II - La Papesse

[BreathingSince72]

These are from the Flornoy Dodal and the Robledo Mariella, respectively. When I think of the Papesse, or La Pances as known in some decks, I think of the practice of Lectio Divina. I have read about this practice many times and one of my favorite authors relates it directly to this card. Lectio Divina is a practice which minvolves Reading, praying on and contemplating the word of God. In this case I think of the Papess looking to the left as a symbol that she is working to remember what she has read. She is rolling it over in her mind again and again until it becomes a part of her. I have also heard some refer to her as an image of the blessed Mother and this association was made based on the triple nature of her crown].The link and image of Mary I have included are by no means exhaustive but included only to pique interest.

An associate shared that the word Pances seemed like a play on a French word for “thoughts.” Thus makes sense if she is contemplating spiritual material. It was also sug8gested that this may be related to a word for stomach, a not so subtle hint that the church got fat off of the suffering of others. But if this was a reference to a word for belly, it would seems like that is sensible in light of the idea that the word of God was made known to the virgin and the word became flesh...through her belly.

These are a couple of thoughts regarding who this could have been representative of. Who do you think this card represents and what do you think it means?

[Tomatosauce]

There is a very old tradition in the Catholic Church of Mary being the first priest, since she brought forth the Incarnated Christ. It gets downplayed a lot in the last century or so because obviously the Church couldn't have women getting the idea that women could be priests generally, but it's a well-established tradition that would have been prominent as Tarot trumps developed.

[Joan Marie]

I was always under the impression that "The Popess" card seen in many historical decks like the Visconti-Sforza as well as La Papesse were based on the story of Pope Joan. There are many interesting websites about her but here is a link to WIKI for starters.

The statue that still stands in Rome is Joanna with a papal crown.

Here is a quick video. She met a really bad end.




Has anyone else ever heard this?

[Charlie Brown]

I was always under the impression that "The Popess" card seen in many historical decks like the Visconti-Sforza as well as La Papesse were based on the story of Pope Joan.

Has anyone else ever heard this?

I've certainly heard it put forth as a strong theory, but I don't recall seeing any actual historical evidence. What I would want to know is how common that story was during the relevant time periods. Despite the name, it's always struck me as being immediately significant of an Abess/Mother Superior type and I wonder why we have to go digging around into what would have been a several hundred year old apocryphal tale when there were similar figures of female religious authority commonly present during the time period. Not that I'm much of an expert on the history.

[Charlie Brown]

FWIW, Caitlin Matthews thinks that it's Pope Joan and she makes two points. First, she notes that the story of Pope Joan became very popular during the 13th century, which is still a little early for my taste, but certainly better than 886, I think. The other thing she says —and this I find compelling— is that the Pope Joan story would have been resonant with/representative of the large number of Anti-Popes that were floating around at that point in history. Of course anti-popes would have been an important fact of life to a Visconti or a Sforza.

[BreathingSince72]

FWIW, Caitlin Matthews thinks that it's Pope Joan and she makes two points. First, she notes that the story of Pope Joan became very popular during the 13th century, which is still a little early for my taste, but certainly better than 886, I think. The other thing she says —and this I find compelling— is that the Pope Joan story would have been resonant with/representative of the large number of Anti-Popes that were floating around at that point in history. Of course anti-popes would have been an important fact of life to a Visconti or a Sforza.

Charlie Brown, what do you think when you see this card? Pope, Virgin, Abbess? What does the symbolism mean to you?

Flornoy describes this card as the grandmother and says, in essence, she is the first person a child in the traditional family would have spent much of their time with. He states that this is because it was undesirable for the mother to become too attached to the child as infant mortality, and indeed, early mortality, was very high. In this description, the grandmother would have been the person most involved in the instruction and care of the baby and toddler until they were of an age where they were more self-reliant and less in the way of mothers' tasks. I find this explanation intriguing and it makes sense. (That is not to say that I disagree with Mary or Pope Joan being the character.

