The Empress X The Emperor (Trumps III and IV)
Drawn successive days:
Monday, May 22nd, 2023
New Moon 🌙 in Cancer ♋️
The Empress
Tuesday May 23rd, 2023
Waxing Crescent 🌙 in Cancer ♋️
The Emperor.
I’m not a gender is over person because I believe the male and female archetypes are eternal. Within that: I of course believe that people can embody both masculine and feminine features and virtues regardless of gender.
The cards can help us tease these attributes out and identify with them outside of preconceived notions of identity, responsibility, or expectation.
Synchronistically, I pulled these cards out on successive days, during a visit to my family’s home in Pennsylvania. The last time I drew them together was shortly after the last time I visited: during a reading I gave my brother at 3am on a bench outside Las Vegas’s The Linq. We were there on a 5 hour, middle-of-the-night layover between Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
I was there foolishly hoping to turn one-hundred dollars into two on video poker machines with the limited time we had. My brother wasn’t feeling it: he had a lot on his mind, and became too stressed to even step foot in another casino after we got kicked out of the Wynn for carrying our luggage with us. I offered the reading as an attempt to ameliorate the mess he had going on psychologically, and I think that it worked.
Empress to Emperor. It was a three card reading, but you’ll have to forgive me: I don’t remember the card that was in the middle. What was important was the transition from Empress to Emperor: from feminine authority and virtue to masculine authority and virtue.
We picked up a couple of Black & Milds after that, as I recall, and smoked them at The bar of the Flamingo. The night improved from there.
On a very general: The Emperor and Empress represent the male and female archetypes with regard to worldly authority. This in contrast with the spiritual authority represented by the High Priestess and the Hierophant, and more abstract depictions of femininity and masculinity represented by The Star and The Hermit. At the tale-end of his section on The High Priestess, Crowley tells us how these two sets of three cards represent tripartite depictions of femininity and masculinity:
It is especially to be observed that the three consecutive letters, Gimel, Daleth, He' (Atu II, III, XVII) [The High Priestess, The Empress, The Star] show the Feminine Symbol (Yin) in three forms composing a Triune Goddess. This Trinity is immediately followed by the three corresponding and complementary Fathers, Vau, Tzaddi, Yod (Atu IV, V, IX) [The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Hermit]
And further on this topic of gender and the Trump cards:
The Trumps 0 and I [Fool and Magus] are hermaphrodite. The remaining fourteen Trumps represent these Primordial Quintessences of Being in conjunction, function, or manifestation.
THE EMPRESS
This card is attributed to the letter Daleth, which means a door, and it refers to the planet Venus. This card is. on the face of it, the complement of The Emperor; but her attributions are much more universal.
From the get-go, Crowley makes a key distinction between the notion of the feminine as a mere complement to the masculine and the notion of the feminine as a “more universal” and underlying force than the masculine: underlying masculinity itself.
Masculinity is exclusionary by nature. It excludes that which gets in the way of its directedness toward the accomplishment of tasks, the solving of problems etc.. It eschews the feminine ( yet desires to penetrate or possess it in the heterosexual arrangement). The key biological image is of tumescence, ejaculation, impregnation: a targeted, outward reach.
The feminine, meanwhile, is inclusive by nature. It seeks to draw things into itself, to experience them emotionally and physically. The key biological image is that of pregnancy, gestation, child rearing. While the feminine lacks the directedness of masculinity, it has an access to the source of things that the masculine is cut off from.
Crucially: the feminine internalizes the masculine, and holds the potential of masculinity within itself. This differs from the masculine which may desire the feminine, may feel like it has the feminine in its grips, but can never truly possess it. In the best of cases the masculine lives with the feminine in harmony; in the worst of cases the masculine destroys the feminine through outward aggression. The feminine always contains the masculine as a potentiality within itself, and in the best of cases nurtures it. In the worst of cases the feminine smother’s the masculine: destroying it by suffocation or infantilization: a muting of potential.
The Empress is attributed to Daleth:
Daleth makes the sound of ‘d’ as in door, and means the same: a fitting image of feminine authority as representing a doorway to nature and source energy. Elsewhere Crowley says we might consider this card to be the “Gate of Heaven”, and we can see a gate, of sorts, in the background of the card.
