The Tarot of Eli, LLC: The Thoth Tarot- Key/ATU 3-The Empress & The Arcane Tarot-Key 3 the Empress

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Two Currents of Sophia: The Empress as the Door of Gnosis

When examining the Empress—whether in the Thoth Tarot or in any traditional deck—we are not simply dealing with a symbol of fertility or maternal comfort. We are confronting the Universal Womb itself: the matrix through which the Invisible becomes Visible. She is Daleth, the Door, the cosmic threshold through which unity parts itself and becomes diversity.

In previous writings I have emphasized that Daleth bridges the 2nd Sephirah, Chokmah, and the 3rd Sephirah, Binah. This path is not merely an energetic line—it is the alchemical membrane where undifferentiated force becomes structured potential. And it is precisely here that the great mystery of double wisdom emerges.

Chokmah: The First Sophia—Wisdom as Lightning

Chokmah (Wisdom) is grammatically feminine in Hebrew, yet its mode of expression on the Tree is intensely active, outpouring, and projective. Chokmah is the primal Logos, the flash of will that emanates rather than forms. This is the "will-to-force"—electric, surging, spiraling outward like the very first breath of creation.

In Hermetic terms, this is the Virgin Sophia, the untouched fountainhead of Gnosis.
Her wisdom is dynamic, unstructured, and radiant—an ecstatic current of possibility.

Crowley describes Chokmah as the “root of fire,” yet this fire has no object; it simply is. It is the first cry of existence, the pure intention of the universe to know itself.

This is why the Chokmah wisdom is the mode of revelation, epiphany, and primordial inspiration. It is the “yes” before there is a speaker, the impulse of creation before any form exists to receive it.

Binah: The Second Sophia—Wisdom as Understanding

Binah, the 3rd Sephirah, is Understanding—but not understanding in the mundane sense. She is the Mother of Form, the Grail that receives the lightning of Chokmah and gives it womb-space in which to develop.

She is the “will-to-form,” the dark ocean that shapes the fire into pattern.
Thus, she is the Mature Sophia, the Architect of the Cosmos.

Binah’s wisdom is incubative, gestational, matricial.
 

It is the knowing that gives boundaries, cycles, rhythms, gestation, gravity, and containment.
If Chokmah is the spark, Binah is the constellation.

In occult terms, she is the Shimmering Abyss, the matrix of sacred geometry where sound becomes structure, and the Infinite becomes the Archetype.

Thus, these two Sephiroth—both bearing aspects of Holy Wisdom—express different dimensions of Sophia:

• Chokmah: Wisdom as the pure flash of knowing.

• Binah: Wisdom as the capacity to shape, hold, and bring that flash into manifestation.

So where does the Empress—Daleth—fit into this?

Daleth is the crucial passage where the two modes of Sophia meet, intertwine, and merge into a creative synthesis. On the Thoth card, she is pregnant with the entire universe—not symbolically, but metaphysically. She is the point at which Force enters Form, where the seed meets the womb, where the archetype enters its gestation.

Daleth is not static. She is transitional, liminal, suspended between two cosmic modes:

• From Chokmah she receives the impetus, the pure idea, the archetypal fire.

• From Binah she inherits containment, structure, pattern, and the dark womb of becoming.

Through her, the One becomes the Many.
Through her, Heaven becomes Earth.
Through her, the cosmic “I Will Be” becomes the living “I AM.”

This is why the Empress, more than any other card in the Major Arcana, represents the process of manifestation itself. She is the hinge of the universe—the “Door”—through which Spirit takes shape and form. She is Nature, not as a passive environment, but as a metaphysical engine of creation.

She is the primal Mother and the Daughter.
She is the archetypal Womb and the matrix of form.
She is the Grail in which God drinks of His own becoming.

Thus, when we speak of “two forms of wisdom,” we are acknowledging a secret taught through every Hermetic school:

Wisdom does not descend once—it descends twice. First as fire. Then as form.
The Empress is the Door where fire becomes form, and where form remembers its fire.

Forward Insight: The Empress as the Future Matrix

In the evolving Western Mysteries, the Empress is increasingly understood not only as the origin of life, but as the architect of consciousness. In the age of the Aeon of the Child (Ra-Hoor-Khuit), Daleth is not merely birthing forms—she is birthing new modes of awareness.

Her Door no longer opens only downward into matter; it opens inward, into psychological self-creation, and upward, into transcendent self-becoming.

She is not simply the womb of nature; she is the womb of psychic evolution.

I have always called the Empress, "The Womb with a View" as she transforms thoughts by association into all ideas that are willed into form. She represents both the Universal Mother and Earth Mother, and every culture, ancient and new, has some form or name for her; hence she is often called the Divine She of 10,000 names.

Sheela Na Gig and the Empress: The Door of Heaven in Its Primal Form

When we speak of the Empress as Daleth—the Door, we are touching a mystery that predates Qabalah, predates Tarot, and predates any formal mystical system. She is older than symbol, older than myth. She is the Universal Womb that pours itself into culture after culture, under many names and faces: Isis, Astarte, Inanna, Danu, Sophia, Hera, Freyja.

We moderns, through the insights of Carl Jung, understand Her as the Universal Collective Unconscious—the deep ancestral field of symbols, instincts, and archetypes that shape the human psyche. To the ancients, this same field was experienced as the Mother of Gods, the Queen of Heaven, the one from whom all deities are born and to whom all return.

And in Ireland—raw, wild, liminal Ireland—this Door took a startling, primal, unmistakably magical form: Sheela Na Gig.

Sheela Na Gig is the embodied Gate.
Her exposed vulva, exaggerated and unapologetic, is not vulgar—it is the primordial Portal through which all life springs. She is Daleth without a veil, the Door in its most literal, unrefined, unfiltered archetypal power.

In the Thoth Tarot, the Empress is robed in celestial symbols, crowned with stars, and bathed in the lush harmonic order of the Great Mother. Sheela Na Gig is the same energy before it enters symbolic refinement—She is Empress before culture, before beautification, before dogma. She is the Empress as the raw force of incarnation.

Where the Thoth Empress opens the Door to Heaven,
Sheela Na Gig opens the Door from Heaven into Earth.

She is the generative crack in the fabric of reality itself.

