What the card describes as a feeling
The emotional content here is intent rather than affection. A person reading as The Magician has decided something about you and has begun arranging themselves accordingly. They will have thought about how to approach you, what to say and when.
That can be experienced as being wanted very clearly, which many people find attractive. It can also be experienced as being managed. The card does not separate the two, and readers who assume the good version are adding something.
Upright
Upright the reading is desire with capability behind it, confidence, and a sense that the person can carry out what they intend. Attraction of this kind tends to be conscious and articulate. The person could tell you what they want if asked.
Take the confidence as part of the feeling rather than proof of sincerity. Skill at expressing an interest and depth of interest are separate qualities, and this card measures the first.
Reversed
Reversed the standard readings are manipulation, a performance of interest, or capability without honest purpose. That is the harsh version and it is worth stating plainly rather than softening.
A gentler reading is equally common: someone who wants something badly and cannot organise themselves to act, so the feeling stalls into frustration. Wasted intent, rather than misused intent. Look at whether the rest of the spread describes activity or paralysis.
Outside romance
For a colleague this is often a person who has a clear use for you in mind and has already made the case internally. In a friendship it reads as someone who wants your attention and will engineer occasions to get it. Within a family it can mark a relative with a settled agenda for your life, which is a form of caring and is rarely experienced as one.
What a feelings position can and cannot tell you
The feelings slot is a positional convention that modern readers added; the tradition it grew out of read cards as situations. A card dropped into that slot describes a quality, and the person it belongs to is assigned by whoever laid it out.
That means no card here knows another person's mind. It hands you a shape and you decide who fits it. Used as evidence about a named individual, a feelings reading becomes a substitute for the question you have not put to them, which is the point at which it stops being useful.
The practical response to The Magician is to ask what the intent actually is. The card describes someone who could answer that question in one sentence. Not asking it, and reading cards about it instead, is a choice.
Questions people ask about this
Does The Magician mean strong feelings?
It means directed ones. The card describes intent and capability rather than depth of affection, and the two are not the same thing.
Is The Magician reversed a warning?
It can read as manipulation or a performance of interest. It can equally read as wanting something and being unable to act. Neither is a verdict on a real person.
Can this card tell me if someone is being honest?
No. It describes a quality of intent, not a fact about a person's sincerity, and treating it as a lie detector overreaches badly.