Within the Tree of Life Crowley tells us:
Daleth is the path leading from Chokmah to Binah, uniting the Father with the Mother. Daleth is one of the three paths which are altogether above the Abyss [the realm between the ideal and manifestation].
The Empress is also attributed to Venus:
This ideogram is described in Chris Gabriel’s symbol deck (now widely available for purchase) as depicting a “Beautiful Goddess and her Mirror”. In its essence it is a stick figure (the cross) with a simple hand held mirror ( the circle). This symbol finds its way onto the shield displayed on the Rider Waite Empress, and is perhaps is also mirrored in the shape of her scepter.
Crowley points out that this symbol of Venus—uniquely, among the alchemical ideograms— can be grafted onto the Tree of life in such a way that touches all Sephiroth:
There is further more the alchemical symbol of Venus, the only one of the planetary symbols which comprises all the Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. The doctrine implied is that the fundamental formula of the Universe is Love. [The circle touches the Sephiroth I, 2, 4, 6, 5, 3; the Cross is formed by 6, 9, 10 and 7, 8.] It is impossible to summarize the meanings of the symbol of the Woman, for this very reason, that she continually recurs in infinitely varied form. "Many- throned, many-minded, many-wiled, daughter of Zeus."
And there is another alchemical symbol associated with The Empress yet, and even reflected in her circular posture in Crowley’s card: that of Salt.
The salt ideogram is described in Chris Gabriel’s deck as “Stilled Earth” …. as “stagnant energy ‘turned to stone’”.
Crowley explains:
In this card, [the symbol of woman] is shown in her most general manifestation. She combines the highest spiritual with the lowest material qualities. For this reason, she is fitted to represent one of the three alchemical forms of energy, Salt. Salt is the inactive principle of Nature; Salt is matter which must be energized by Sulphur to maintain the whirling equilibrium of the Universe. The arms and torso of the figure consequently suggest the shape of the alchemical symbol of Salt.
The Empress represents the power of passivity and standing as a force to be acted upon. The Emperor is this sulfur to the salt of the Empress: masculinity to femininity. I am far from a Chemist but with the help of Google can see this is what the reaction looks like:
Sexy stuff.
Sulfur, for its part, combines the symbol of fire (upward pointed triangle) and man (cross/ stick figure) to become what Chris Gabriel describes as “Fiery Man” or the fiery part of man. The Emperor mirrors its pose with his horizontally placed knee.
We will touch on this more later, but back to the Empress for now:
The Empress as depicted in the Rider Waite card, with her crown of twelve stars, recalls the pregnant woman of the book of Revelation:
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. (Revelation 12:1-5)
Some say the 12 stars of this cosmic mother (in the Rider Waite Empress card and Revelation both) represent each month of the year and/or each of the signs of the Zodiac and her dominance over them. This as part and parcel of her broader dominance over the cycles of nature. These twelve stars are represented as pentacles in the Hermetic deck:
The Rider Waite Empress is said to sit in the Garden of Eden, with her scepter symbolizing authority over the terrestrial realm. The key identification is between nature and the feminine, as in “Mother Nature”: a passive force acted upon, ever changing but reliable and repetitious.
Crowley’s card represents much the same as the Rider Waite card, with slightly different imagery, her scepter replaced with a lotus:
She represents a woman with the imperial crown and vestments, seated upon a throne, whose uprights suggest blue twisted flames symbolic of her birth from water, the feminine, fluid element. In her right hand she bears the lotus of Isis; the lotus represents the feminine, or passive power. Its roots are in the earth beneath the water, or in the water itself, but it opens its petals to the Sun, whose image is the belly of the chalice. It is, therefore, a living form of the Holy Grail, sanctified by the blood of the Sun.
Crucially, Crowley’s card also introduces significant, feminine, “bird and bee” imagery:
Perching upon the flamelike up. rights of her throne are two of her most sacred birds, the sparrow and the dove; the nub of this symbolism must be sought in the poems of Catullus and Martial. On her robe are bees; also dominos, surrounded by continuous spiral lines; the signification is everywhere similar.
