Credit to Yhwh.com

The Emperor is in stark contrast to the Empress.  He sits sternly, scowling, upon a throne of granite.  Rocks appear behind him.  He holds a glass ball in his left hand and a Ahnk cross in his right.  Upon his head is a crown.  The Emperor is one of the sleekest cards in the Tarot deck in terms of quantity of image.  Whereas the Empress and the High Priestess and others have many, many symbols, the Emperor is actually very plain.  What is the Emperor?  

The Emperor is law.  The Emperor is rationality.  He is consciousness; he is knowledge.  Whereas the Empress focused on the feminine side, on creativity, subconscious and wisdom, the Emperor brings all of those faculties in conscious dominion and control of the human being.  This is the stage of Genesis where the birds of the air begin to fly. 

What is the meaning of the symbolism?  Well, he sits upon a square throne–the square is obviously associated with the number four.  The number 4 relates to the world in its human counterparts.  We talk about the four corners of the earth.  That reference is only in relationship to humanities’ interaction with the earth.  We know the earth is round and has no corners.  The “corners,” for us, are north, east, south and west.  We place our mental framework around the Empress in order to be able to attempt to relate to her and understand her–the four winds, the four rivers, which come out of the Garden of Eden.  The number 4 has often symbolized the totality of human experience.  As I’ve said, this is the realm of consciousness. 

The granite and the rocks behind the Emperor symbolize a very fixed, solid state.  Whereas the Empress is all fluidity, change, growth, birth, and death; the Emperor is constant.  Just as the Magician and the High Priestess correlate with one another, reflect and expand one another, so too the Empress and the Emperor work together.  Whereas the Empress is shown as being eternally young and eternally pregnant, the Emperor is shown as being ancient.  He is the ancient of days.  What is his domain?

This is law, fixed, unyielding, unchanging.  Whereas the Empress is on her soft, luxuriant pillow, the Emperor is seated firmly upon his throne of granite.  He will not change.  He will not be moved.  This is the essence of law.  Rules can change and almost every so called “law” that the human race has is nothing more than a rule.  It is a way in which we play our social game of civilization.  One year it is the law that you can drive so fast.  The next year it’s the law that you cannot drive nearly as fast.  One year it’s the law that you have to do this in business; the next year it’s the law that you can’t do this in business.  This is fickle.  This is part of the silly human race.  We create rules for ourselves to enjoy the game, and when anyone gets too much of an advantage, then we change the rules and frustrate everyone.  It keeps the lawyers and politicians employed.  It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with law.  The law of God is immutable.  It cannot be changed.  What do I mean by the law of God?

There are, of course, two dominions–as above-so below.  The law below is the law of nature–the laws of electromagnetism, the law of force, mass and acceleration, the law of gravity.  These laws cannot, will not and do not change.  Through the physical world, we perceive the spiritual world, and there are laws of God in the spiritual world.  For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction.  This is the physical counterpart to the eternal spiritual law:  as you give so shall you receive. 

We approached the Empress through her laws.  The laws of nature are to heal the wounds of man.  If we use them wisely, they will help us if they can.  When we use them wrongly, we will only harm ourselves.  Then it’s too late to run to her for help.  We access these laws through our rationality, through our mind.  The mind enables us to control and regulate our relationship with nature. 

Our mind is the vehicle through which we can control and regulate ourselves.  The mind is the window–the door through which we see and control the outside world.  That is the power of the mind.  Interestingly enough, every Hebrew letter has a meaning.  The fourth Hebrew letter is the “HEH.”  We translate it into a English letter “H.”  The meaning “HEH” is a window–the window through which we see the world and through which we control the world. As we learn and study, we gain access to greater dominions of control.  Once we understood the process of fire, we were better able to control it.  Once we understood electricity, we were able to harness it.  As we understand music and sound, we are able to control and shape it.  As we understand the cosmos and understand the earth, we are able to control the earth. 

This relates to the war between culture and nature, although it does not necessarily have to be a war.  Just as we as individual human beings control our bodies through our minds, so too we as the creative, rational, intelligence of God can have proper dominion over the realm of nature.

