Acquired From Google.com

1. The Empress (III)
The empress is a finely dressed woman on a
throne, looking smug and properous. She is
crowned and carries a sceptre and a shield
with an emblazoned eagle. She stands for the
material world as represented by the secular
authority of the Holy Roman Empire. The
message is that the seeker must not be awed
by secular estates any more than they are
awed by supposedly spiritual estates. Cathars
did not particularly condemn women as more
wicked or inferior to men, unlike Catholic
Christianity, but they also had no special
regard for women. The human bodies of both
males and females were material and therefore
in the realm of the Devil. Perfects, whether
male or female, rejected sexuality as an
earthly pleasure to be disdained as distractions

2. by mature souls, aspiring to the spiritual level.
The warning applies equally to souls that are in
a body of either sex, which is why there are
cards symbolising spiritual and secular
temptations of both sexes—a male and female
emperor and a male and female pope.
Now there is a curiosity about the Empress and
that is that she is often shown as if she was an
angel, with a large pair of wings folded behind
her. the one behind the Papess hiding the truth
has been misconceived as wings, but, given
that they are wings, this whole interpretaion of
the Empress as the secular world must be
wrong—diametrically wrong. For then, the
Empress most likely stands for the Cathar
church, and is deliberately contrasted with the
Christian one. It is even possible that the
Empress is not female at all. Angels are
sexless. It might be the good son of God, who
is the archangel Michael, who appears to
humanity as Christ. The wicked son of God is
Satanael, who is pictured on card XV.
The Emperor (IIII)

3. The emperor is also finely dressed with a
crown and a sceptre, sitting or, really,
arrogantly lounging on a throne bearing the
device of an eagle. He is the Holy Roman
Emperor and represents secular authority on
earth. There is a curious code in Mithraic
symbolism whereby the image of the god
representing the equinoxes stands with a
raised or lowered torch signifying spring and
autumn respectively. These figures also have
their legs crossed, the spring figure with his
right leg bent over his left leg, and the
autumnal figure with his left leg bent over his
right leg. Sometimes the legs are not crossed
but the same leg is bent, right for spring, and
left for autumn. Here, curiously, the emperor
lounges against the throne in the spring
stance, right leg over left. What looks to be a
significant symbol seems merely the

4. convention of the artist and means nothing,
because some early decks do not have this
curious leg crossing.
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