Haindl Tarot
IV - THE EMPEROR
HEBREW LETTER: HEH, "WINDOW"
RUNE: ANSUZ, STAG
ASTROLOGY: ARIES
ELEMENT: FIRE
The Tarot contains many myths and stories. The Haindl Tarot tells one particular story, that of a dynamic culture based on warrior Gods, who turned away from the ancient reverence for the Earth. It would be simplistic to describe these Gods, or the European culture that came from them, as villainous, for so much has come from this energetic power. At the same time, the Emperor's rejection of the Empress has caused deep splits in our world, especially in our relation to nature.
The Emperor bears the number four, traditionally seen as masculine. The Hebrew letter, Heh, means "Window." The Rune, Ansuz, or A, symbolizes the stag, the powerful horned beast who has always symbolized masculine power. At one time, Ansuz the Horned King, was the consort of the Mother Goddess. Here, however, another meaning takes over, for Ansuz is the first letter of "Aesir," the name of the young gods of Scandinavian mythology. Led by Odin, the Aesir conquered the older Vanir who worshipped the Earth as Mother.
The Rune is also called Ansur, which means "Mouth:" This implies speech and the invention of language. The Rune is sometimes drawn as a diamond, an image we find in the crystal, A dia mond, with its four equal sides, symbolizes the rule of law. It also signifies stable structures. These qualities - language, law, and stability - belong to the positive side of the Emperor as ruler of society.
The astrological sign for the Emperor is Aries, the ram, the first sign of the zodiac. It is the sign of spring and, therefore, vitality, new energy, and sexual potency. Spring also suggests attrac tiveness, optimism, and courage. All these qualities belong to the appealing side of the Aesir. However, the ram also symbolizes aggression, lack of subtlety, intolerance and dominance through force. The red border of the card indicates the Emperor's element, Fire. Fire, too, represents vitality, energy, but also aggression.
Looking at the picture we notice first of all how simple and naturalistic it appears in contrast with the abstract, highly symbolic image that came before it. The Emperor contains symbols, such as the crystal above his head, but overall, we see the plain scene of a man standing in the forest. In the forest we see light and green leaves, a suggestion of springtime. But the large tree appears dark and very old, with a different kind of power than the young forest or the young man. Because he stands under the tree, the Emperor remains in the shadows, even though we see him stepping away from it.
The tree is Yggdrasil, the world tree of Scandinavian myth, with its roots deep in the mysterious origins of life and its branches reaching up to the stars and beyond. Odin hung from this tree in order to receive the Runes (see the Hanged Man), but Yggdrasil is far older than the chief of the Aesir. It belongs to the Great Mother, the first principle of life. And yet, as we saw with , the tree also symbolizes the male, for the hard trunk is like the phallus and the branches resemble the horns of the stag. Yggdrasil links Earth and sky, darkness and light. In the picture, Hermann Haindl has created a unity of the tree and the man, for the gnarled trunk and roots mirror the contours of the man's legs and feet. At the same time, if we look on the left of the tree, we see that the roots become like the legs of an animal. This suggests an animal force in the Emperor.
Everything about the Emperor suggests youth and vitality. He stands powerfully, full of energy and health, ready to stride forward. He wears four jewels, red for fiery energy. In contrast with the Empress's hexagonal crystal of sacred colors (symbolizing all levels of existence), his four-sided crystal contains the colors of humanity: red, black, yellow, and white. The rod of power contains no crossbar like the Empress's. Phallic, it suggests masculine energy, direct and forceful. His gold ball symbolizes the material world.
In many Tarot decks the Emperor card shows a traditional ruler. He represents society, laws, and fixed structures. In their positive sense, these ideas are suggested in the Rune. However, human laws can take people away from nature. Originally, Hermann Haindl painted a picture of a shriveled old man sitting on a narrow throne and clutching the emblems of his power. He named him Amfortas, the injured ruler of the Wasteland in the Grail stories. For Haindl, Amfortas symbolized the repressions of a society ruled by masculine authority, rather than by the natural laws of nature. When Haindl looked again at the Empress he realized that she needed a more dynamic partner. And so, the picture changed, from the old king to the young god. However ...
