President Obama in the Emperor Year

In a recent post I mentioned that 2011, being an Emperor year, is potentially auspicious for a president, so I have been taking a closer look at President Obama’s numerology. Barack Obama was born on 8-4-1961, so if we apply the basic technique for magical numerology demonstrated in the previous post, by adding the birth month (8) to the birth day (4), we get 12; then, we reduce that to the smallest number, so 12 = 1 + 2 = 3. The creative qualities of the number Three can combine with the Emperor’s concern with establishing order and laying foundations, so we have the potential for a very productive year. And indeed, because Obama’s Three combined with the Emperor’s Four yield Seven, the number of innovation, this can lead to the creation of systems that actually solve problems.

There is, however, one aspect of the Emperor that some folks may regard as being somewhat disconcerting, and that is his military interests. Although the Emperor archetype has various ancient father-god affiliations, the Golden Dawn system of tarot interpretation associates the Emperor card with the war god Mars, and indeed, the figure in this card is typically portrayed with weapons and armor, often wearing a ceremonial helmet, (a practice historically associated with the emperor Constantine). Consequently, Obama’s 2011 could also see more creative forms of warfare and military build-up. However, let us hope that the afore-mentioned problem solving potentials will ensure security by finding more creative diplomatic arrangements.

The system I have described that involves breaking the birth day and month to a number between one and nine is slightly different from, but ties in with the system for obtaining a personal year card, developed by Angeles Arrien, who refers to this as the Growth Symbol for the year. The latter technique involves adding the individual numbers of your birth day and month to those of the present year, and then breaking them down to a number between one and twenty-one. This gets you a personally meaningful tarot card correspondence. So, in Obama’s case, we add 8 + 4 (i.e., 12) to 2011 to get 2023, which breaks down to the number 7, associated with the Chariot. So, his personal growth for this year will likely involve taking control of forces that want to pull in different directions, and harness them to ride a wave of energy into the future. However, other persons might get a number between one and twenty-one, so their challenges would relate to those higher-numbered cards. Basically, the difference between the two Year Card systems I have described is the former relates the card of the year to other basic numerological principles, while the latter more specifically relates the year to the symbolism of a particular card determined by one's individual numbers. Of course, as there is a relationship between the cards' symbols and numbers, the two systems do have a certain amount of overlap.

Having gotten into Obama’s numerology, I have a great deal more to say about it, including ways that it brings in the symbolism of other tarot cards, and how Michelle is part of the picture, and even how one could use this information to construct tarot spells promoting global well-being. However, as I find it difficult to get computer time, I shall try to break this information up into a series of short posts over the next few days or weeks.