The Empress

A stately figure is seated, adorned in rich vestments and bearing a royal aspect—as if she were a daughter of both heaven and earth. Her diadem is made up of twelve stars, gathered in a radiant cluster. The symbol of Venus appears on the shield resting nearby.

Before her, a field of corn ripens, and in the background, a waterfall flows. The scepter she holds is topped with the globe of this world. She represents the inferior Garden of Eden, the Earthly Paradise—everything symbolized by the visible house of man.

She is not Regina Coeli, but she remains the refugium peccatorum, the fruitful mother of thousands. In certain aspects, she has also been correctly described as desire and the wings thereof, as the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi, and as the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum.

However, she is not—at least in the usual reckoning—the soul that has attained wings, unless all the symbolism is interpreted in a rare and unconventional manner. Above all, she stands for universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word.

This is evident, for there is no direct message given to man like that which is borne by woman; yet she herself does not carry its interpretation.

In another order of ideas, the card of the Empress signifies the door or gate through which entry into this life is obtained—into the Garden of Venus. The way that leads outward, into what lies beyond, is the secret known to the High Priestess, and it is she who communicates it to the elect.

Most traditional attributions of this card have been symbolically incorrect—for example, its association with the Word, Divine Nature, the Triad, and similar concepts.