During the process to involution, the higher realms of God clothe themselves with ever lower vehicles which are always denser and more limited, but grant control and power to the higher vehicles.  A simple example would be an automobile.  An automobile is much less expressive and has far fewer capabilities then a human being.  A human being can paint a painting; a car cannot.  A human being can sing a song; a car cannot, etc. 

What happens though, is that this densest of vehicles is voluntarily used by the higher vehicles, the human being, in order to give access to greater domains and have more power.  The human being voluntarily limits his abilities as he places himself inside of the car, temporarily only, so as to gain access to greater areas of the physical world.  We can travel farther, faster and have more access to this domain as long as we are willing to temporarily set aside some of our other power, because you cannot paint a painting, or compose a symphony, or play racquetball while you are driving a car. 

For much, much more information on this, see my writing, “Self Mover,” which is a examination of the human beings’ relationship to the automobile and all that it tells us about religion. 

In exactly the same way a human being limits his abilities to gain access to broader areas of the physical world, and have more control over them to carry us somewhere to enable us to perform something, so too, the higher vehicles of God temporarily limit themselves, so that they might likewise have access to broader planes of experience. 

The Fool, in order to have his nature and attributes known, limits himself by placing himself within the Magician and the High Priestess in order to gain control over parts of his previously unmanifested existence. 

The Emperor in the domain of rationality and consciousness enables us to focus on and to control our thoughts and our world.  The world of the Empress is far greater, and the powers of the subconscious mind are far more vast than the powers of the conscious mind. 

We are able to shape and move and control ourselves only through using the powers of rationality.  Creativity limits itself temporarily by standing inside of the vehicle of rationality, that creativity might gain access to other areas that otherwise creativity would not have. 

That power of rationality therefore opens up worlds to us.  As we gain knowledge, we gain power.  Knowledge is power, and it is a sacred trust.  The knowledge to heal brings with it the knowledge to maim.  The knowledge of electricity brings with it the knowledge of electrocution. The knowledge of how to shape the atom brings with it the knowledge of nuclear explosions.  This will always be the case.  For knowledge, pure uncontrolled knowledge, is simply a tool.  It is up to the moral capacity of the being wielding the tool to use that tool for good or for evil.  That capacity we will meet in a later card called “Strength”. 

Rationality and the pursuit of knowledge give us access to power.  We see the interplay between the spiritual and the physical domains, and this entire process we call “science.”  Science is the rational pursuit of the Empress.  The Empress in some respects gives birth to the Emperor, so that the Empress might expand her abilities.  The Emperor then spends his time chasing after the Empress seeking to know her.  This is a great truth.  The process is called a three fold manifestation, the three steps of which are: externalization, objectification, internalization.  Going back briefly to the illustration of the automobile, mankind creates the automobile out of his own power in order to serve a purpose.  That automobile then becomes an object, and that object begins to act back upon the actor.  The car requires maintenance.  The car breaks down and does not perform as we sought it to.  So that the process of externalization, objectification, and internalization is an astounding revelation of the nature of the universe.

You can see that the entire creation is a flow of this externalization, objectification and internalization.  The Empress externalizes part of her concealed wisdom into the form of rationality.  Rationality then becomes an objectified entity, and that entity acts back upon the Empress in pursuit of her.  This is science.

Throughout the years, science and religion have become mortal enemies.  It was not always so.  In the beginning of mankind’s age when humanity first started to think, the thinkers were just thinkers, and there was no difference in terms of what they thought about.  The universe was one, and therefore they would be part philosophers, part religious people.  They would be the priests, the medicine people, the scientists, and the mathematicians, all in one.  After the Renaissance and the enlightenment, there was a huge split due to the differences between teachings of the church and scientific research.  The scientists could not renounce what the Emperor was revealing to them, and the Ecclesiastical structure found it very difficult to relinquish their power and authority.

