The Initiatic Path in the Arcana of the Tarot and Kabala 

CHAPTER IV

ARCANUM No. 4 - THE EMPEROR

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINT:  The Serpent, symbol of Mastery, protrudes from the Emperor’s forehead.  The crown formed of an asp, the Thermuthis, belongs to Isis, our particular Divine Mother.  On his head is a biretta, a cap of four points, four angles, representing the four elements, the four Gospels, the four Vedas, etc.  In the cap we also have the alembic, the receptacle, the sexual organs, the stove, the Muladhara chakra, the spinal column and the distiller, the brain.

In his right hand he holds up the crosier of Power.  He is seated on the perfectly carved Cubical Stone, product of the previous Arcana.  Within the Stone is the cat, the fire.  In the waters of life is the staff of command, the vertebral column.

ESOTERIC MEANING OF THE ARCANUM:  The Cross has four points.  The Cross of Initiation is phallic.  The insertion of the vertical Phallus into the feminine Cteis[1] forms the Cross.  It is the Cross of Initiation that we must take upon our shoulders.  We must comprehend that with its four points, the Cross symbolizes the Earth’s four cardinal points: North, South, East and West; the four ages: Gold, Silver, Copper and Iron; the four seasons of the year; the four phases of the moon; the four paths: Science, Philosophy, Art and Religion.  When speaking about the four paths we should comprehend that they all are just One.  This path is the strait and narrow Path of the Razor’s Edge, the path of the Revolution of the Consciousness. 

The Cross is a very ancient symbol, used from time immemorial in all religions and all nations, and those who consider it to be an emblem exclusive to this or that religious sect would be in error.  When the Spanish Conquistadors came to the holy land of the Aztecs, they found the Cross on the Aztec altars.

The Sign of the Cross, the sublime monogram of Our Lord the Christ, St. Andrew’s Cross and the miraculous key of St. Peter, are marvelous replicas of equal Alchemistic and Kabalistic value.  So then, it is the sign capable of assuring victory to the workers of the Great Work.

The sexual Cross, living symbol of the crossing of the Lingam-Yoni, has the unmistakable and marvelous imprint of the three keys that were used to immolate the Christ-Matter, image of the three purifications by iron and by fire, without which Our Lord would not have been able to achieve the Resurrection.

The Cross is the ancient alchemical hieroglyph of the crucible (creuset), which in French was called cruzel, crucible, and croiset, and in Latin, crucibulum, crucible; the root of which is crux, cruces: cross.  Clearly all of this invites us to reflection.

It is in the crucible that the prima materia of the Great Work suffers the passion of the Lord with infinite patience.  In the erotic crucible of the Sexual Alchemy, the “Ego” dies and the “Phoenix Bird” is reborn from among its own ashes: INRI—In Necis Renascor Integer—“In Death Reborn Intact and Pure.”

The insertion of the vertical Phallus in the formal Uterus makes a Cross and this is something that anyone can verify.

If we very seriously reflect on that intimate relationship existing between the S and the Tau, Cross or T, we come to the logical conclusion that only through the crossing of the Lingam-Yoni (Phallus-Uterus) with the radical exclusion of the physiological orgasm can the Kundalini, the fiery Serpent of our Magical Powers, awaken.

In the Nahuatl and Mayan conception, the sacred Swastika of the Grand Mysteries was always defined with the Cross in Movement.  It is the Nahui-ollin, sacred Nahuatl symbol of cosmic movement [2].

The two possible orientations of the Swastika clearly represent the Masculine and Feminine, positive and negative principles of Nature.  Two Swastikas, one of each direction exactly superimposed, undoubtedly form the Potentized Cross, and in this sense they represent the erotic conjunction of the sexes.

According to the Aztec legend, it was a couple, a man and a woman, who invented Fire, and this is only possible with the Cross in Movement: INRI—Ignis Natura Renovatur Integra—“The Fire Incessantly Renews Nature.”

The Cross also reveals the “Quadrature of the Circle”, the key of perpetual motion.  That perpetual motion is only possible by means of the Sexual Force of the Third Logos.  If the energy of the Third Logos were to stop flowing in the Universe, the Perpetual Motion would end and there would be a cosmic derailment.  The Third Logos organizes the fundamental vortex of the whole nascent universe, and the infinitesimal vertex of the ultimate physical atom of any creation.

With the Tarot’s Arcanum Four, the Being takes the Cross of Initiation on his shoulders.

If we make the following Kabalistic addition of Arcanum 4: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, we find that 10 = 1 + 0 = 1, the Monad.

Tetragrammaton equals the Monad.

[1]  Cteis. The female personification of the productive principle.  It generally accompanied the phallus, as the Indian yoni did the lingam; and as a symbol of the prolific powers of nature, was extensively venerated by the nations of antiquity…  The Cteis was a circular and concave pedestal, or receptacle, on which the Phallus, or column rested, and from the center of which it sprang.  The union of these two, as the generative and producing principles of nature, in one compound figure, was the most usual mode of representation.  Here we undoubtedly find the remote origin of the point within a circle, an ancient symbol…" (Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry)

[2]  The Nahui-ollin are the four squares surrounding the face of the sun god Tonatiuh, the central figure, on the Aztec Calendar stone.  These four are understood to represent the Aztec belief that four Suns, or races of men, existed prior to ours, and that the current Sun or race is the fifth.