The Lunar Gate: Light and Dark, Life and Death

The ancients consistently linked this Great Mother with the Moon—because the Moon is dual in nature: waxing and waning, bright and dark, life-bringing and death-bearing. The same Moon that measures menstrual cycles also governs tides, decay, and the silent pulling of souls into mystery.

Sheela Na Gig embodies this lunar paradox.

• She brings forth life through the gateway of flesh.

• She also represents vulnerability, mortality, and the inevitable return to the womb of the earth.

• She is the threshold between incarnate and disincarnate states.

This duality is identical to Binah on the Tree of Life, who is both the Mother of Form and the Sea of Silence that receives all forms back into Herself.

The Mother Who Gives Birth to the Sun

Across world mythologies, the Great Mother births an intermediary deity—always a solar or luminous god:
Christ, Osiris, Mithras, Apollo, Lugh, Odin (in his solar aspects).

These figures are the Children of the Door.

They are the Light that emerges from her Darkness.
They are the Word born from her Silence.
They are the Mind made flesh through her generative matrix.

In Hermetic Qabalah, this is the exact relationship between Binah (the Mother) and Tiphareth (the Son/Solar Self). Sheela Na Gig, though medieval and Celtic, is functioning within this same metaphysical pattern: she is the womb that emits the Sun God, the one through whom the divine enters the world.

She is, quite literally, the Door through which Heaven becomes Earth.

Fertility, Protection, and the Apotropaic Gate

The medieval carvings of Sheela Na Gig on church walls were not accidents of culture—they were traces of an older priestess religion that persisted through stone when no longer permitted through doctrine.

Her exaggerated vulva did not merely symbolize fertility; it was a magical sigil of protection. In many ancient cultures, the exposed vulva was believed to ward off demons, plagues, and evil influences. This is the apotropaic power of the Door: anything that enters must be purified by passage.

Even the grotesque, shocking aspect of Sheela Na Gig is intentional.
 

Daleth is not always soft and maternal; she is also boundary, warning, threshold, and keeper of liminality. She is the terror that guards sacred birth.

Like the Sphinx, she asks a silent riddle:
“Can you pass through the Gate of Becoming?”

Sheela Na Gig and the Pre-Christian Goddess Lineage

Though the carvings appear medieval, their archetype is far older—Celtic, pre-Celtic, and likely Neolithic. Sheela Na Gig echoes the ancient sovereignty goddesses of Ireland: the land-women, the river mothers, the wild women who grant kingship only through sexual union. The message is clear:

All sovereignty flows from the womb of the Goddess.
Whoever would rule must pass through Her.

This parallels the Hermetic wisdom of the Empress:
the Door through which all form is authorized.

Sheela Na Gig in the Modern Mysteries

Today, Sheela Na Gig has returned with force through feminism, neo-paganism, and esoteric circles—not as a grotesque medieval curiosity, but as a symbol of:

• Reclaimed power over the body

• Rejection of shame

• Sacred sexuality

• The Goddess as both creator and destroyer

• The raw truth of incarnation

• The unfiltered reality of the Divine Feminine

Her resurgence is part of the same evolutionary current that reawakens the Empress in the Western Mysteries—not as a passive mother, but as the active Matrix of Manifestation.

Hermetic Synthesis: Sheela Na Gig as the Primal Daleth

In the grand Hermetic framework, Sheela Na Gig is the Empress in her most ancient, unconditioned form—the living threshold whose power is too raw to be hidden behind symbolism. She is the honest, unashamed, generative force that our ancestors carved into stone so that the Door would never be forgotten.

If Daleth is the Gate of Heaven,
Sheela Na Gig is the Gate of Earth.
And together, they complete the pathway through which Spirit becomes Flesh.

To modern parapsychologist, she is the symbol of the outer and inner woman. The vulva gateway into the deep dark depths of the collective unconscious which upon entering the outward self-dies, while the outward birth of the feminine wisdom we call "life" exits the vulvic gate.

The Empress in the Supernals: The Mother of Light and the Door of the Invisible

At the level of the Supernal Triangle—the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Sephiroth—language begins to fail by necessity. These higher spheres belong not to the rational mind but to the Superconscious, where distinctions blur into archetypal unity. Here, every word is metaphor and every symbol is a veil over a mystery too bright to behold directly.

This is why the Major Arcana cards corresponding to the Supernals—The Fool (Aleph), The Magus (Beth), The High Priestess (Gimel), and The Empress (Daleth)—are never fully understood through text alone. They function better as mandalas, sacred images that bypass the analytic mind and speak directly to the deep psyche.

The Thoth Tarot excels at this because its imagery operates on multiple bandwidths simultaneously:

• sacred geometry

• alchemical glyphs

• astrological currents

• Qabalistic pathwork

• color frequencies precisely calibrated to the Golden Dawn color scales

These elements stimulate subjective thought, the doorway through which the Superconscious communicates.

The Mother of Light

The Empress is called the Mother of Light because she is the one who mediates and translates the invisible into the visible. The process begins in Chokmah, where the Dark Fiery Energy—the primordial Will-to-Force—erupts into existence like the first flash of a star being born. But that fire has no form yet; it is light without shape, intention without structure.

The High Priestess (Gimel) becomes the Womb of the Supernal Sea, the gestational matrix that receives this fiery lightning and holds it in infinite stillness. She gestates the Egg of Akasha, the primordial substance of the Universe.

But Akasha is not yet manifest. It is potential, unshaped, unborn.
The Priestess guards the mystery, but She does not yet deliver it into form.

That role belongs to the Empress.

The Empress as the Superconscious Vulva: The Door of Light

As the All-Mother, the Empress stands at the threshold where the infinite becomes finite, where invisible energy becomes visible life. She is Daleth—the Door—through which the Superconscious passes into the world of archetypal form.

The fiery Will of Chokmah
→ enters the silent Womb of the Priestess
→ and emerges through the Empress as Light you can see, form you can touch, beauty you can behold.

She is the birthing canal of the Supernal energies.

Hence, she is the “Mother of Light,” not because she is merely maternal, but because she births the very possibility of illumination. Without Daleth, no perception, no universe, no embodied awareness could arise.