The bees on The Empress’s robe can also be seen on the robes of the queenly figures in the Art and Lovers cards, symbolizing femininity in all cases:
As for the other birds: The Pelican at the The Empress’s feet, and the white eagle of her shield, Crowley extrapolates:
The heraldry of the Empress is two-fold: on the one side, the Pelican of tradition feeding its young from the blood of its own heart; on the other, the White Eagle of the Alchemist. With regard to the Pelican, its full symbolism is only available to Initiates of the Fifth degree of the O.T.O. In general terms, the meaning may be suggested by identifying the Pelican herself with the Great Mother and her offspring, with the Daughter in the formula of Tetragrammaton. It is because the daughter is the daughter of her mother that she can be raised to her throne. In other language, there is a continuity of life, an inheritance of blood, which binds all forms of Nature together. There is no break between light and dark ness. Natura non facit saltum [Nature does nothing in jumps] ….The White Eagle in this trump corresponds to the Red Eagle in the Consort card, the Emperor. It is here necessary to work backwards. For in these highest cards are the symbols of perfection; both the initial perfection of Nature and the final perfection of Art; not only Isis, but Nephthys.
Not being a 5th degree initiate of the O.T.O., I’ll have to make some suppositions here, but obviously the pelican feedings its chicks its own blood is symbolic of the physical sacrifices of motherhood, as well as the succession of the maternal blood line: the child consubstantial with it’s mother.
The White Eagle of the Empress in contrast with the Red Eagle of the Emperor, as best I can tell, is another symbol of their unity and alchemical reactivity upon each other. The profound romantic and sexual nature of this reactivity can be found symbolized in the GIF of Salt and Sulphur above, and has also been covered in my write-ups on The Lovers and Art cards.
Another key detail of the Empress is her belt, which Crowley identifies as Zodiacal. This Zodiacal belt is another symbol of the Empress’s queenship over nature and it’s flux. Elsewhere he have seen Crowley describe the Zodiacal belt as being just one girdle of “our lady of infinite space” (Nuith). The one who in the book of the law is said to be “divided for loves sake, for chance of union”.
To explain this idea just a bit: as a manifestation of the infinite Nuith need not enter into the divisions and limitations of, e.g. the Zodiacal system, but accepts this division and limitation to embrace the special ecstasy of reunion. The image is analogous to that of The Universe accepting the limitations of The Milky Way. A study of the nature of The Milky Way (Astrology) becomes a portal to understanding ultimate reality (The Universe).
Through this maternal sacrifice of Nuith— not unlike the pelican feeding its offspring from its breast, perhaps— the terrestrial plane of suffering is exalted and sanctified. We might think of this as an essential, Thelemic female virtue, exemplified first by Nuith, and embodied by The Empress with her Zodiacal belt.
This notion too, I touched on in my write up on “The Lovers”, and across a few other scattered posts.
Most cryptically, Crowley explains the bottom of the Empress card:
Beneath the throne is a floor of tapestry, embroidered with fleurs-de-lys and fishes; they seem to be adoring the Secret Rose, which is indicated at the base of the throne. The significance of these symbols has already been explained. In this card all symbols are cognate, because of the simplicity and purity of the emblem. There is here no contradiction; such opposition as there seems to be is only the opposition necessary to balance. And this is shown by the revolving moons.
The fleury-de-lys, as a Lilly, is interpreted as a symbol of Christian Chastity, but Crowley elsewhere identifies it as a phallic image. Maybe most relevantly, though, the presence of the fleur-de-lys on this card and The Emperor are indicative of their royalty.
Fish is of course the symbol of “life beneath the water”: lower elements of consciousness which can be reeled up by a Super-egoic fisherman like Christ.
The Secret Rose of this card is hard to discern, but I believe Crowley refers to the center of the Rosy Cross, discernible just behind the Pelican… I am reminded of a similar juxtaposition of the Pelican piercing its own breast and the Rosy Cross found in the symbolism of Scottish Rite Freemasonry:
All in all I would sum it up like this:
In the Empress, all processes from those of the lower consciousness (symbolized by fish at her feet), to the great cycles of nature she dominates (symbolized by the moons flanking her) are oriented toward the exaltation of this Rosy Cross.