If one were to embrace Flornoy's ideas, the Bateleur is any of us and then the first four cards after that represent the first family members we encounter in life, each one providing a specific series of lessons. La Papesse is the grandmother, the Emperatrice is the mother, Le Empereur and Le Pape is the grandfather. I will likely save their role for those cards specifically. But it made a lot of sense to me how, for the purpose of reading, that these could be related to the life cycle.

At any rate, lots of good food for thought here.

There is a very old tradition in the Catholic Church of Mary being the first priest, since she brought forth the Incarnated Christ. It gets downplayed a lot in the last century or so because obviously the Church couldn't have women getting the idea that women could be priests generally, but it's a well-established tradition that would have been prominent as Tarot trumps developed.

This really blew my mind. I had not heard of Mary being referred to as the first priest although the reference would make a lot of sense. That said, I have always considered the other Mary to be the first evangelist. I would like to study that out further.

[Diana]

LA PAPESSE : WHAT SHE IS NOT

I am referring here to the above post. It’s too long to quote and it's just above so please read it before reading this one. (I wish BreathingSince72 would come back. I've enjoyed reading her posts that she wrote before I joined.)

So now that you’re back (you did go and read it, right??), let’s continue.

Pope Joan

Firstly, I want to say that there are no serious Tarot scholars and historians who have ever been able to find the slightest evidence nor hint of credence to this theory that La Papesse represents Pope Joan.

Now, she may have been known in the days when the Tarot was being created, but firstly, we don’t even know that she really existed. She would, if anything, have represented in the minds of the people who played games with tarot cards more of an anecdote. Something to laugh and speculate about (while playing cards who knows after a few glasses of liquor).

All the cards of the Tarot of Marseilles point to things of great importance. Putting a very likely fictitious “Pope Joan” and her rather ludicrous story in juxtaposition with the Pope, the Emperor, the Empress, the Star, Judgment, the World and its four evangelists… this doesn’t make sense.

So I discount this theory more or less definitively.


Grandmother

This is this first time that I’d read this theory of Flornoy’s that she could represent the grandmother. I find this rather weak.

Is this what the Tarot of Marseille is talking about ? If you read the Book of the Tarot, the cards, in their proper and original order (but how beautiful it is that we can also lay out the cards as we wish to create thousands and thousands of new stories), is this the story that it is telling? A child, a granny, a mummy and a daddy maybe ? So if that’s the sequence, what are the other cards ? Their cousins and aunties and uncles ?

The Tarot does not speak I think of such mundane things.

Anyway and importantly so, children in those days, especially little ones who died like flies, had such different roles and were considered so differently than they are today, that that would be a whole new argument to present against this theory. But I don’t have time and don’t feel like writing about this here, because I really don’t think it’s worth retaining this theory even as a distant eventuality.


Catholic Church, Mary first priest

This also I discount.

Why would they have made such a well known and loved figure so obscure? What reason would they have for wanting to conceal her identity? And why would she have a book in her hands ? She was not known as a teacher or a scholar.

We do know of course pretty much for sure from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and also some good hints in the Gospels, that Mary Magdalene was a confident of Jesus and it is quite possible therefore that she had a ministry herself. However, although I used to want to believe with all my heart that La Papesse was Mary Magdalene (I was not influenced by Philip Camoin for this, I’d reached that “conclusion” before I learned of his theory), I have moved away from this theory, but do keep a tiny little place for this at the back of my mind. It’s not COMPLETELY implausible. Only very implausible.

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Now, I do have something to say about who or what I believe she may represent. But I think it’s better to stay focused on one thing before moving on to another. That too the Tarot teaches us. So I’ll be back one day on this subject no doubt.

But as a conclusion, the Tarot of Marseilles is kind of what one could perhaps describe as the way of spiritual alchemy. It illustrates literally the transformations that will take place if we follow the rules. It’s nice to be shown. A long time ago, this kind of stuff was reserved for initiates in the mystery schools. Then someone plonked them one day on some cards and they became the “propriétaire du peuple” (property of the people – the French were revolutionaries before their revolution of 1789. One could almost, if one wanted to, say it’s in their blood). And these cards have strangely and most mysteriously travelled through the centuries, slightly modified, slightly changed… but the essence has always remained. It is most beautiful. And more deserving of a Pope Joan or a grandmother.

