Le Diable & Le Pape: Decimal Pairs

[Belenus]

I have found Decimal Pairs one of the most intriguing opportunities to open up new levels of understanding and appreciation. In brief, Decimal Pairs are the Majors I - X, which are paired with their equivalents XI - XX. These are achieved by adding to 10 to the base card; and easily recognized and emphasized by their Roman numerations. (Le Mat and Le Monde stand outside the pairings.) Thus atouts I and XI, II and XII, III and XIII, IIII and XIIII, V and XV, VI and XVI, VII and XVII, VIII and XVIII, VIIII and XVIIII, and X and XX are the Decimal Pairs. These pairs are integral "partners" and when considered together as such they offer enhanced depth of meaning and interpretation. In other words the Roman numeral markings, like many of those tiny details of the TdM that we love to discover and discuss, reveal hidden, intentional(??), levels of meaning.

In my post to another member about the meaning of the Devil I card, I had offered the following (and was encouraged my forum member Diana to repost the pertinent section of my reply to this forum - in hopes of stimulating some discussion.) Here is the pertinent section of my previous post"

"So for me Major XV (Devil) is about impulse, passion, and desire: our unregulated, non-socially conforming, pure erotic/libidinous nature - uninhibited by religious (or social) norms. Why? Because Major XV is the decimal pair of Major V (The Pope). These 2 cards are an interpretive unit, just as all decimal pairs are. Thus one card of a decimal pair must always be interpreted in light of the other card of the decimal pair. The Pope represents among many, many other things - the sublimation, even repression and suppression of our most basic human urges, desires, passions, needs, and expressions. Remember how one of THE major concerns of just about every religion is the control of our sexuality and desires (be they sexual, gustatory, material, etc.) Are the 2 bound figures enslaved and addicted to desires? Or is the Devil freeing them from the rigid control of religion and social norms? Both are equally present in this most ambiguous card of the Majors."

respectfully,
Belenus

[Diana]

This is a wonderful thread that you've started here Belenus. Can't wait to get my teeth into it. I have a huge amount of work to do today and tomorrow, so it may have to wait till Saturday. Unless a miracle occurs and an elf comes to do my work for me. But that's unlikely.

[Diana]

I used the Grimaud version of the cards as it's the one that beats the less about the bush.


This pair of cards is, along with the Fool/Mat and XIII, the most fascinating, I can stare at them for hours.

More than pairs, these two cards are mirror images. Two different facets. Neither can exist alone. They're one "personality" - just two different sides of the coin. Two different perspectives.

With the Pope, the two little figures are facing backwards to us. With the Diable, they're facing us. And looking very confident and cheeky indeed. Far from the reverence and probably a certain awe that the Pope's adepts must be showing.

The sceptre has become a sword - in some TdMs it is more of a torch and I think a torch is the better representation, mainly due to the Devil/Lucifer connection. The pillars have become wings.

And the most fascinating thing of all in these cards is that extra arm in the Pope card. Lots of people have argued that that it's not a third arm and that it's an optical illusion. But they say this without taking into account his Doppelganger. The Pope is pointing towards something - it's in the direction of his other pair. Is the arm there to lead the young fellows out of the Pope's chamber into the Diable's chamber ?

Most people seem to think that the arm, if it is one, is of someone who is presenting the young lads to the Pope. But they say this without taking into account the pairing.

(Diable in French seems to have a less "religious" connotation than the word devil - that's why I prefer to use the French word which conjures up less of the concept of the anglo-saxon more protestant devil. )

There is also a wall behind both central figures. But it's much lower on the Diable card. It may prefigure the wall in the Sun arcanum.

You were SO right to bring up this topic of pairs, Benelus. We've got a lovely road to travel here.

I'd like next to comment on your post and your insights. But that will have to wait a while due to my time management.

[Diana]

I have found Decimal Pairs one of the most intriguing opportunities to open up new levels of understanding and appreciation. In brief, Decimal Pairs are the Majors I - X, which are paired with their equivalents XI - XX. These are achieved by adding to 10 to the base card; and easily recognized and emphasized by their Roman numerations. (Le Mat and Le Monde stand outside the pairings.) Thus atouts I and XI, II and XII, III and XIII, IIII and XIIII, V and XV, VI and XVI, VII and XVII, VIII and XVIII, VIIII and XVIIII, and X and XX are the Decimal Pairs. These pairs are integral "partners" and when considered together as such they offer enhanced depth of meaning and interpretation. In other words the Roman numeral markings, like many of those tiny details of the TdM that we love to discover and discuss, reveal hidden, intentional(??), levels of meaning.

What a great introduction, Belenus. Worthy of entry into the Great Book of Tarot. Nothing comes much to mind therefore to add to it.

I'll go straight then into the Pair that is the topic of this thread, Le Diable and Le Pape. And mention the significance of the number 10, which is used to form the decimal pair. Let's not forget that the number 10 is the Wheel of Fortune X.

In the pairing of the Pope and the Diable, The Wheel of Fortune X is bang in the middle of the V and the XV. I believe there is a relation between Le Pape, Le Diable AND the Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel of Fortune also has a lot of details that remind us of both the Pape and the Diable cards: The sword (previously sceptre and then sword/torch in the Devil), a crowned character, wings, two creatures in bondage of some kind.

So I believe that there is not only a pair, but a trio.

So for me Major XV (Devil) is about impulse, passion, and desire: our unregulated, non-socially conforming, pure erotic/libidinous nature - uninhibited by religious (or social) norms. Why? Because Major XV is the decimal pair of Major V (The Pope). These 2 cards are an interpretive unit, just as all decimal pairs are. Thus one card of a decimal pair must always be interpreted in light of the other card of the decimal pair. The Pope represents among many, many other things - the sublimation, even repression and suppression of our most basic human urges, desires, passions, needs, and expressions. Remember how one of THE major concerns of just about every religion is the control of our sexuality and desires (be they sexual, gustatory, material, etc.) Are the 2 bound figures enslaved and addicted to desires? Or is the Devil freeing them from the rigid control of religion and social norms? Both are equally present in this most ambiguous card of the Majors.

Again, really well thought out. I really enjoyed reading that.

Another aspect of the Pope here which I think is relevant is one that Oswald Wirth speaks of. He says something to the effect that one of the attributions of the Pope is to answer agonizing and soul-searching questions that his disciples or his students ask him. He answers them through dogmatism and thereby rigidifies beliefs and practices. The flock is disciplined and submissive.

In the Devil card, there is also a form of bondage. And as the cards are pairs/mirrors, they must have equal power. As above, so below. As on one side of the looking glass, as on the other. These two creatures may seem more jolly and cheeky, but my god, it's hard to be more of a slave than they are. They've climbed down from the wheel in the same place as before, only opposite. And then the Wheel goes round and always comes full circle at one stage. Before turning again.

But this time with the Devil it's bondage to materiality, not religious or philosophical or spiritual concerns. No deep soul-searching here. Wirth calls the Devil the Prince of the Material World. He speaks also of the Devil being the personification of radical egoism. It is a "revolt against the universal order of things", a temptation to consider oneself the centre of the universe.

I think this pair of cards is speaking to us of bondage. How humankind is always submissive to something - to our fears - for it is our fears who lead us to the Pape and to ask him our agonizing questions - and then to the Devil, who ensnares us with promises of Streets Paved With Gold and with false promises of material security. It is also fear that lead us to him. Radical egoism is it not just an extreme act of self-preservation?

So from this thread so far, I think I've realised that the pairs in the tarots.... or the trio(s)?? are of MUCH more importance than I'd given them. I'd up to now thought that this was a "nice thing to know". But I think it's hugely significant.

I would like to write more on this as soon as I have time. I've still got some thoughts going through my mind regarding this pair plus the Wheel of Fortune but need to sort them out first.

[Diana]

This pair is rather depressing when one views them through the bondage prism. I didn't feel like remaining in the depressed mode, so I thought that there must be a more positive message. It's perhaps got something to do with Free Will I reckoned. What is free will ? Do we have free will or is this just wishful thinking ? Have we chosen ourselves to be in bondage to money, to relationships, to fear... even to a desire for peace on earth ? Or is this part of the human experience which we cannot avoid ? Is not every desire we have something that makes us a prisoner of it ? To desire is to have an attachment. Attachment, even if one is not a Buddhist, sounds very much like being in bondage to something.

So I had a sudden impulse take out my copy of a Course in Miracles - although it's not one of my usual reads :

“There is no one who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this is the result of his own free will he must regard his will as not free, or the circular reasoning in this position would be quite apparent. Free will must lead to freedom.”

[Diana]

I was observing the Devil arcanum this morning, and suddenly it struck me - I'm sure it's probably struck a lot of people but I'm sometimes a bit slow on the uptake - lol - that the Devil, represents also all that is pagan, and also Celtic, and is therefore is the direct and most important enemy of the established church. The church has done every single thing in their power - I mean everything - to eliminate paganism and pagan beliefs. And Celtic beliefs like druidism and things like that. (Alain Bocher sees quite a lot of druidy and Celtic things in the TdM.)

So this also is a further indication that the two cards are a pair.

The Devil card comes much later in the sequence - and therefore may hint at its superiority over the Pape. After the Devil card, the road for the Bateleur becomes really easy. He gets freed from his little prison he's enclosed himself - "free at last" those two little characters are saying - fresh air and sunshine and colourful confetti too - and then all he has to do is to bask in the sun, the moonshine, admire the starry night, get resurrected when the trumpet sounds and rejoin the World.

Or not ?

[Belenus]

I was observing the Devil arcanum this morning, and suddenly it struck me - I'm sure it's probably struck a lot of people but I'm sometimes a bit slow on the uptake - lol - that the Devil, represents also all that is pagan, and also Celtic, and is therefore is the direct and most important enemy of the established church. The church has done every single thing in their power - I mean everything - to eliminate paganism and pagan beliefs. And Celtic beliefs like druidism and things like that. (Alain Bocher sees quite a lot of druidy and Celtic things in the TdM.)

Diana,
I love this!

You give us yet another POSITIVE read to atout XV - something that is so sorely lacking in most reader's box of interpretations. I have always pushed my students and clients to see XV as a positive force (where appropriate to the spread and position of course) and not simply consign her/him to the "outer darkness" of evil, lust and degeneracy.

Your insights give us another avenue - in that "pagan" (except when vilified by all Christians (not just the RC church)) is one who adheres to the natural world, who honors and celebrates the body, the senses, the sensual, the beauty and splendor and divine nature of the physical world. All is holy. All is sacred. It seems most religions want to demonize the body and its sense - especially our sexuality, our sexual desires. (Can anyone doubt Christianity's total obsession with sex?!?!!) Yes those desires can go awry - but just as any human impulse can go awry. The high function side of XV celebrates the gift and grace of our bodies and desires, our natural world and all its divine nature.

Belenus

[Diana]

Your insights give us another avenue - in that "pagan" (except when vilified by all Christians (not just the RC church)) is one who adheres to the natural world, who honors and celebrates the body, the senses, the sensual, the beauty and splendor and divine nature of the physical world. All is holy. All is sacred. It seems most religions want to demonize the body and its sense - especially our sexuality, our sexual desires. (Can anyone doubt Christianity's total obsession with sex?!?!!) Yes those desires can go awry - but just as any human impulse can go awry. The high function side of XV celebrates the gift and grace of our bodies and desires, our natural world and all its divine nature.

I think it would be foolish to not see some form of representation of the Greek god Pan who had the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat. He was the God of nature and sexuality is always associated with him. The process of demonising him by the church ended up with him being a devil and then he warped even into Satan.

Funnily enough, he's the only Greek god who died. As far as I can make out. It was reported by Plutarch :

During the reign of Tiberius (14–37 CE), the news of Pan's death came to one Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the island of Paxi. A divine voice hailed him across the salt water, "Thamus, are you there? When you reach Palodes, take care to proclaim that the great god Pan is dead." Which Thamus did, and the news was greeted from shore with groans and laments.

Pan is derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European god Péhusōn, whom scholars believe to have been an important pastoral deity. So he goes way back.