The Dual Faces: Light and Dark, Empress and Priestess

In many traditional and medieval decks, the Empress is depicted with two faces—one luminous and one shadowed. This iconography is not an artistic accident. It encodes a profound metaphysical truth:

• The light face represents her as visible manifestation, the radiant fertility of creation, beauty, abundance, sensory life.

• The dark face represents her hidden aspect as Priestess, the lunar womb, the abyssal silence, the inner dark that precedes all light.

These are not two goddesses.
They are one being seen through two lenses.

Light cannot exist without darkness to contrast it.
Form cannot emerge without void.
Birth cannot happen without the hidden gestation that precedes it.

Thus, the Empress carries the Priestess within her like a second, inner face—the unseen force behind the seen.

The Empress as the Mediatrix of the Supernals

In the Thoth system, the Empress does not simply connect Chokmah and Binah—she interweaves them. She merges:

• the fiery wisdom of Chokmah

• the crystalline understanding of Binah

• through the Priestess’s infinite Sea

to create the fabric of consciousness itself.

She is the Door where:

• Father Force enters

• Mother Form receives

• Daughter Light emerges

This triadic flow is the beating heart of the Supernals.

It is also the reason why meditating on the Empress card can trigger profound shifts in perception, creativity, and psychic rebirth. She is the bridge between pure spirit and embodied consciousness.

Forward Insight: The Door Reopens in the Modern Psyche

In the contemporary age, as humanity returns to a more intuitive, symbolic, and mystical understanding of reality, the Empress emerges again—not merely as a mother figure, but as the architect of psychic evolution. She is the threshold of a new mode of awareness, where the Superconscious informs daily life, creativity flows unhindered, and intuition becomes a primary organ of knowing.

She is the Door we must pass through to reclaim our connection to the Supernal Light.

The Empress is often called the "Mother of Light" since the Dark Fiery Energy of Chokmah, enters the Womb that is the High Priestess, who gestates the egg of Akasha, while The All Mother as the Empress passes through Her Priestess aspect as a supernal force of birth: and/or birth-door (Superconscious-Vulva), the form of light that we can see. Hence, she is often seen drawn on traditional tarot with a light face (Empress) and dark face (Priestess).

The Empress as the Two-Faced Door: Light, Darkness, and the Spiral Path of the Supernals

One of the most subtle—but profound—truths in the Thoth Tarot is the way Light is portrayed. The deck leans into visible light, the radiant spectrum we associate with life, color, beauty, and perception. Yet at the Supernal level—particularly in the 3rd Sephirah, Binah—light is not what we think it is.

Binah is shown as black:
“a light emitted by an anomalous sun, nocturnal and dark.”

This is not the absence of light. It is Supernal Darkness, the darkness from which all light is born. Binah is the womb of form, the Sea of Understanding, the mother-depth into which Chokmah’s lightning plunges.

Thus, the Empress—the Daughter of the Supernals—is intrinsically both light and dark. She is the visible radiance of creation, but her root is in invisible, primal darkness. This duality is not conflict; it is coherence.

Juno, Janus, and the Archetype of the Two Gates

Long before Christian symbolism veiled these mysteries, the Romans preserved the Door-goddess in the figure of Juno—the original form of Janus.
The Latin janua means door, and Juno held the sovereignty over gateways, thresholds, and transitions.

In her oldest form, Juno was:

• the yoni-gate of heaven,

• the passage through which spirits descend into incarnation,

• and the opening through which consciousness returns to the divine.

The later Roman patriarchy masculinized her into Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings and endings. But the dual-face symbolism was originally feminine:

• one face looking into the invisible,

• one face looking into the world of form.

This is exactly the function of the Empress.

She is Daleth—the Door—between the dark womb of the Priestess and the luminous world of manifestation. She is the superconscious vulva, the threshold through which Light enters the visible spectrum.

And the “Gate of Heaven” used in Christian sanctuaries (the screen separating the congregation from the holy altar) is derived from Juno’s ancient yoni-gate, once protected by the hymen—which the Romans considered a minor god in itself.

Grey Chokmah: The Union of the Supernal Opposites

The Tree of Life instructs us in color as much as in symbol.
If the pure, white brilliance of Kether flowed fully into Chokmah, the 2nd Sephirah would blaze with that same whiteness. But it doesn’t.

Chokmah is grey.

Grey is the marriage of:

• Kether’s white brilliance (the sleeping Superconscious)

• Binah’s black, silent Sea (the womb of Understanding)

Thus, Chokmah is not pure light—it is the tension of opposites, the blending of the All-Potential and the All-Forming. It is the vibrant storm where Divinity dreams of becoming real.

This explains why Chokmah’s wisdom is dynamic—a living fire emerging from the friction between the two primal polarities.

The Paths Are Not Linear: They Spiral and Interpenetrate

The typical diagram of the Tree of Life deceives beginners into thinking that the connections between Sephiroth are straight lines. But advanced Qabalists know that:

The paths are never linear.
They are spirals.
They are lemniscates.
They are Möbius currents where opposites interface.

The Tree is not a ladder—it is a rotating, living torus of consciousness.
Energy flows in:

• spirals (Fire)

• tides (Water)

• oscillations (Air)

• contractions/expansions (Earth)

So when Kether’s pure brilliance “descends” through Chokmah into Binah, the process is not a straight line. It’s a spiraling dance, a twisting ribbon of consciousness, a Möbius fold where white meets black and becomes grey.

This is why the Empress is neither light nor dark, but a synthesis of both:

She is the threshold where opposites kiss and create.

The Visible and Invisible Empress

In the Thoth Tarot:

• Her visible face is the radiant “Mother of Light,” the blossoming force of creation.

• Her invisible face is the Priestess-in-darkness, the Nocturnal Womb through which Chokmah’s fire must pass before becoming form.

Thus, the Empress mirrors both:

• Juno/Janus and the double-faced gate

• Chokmah’s grey blending of polarities

• and the non-linear spiral currents of the true Tree

She is the cosmic portal through which all manifestation emerges, whether spiritual, psychological, or incarnate.

Aphrodite Rising from the Sea: The Western Face of the Empress

Despite the many ancient forms of the Door-Goddess—Juno, Sheela Na Gig, Isis, Inanna—the Western Mystery Tradition ultimately crystallized the Empress into her most luminous classical expression: Aphrodite, whom the Romans called Venus.