THE EMPEROR
This card is attributed to the letter Tzaddi, and it refers to the sign of Aries in the Zodiac. This sign is ruled by Mars, and therein the Sun is exalted. The sign is thus a combination of energy in its most material form with the idea of authority. The sign TZ or TS implies this in the original, onomatopoetic form of language. It is derived from Sanskrit roots meaning Head and Age, and is found to-day in words like Cæsar, Tsar, Sirdar, Senate, Senior, Signor, Sefior, Seigneur.
I am not sure what is precisely onomatopoetic about the ‘TZ’ sound with regard to Head or Age, but certainly Crowley makes a good case for the relation of this sound with masculine authority.
The Letter, Tzadi is below:
On the Tree of Life, it is quite a bit lower than the Empress, corresponding to the notion of femininity as something even more universal than masculine (and from which the masculine might come forth):
Crowley tells us that the “ white light” which seems to be descending upon the Emperor’s head is owed to this unique position on the Tree of Life:
His authority is derived from Chokmah, the creative Wisdom, the Word, and is exerted upon Tiphareth, the organized man.
As for the astrological symbol, it is that of Aries, or the “Horns Of a Ram” as it is called in Chris Gabriel’s deck.
The symbol of the ram finds it’s way upon each of The Emperor’s shoulders, and the head of his scepter. The ram imagery combined with the image of the peaceful lamb at the Emperor’s feet conspire to make a point about political theory Crowley writes:
The card represents a crowned male figure, with imperial vestments and regalia. He is seated upon the throne whose capitals are the heads of the Himalayan wild ram, since Aries means a Ram. At his feet, couchant, is the Lamb and Flag, to confirm this attribution on the lower plane; for the ram, by nature, is a wild and courageous animal, lonely in lonely places, whereas when tamed and made to lie down in green pastures, nothing is left but the docile, cowardly, gregarious and succulent beast. This is the theory of government.
In other words: we can see a sort of Spenglerian descent in this card from the wild energy of the rams in its upper section to the docility of the lamb in the lower section.
Strong men make good times make weak men make bad times make strong men and on and on. It is the job of worldly statesman to civilize his subjects. The civilized endpoint is desirable, yet also represents a waning of energy, and the beginning of civilizational decay. This is yet another alchemical formula—not unlike the formula Tetragrammaton discussed with regard to the Court Cards— in which energy moves cyclically in order to maintain the whirring equilibrium of the Universe.
As discussed earlier, the Emperor is also representative of the alchemical element sulphur, and the explosive, masculine potential, that comes with that:
The Emperor is also one of the more important alchemical cards; with Atu II and III, he makes up the triad: Sulphur, Mercury, Salt. His arms and head form an upright triangle; below, crossed legs represent the Cross. This figure is the alchemical symbol of Sulphur (see Atu X). Sulphur is the male fiery energy of the Universe, the Rajas of Hindu philosophy. This is the swift creative energy, the initiative of all Being. The power of the Emperor is a generalization of the paternal power; hence such symbols as the Bee and the Fleur- deAys, which are shown on this card. With regard to the quality of this power, it must be noted that it represents sudden, violent, but impermanent activity. If it persists too long, it burns and destroys. Distinguish from the Creative Energy of Aleph and Beth: this card is below the Abyss.
We mentioned the bee as indicating femininity in the case of the Empress, but in the Emperor it represents something related but different. Energy as a flowing process as in the phrase “busy like a bee”. The bee is an even more prominent symbol in the Hermetic version of the card, in which an orb containing bee forms a sort of stepping stool for the conquering emperor:
This Hermetic version of the card plays significantly with the idea of orbs and radiating energy: from the Emperor’s lotus-wand, to the formations above his head and below his feet. Crowley’s card does not entirely dispense with the energy represented by orbs, and we see one at either one of the Emperor’s elbows, containing concentric stars. These jagged stars mirror jagged elements which persist throughout the background of the card, representing a fiery, solar energy.
The Eagle at the bottom of the Hermetic card references the Phoenix at the bottom of the Hermetic Empress card. The Phoenix has regenerated from ash, and grown into something self-sustaining and masculine: the Eagle.
Aries is a symbol ruled by Mars, and in all versions of the card the Emperor is crucially warlike, ambitious and conquering.
In the Rider Waite card, one of the key symbols of this dominance is the globe held in the Emperor’s left hand. This is opposite an Ankh scepter, which as we have already discussed is a symbol Crowley takes as analogous to the Rosy Cross, here, perhaps, expressing the idea of conquest over suffering the instinct of the Superman.