The Emperor holds his rod in his right hand. He has received it from the left hand of the Empress. The left side gives subtlety and sensitivity; the right, logic and power. The angle at which he holds the rod, rising from lower right to upper left, introduces a motif we will see in the later cards, especially the Hanged Man, the card in which Odin reverses himself to rejoin with the Mother. Psychological tests have shown that when people view a picture with a diagonal from lower left to upper right (like the rod of the Empress in the previous trump), they experience a subtle sense of calm and wellbeing. But when the diagonal moves the other way, like the Emperor's rod, people experience agitation. The rod of the Empress roots itself in the left, the side of wholeness. The Emperor's rod roots itself in the right side of force and singlemindedness. And yet, looking at the pictures we see the Empress's rod on the right, the side and the Emperor's in the left side. In this way, the qualities merge together. Like the Emperor himself, the Haindl Tarot is powerful but never simplistic.
Inseparable from the card's vitality we find undertones of aggression and arrogance. The Emperor strides away from the tree, denying his origins in nature and the female. His feet over step the border of the card. In this gesture we see that combination of dynamism and force. When we look at our culture's image of heroes - in movies and on television, in politics and war - we often see the same mixture of simplicity, single mindedness, vitality, sexual potency, attractiveness, arrogance, self-assurance, and aggression.
In our discussion of the Empress we quoted Hermann Haindl's statement that she "creates" the Emperor. The female principle comes before the male. The Emperor - the young patri arch of religion and society - denies this, claiming that creativity belongs to him alone. A great many people today believe that this denial has brought about a crisis of destruction in our world. Therefore, in order to understand the Emperor, but also the history of our culture, we need to look more closely at Haindl's idea of the Empress creating the Emperor.
For millions of years life on Earth was single sex, reproducing by cell division, so that a mother divided into two daughters. The creation of sex difference - the entrance of the male princi ple - made greater variety possible through the combination of genes from mother and father. Yet the male derived originally from the female. In the early stages of growth all humans are female; a male fetus develops when the Y chromosome triggers changes after the first weeks of pregnancy.
This information comes from scientific research. Early human societies may not have known about one-celled organisms or fetal development, but they did recognize that all babies - human and animal - grew in their mothers, and that our first food comes from the mother's breast. For many thousands of years, therefore, religion centered on the power of the female to create life. The very earliest statues all represent mother figures, usually with large hips and powerful breasts. The earliest (and littleknown cave paintings) show female figures dancing in groups. In its image of the Empress, the Haindl Tarot restores the picture of woman as wholly creative, culturally (with the complex door a symbol of art and science) as well as physically.
Patriarchal society denies the reality of this ancient femalecentered religion. We learn in our schools that the statues represent "fertility cults," implying that they concern only a narrow aspect of life. (In 1977, National Geographic magazine described a statue of the Great Goddess in Malta as the "headless `fat lady."') When we read of cave paintings, we rarely learn of those dancing females. The ones commonly studied have male figures, often as hunters. Most significant, perhaps, we still tend to think of giving birth as somehow not "creative," but rather as cow-like. Creativity means poetry, painting, music, science - and these things, we learn from our histories, belong to men.
But the histories begin too late. The evidence of archaeology suggests that women invented agriculture, women invented the first calendars (based on lunar and menstrual cycles), and women created the first art. Yet any popular book or television show about early "man" will always show men as the inventors of everything important. They will describe human culture as beginning with male hunters, as if the female food gatherers contributed nothing significant. And they will describe those hunters as praying to their "gods" when they more likely prayed to their Mother, the Earth.
When the Aesir conquered Scandinavia they, too, claimed ultimate creative power for their father god Odin. Odin indeed embodies wisdom and mystery, especially with his discovery of the Runes. Yet even the Runes derive ultimately from the Mother. Our figure of the Emperor would deny this. He steps over the boundaries of the picture as if he would step out of history, as if the world began with him. He does not look back at the great Tree of Life.
Traditionally, the number four and the square symbolize law, the physical universe, and masculine authority. Esoteric symbolism presents the square as the "opposite" of the circle, the image of the spirit. The Emperor holds a sphere, but unlike the cosmic potential of the bubbles on trumps 2 and 3, his solid gold ball sinifies only his domination of the world. The ball also can represent the Rheingold of German myth, made famous in Wagner's Ring operas. The Rheingold represents great power, but also greed and the desire for total control.
