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 In
the tarot, the Emperor card is typically associated
with rulership, power, control, authority, and the
imposition of law and structure. It tends to be
viewed in a skeptical or negative light by many
modern Pagans, being a symbol of patriarchy and its
rigidity.
As an
archetype, the Emperor is a father figure.
Real-life fathers, of course, come in all the great
variety that humanity exhibits. The father
archetype, however, speaks to our earliest
interactions with adult authority and the
boundaries imposed on our imaginations and
impulses.
I see the
tarot Emperor as a symbol of the connection between
Younger Self and Thinking Self. By "Younger Self",
I mean our pure, in-the-moment, imaginative
faculty, the mode of consciousness we experience
when at play or daydreaming. "Thinking Self", in
contrast, is our verbal, analytical faculty, the
mode of consciousness we experience when solving
problems or organizing our experience. Both modes
of being are essential ingredients of a full life,
and working with the Emperor card can help us
explore and heal the relationship between the
two.
For many of
us, that relationship is one of censorship, with
Thinking Self restricting what Younger Self is
allowed to experience and imagine. This is, in
part, an internalization of being "corrected" by
adult authorities in the early years of life. The
Emperor is a particular type of authority - an
authority who operates through rules and their
strict, impartial application. For the Emperor,
life is something like doing long division: follow
the rules, one step at a time, and if you make no
mistakes, you get the unique correct answer. There
is little concern for people's feelings in the
Emperor's world; it's all about logic,
impartiality, and structure.
For Pagans
(and indeed most everyone who practices any kind of
alternative spirituality), the limitations of
rule-based thinking are obvious. So obvious, in
fact, that we may be inclined to a rebellious
rejection of the use of rules in any context. But,
of course, rule-based thinking has great merit for
many situations - not just long division! The
problem is that the internal censorship is so
deeply ingrained that it can turn on automatically,
whether or not it's really what we need at the
moment.
By using the
Emperor card of the tarot as a focus for meditation
or contemplation, you can make your internal censor
into an external, tangible image, and change your
perspective on him. If you identify strongly with
Younger Self, you are like to "encounter" the
Emperor in other people, and find yourself often
running up against authority figures and others
seeking to limit your self-expression or channel
your behavior. If you identify strongly with
Thinking Self, you may act the part of the Emperor
yourself, laying down rules and imposing your
expectations on others. Working with the card image
can be a way of "trying on" the way of experiencing
the Emperor that is less familiar to you, and of
making adjustments to the relationship between
Younger Self and Thinking Self in your own
life.
That
relationship does not have to be one of censorship
and control (or its shadow, which is unfocused
rebellion). The World's greatest thinkers are not
those who constantly self-censor, any more than
they are those who disregard logic and structure.
Great thinkers see imagination and logic as
partners in a dance; imagination provides the
inspiration, the new ideas, the sense of wonder and
engagement. Logic reveals the interconnections and
implications of things, which can then stir the
imagination again. Both Thinking Self and Younger
Self are then liberated to do what each does
best.
The Emperor
need not be a tyrannical patriarch; he can be a
patron of the arts, a fair and light-handed creator
of order and structure, whose laws are not
absolutes, but rather tools that allow our
creativity to become more focused and
effective.
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