AUTHOR’S NOTE: I just came across a term I had never seen before, in this case regarding the Emperor card of the tarot. Jus ad bellum means being justified in one’s reasons for taking on a fight. (It sounds like “the ends justify the means” to me.) It is usually applied when presenting an argument for going to war.

The Emperor is the exemplar of authoritarian absolutism in the sense of “might-makes-right” and “it’s my way or the highway.” Obviously, this can quickly degenerate into even more high-handed arrogance should he be challenged in exercising his perceived mandate. It is the card of secular dominion that ensures compliance with all mundane responsibilities and commitments, just as the Hierophant is the overlord of all spiritual modes of adherence to a prescribed regimen. The two go hand-in-hand as symbolizing the “Father-knows-best” form of societal control (or as I like to say, “They’ve got you coming and going.”)

These cards represent the two sides of the coin of “law and order.” The kind of orthodoxy they signify will tolerate little in the way of nonconformity that rises to the level of rebellious individualism, which can get the transgressor into hot water with “the Man.” Obviously, these are not my two favorite cards in the deck since I resent overweening authority. On the secular front, I consider myself a “Libertarian sympathizer” in that I favor a low-impact, small-footprint style of governance, while in spiritual terms I’m a “Spinozan sympathizer” preferring the idea of an immanent “god-consciousness” investing all things as opposed to that of a personalized anthropomorphic deity who makes promises but doesn’t always keep them.

Not that I have any problem with Christian humanitarian values, just don’t throw any “big-guy-in-the-sky” rhetoric or sectarian priesthoods and their pious dogma at me. I may be spiritually-inclined (along with almost 40% of the rest of the non-affiliated US population), but I don’t accept pretensions of moral superiority from anyone. While the Emperor’s lordliness is aimed at subjugating the body and the Hierophant’s mission is mind-control, it falls to the spirit of Justice to transcend both, and I do my best to live up to that objective.