam one final way, and that’s as a “vessel,” as Rachel Pollack sees the Magician. 

He is not casting spells or conjuring demons. He simply stands with one hand raised to heaven and the other pointed to the green earth. He is a lightning rod. By opening himself up to the spirit he draws it down into himself, and then that downward hand, like a lightning rod buried in the ground, runs the energy into the earth. Into reality.

She’s talking about the imagery of the card, and informing those of us who read tarot that, as the Magician is a conduit for spirit, so too are tarot readers. Through use of these tools, we become conduits to whatever is sending us the messages. This can be contested, of course, and isn’t a universal belief re: tarot. But it is, quite literally, the truth when it comes to Sam*. 

Sam is Lucifer’s vessel; he is a literal conduit or channel for divine intervention. He has the potential within him for great feats of power and violence, and with his past brushes with demon blood, this is a potential he is hyper-aware of and anxious about. Sam’s role as “lightning rod,” so to speak, is a lot of what drives his cultivation of spirit and character. Sam wants to do good, and wants to believe he is good, and he makes choices as the series goes on to live up to those desires. Sam’s worries about himself are aligned with the reversed energies of this card, such as the potential for manipulation, the misallocation of resources, and a lack of empathy. Essentially, the Sam we meet when he is soulless. 

Luckily for us and the others on the show, Sam largely lives in the role of the Magician defined by Melissa Cynova and Benebell Wen. He’s driven to do good and help people, putting his resourcefulness to work in the best possible way, the lore as his tools of his metaphysical trade. And, of course, by the close of the show, he’s also a bonafide witch, a literal magician on top of his Magician-like qualities. And we always love to see it.

*Also Sam is literally a witch. So. Jot that down.