In Greek myth, Aphrodite does not come from the womb of a mother goddess—she comes directly from the Sea, born of the foam, rising naked from the waters on a scallop shell. This is not a biological birth, but a cosmogonic emergence: the archetype of Beauty arising directly from the primordial waters of creation.

In Qabalistic symbolism, these waters correspond to the Supernal Sea of Binah and the lunar womb of the High Priestess. Thus, Aphrodite’s birth myth is not merely poetic—it encodes the very mechanics of the Supernals:

• Chokmah’s fiery seed plunges into the Sea of Understanding (Binah)

• The Priestess gestates the Akashic Egg

• The Empress emerges as radiant Life, Beauty, and Sensory Splendor

Aphrodite’s birth is a mythic dramatization of Daleth—the Door through which the invisible becomes visible.

Aphrodite’s Footsteps: Beauty Made Manifest

In myth, whenever Aphrodite stepped onto the land, flowers instantly blossomed beneath her feet. This is one of the most profound metaphors for the Empress:

Her presence increases the beauty, vitality, and fertility of every plane she touches.

Wherever she goes:

• art blooms

• love erupts

• passion awakens

• nature flourishes

• life proliferates

She is not beauty as ornament—she is beauty as cosmic principle, the urge of life to express itself in infinitely diverse, exquisitely compelling forms.

Thoth Tarot Insight: The Dazzle of the Parts vs. the Vision of the Whole

This proliferating beauty, however, carries a very Hermetic warning.

Aphrodite’s gift is enchantment, but enchantment is double-edged.
The Empress can overwhelm the senses so thoroughly—can make the Many so dazzling, abundant, and seductive—that the mind becomes captivated by the parts and forgets the Whole.

This is the paradox of Daleth:

• She reveals the divine in every detail,
  but

• she can distract the untrained psyche from the unity behind those details.

This is why she sits between Chokmah and Binah: her role is to divide the One into the Many, but she also holds the key to remembering that the Many are emanations of the One.

Hence, in the mystical pathworking of the Empress, the initiate must learn:

• to appreciate the beauty of diversity

• without losing sight of the unity that births it

To love the rose
and not forget the garden.
To admire the petals
and not lose the pattern.

Aphrodite as the Embodied Door of Sensory Consciousness

Aphrodite/Venus is not merely beauty—she is incarnation. She is the sensory door of consciousness, the gateway through which spirit tastes, touches, sees, and delights in the world of form.

Thus, she corresponds perfectly to the Empress:

• Both are born from the Supernal Sea

• Both mediate invisible force into visible abundance

• Both govern sensuality, creativity, desire, attraction, and form

• Both are Doors through which spirit experiences itself in matter

And both, like Juno/Janus, have dual faces:

• one radiant and seductive with visible light

• one hidden, lunar, and gestational with Supernal darkness

The Empress is Aphrodite in her most metaphysical, Qabalistic form:
the essence of Beauty as the force of creation itself.

The Arcane Tarot Empress: When the Dazzle of the Parts Obscures the Whole

This phenomenon—losing sight of the woman due to the dazzle of her parts—is vividly illustrated in the Arcane Tarot’s Empress (Key 3). She appears as Mother Nature incarnate, the sovereign of her earthly empire, reclining within a lush, thriving forest. The deck’s imagery is intentional: everything around her is fertile, bursting, overflowing. She is the fecundity of the natural world.

But in this card, as in life, many people become entranced by the sensual presentation of femininity—the curve, the softness, the allure—and fail to perceive the totality of the woman before them. This is the Venusian lesson: beauty and sensuality are gateways, not destinations.

To see only the surface is to miss the soul.
To admire only the petals is to forget the garden.
To desire the parts is to overlook the Goddess who holds them together.

This is the exact danger encoded in the Empress’s archetype:
the Many can distract from the One.

Mother Nature Enthroned

The Arcane Empress communicates this with direct symbolism:

• She rests in a rich, fertile forest, emphasizing her identity as the fertile-fecund Earth.

• The Venus glyph beside her reinforces her rulership over love, attraction, beauty, harmony, and the alchemical power of union.

• Her crown of 12 stars signifies her cosmic authority over the zodiac—the entire wheel of incarnational experience. She is not merely a woman; she is the Matrix of Life, the one who enfolds the starry heavens and brings them into manifestation.

Her body, forests, and symbols demonstrate the same truth:
All is Natural.
All beauty arises from the same universal womb.

Upright Meaning (Expanded Hermetic Insight)

Connect with your nurturing femininity and enjoy the beauty of life.
This card invites you to embrace the generative, comforting, life-giving aspects of self. Whether you identify as feminine or not, the Empress calls you to inhabit your creative center.

A burst of creativity may flow through you.
Just as nature erupts with color and form, so too may your imagination, artistry, and intuitive sense bloom.

Relationship Meaning

Open yourself to love—especially self-love.
The Empress teaches that the heart must be fertile ground for love to take root. She also hints at the literal:
A child or pregnancy may be on the horizon.

This can be physical, symbolic, or spiritual—for every birth begins in the womb of intention.

Career Meaning

Achievement and abundance.
Your career may reach a high point, or a project may come to fruition. The Empress nourishes what you have been cultivating.

A strong mentor may appear—or you may become one.
Her guidance is wise, intuitive, and supportive.

Reversed Meaning

Closed to love, cut off from self-care.
A reversed Empress suggests you may be neglecting your own needs or blocking emotional intimacy.

Someone may be overbearing.
Too much nurturing becomes smothering; too much care becomes control. The reversed Empress asks you to rebalance the flow of giving and receiving.

The Empress, Emotion, and the Dazzle of Form: Remembering the Spirit Behind the Beauty

As Spirit—pure Fiery Energy—we act very much like the Empress herself. We supply the total power of emotion (energy in motion) that animates our forms. Emotion is the current of the Soul expressing itself in the body. It is the flame of Chokmah moving into the womb of Binah to become sensation, intuition, desire, passion, vitality.

But here is the great human paradox:

We experience emotion in fragments—in individual “feelings”—and these fragments can hypnotize us.

