Tarot Of The Day June 24 2018 - Day 6: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Emperor
I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the sixth session follows.
The Emperor card as seen in the Rider-Waite deck shows a bearded man with white hair, seated at the center of the card on a large stone throne, wearing armor, with red robes covering most of the armor, holding a scepter in his right hand, and an orb in his left, wearing a crown. Behind the throne, mountains can be seen, and at the foot of the mountains a river runs. This is the same water as seen in the previous cards starting with the High Priestess. The throne is decorated with ram’s heads, as does the red robe around his shoulders.
The Rider-Waite booklet offers the following keywords for the Emperor: stability, power, aid, protection, a great person, conviction, reason (upright,) benevolence, compassion, credit, confusion to enemies, obstruction, and immaturity (reversed.)
In the Raven’s Prophecy deck, the Emperor card is depicted as a sword in a stone, with a crown transfigured by the sword. It immediately evokes the story of the king who got his throne by being the one worthy enough to draw the sword from the stone.
Maggie Stiefvater writes about the Emperor: “This is a very kingly card. All of the starry-eyed stereotypes that we apply to say, King Arthur, are present in the Emperor. He’s fair, just , stern, structured. He lives by the book...because he wrote the book. Just as the Empress has used her fruitful nature to create a world of living things, the Emperor has created a world for himself, too, and it’s a world of rules and regulations, a world where everything goes right because there are dire consequences for when things go wrong….The Emperor’s kingdom is a safe and efficient one if you’re willing to play by his rules, and most people are, because the rules are always there for a reason. Although the Emperor is not afraid to punish wrongdoers, he doesn’t believe in being arbitrarily punitive. “
Maggie’s keywords for the Emperor are kingship, structure, authority, and traditional.
I like to describe the Emperor card for my classes as a character not unlike, ‘Judge Dredd’ from the comics and movies. “I AM the law.” he states, leaning heavily on being right because the law says he is, whereas the Hierophant, our next card, is right because his moral code says he is.The Emperor is not without flaws, but he is strong and considers the law before making a decision - even if the law doesn't agree with his personal moral set.
Tomorrow - The Hierophant
***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***
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