[chiscotheque]

Personally, i do not see any particular reason to jettison the idea of Pope Joan. While many aspects of the story seem suspect, it has about it a ring of truth, the way many myths do. We also have the tradition of the sedia stercoraria - a special chair with a hole cut out of it the newly-elected pope must sit on for the Cardinals to inspect his testicles. The Joan story was popular during the time when the tarot was being formulated. More, Joan's real value is mythical - she represents the lop-sided, male-supremacist earthly domination of Catholicism. In this way, Mary Magdelene is a symbol of the same thing. it's not that I believe the Papess represents Joan or MM, but rather that they are aspects of the Papess. It must be remembered that tarot cards represent qualities, attributes, paradigms, not people in particular.

In this way, the Papess represents something Joan represents - the sequester and subordination of women in religious and spiritual matters. She may, in this way, represent a simple nun or abbess. But again, she is also only a woman symbolically, which is to say she represents the female side of spirituality. Examples of this are Faith, Hope, Charity, Chastity, Devotion. In this way, the Papess represents Sophia - wisdom, originally "cleverness" in the Eve sense (Eve being hidden in clever) - which has numerous meanings, most esoteric (and making the Pances/Penses Dodal idea of "thoughts" exceedingly apt). It was integral to the Gnostics, but also Judaism and orthodox Christianity. In the non-Judaic sense, the Papess is Athene, Minerva, the Tripartite Goddess. In Christian Mysticism, she is Jesus as the Word - the Divine Logos. She is, I posit, the Holy Spirit itself. She is the Bride of Christ, the true church, which resides in each person, not out in the world.

One last point, underscoring her association with Joan and MM et al - a key aspect of the Papess is that she is overlooked, discredited, shunned, shunted, silenced, ridiculed, disparaged. The very sin Christ himself declared was the only sin that was unforgivable (Mark 3:28-29). This is the Papess' incarnation as Sophia Prunikos - wisdom whore. While the Papess has an obvious connection with the Hierophant, she is also connected to The Magician. Where he is something of a charlatan and/or ham actor, tinkering with the elements, the Papess is the magic that animates from within those elements, the unseen spirit or esprit which breathes life.


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[Diana]

Personally, i do not see any particular reason to jettison the idea of Pope Joan. While many aspects of the story seem suspect, it has about it a ring of truth, the way many myths do. We also have the tradition of the sedia stercoraria - a special chair with a hole cut out of it the newly-elected pope must sit on for the Cardinals to inspect his testicles.

According to this article and others that I've read, the sedia stecoraria is not quite what it is rumoured to be. It has a much deeper significance.

https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2 ... sedia.html

The rest of your post is outstanding and if I quoted it I would just be quoting it to nod my head and approve.

Thanks a million for your wonderful reply.

[chiscotheque]

Thanks for the clarification. The chair I was thinking of was one of the porphyry chairs, not the sedia stercoraria. You say the chair has a deeper meaning, yet the article you pointed me to doesn't know what it is; indeed, no one seems to know. I would point out that the site, LAJ started by Shawn Tribe, is devoutly catholic. I would also point out that the Catholic church is not exactly famous for transparency.

In the interests of levity, I would also point out, that porphyry is a kind of igneous rock. The first pope was Peter, whose name means rock and the Catholic church was founded on that "rock". Common archaic slang for testicles is "stone". Joan was born to English missionaries in Germany. Devoutly religious, she traveled to Athens with her partner John and she herself used the name John Anglicus. It is suggested she became Pope John VIII. The idea that John/Joan was a whore makes her lover, John, a john. The porphyry chair looks to be what in slang terms is called "a john". When the cardinals found out Joan/John was a woman, one wonders if they didn't stone her. This famous bit of pig-Latin, "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes", is also hard for the Papacy to explain away, except to say that getting concrete explanations from the Vatican is like getting blood from a stone. All in all, one could forgive these confusions, as the "pap" of Papal can mean both "father", as in papa, and "female nipple", as in a lactating breast. That said, it can also mean "nonsense". Similarly, one could be forgiven for mistaking the pet of Latin & Greek petra- viz. Peter and petrified - for the ped in pedophile.