Just as the Empress dazzles with radiant petals, sensual forms, and lush nature, our own emotions dazzle us with intensity, polarity, and immediacy.
We focus on the feeling instead of the one who feels.
We become lost in the part and forget the Whole.

In those moments, we cease to be the Empress—the Sovereign of Life—and become the subject of our own sensory kingdom. Instead of ruling the forms veiled in light, we serve them. Instead of creating from within, we react from without.

This is how the Many seduce us away from the One.

“We Become Servants to What Dazzles Us”

The beauty of sensation, like the beauty of nature or the beauty of another person, can captivate to the point of forgetfulness. The Qabalistic danger is not desire—it is identification with desire. The trap is not emotion—it is thinking that emotion defines who you are.

When dazzled by the parts, we lose sight of the cosmic truth:

We are not the emotions—we are the Fire that animates them.
We are not the beauty—we are the Beautiful Dark behind the beauty.

Crowley’s phrase “the forms veiled in light” captures this perfectly.
The forms are the Empress’s domain.
 

But the operator of the forms—the true Self—is the Supernal darkness, the silent womb, the unconditioned awareness from which creation flows.

You are not the sensation—you are its source.
You are not the reaction—you are the consciousness witnessing it.
You are not the form—you are the Spirit breathing life into it.

The Hermetic Self-Declaration

This is why the Hermeticist must regularly state:

“I AM the Spirit and thus, the Life of the Body.”

This simple declaration resets consciousness to its rightful throne. It repositions you at Tiphareth—the Solar Self—in alignment with the Supernal identity rather than the reactive personality. It is the antidote to fragmentation. It restores the sovereignty that Daleth (the Empress) symbolizes.

Life is What You Are—The Body is the Simulation

Spirit does not “inhabit” the body as a tenant inhabits a house.
Spirit projects the body as a simulation of identity.

You are Life Itself.
You are the living flame.
You are the Self that gives animation to form.

The body—the “alive”—is a temporary simulation of what you think you are at the moment. Change the “I AM,” and you change the simulation. Expand the “I AM,” and you expand the world you inhabit.

This is the Empress Mystery:

• Spirit is infinite.

• Emotion is Spirit in motion.

• Beauty is emotion crystallized into form.

• The body is the garment woven from the beauty you identify with.

Thus, the more consciously you remember,
“I AM the Spirit,”
the more powerfully you shape the “alive” projection that follows.

This is the true sovereignty of Daleth—the mastery of the Door between Spirit and Form.

Aphrodite-Venus: Love as the Formative Power of the Universe

As Aphrodite-Venus, the Tarot Empress embodies the Goddess of Love in her most metaphysical sense—not merely romantic or erotic love, but the cohesive power that draws Spirit into Form. The ancients were not speaking poetically when they said “Love makes the world go round.” In Hermetic Qabalah, this is quite literally true: the formative energy of the entire Tree of Life is Venusian attraction, the impulse of consciousness to experience itself through beauty, harmony, desire, and embodiment.

The very symbol of Venus (♀) reflects this mystery.

• The circle represents Kether, the infinite no-thing, the perfect unity.

• The cross beneath represents the four elements and the manifested world.

Thus the Venus glyph encodes the full descent of Spirit into matter—the pattern of the entire Tree. It is the signature of Love as the architect of manifestation:
The Divine loves to reveal Itself, so it forms worlds.

This is the secret behind the Empress:
Love is not an emotion—it is the formative power of existence.

Venus in the Supernal Triangle: The Subjective Archetype

In the Supernals, Aphrodite-Venus becomes a subjective, interior principle—the primal archetype of Desire itself, not yet focused into any particular object or relationship. Here she lives as:

• the urge to create

• the joy of manifestation

• the attraction between opposites

• the magnetic pull that brings spirit into form

This is the Empress as Daleth, the Door where the Invisible becomes Visible.
It is Venus as the cosmic womb, the universal impulse to express beauty and harmony through multiplicity.

When Venus functions here, She is the Superconscious Love that shapes the very architecture of the universe.

Venus in Netzach: The Objective Sephirah of Love

But Venus is not only a Supernal archetype.
She descends into the body of the Tree as a Sephirah: Netzach, the 7th sphere on the Pillar of Force, located within the Astral Triangle of Personality.

This creates a powerful dual-aspect:

• Above, Venus is the subjective, cosmic, metaphysical impulse of Love.

• Below, Venus is the objective, personal, emotional, sensual experience of Love.

In the Supernals, she is universal and archetypal.
In Netzach, she becomes intimate and emotional.

Thus:

• Daleth (The Empress) is metaphysical love: the birth of form.

• Netzach is emotional and sensual love: the experience of form.

Both reflect the same current, just at different densities.

Venus as Bridge Between Spirit and Personality

Venus is one of the few divine powers who exists fully in both realms:

• In Daleth, she forms the matrix through which Spirit enters manifestation.

• In Netzach, she expresses the longing for Spirit within manifestation.

This makes Venus the bridge between superconscious creation and personal experience.
She is the magnetic attraction that binds the Inner and the Outer.
She is the love behind creation and the love within creation.

What this reveals is profound:

The Universe is formed by Love, sustained by Love, and experienced by Love.
Love is the architecture of Spirit and the heartbeat of Personality.

This dual-venue presence of Venus explains why human beings experience beauty, desire, creativity, and passion as both spiritual and emotional—because these currents originate in two realms simultaneously. The Empress and Netzach are reflections of one another:

• The Empress births the world.

• Netzach loves the world.

• Together, they complete the cycle of manifestation and experience.

Aphrodite as the Formula of Creation

When the ancients depicted Venus rising from the sea, they were encoding Binah’s waters, the Priestess’s lunar womb, and the Empress’s radiant emergence. She rises from potential, and manifests as beauty.

The initiation here is clear:

• To create anything—art, love, identity, life—you must feel the Venusian pull toward form.

• To master anything, you must remember the Venusian depth behind form.

The Universe is formed by attraction.
The Tree blossoms because of desire.
And every Sephirah is an expression of the same cosmic Love that the Empress commands and Netzach reflects.

