Meaning
Smith's Emperor is a crowned and bearded ruler in red robes over armour, seated on a square stone throne whose arms and back are carved with rams' heads. He holds an ankh for a sceptre and a globe in his other hand, and bare mountains rise behind him. Waite calls him executive power and realisation, the power of this world, and adds that he rules thought as much as territory.
The Golden Dawn gave the card Heh, a simple letter glossed as window, and the sign Aries, which the rams on the throne show, and titled it Sun of the Morning, chief among the Mighty. On the order's tree the Emperor is path 15. Crowley later moved the Emperor to the letter Tzaddi in his Thoth deck but left him the sign of Aries; we keep the Golden Dawn's letter and note Crowley's as a variant.
We read the card as structure and command: the will to set things in order and hold them there, and the responsibility that comes with the seat.
In the birth cards
The Emperor is the root of Greer's fourth constellation, with Death, 13, and the Fool, counted as 22. He is the Soul card of everyone whose total is 13 or 22, on 11.1 percent of the days from 1900 to 2030, and both cards for a total of exactly 4, on 2.3 percent; those single 4s leave Death and the Fool both unreached. In Greer's first edition the Emperor was the Personality card for a total of 22, a rule she reversed in 2002.
He is also one of the eight trumps that can come from the natal chart: the Sun-sign card for a Sun in Aries, and the Moon or Rising card for a Moon or rising degree there. A chart can therefore give the Emperor twice, once by the date's sum and once by the sky.
As a year card the Emperor comes five times in the 201 years from 1900 to 2100 for a 15 June birthday.
History and names
The Emperor is L'Empereur in the Marseille decks, numbered IIII in their manner, and Court de Gébelin's plate of 1781 shows him seated in profile with an eagle on his shield. Aries comes to him with the letter Heh, first of the twelve simple letters, which the Sefer Yetzirah gives to the signs in order and the Golden Dawn kept; Smith's rams' heads put that into the picture.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Golden Dawn title (Book T)
- “Sun of the Morning, chief among the Mighty” sourced
- Waite's fortune-telling list (1911), upright
- “Stability, power, protection, realization; a great person; aid, reason, conviction; also authority and will”, quoted as history; Waite called such meanings artificial and arbitrary sourced
- Greer's name for the constellation
- Life Force and the Realization of Power (1987, 2021) sourced
- Our line for the birth-card chain
- 4: Building what will last; 13-4: Building on what ends; 22-4: Steady rule, leaping heart our construction
- Letter in the Thoth deck
- Tzaddi (path 28), exchanged with the Star; the sign does not move disputed
- Sun-sign card
- For the Sun in Aries; also the Moon card and the Rising card for Aries sourced
How the schools read it
- Game decks (15th to 18th century)
- L'Empereur, numbered IIII in the Marseille decks, seated in profile with a shield bearing an eagle.
- Golden Dawn, Book T
- Heh, the window, a simple letter, and the sign Aries; path 15. Book T titles it Sun of the Morning, chief among the Mighty.
- Waite and Smith (1909 to 1911)
- Executive power and realisation, the lordship of thought as well as of land; the rams' heads are his sign.
- Mary K. Greer (1984 to 2021)
- The root of the constellation of 4, with Death and the Fool: the Soul card of every total of 13 or 22, and both cards for a single 4.
- Crowley, Thoth deck (1944)
- Gives the Emperor the letter Tzaddi and the Star the letter Heh, after a line of his own Book of the Law; Aries stays with the Emperor.
- EsoTerrier
- Read here as structure and command: the will to set things in order and hold them there, and the responsibility that comes with the seat.
Claims about it
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The Golden Dawn gave the Emperor the letter Tzaddi.
disputedWhat the record shows: That is Crowley's change of 1944. The Golden Dawn's table has the Emperor on Heh, path 15.
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In the Thoth deck the Emperor is no longer the card of Aries.
falseWhat the record shows: Crowley moved the letters of the Emperor and the Star but kept their signs, so the Sun-sign card for Aries is the Emperor in both systems.
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For a total of 22 the Emperor is the Personality card.
disputedWhat the record shows: So in Greer's first edition of 1984. Since 2002 she gives the Fool as Personality and the Emperor as Soul card, and we follow that.
