The Empress
The Empress is an Old Energy Archetype from the Masonic Tarot Deck. In the Book of Slavery, the archetype is typically used to enforce gender stereotypes. In the Book of Power, it is used to instruct on the power Formation, archetypes, and ideas.
Old Energy Archetyes
Chariot, Death (archetype), Duality, Hermit, Hierophant, High Priestess, Judgement, Justice, Star, Strength, Sun (archetype), Temperance, The Devil, The Emperor, The Empress, The Fool, The Hanged Man, The Lovers, The Magician, The Moon, The Tower, The Wheel of Fortune, The World (old energy)
Related Terms
Old Energy Archetypes > Book of Slavery
Notes
Oswald Wirth associates the Masonic Empress card with form, ideas, and archetypes, i.e. "...ideal forms or pure ideas according to which everything is created." As he notes, "This sovereign, dazzling with light represents 'Creative Intelligence', the mother of form, pictures, and ideas." [1]. Note the inappropriate and sexist association of form/formation with the female gender.
Wirth, and others[2] [3] also associate the card with a stereotypical representation of female gender: Grace, charm, rule through gentleness, vanity, frivolity, seduction, fertility, the family, etc.
"Where Isis is the Cosmic Mother, associated with the moon and with divine secrets, this is De meter, the Earth Mother, symbolizing the nourishing fruitfulness and thousand delights of earth. She is all-loving, radiant, universal female ness. In the Aquarian deck she becomes the Feeler, who stands with anus stretched out to embrace, her golden hair encircling naked breasts. She is called “prime mover,” and it is indeed emotions that stimulate us to movement and activity. The Sign of Cancer, a watery, emotional, maternal sign, is over her head linking her back again to the moon goddess, sea mother."[4]
In Tarot of the Magicians, Wirth emphasizes the initiaton that occurs after a candidate has assimiliated "the pure idea."[5] IOW, fall in line if you want to go any further.
Footnotes
- ↑ Wirth, Oswald. Tarot of the Magicians: The Occult Symbols of the Major Arcana That Inspired Modern Tarot. San Francisco. CA: Weiser Books, 1990. p. 71-2
- ↑ Ouspensky, P. D. The Symbolism of the Tarot: Philosophy of Occultism in Pictures and Numbers. Mineola. St. Petersburg, Russia: Trood Print and Pub., 1913.
- ↑ Wen, Benebell. Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2015.
- ↑ Metzner, Ralph. Maps of Consciousness: I Ching, Tantra, Tarot, Alchemy, Astrology, Actualism. New York: Collier Books, 1971.
- ↑ Oswald Wirth, Tarot of the Magicians: The Occult Symbols of the Major Arcana That Inspired Modern Tarot (San Francisco. CA: Weiser Books, 1990). p. 170