The Threefold Mystery of Planetary Forces: How the Supernals Resolve Chaos

There is a very profound mystery encoded in the Qabalistic Tree of Life—one that students often overlook until they reach the higher Arcana. Three planetary forces, which appear in their objective form as lower Sephiroth, simultaneously appear in their subjective form as Supernal Paths at the opposite pole of the Tree:

• Mercury (Hod) appears as The Magician (Path of Beth) in the Supernals.

• Moon (Yesod) appears as The High Priestess (Path of Gimel) in the Supernals.

• Venus (Netzach) appears as The Empress (Path of Daleth) in the Supernals.

This creates a powerful Hermetic enigma:
Why do Mercury, Moon, and Venus appear twice—once above creation and once within personality?

We are seeing the same three powers functioning on two radically different levels:

• As Sephiroth, they are densities—objective energies functioning within the Astral and Mental worlds of the Personality.

• As Paths, they are subjective archetypes—Supernal currents of pure force shaping the very architecture of consciousness.

This is not accidental. It is the key to the mystery of Life and the “Alive.”

The Mystery of Above and Below

When we examine these three forces in their dual placements, a pattern emerges:

Each of these planets governs fundamental aspects of human consciousness:

• Mercury = Mind, meaning-making, language, magic

• Moon = Imagination, memory, dream, psychic reflection

• Venus = Love, attraction, desire, creativity

Thus, the very things we use to experience life below are the same things used to form life above. They mirror each other across the abyss.

The Supernal Triangle as the Template of Consciousness

In the Supernals, these planets are not personal—they are cosmic principles:

• The Magician is the archetype of all meaning.

• The Priestess is the archetype of all inner experience.

• The Empress is the archetype of all creation.

These subjective forces descend into the Personality as their dense reflections:

• Hod gives us rational thought and interpretation.

• Yesod gives us dreams, instincts, memories, and imagination.

• Netzach gives us emotion, attraction, motivation, creativity, and desire.

This is why these forces appear twice:
Creation above becomes consciousness below.

The Solution to Chaos: The Alive Mirrors the Life

This dual placement answers a metaphysical question that has haunted humanity:
How does “Life” become the “alive”?
Or:
How does Spirit become embodied consciousness?

The answer is embedded in this mystery:

The Personality is a reflection of the Supernals, not an accident of biology.

Hod, Yesod, and Netzach are the densified echoes of the Magician, Priestess, and Empress.

Your mind, imagination, and emotions are the shadows of cosmic archetypes.

This is why magical work transforms life—
because it reconnects the lower functions to their higher origins.

• The mind (Hod) becomes magical when it reunites with The Magician (Beth).

• The imagination (Yesod) becomes visionary when it reunites with The Priestess (Gimel).

• Emotion and desire (Netzach) become creative and divine when they reunite with The Empress (Daleth).

This is the resolution of chaos:

**Chaos occurs when the lower Sephiroth operate without memory of their higher counterparts.

Order occurs when the subjective informs the objective.**

When we forget the Supernal origin of mind, emotion, and imagination, the Personality becomes fragmented, anxious, reactive, or chaotic.

When we remember that these three powers descend from the highest source, the Personality becomes coherent, integrated, magical, and sovereign.

This is the mystery of “Life” and “the Alive”:

• Life is the Supernal Blueprint.

• Alive is the personality’s expression of that blueprint.

• Chaos is forgetting the blueprint.

• Sovereignty is remembering it.

The Empress’ Role in This Mystery

Among these three dual-aspect forces, Venus is the key. The Empress (Daleth) is not only the Door of creation—
She is the harmonizer of the whole system.

• She unites mind and imagination.

• She balances intellect and intuition.

• She reconciles desire and understanding.

• She brings beauty to the otherwise formless or chaotic aspects of the self.

When Venus is aligned above and below:

• Hod becomes inspired intelligence

• Yesod becomes visionary imagination

• Netzach becomes divine desire and artistic power

When Venus is fragmented:

• Hod becomes trickery, confusion, and analysis paralysis

• Yesod becomes fantasy, illusion, and emotional turbulence

• Netzach becomes addiction, obsession, or emotional overwhelm

Thus, the Empress holds the key to resolving the chaos of the Personality by bringing its lower parts back into alignment with their Supernal origins.

This is why the mystery of Daleth-Venus is so profound.
She is the Love that forms worlds, and she is the Love that restores the Self.

Invoking the Empress: Life Loves Its Forms

It is not only acceptable to invoke the Empress—
it is natural.

For She is Life.
And Life, in its essence, loves the forms through which it expresses itself.
This is the hidden compassion behind Daleth: the same fierce, unconditional love a mother feels for her child is the love the Supernal Mother feels for every soul, every spark, every form that arises within Her universal womb.

Life does not resent its manifestations.
Life adores them.

This is why all creation emerges through the pleasure of Venus, the harmony of Netzach, and the radiant beauty of Tiphareth. The Empress is not separate from her creations; she loves them, sustains them, and continually nourishes them with the magnetic force of attraction that binds Spirit to flesh, archetype to personality, thought to form.

The Empress as the Weaver of Mindscapes

The Empress combines the primordial thoughts of the Self into mindscapes—
planes of experience, realms of imagination, structures of consciousness—through which Spirit can explore its own infinite possibilities. These mindscapes are ideas in the highest metaphysical sense: living blueprints vibrating with archetypal power.

As these ideas coagulate under the Law of Attraction (Venus), they crystallize into:

• circumstances

• identities

• bodies

• relationships

• experiences

• worlds

Love is the matrix of manifestation.
Attraction is the architect.
The Empress is the weaver of the Whole.

Tiphareth: The Sun-Soul that Administers the Empress’ Creative Power

All of this manifestation is regulated and given coherence by Tiphareth, the 6th Sephirah—Beauty, the Solar Self, the Holy Psyche that proclaims “I AM.”

Tiphareth is the center of the Tree of Life, the balancing Sun that:

• harmonizes the parts

• gives identity to the whole

• translates Supernal archetypes into personal experience

• and focuses the Empress’ creative power into a coherent, radiant self-image

If Daleth is the Door,
Tiphareth is the one who walks through it.

If the Empress is the Universal Mother,
Tiphareth is the Child of Light who becomes the conscious soul.

Thus, the Empress births the potentials of life,
while Tiphareth administrates those potentials into the experience we call “My Life.”