We might, of course, recall that much of this started with the Patriarch Jacob, later called Israel, who - while looking for a wife - slept on a stone and had a dream and founded a church on that stone/dream, calling it Bethel. Beth, meaning house - here, house of God - is the number 2, hence, the number of the Papess. Beth is often pronounced bate - suggesting many cognate meanings, notably to restrain, to leave out, to waste away. Sometimes Beth is pronounced vate - suggesting a vat (receptacle), a fortune-teller (Italian for prophet or poet), and of course the Vatican.

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it."- Revelation 2:17


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[Diana]

Oh my. You certainly make a good case for the Pope Joan. I'm glad I started this topic and that you stepped in. You certainly speak with more authority than my vague mutterings.

I realised the website was a catholic one, but I thought they would know more about Papal stuff than other people.

I didn't know all those details about Jacob and the stone. I should have. My ignorance sometimes astounds me. Revelations adds the colour white to the stone.

Another woman who could symbolise the Papesse in her archetypal form is one who is too often overlooked and I find this very strange. This is Miriam, sister of Moses. She is considered to be the first female Prophetess in the Hebrew scriptures. She led and guided the people along with Moses and Aaron through the Red Sea. She was the one who sang to and probably with the women the Song of the Seas with her timbrel in celebration. She is said to have taught, according to Jewish scholars, the Torah to the women while Moses taught it to the men. So she probably had her own ministry or disciples or students or whatever. She was also an alchemist according to others. Along with Aaron and Moses, God spoke to her. But he spoke to Aaron and Miriam in their dreams. Only to Moses did he speak directly (which kind of didn't rub well with Miriam according to the scriptures.)

In modern Jewish feminist circles, she has taken a place of great importance, as I discovered when I was reading up on Miriam the other day.

I found this information about her : Most notably, an Aramaic text, the Visions of Amram from the Dead Sea Scrolls, connects the figure of Miriam with raz (in 4Q546 12 4). In the Aramaic Jewish texts the term raz applies to secrets and mysteries and only selected people have access to them. People who accessed raz were known to be in touch with God. This narrative is unfortunately fragmentary and the readers do not know the contents of Miriam’s raz. Yet it indicates that belief in Miriam’s function as a divine communicator continued into later eras. Moreover, significantly, Miriam is the only known female figure who accesses raz, a category that is otherwise reserved for male figures exclusively.

https://books.google.ch/books?id=xWIRDQ ... ly&f=false

[chiscotheque]

ha - I speak with no authority. except that I was raised a catholic in a sense, but in a sense was always outside it. I've also studied church history and Christian mysticism. Again, like the Gnostics, the Cathars, and even branches of orthodox Christianity like the Thomasine and Eastern Orthodox churches, Catholic authority has defamed, discredited, and erased the beliefs it disagreed with and quite literally rewritten history. As you say with Miriam, "she is often overlooked", which is not strange at all but instead part and parcel of a campaign to erase the female. Another Old Testament woman overlooked is Deborah - La femme n'existe pas, in more than Lacanian terms. But to reiterate, the mistreatment of women by the church is the outward sign of the erasure of the female aspects of Christianity itself. Christ's sacrifice is all one hear's about - especially in the very male branches of catholicism as seen in Spain - but the church rarely talks in any serious way about Christ's gift, the Holy Spirit. Similarly, the church has removed the wine half of the eucharist.

Speaking of growing a pair - didn't Moses smash what God had written in stone?

[Diana]

Yes, the woman has been locked up for a long time now. Church, patriarchy, capitalism, they've all worked hand in hand to bury her in a tomb. And indeed, the Christian churches love to focus on the crucifixion and the so-called sacrifice. People do love a crime scene don't they. Blood and guts always sell.

The Tarot of Marseilles is however a very balanced deck between the male and the female. I've always liked it for that. Le Bateleur itself has always represented in my mind a more androgynous figure, even if it is traditionally to be depict a male character. The feminine is very well regarded and receives her rightful place in the Tarot.

Oh yes, that Moses smashing the tablets. They didn't have anger management counselling in those days I assume.

When you speak of the wine. Are you implying that the wine is the female and the bread the male ?

[chiscotheque]

Yes, the tarot is balanced, just as God is sexless; it's humanity that's unbalanced. Again, there are men and women in the tarot, but then there's what we call male and female energy, which is simply a way of dividing and categorizing things in binary form.

ha ha - anger management! in biblical times, didn't they actually encourage and cultivate anger?

Yes, i was implying the wine is female and the bread male. The bread is solid and represents the body of christ - the outside. the wine is liquid, a female symbol in itself, and represents the blood - inside. unseen. the blood connects also with menstruation and hence the curse of eve - childbirth.

[Charlie Brown]

One reason to abandon Pope Joan is that it clearly is not Pope Joan in the Visconti-Sforza. In fact, I believe her identity is known as an abbess who was a member of the Sforza family.

[chiscotheque]

The Visconti is said to represent sister Manfreda who was indeed a relative - Matteo Visconti's cousin. She was elected Pope to start a line of female popes in 1300 and burned at the stake as a result. The sect was headed by the daughter of the king of Bohemia, Guglielma, whose followers believed she was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit. She preached a female version of Christianity. (all of which ties into what i was propounding above, and also echoes the Pope Joan story - if we remember the card does not represent any one person. Rather, since the card is a paradigm, quality, or symbol, it's more accurate to say the people represent the card).

[chiscotheque]

Miriam is the only known female figure who accesses raz, a category that is otherwise reserved for male figures exclusively.

In the Gospel of Mary, Mary Magdelene also experiences what would be called raz. she has special knowledge shared with her by Christ which the other disciples resent. she is said to be christ's favourite - a claim made by many disciples, like Judas of all people in the Gospel of Judas and John in his Gospel. Mary's unique status is reiterated in the Gospel of Phillip, which states that Jesus often kissed Mary, to the consternation of the male followers. Phillip also avers: There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.

I'd also like to clarify my overall position somewhat. the tarot represents a number of things on numerous levels - the mundane, the spiritual, the ideal, etc. The tarot as we variously know it was developed over a certain time and within a certain area, and many of my comments reflect the tarot insofar as it is a reaction to the Christian (specifically the Catholic) church. what is the church? that's a big & probably unanswerable question, but one thing i would claim that it is not is what it claims to be. just as christ replaced the 10 commandments with his 1 golden rule and found his greatest opponents were the Pharisees (the ossified fundamentalist Jewish hierarchy), the Catholic church became ossified and authority-based and what i would call anti-christ, while the real church was its people. the Holy Spirit ministers to each person directly, a relationship that interferes with the clergy's attempt to broker and undermines their authority; this is why they undermine the Holy Spirit. the idea of a folk Christianity, which is to say the church of Christ being made up of its laity rather than its clergy, directly relates to folk traditions such as Pope Joan, mysticism, and alternative methods of worship rejected and expunged by Catholicism. The Hierophant, with his acolytes and keys, is the male earthly power-based Phariseeic aspect of the church; in this way it connects in many ways to The Devil card. In contradistinction, the Papess/High Priestess represents the female aspect of religion and spirituality seen before and outside of Judeo-Christian religion - in Paganism, Hinduism, etc - which J-C religion excised. The story of Eve, where she is created after and out of man and is responsible for his downfall, denotes this very denigration. Further, the Papess/HP represents the true church (people), and the true bride of Christ.


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[Diana]

Yes, i was implying the wine is female and the bread male. The bread is solid and represents the body of christ - the outside. the wine is liquid, a female symbol in itself, and represents the blood - inside. unseen. the blood connects also with menstruation and hence the curse of eve - childbirth.

Where does this interpretation originate ? I've never heard of it.

In so many cultures, women are considered impure and unclean during their menstruation. I have a very devout Muslim friend who has talked to me about this "impurity" and that for instance how she breaks her fast during Ramadan when she's menstruating as she is "impure". It makes me sad when she speaks to me of this. But we don't argue about it. I let it be.

[Diana]

just as christ replaced the 10 commandments with his 1 golden rule .

He got rid of all but one of the commandments. He kept the first when he said "thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all they mind". Then he replaced all the others with the love thy neighbour as thyself. (A lot of people don't seem to understand the significance of the word "as", but this is perhaps subject for a topic in the spirituality forum rather than this one.)

Great post by the way. Will be rereading it many times I think and may get back to it.

[Diana]

Third post in a row (I don't know know how to multiquote different posts).

I wrote to Jean-Michel David the other day regarding the Papesse. I don't think he'll mind if I quote what he wrote back, as it's anyway all written somewhere on his website or other sites. I was writing him as I'm studying the Tarot at the moment through a feminist point of view.


Personally, I think that as an historical card representation, I’m increasingly seeing the Papesse in two ways: on the one hand as a possible representation of the two Popes (Roman and Eastern), the one clean shaven and the other bearded, with one becoming the Popesse (but I realise that this does not in the least fit the feminist possibility of the card’s representation - either as Manfreda or as any other historical or legendary figure); the other as Miriam (ie, Mary) at the annunciation - which to me most easily explains the card’s numerous details (http://www.fourhares.com/tarot/noblet_cards.html

[chiscotheque]

Yes, i was implying the wine is female and the bread male. The bread is solid and represents the body of christ - the outside. the wine is liquid, a female symbol in itself, and represents the blood - inside. unseen. the blood connects also with menstruation and hence the curse of eve - childbirth.

Where does this interpretation originate ? I've never heard of it.

It is my own interpretation, so you may take it with a pillar of salt. But, aside from the things I said about it above, consider this: why did Christ give us 2 items of communion, when 1 would surely do? humans think in dualities, and as nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so, so we think of binaries as dichotomies - yes/no, good/bad, right/wrong, life/death, etc. Leaving aside whether these are opposites or really aspects of the same thing, there are less obviously disparate binaries, such as light/dark, me/you, physical/metaphysical, male/female. These latter more easily reveal the balanced dominion of the tarot; male/female being, as I said earlier in these posts, more symbolic and allegorical than a matter of chromosomes. Similarly, this is why Christ gave the Eucharist 2 aspects, and this is why the church fathers reserve it for themselves and deny it the laity. On one level, the female aspect is frightening to the men who (literally) make up the church. On another level, the communion of an individual with god through the holy spirit is frightening to the power-structure of the clergy.

As for the church being the bride of Christ, the Holy Spirit being "female", Christ himself having 2 aspects, the word made flesh - hypostasis - these are all well-worn traditions. The tarot intertwines Christianity with "heretical" beliefs and traditions, so the Papess is more than her name implies - a female Pope - and more than the female aspects of Christianity. But since we're talking of the Papess as such, the Papess is something the church shuns - pope Joan, mythically or otherwise, women as priests, and the female aspect of christ and his teachings generally. At the same time, she represents what the church does allow - the Virgin Mary aspect: purity, devotion, faith, comfort. That which can be contained, controlled, and milked - the "hand-maiden" aspect. This dichotomy, being man-made, is simply an iteration of the Madonna/Whore complex.

It won't come as a surprise when I suggest the church has had a problem reconciling itself with sexuality, not only with regard to gender but with regard to copulation. Beyond the Christian church aspects of the Papess card, this issue of sexuality connects to the Venus aspect of the 2nd Arcanum. The card also connects to Pisces. The last 2000 years were the Piscean Age, dominated by Christianity. Christ's symbol is the fish. Note how Waite/Smith includes water in the HP card, and the over-all colour is blue, the colour of water - the earth's blood. The Virgin Mary's colour is blue. The card's number is 2; behind the HP are 2 pillars. The symbol of Pisces is 2 fish, one connected to the other with a thread or vein. They are like the Yin & Yang, and the other dualities mentioned above, including the male/female. In the Moon card, we see how the dark, the metaphysical, the subconscious can be frightening and potentially harmful. In a sense, the night of the Moon and the day of the Sun cards are reflected and inverted in the HP and Hierophant cards. Personally, I have often seen the 2 Pisces fish this way: one remains near the water's surface, where it's warm and light; this is consciousness, physical "reality", the male. the other delves into the water's depths, where it is cold and dark; this is the subconscious, the reality beyond surface "reality", the female. the thread that ties them together allows this dynamic, like the ball of thread Ariadne gave Theseus to enter the labyrinth. In a sense, the HP between the pillars is this thread. With the sword she gave him, he can kill the Minatuar or cut the thread. And here's the funny thing - the thing underscoring the balance of the spiritual, of the tarot, and of all this dual symbology: the same is true in reverse. The iota of Yin in the Yang and vice-versa. The "female" aspect can be seen as the anchor, as with Ariadne, allowing the male outward aspect to roam and explore far and wide, just as any outward journey is also a journey of self. The "real" is at the same time unreal - so-called materiality has more nothing in it than something. The "unreal", meantime, is incredibly real, so real it can't be seen, just as what really matters is intangible.

I apologize for the convoluted nature of these observations - fittingly enough, these connections are like a house of cards which collapse if individual aspects are removed, and the individual aspects on inspection seem rather unrelated or insignificant when removed from the house, let alone the fool's errand of explaining the ineffable with words.


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[Diana]

Sacrebleu. That is some post.

I really know near to nothing about communion and the eucharist. So I'm glad that you brought this topic up of the number Two and the duality - it was just the right time to bring up this aspect I think. And the way you did it was very nifty!

You say : "Similarly, this is why Christ gave the Eucharist 2 aspects, and this is why the church fathers reserve it for themselves and deny it the laity". Isn't communion and the Eucharist the same thing? Why do you say it's denied to the laity?

A lot of what I would like to comment on in your post would I fear make this thread go off topic as it would veer a bit too much to theological things (like I just did in my question above) which may not concern the Papesse. But know that your post has been read attentively (twice already) with great appreciation. (Word becomes flesh huh? I've been meditating on this for months now... yes, it becomes flesh, but it is still the Word... is the answer I got so far.)

Personally, I have often seen the 2 Pisces fish this way: one remains near the water's surface, where it's warm and light; this is consciousness, physical "reality", the male. the other delves into the water's depths, where it is cold and dark; this is the subconscious, the reality beyond surface "reality", the female. the thread that ties them together allows this dynamic, like the ball of thread Ariadne gave Theseus to enter the labyrinth. In a sense, the HP between the pillars is this thread. With the sword she gave him, he can kill the Minatuar or cut the thread. And here's the funny thing - the thing underscoring the balance of the spiritual, of the tarot, and of all this dual symbology: the same is true in reverse. The iota of Yin in the Yang and vice-versa. The "female" aspect can be seen as the anchor, as with Ariadne, allowing the male outward aspect to roam and explore far and wide, just as any outward journey is also a journey of self. The "real" is at the same time unreal - so-called materiality has more nothing in it than something. The "unreal", meantime, is incredibly real, so real it can't be seen, just as what really matters is intangible.

Now that is splendid what you wrote there !! You're actually making a painting depicting the feminine aspect of the Christ. Or rather a tapestry to be hung on the walls of the castle banquet room.

I have as one of my definitions of Christ (we have to somehow try and explain the ineffable as you say or else how else can we communicate) is "the activity of Truth in consciousness". This thread that you speak of in your post reminded me so much of this. The HP as the feminine "side" of Christ consciousness. That sounds most pleasant like a fresh breeze on a warm summer day.

edited to add : If the HP were to represent the feminine side of the Christ, this would not necessarily imply that the Pope represents the masculine side. I would see this more as an aspect of the Empress. The number three would also point to this. The Empress has on a number of Tarot of Marseilles decks.... an Adam's apple. Sometimes this has been evoked and discussed and pondered upon in TdM circles. This hint of masculinity is very intriguing.

[Diana]

Oh, I discovered something so wonderful.

In the Nag Hammadi texts (collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the town of Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945) there is a poem that evokes what we’ve been discussing recently and the woman being denied her voice.

In the Nag Hammadi texts there is a collection of oracles from an unnamed woman prophet. She speaks in the first person as the feminine voice of God: It’s called “The Thunder, Perfect Mind”.

From wiki: “The author, date, and place of composition are unknown, but a cultural milieu like that of second- or third-century Alexandria is plausible. In any case, it is clear that the text was originally composed in Greek well before 350 C.E., the approximate date of the Coptic manuscript." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thunder,_Perfect_Mind

I’ll copy the first part which is so strongly relevant here. The whole poem is very long and I’ll leave you the link at the end of the post so that you can read it on the website if you wish to read it in full.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am <the mother> and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.
I am the ruler of my offspring.
But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.
And he is my offspring in (due) time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.


http://gnosis.org/naghamm/thunder.html

[chiscotheque]

Thanks, Marigold. Since we're so wonderfully off-topic, why repent?

Plato said the root and stem of all Evil is Ignorance. Many of the Nag Hammadi texts are Neo-Platonic. He also said knowledge without wisdom (Sophia) is mere cunning - the male, scientific world we have progressively lived in here in the West, which has been so successful - so clever - but is with regard to humanity, nature, and spirit, lop-sided.

In the Gnostic sense, Eden was Plato's Cave. When we think of the Genesis story, there are 2 versions. as a result, the tree denied humanity was in one story Good & Evil, in another Life & Death, just as one story has Eve and Adam created at the same time while in another Eve was an after-thought. the trees' dualities underscore the theme of the binary, but so do the 2 different stories of the Fall. the movement the "Fall" represents is away from the One, outward, just as the Papess/HP is the number 2.

Christ is both the new Adam and the new Eve - the Logos (female) made flesh (male). wine & bread. the Papess/HP stays within, while the male energy moves out - but the journey is always to home - the One. recall, the Papess holds a book, representing the Word (which Christ made flesh, the Logos, Sophia, etc.). Christ, then, with his union of opposites - male & female - represents the enlightened human. just as Hindu gods have their consort, which is really an aspect of themselves. Siva, for instance, is often shown with one breast - hence, both male & female. when Christ said he is the way, and no one comes to God but through "me", this me is everyone's me - the self - through an immitation of sorts of his unified duality.

speaking of "the word", it may be interesting to compare Blake's take:

We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Through the Eye (I)
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul slept in beams of Light.
God appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night,
But does a Human Form DIsplay
To those who Dwell in Realms of day.

the Empress & Emperor exist in the mundane male world, and relate to each other and the Hierophant, as well as the Lovers and Chariot. The Papess/HP relates more to the Magician, and even the Fool. As the Hierophant connects with the Devil thematically and in a decimal layout of the Majors, the Papess/HP relates to the Hanged Man thematically in ways, and the Mag & HP relate to the Sun & Moon. In one sense, the first 9 cards are the outward male world, in which the female Papess/HP is trapped or hidden - the Yin diota in the Yang swirl - while the Hanged Man is the Yang in the inward female world of the 11 to 19 of the Majors. Judgment introduces the idea (and Ideal) of the 3 - the product of the union of opposites.

.

[Diana]

Thanks so much again chiscotheque for such a useful and considerate post.

There is indeed something keenly out of balance without the wisdom (Sophia). It would seem that this has contributed (if not caused) the end of our civilisation as we know it because if the energy is all one one side, it burns out - it has nothing to nourish itself with. But the woman is rising a bit... let's see if she's going to go in the right direction (she will need to be wise here and it's not yet a given) because we have a new civilisation to build now. It would be nice to build a better one.

Those two stories of creation have always fascinated me. The key has always been for me in the mist that rose from the earth. Even as a very young child, that mist grabbed my attention and has never left.

The rest of your post I can only thank you for. Any comment I make would detract from their great import.

P.S. I don't understand what Blake means when he says "Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night".