Patriarchal culture sets up written laws and rules and, as a result, people become detached from a way of life that follows the rhythms of nature. When patriarchal invaders overthrew cultures that worshipped the Great Mother, as happened in the Middle East, the Celtic lands of Europe and the American continents, they set up strict codes of law, describing the sexual worship of the Goddess (including love between women and love between men) as "crimes against nature." But the true crimes against nature are such things as pollution, mass extinction of animals and plants, and genocide such as that against the many tribes living in the Amazon rain forest.
How can we return to the image of the Emperor as vital, alive, connected to the young forest but also to the ancient Tree? One way is to abandon the arrogant image of the all-powerful God the Father, and remember the other image of the male as the lover and son of the Goddess. Remember that the Rune can mean "stag king," the Horned God as modern witches call him, whose potent sexuality joins with the Mother to create life. For many people the forest in spring came from this union of the stag king and the Earth. Such a change in the idea of masculinity does not deny the importance of fatherhood or the love real fathers show for their children; to the contrary it brings fathers more into harmony with the physical world.
We saw how the Empress represents both Psyche and Aphrodite. As Eros, the Emperor signifies the Goddess's son as well as her lover. Eros, or Cupid, as the Romans called him, usu ally appears as a youth. At the same time he signifies the power of sexual love (the word "erotic" derives from Eros). This love surges most powerfully in the spring. And so we find ourselves with the young god - not the conqueror supplanting the Mother, but the irresistible image of desire, the joy of new life.
DIVINATORY MEANINGS
In most Tarots the Emperor will indicate the influence of society and of law and social structures. While these meanings remain, they actually derive from the old man sitting on his throne. By changing the image to the young god in the forest, the Haindl Tarot gives the card a fresh meaning of vitality and energy. It can indicate a time of beginnings in a person's life, a resurgence of energy. These meanings will be especially valuable if the card comes after a time of illness or depression.
Just as the Empress may indicate an actual mother, so the Emperor can signify a father or the issue of fatherhood in a person's life.
For women as well as men, the card may indicate sexual potency (governed by testosterone in women as well as men), being driven by desire, and at the same time being irresistible to others. These meanings apply if the card represents the self, but may also represent someone else with these qualities. Some women will tend to look at this very masculine image as automatically signifying a lover - either a real person or a fantasy of someone attractive, physical, creative, and dominant, with an overpowering animal energy. Though this image (or fantasy) may be important, women who get the Emperor should consider the possibility that the card refers to themselves, just as men should do with the Empress. One valuable aspect of Tarot readings is the opportunity they give us to see ourselves in different ways.
When the Emperor describes someone else, especially a lover, the person will appear irresistible. He (or she) may also be dangerous, for the Emperor follows his own desires without sensitivity to others. Part of his appeal rests in his tremendous confidence. He knows his power and charm and does not hesitate to use them. As a picture of yourself, the Emperor also carries certain dangers: arrogance, insensitivity, a habit of manipulating others through charm and magnetism. More subtly, the Emperor may signify a delusion. He may believe that everything depends on him. Just as the patriarchal conquerors tried to wipe out history, the Emperor occurring in a reading can indicate a desire to wipe out personal history. This may mean ignoring people who have helped you; it may also mean trying to ignore the experiences that have made you who you are. The card of Justice may appear, calling you to examine your life.
At its best the Emperor represents energy and desire, attractiveness and brilliance.
REVERSED
On the most basic level any reversed card indicates a blocked possibility. When the Emperor is reversed, the person has the opportunity to experience that vitality or sexual energy, but somehow it is not happening. The other cards will show the problem.
The reversed Emperor can indicate problems with a father or someone who may be a father in some kind of difficulty. Alternatively, the reversed Emperor will signify the development of sensitivity. The person may listen more to others than him- or herself. It may also indicate complexity, an awareness of the underlying causes of things.
To find the best interpretation you will have to look at the other cards in the reading and, ultimately, follow your intuition.