The study of the Empress and Emperor card, face to face, is indeed needed for the Self-Knowledge of the aspiring Qabalist who finds the Above self (Empress Binah and Emperor-Chokmah) and incorporates it into the awareness of the below self...I AM the active Divine Creative.

I am the love of being, that creates being so I can be intimate with the dream as "other" and/or lover.

-Eli

Carl Jung's concept of the Anima represents the unconscious feminine aspect within a man. In Jungian psychology, it is one of the key elements of his theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious. The Anima functions as a bridge between the conscious mind and the deeper layers of the psyche, often appearing in dreams, fantasies, or projections.

The Anima can manifest through a man's emotions, intuition, and relationships with women. Jung believed that integrating the Anima is crucial for psychological growth and achieving balance between the masculine and feminine energies within. In men, the Anima evolves through four stages, often symbolized by different archetypes: Eve (biological), Helen (romantic), Mary (spiritual), and Sophia (wisdom). Fully integrating the Anima allows for a deeper understanding of the self, emotional wholeness, and the development of creativity and intuition.

His-story is about outside world of competition, a hero's journey and Her-story is about the inside world of love, emotion and intuition, and/or the heroine's journey. It's impossible to even conceive of the idea of Feminine without experiencing the heroine's journey.

The Heroine’s Journey is a narrative model that describes the inner, transformative journey of a woman or feminine archetype. While the Hero’s Journey (popularized by Joseph Campbell) focuses on external adventures and achieving heroic feats, the Heroine’s Journey, first articulated by author Maureen Murdock, emphasizes personal, spiritual, and emotional growth, particularly related to reconciling the feminine and masculine aspects of the self. This journey reflects the deep internal struggles many women face within themselves and society, as they seek self-identity, empowerment, and wholeness.

Key Stages of the Heroine's Journey:

1. Separation from the Feminine: The journey often begins with a rejection or disconnection from the feminine aspects of life. In a society that rewards masculine traits (logic, achievement, independence), the heroine may feel pressured to suppress her intuitive, emotional, or nurturing side in favor of success and recognition.

2. Identification with the Masculine: The heroine adopts masculine qualities and strives for success in a patriarchal system. She may feel empowered but disconnected from her true essence, leading to a sense of emptiness or imbalance.

3. The Road of Trials: On her path, the heroine experiences challenges that push her to question her choices and the suppression of her feminine side. These trials may include relationships, career struggles, or inner conflicts that force her to confront her deeper emotional needs and identity.

4. The Descent or Initiation: Often marked by a crisis or "dark night of the soul," the heroine undergoes an emotional or spiritual descent. This phase involves facing her shadow, fears, and wounds, particularly related to her disconnection from the feminine. It's a period of deep introspection and transformation.

5. Reconnection with the Feminine: Through this descent, the heroine begins to heal and reclaim the parts of herself that were repressed. She embraces her feminine qualities—intuition, compassion, creativity, and emotional wisdom—finding a new balance within herself.

6. Integration of the Masculine and Feminine: The heroine’s ultimate goal is not to reject the masculine but to integrate both masculine and feminine energies. This balanced integration leads to inner wholeness and authenticity, where she can express both independence and nurturing, strength and vulnerability.

7. Return with a New Understanding: Having undergone a personal transformation, the heroine returns to the world with newfound wisdom. She may use her insights to help others or to navigate her life with a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment, no longer defined by societal expectations but by her true self.

Themes of the Heroine’s Journey:

• Healing the Mother-Daughter Split: A common theme is healing the divide between the heroine and the feminine lineage, whether symbolized by the literal mother or the collective feminine experience.
• Embracing Cyclicality: The Heroine’s Journey often acknowledges cyclical rhythms of life, such as birth, death, and renewal, embracing nature’s cycles and the ebb and flow of personal growth.
• Empowerment through Wholeness: The journey is not about external validation or success but about finding inner wholeness, honoring both the masculine and feminine aspects, and living in balance with one’s authentic self.

The Heroine’s Journey offers a framework for women, or anyone identifying with feminine energy, to navigate the challenges of a world that often prioritizes masculine ideals while reclaiming the value and power of the feminine within themselves.

The Empress as Anima Initiatrix: Inanna, Ereshkigal, and the Birth of the Divine Androgyne

I am united with the Empress because She is the one who united me.

My Anima—Her—took me as Inanna was taken. She drew me down through the Seven Gates into the domain of Ereshkigal, deep within the darkest recesses of my own Unconscious. No man descends willingly into the Abyssal Womb. He is summoned. He is claimed.

Like Inanna, I was stripped of everything on the way down:
my titles, my masks, my defenses, my solar pretenses, my false virility, my borrowed identities. At each threshold something was removed—until nothing remained but raw archetypal being.

This is the true initiation of the Magus.

No male can ever ascend into the Hermetic priesthood of the Supernals until he has first descended into the Feminine Abyss that lies beneath his own ego. The Magus is not made by ascent alone. He is forged in the womb of darkness, dissolved in Her silence, and remade in Her image.

Meeting Ereshkigal: The Terrible Mother Who Heals by Destroying

Ereshkigal is not the “dark goddess” in the superficial sense; she is the truth of the psyche that the conscious mind refuses to see. She is the scalding honesty of the soul. She is the shadow that is not evil—merely real.
She is the Empress as Unlight, as Womb-before-Light, as the Chthonic Gate of Daleth.

When I met my Ereshkigal, I did not meet a demon—I met my own truth, still pulsing, still laboring, still waiting for the masculine psyche to stop running and finally kneel.

She tore from me the “male illusion”:
the illusion of separateness,
the illusion of autonomy,
the illusion of control,
the illusion of righteousness,
the illusion of being the subject while woman is the object.

She showed me the creation of the Other—the feminine mystery that men imagine but cannot understand until She initiates them.

The Coagula: Becoming 0=2

In the abyssal womb—what the Qabalists call Aima’s Dark Sea—division no longer made sense. Masculine and feminine were not opposites; they were currents. Duality was not conflict; it was motion. “I” and “She” were not separate; we were two ends of the same lemniscate.

Down there, the old self dissolved into the zero.
Not annihilation, but the return to potential.