The globe also finds its way into the Hermetic and Thoth cards, and is adorned with the Maltese cross in them. In all cases, the holding of the globe is symbolic of “dominion” (in this case over the whole of the world). The Two of wands expresses this idea quite clearly as well (called “Dominion” and “Lord of Dominion” in the Crowley’s and the Hermetic deck, respectively and represented by a figure holding a globe in the Rider Waite deck):
From The Tarot by Richard Cavendish:
"The Emperor's number is four, which stands for solidity, system, the earth and the form and construction of things. He suggests temporal power, patriarchal authority, government, administration, the imposition of order on chaos, the rule of law in nature and society. He also suggests war, conquest, discipline, and the suppression of hostility and rebellion... The Emperor stands for the dynamic principle, or 'the great energizing forces' which penetrate and organize everything passive and potential.”
In all ways, the Emperor is “Lord of this World”
There is a curious ambivalence about this conquering spirit, however, and a secret, sinister meaning to the concept of “Lord of This World” (See the Black Sabbath song by this name).
The Emperor’s earthly power is well established, which would seem to be a good and noble thing, but there is a risk—and possibly a quite infernal risk— of this earthly power being pushed too hard or tyrannically.
Crowley writes:
The Emperor bears a sceptre (surmounted by a ram's head for the reasons given above) and an orb surmounted by a Maltese cross, which signifies that his energy has reached a successful issue, that his government has been established.
On a somewhat less sinister level, we can see the ill effects an established governance lorded over too strictly might have in the Rider Waite version of this card: the Emperor sits in front of a desert landscape.
Authority must be enforced, but then nature must be allowed to take its course, lest desertification occur. There’s a time for the Emperor to rule, a time for him to take power over the feminine and of nature, and a time for him to step back.
Deeper in the card, and presented more clearly in Hermetic and Thoth versions, there is an identification of this excess of masculinity with Satan.
Notice the Emperor is called “Sone of the Morning” in the Hermetic deck. Perhaps this references the Emperor’s creative potential, but it is also a name often given to the devil, starting in the book of Isaiah:
How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! —Isaiah 14:12
I admit: I was first queued into all of this by this song.
The morning star reference refers to the devil’s fall from grace, following his position of prominence as an angel and his sin of pride.
Morning star is also a reference to the planet Venus: the first heavenly body to become visible in the sky at night, and the last to disappear in the morning. The word “Lucifer” is actually a Latin name for the morning appearance of Venus, translating to something like “bringer of light”. Satanists and other Satan sympathizers have made much of this definition of Lucifer: viewing him as a symbol of enlightenment rather than sinful pride.
Mixed interpretations aside, we will take The Emperor’s secret identity with the “Son of the Morning” to be here be a cautionary tale.
Other clues to this: the element of sulphur with which the Emporer is associated, also has certain demonic/ hellish connotations. Aries ♈️ indicates a ram, and while Satan is more commonly identified with a goat than a sheep, the image is close enough.
A section in the book The Tarot by Richard Cavendish points out that most Tarot packs (including Crowley’s) make a point of only showing the left side of the Emperor’s face (the left being associated with evil by longstanding tradition, perhaps unfairly to lefties, see the etymology of the word sinister).
The gnostic tradition holds that the God of this world—the Lord of the material reality—is in fact the evil Demi-Urge: analogous to Satan himself.
This does not necessarily mean that a human Emperor of the world would necessarily also be evil. As man he has, in the gnostic view, a spark of divinity. Mainline Christianity might find an analogy to his having free-will, through which he can potentially rule virtuously.
But undoubtedly he will be tempted, and if there’s one thing we know it is the old adage “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. If the Emperor’s power is left unchecked, chances are he will be more like the Demi-urge, less like the Godhead, more like Satan, less like God.
The Videos:
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Quick Notes on the Songs Chosen:
An underrated Led Zeppelin song from their best album, and what more can I say?
A song from Burial I always loved as a teenager, and still now, relating to it’s cool, calm, and collected energy.
The video in which I pull the Empress also features a somewhat apocalyptic piece of art made by my brother, which I find captures the spirit of Empress and Emperor both: