Hit me with those laser beams

     

So much for Lady Justice being blind. Here, she's not only got her eyes wide open, they're shooting lasers out like Superman. I never really understood how being blindfolded meant you were being impartial, and anyway, a bit of research suggests that this idea of Justice wearing a blindfold only dates back to the 15th century. Before that, she had her eyes wide open.

I like this Justice card very much, there's a lot going on here. We've got day on the left side, night on the right, then the top of Justice's head is crowned with a tower having four visible windows with a golden light pouring out of them. She has a beams of light coming from her eyes and some sort of bird of prey at her left shoulder. Wearing a black robe which becomes the starry night sky, she leans over a big yin yang symbol and a set of scales embedded in a rose and entwined about with the Libra symbol. Each pan of the scale contains a red triangle with a black triangle inside it. These symbols may have a greater significance than suggested in the Cosmic Tarot companion book, which states merely that the upward pointing triangle represents spiritual matters, while the downward pointing triangle represents material matters, each being invested (symbolized by the black within the red) by its opposite, just like the yin yang symbol. That's pretty deep in and of itself, though. But where is her sword??

What a fantastic card this is. I just love looking at it. I have no idea why there is a tower on her head, or why the scales are set in a rose. Or why the two lasers of her eyes are going out at angles instead of straight ahead (well, that may be because it would be very difficult to draw the beams going in the direction of her gaze, since she staring directly out of the picture at us.)

The Golden Dawn title of Justice is 'Daughter of the Lord of Truth, Holder of Balances.' The lack of a sword in this card is an interesting choice, because the presence of a sword is important to Golden Dawn attributions, and the Cosmic Tarot seems more Thothy, or overtly GD, than RWS does. It is the sword, and not the scales, that keeps equlibrium. The scales are just a tool to detect imbalance, the sword is where the real work happens! 'The function of this path is to constantly compensate for imbalance. Justice acts like a carpenter's level, showing which side needs adjustment. If a person is imbalanced on the side of Mercy, the Sword of Justice swings to the side of Severity, and vice versa. The unbalanced aspects are severed by the sword of Geburah in a necessary, martial fashion.' (from New Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot) Maybe in the Cosmic Tarot, it's the Lady's laser beam eyes that will do the cutting.