White Wizard (Seal 14)

White Wizard is the fourteenth Solar Seal, white and of the north in Arguelles's rotation, and it opens the third wavespell. Its stated triad is timelessness as its power, enchanting as its action and receptivity as its essence, and it is read in Dreamspell practice for magic, for the timeless and for a receptive rather than an active mode. It is the most conspicuously renamed of all twenty seals.

In the Dreamspell tradition, White Wizard, Solar Seal 14, is described as governing timelessness, enchantment and receptivity, terms with no derivation from Ix's borrowed jaguar and earth imagery. White Wizard belongs to the Dreamspell's White colour family, alongside White Wind, White Worldbridger, White Dog and White Mirror. As the overview article on this system already notes, Wizard is one of a small number of seal names that replace the attested Maya meaning outright rather than extending it. Its Dreamspell wavespell is the fourteenth of twenty. Timelessness and enchantment, the seal's Dreamspell gloss, are English terms chosen for their resonance with Western esoteric vocabulary current in the 1980s New Age milieu Arguelles worked within, and they carry no more claim to Maya authenticity than the seal's own invented name.

The corresponding Maya day is Ix, and it is the jaguar. The jaguar is one of the central animals of Mesoamerican religion: the night sun that passes through the underworld, the companion spirit or way of rulers and of ritual specialists, the pelt worn as a mark of authority, and one of the most frequently represented creatures in Maya art from the Preclassic onward. Substituting Wizard for Jaguar removes an animal of enormous documented significance and replaces it with a European fantasy figure. Anyone using the Dreamspell should know that this seal, whatever it means within that system, tells them nothing about the Maya day it is derived from, and that the day in question is one of the most important in the count.

Ix is the fourteenth of the twenty authentic Tzolk'in day signs, its imagery the jaguar, associated with the earth, the night sun and rulership; the living K'iche' daykeeping tradition knows the corresponding day by the same name, Ix. In the directional scheme, Ix belongs to the north and the colour white. Arguelles's Solar Seal 14, White Wizard, is another of the names that departs sharply from its Tzolk'in source: "Wizard" bears no relation to the jaguar, earth or rulership associations of Ix, and appears to be an invented English gloss chosen for its resonance with Western esoteric vocabulary rather than for any connection to the Maya day sign's own meaning.