An empty crossroads on a heath at night, a leaning signpost and poppy heads in the verge.

The tarot · IV

The Emperor

Son of the Morning, Chief among the Mighty

The face of IV, The Emperor, engraved in gold on black, with its title, Son of the Morning, Chief among the Mighty.

Order, authority and the will to build a kingdom.

Upright

Structure is your ally. Take charge, set boundaries and build something that lasts. Leadership grounded in responsibility rather than ego.

Reversed

Rigidity, control for its own sake or an absent authority you keep waiting on. The throne can also be a cage.

Show the spirits

The spirit work

Zagan, a King of the Goetia, turns base metal to coin and makes fools wise, the book says: he is the alchemist of practical power. Amun-Ra is the hidden king. Use this card when you need to claim authority over your own house.

A question to sit with

Where do I need to take full responsibility, and where am I gripping too hard?

Where the card sits

Correspondences

Path15, Chokmah to Tiphareth
Hebrew letterHeh, the window, value 5
AstrologyAries, cardinal fire, ruled by Mars
Presiding powerAmun-Ra, the hidden king, ram-crowned
Governing angelMalchidiel, angel of Aries
RuneOthala, the inheritance: ancestral home, heritage and belonging
Show the spirits
SpiritZagan, king
The seal of Zagan

Appears as a bull with gryphon wings, then a man. Makes witty, turns wine to water and blood to wine, turns metals to coin, makes fools wise. Goetia 61.

The Emperor in the guidebookAll seventy-eight cards

The Sablerune Tarot

In the making

Seventy-eight cards in fine gold line. Hear when the deck is ready to hold.

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Notes on sources

The meanings, the questions and the correspondences are the guidebook’s own. The paths, letters and astrology follow the Golden Dawn’s attributions; the angels are the Shem ha-Mephorash, as the deck gives them; the spirits, shown only when you ask for them, are the seventy-two of the Goetia. Where each comes from, and what is old and what is modern, is set out in the guidebook’s Notes on sources and seals.