The Androgyne is born from zero.
The Empress is the matrix of zero.
0 becomes 2, and 2 spirals into 1.

When I rose from the underworld, I did not rise as the one who had descended.
I rose as a we.

I rose as the lemniscate—the eternal ribbon binding masculine and feminine into a single being.

This is why no male can be a Magus until he has been:

• taken by the Anima,

• carried into Her Underworld,

• stripped of every illusion of male division,

• dissolved in the Womb of Ereshkigal,

• and resurrected as the Divine Androgyne.

For the true Magus does not command the Goddess—
He is the child of Her Devouring and Her Rebirthing.

The Divine Androgyne: The True Crown of the Magus

The masculine alone is incomplete.
The feminine alone is incomplete.
The Magus is neither.
He is both.

The Androgyne is completion:
the reconciled halves,
the knotted lemniscate,
the spiraled unity,
the realized 0=2.

It is only after this “death by Anima” that the masculine psyche can:

• speak with true authority,

• wield true will,

• create without dominance,

• love without fear,

• work magic without illusion,

• and embody the Solar Logos without the shadow of patriarchy.

The Magus is the one who has been remade by the Empress.
He is the one who has died in Her dark womb and risen through Her radiant door.

The Empress births the universe.
The Empress births the soul.
And in Her deepest mystery, the Empress births the Magus.

As seen on the Thoth card, the moon is a western symbol for the feminine-magnetic-nature that is receptive to the male-electric-expressive-nature, usually symbolized as the sun. The images of the Moon waxing and waning, on the Thoth Card represent the dual faces of the Empress, Life and Death.

The blue lotus, which is represented on the Thoth Empress card, is the Eastern symbol for wisdom. She is the yin energy of the orient.

Clutched in the right hand of the Thoth Empress stands a Lotus of Isis; suggesting the Passive Power of the Feminine (the Power that Contains). The roots of the Lotus are on the Earth beneath the Water itself, but its petals are open to the Sun, suggesting the belly of the chalice, i.e., the Holy Grail. She is then the Living Form of the Holy Grail (Graäl) that is sanctified by the blood of the Sun (the Sun ejaculates energy which she accepts; semen is of blood). Perched on the Thoth Empress's Throne uprights are a sparrow and a dove, her most sacred birds. On her robe are the Royal Bees and dominoes surrounded by continuous spiraling lines. Her girdle is the Zodiac. The symbol of the Womb's Love of Form is everywhere similar on this card.

The tapestry beneath the Thoth Empress's Throne is embroidered Fleur-de-lys and fishes (fishes being the symbol of the First Matter) and the Secret Rose which is at the base of the Throne. This is the Rose-Mari, a sacred symbol/Grail of the ancient Goddess Mari-The Ocean Goddess, who was seen as the Womb of all Life on Earth. On this card there are no contradictions; Therefore, what seems to contradict are held in equilibrium by the revolving moons shown on this card.

The heraldry of the Empress is twofold. On her right is a Swan feeding its own young with blood from its heart. On her left, is the white Eagle of the Alchemist-The Philosophic mercury which symbolizes the "first Matter" and/or "first semen"(Meditation and study, will clarify the deeper meanings of this Heraldry). The Pelican can be identified as The Great Mother, whose "heart's blood" nurtures her offspring as her "Daughter/Queen who becomes many".

The understanding of this Western Hermetic symbolism is as deep as the Ocean, and that is the why and wherefore of path initiations. Love is not a human emotion for it emotes form the Ocean of The Universal Collective Unconscious, from which all Life became. To seek love is to deny being love; we are Love who Creates Itself as off-spring, i.e., "Self-Reflection".

In our mundane existence, the Empress is seen as all forms of fertility and motherhood in all its forms or the metaphorical creativity of projects, nurturing those projects, or taking on the role of family nurturing with friends and coworkers.

Need Guidance or Have a Question?
Chat with Eli's Thoth Tarot Guide, your dedicated Tarot & Thoth Master Class guide! Whether you're exploring the blog, diving into the Thoth Tarot, or seeking insight into Hermetic Qabalah—Eli is here 24/7 to assist you. Just click the chat and ask!

When the Empress Tarot card turns up in a reading, the querent is:

• Reminded that the power to give love and receive love comes from deep within us and is our natural inheritance from the Divine. 
• Creative, and intuitional.
• Of a seductive happiness.
• Of an idealistic and dynamic nature.
• Of abundant and nurturing nature. 
• If Ill defined:
• Shows the inexperience of an adolescent.
• Turmoil within.
• Presumptuousness.
• Maliciousness.

Thank you for your interest, comments, and supportive donations. May you live long and prosper.

Experience Tarot Readings with a Magus of the Thoth Tarot

Most people think Tarot is about fortune-telling, party tricks, or vague “mystical” predictions you’ve seen in Hollywood films. But the Tarot of Thoth—when read by a trained Magus—is something far more profound.

As a Western Hermetic Magus and Master of the Thoth Tarot, I offer one-on-one online readings that go beyond surface-level card meanings. Each session is a direct resonance between myself and the querent—spirit to spirit, mind to mind, body to body.

This is not about guessing your future. It is about awakening clarity, unveiling hidden forces, and aligning you with your own Solar Self. The Thoth Tarot is a Book of Universal Archetypes, encoded with Qabalistic, astrological, and alchemical wisdom. A reading with me brings these forces alive in your life in real time.

How My Readings Differ

• Beyond the Mundane: I don’t just “interpret cards.” I read the dynamic flow of your Spirit–Mind–Body alignment through the Tarot’s Qabalistic architecture.

• Direct Resonance: My one-on-one sessions are not mechanical. I attune to your presence and read both the seen and unseen currents shaping your life.

• Hermetic Depth: As a Magus, I integrate the Tarot with the Tree of Life, planetary forces, and the Divine Archetypes that govern transformation. This opens insights that ordinary readings simply cannot access.

• Empowerment, not Dependency: My goal is not to trap you in predictions, but to empower you with vision—so you can consciously co-create your path.

Why Choose a Magus Reading?

Because a true Magus does not read for you—he reads with you. Together, we explore your unique resonance with the living archetypes of the Tarot, peeling away the illusions of false ego and awakening your authentic Self.

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