The split occurred and the two great streams of human development have never returned to each other.  Religion has pursued its own ways and thinks of itself properly as the regulator of faith and belief.  Science has seen itself properly as the regulator of the Emperor–rationality, mind and study.  The religious people see the scientists as being apostate and lacking faith.  The scientists see religion as being superstition and foolishness.  The debates and arguments go on endlessly between the two communities.  This is all unfortunate and needless.  We saw in the Empress that the Tarot remains hidden inside of her.  How are we to unwrap that scroll which she hides and be able to read it?  The only way we can do that is through the authority of the Emperor, who will order the scroll read.  It is only through the rational pursuit of science that we can gain understanding about the revelation that Yod Heh Vav Heh has placed into the universe.

To see religion as being nothing more than a bunch of superstitious ideas is sad.  Simply ignoring science as being unnecessary is to sacrifice one of the greatest gifts we have.  To think that science works against religion is a horrible tragedy. God is not afraid of our brains.  God is not afraid of our rationality.  God is not afraid that we will ask a question that he never thought of.  There will never be a scientific fact discovered that will threaten God’s place as the ruler of the universe. 

What we must do is have faith in this and applying that faith to our science.  We must use our rationality to the fullest extent possible, with a heart attuned to the Empress wanting to see the truth which she relates.  In short, we must re-marry science and religion.  The only true and valid way to approach science is as a holy and religious experience of the divine, and the only proper way to approach your religious life is as a scientific examination of truth. 

We must test all spirits to see if they are true.  That is why I warned you at the very beginning to not automatically accept or agree with anything that I’ve said in this writing.  I am one more voice.  I am one more opinion.  It is up to you in your scientific encounter with God to see if what I’m saying is true. 

The methodology of science as applied to religion is a magnificent study.  In science we find a problem, and we generate a hypothesis to answer the problem.  We use our intuition and the research of others.  We read the documentation, perform experiments, and gather data, then we evaluate that information and re-examine our hypothesis.

That methodology is precisely what God would have us do as we pursue science and religion.  God would have us find a problem, whether it’s the problem of evil or the problem of ego, the problem of suffering, or the problem of why we exist.  Create our hypothesis, part guess, part belief, part hope, and do the research of what have others written on the subject?  Is there a consensus in the field?  Who are the experts?  Then, perform our experiments. 

We base our lives upon our hypothesis and we test the Lord God to see what is true.  “Test me and try me in this,” says the Lord.  Then we gather our data, come to our determinations and re-evaluate our hypothesis.  We do this with the sum totality of our being, with our spirits, with our minds, with our hearts and with our bodies.  This is the revealing science of God. 

This is the fulfillment of the ages.  When we can get the Emperor to marry the Empress, we will rediscover huge parts of what we have lost.  We will find that science is not the mortal enemy of religion, but that science is the vehicle that enables religion to breathe.  Through the Emperor’s efforts, he will be able to reach into the sacred scroll and reveal its meaning to all of us. 

If you look behind the Emperor, you will see, subtly, the river.  It is painted in blue, right behind his throne.  That river is continuing from the Empress.  This is indicating to us that there is no separation between nature and law, between religion and science.  There is no separation between the creative and the rational sides of human beings, is no separation between the subconscious and the conscious.  There is no difference between wisdom and knowledge. They are different sides of the same coin.  They work together in harmony.  The Emperor holds the orb, which is the orb of dominion, indicating that through this we can control the universe.  As Genesis says, we are to go out and have dominion over the earth.  That does not mean that we are necessarily supposed to destroy it, but rather to control, to enhance, to fulfill our destinies as co-creators.

In his right hand, the Emperor holds the Ahnk.  This is a two-fold symbol.  It is part cross, which indicates the spiritual domain, and it is part orb of dominion, which represents the physical domain.  By holding the Ahnk, the Emperor is showing us that he controls both the physical world and the spiritual world–that rationality, as applied to nature and to religion, is a unified purpose which will never ever hurt us.

That is the power inside of the Emperor.  Through him, we gain access to the Empress.  Through him, the Empress begins to understand herself.