5s and Le Pape

Shalott

Thanks, y'all. This has helped. Still a bit more ambiguous than say, 7's and Le Chariot. But as Diana and jmd often point out, it's this ambiguousness that makes it special. I like stuff to be cut-and-dried, but it's a good mental exercise to occasionally NOT hae things be glaringly obvious!
 

punchinella

[mods please delete]
 

Parzival

5s and Le Papa

I really like Astraea's understanding of the Papa as "instability and uncertainty as we struggle with the divine will."Any spiritual authority figure must struggle to be vitally inspired by supra- personal truth, rather than fall into the little ego's arrogant, intolerant infallibility. So, as with Papa or Lama or Hierophant or Shaman, so with all of us, in lesser degree, as to position in society. We struggle to find enlightenment instead of hollow hats and robes. Instability is in any seeker who tries to see through the opacity to the luminosity.
 

Shalott

Punchinella, in Pythagorean numerology, 5's are this new thing that comes blasting in, destabilizing the stability of the 4s. However you're free of course to use whatever breed of numerology you wish. This destabilization isn't good or bad, which is why I like to use it. But it's also why I've been confused about relating to Le Pape! He seems pretty stable to me...but when thinking about it in the various ways presented here, it's starting to make sense.

:D
 

punchinella

Oh, I'm sorry Shalott, I guess I didn't understand the nature of your thread/query.

I'll try to be more careful next time.
 

ihcoyc

The creators of the Tarot were likely aware of the fact that Pope and Emperor were likely to be at odds with one another. Several centuries of conflict between the Popes on the one hand, and the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, especially the Hohenstaufens and the Hapsburgs, were part of their relatively recent history. Northern Italy was often the battleground between these two competing monarchs.

It is unlikely that they would have seen the two rulers as simply two sides of the establishment in a complementary relationship.
 

Shalott

punchinella said:
Oh, I'm sorry Shalott, I guess I didn't understand the nature of your thread/query.

I'll try to be more careful next time.

Oh no don't worry about it, your take on fives is certainly a contribution. I was just telling you how I read them. That's all. :cool: We all cool, as they say in the 'hood.
 

smleite

Originally posted by Jewel-ry

I tend to think of the 5's as breaking out of the stability of the 4's, so possible meanings are uncertainty, a new direction, movement, change, unpredictability. The way I tie it in with Le Pape is to think of transition and a bridge to the sixes.

Le Pape is often thought of as a bridge as he joins the earthly with the spiritual.

I guess this resumes a lot of it, and this is also the way I see Le Pape. I like to picture a four-walled building as a representation of number four, and number five would then be a hole (a door, a way out and a way in) suddenly opened. A door, a ladder, a bridge, whatever. In that sense, it is about a “crisis”, as every new possibility is.

Anyway, I also understand why Le Pape could be seen as stability: he is, of course, a paternalist, protective figure, and takes upon him much of the onus of change and hazard that is present in the spiritual adventure this card presents. I mean, in Le Pape we are not alone before God, or the Spirit, because he is a mediator. We will be there “by ourselves” latter…

Originally posted by jmd

Finally, it indicates too the number of the Rose...

And this is such an important hint. The rose is to be found a bit further on, also in a number five… that is, in Temperance’s front (XIV, or 14, = 1+4 = 5). The symbolic rose, of course, is always a five-petaled flower.

I heard once an hermetic aphorism that always comes to my mind when I see Le Pape: something like “when the cross is complete, the rose will blossom”. Le Pape is the bearer of the cross; the angel of Temperance is the bearer of the rose.
 

Shalott

smleite said:
I guess this resumes a lot of it, and this is also the way I see Le Pape. I like to picture a four-walled building as a representation of number four, and number five would then be a hole (a door, a way out and a way in) suddenly opened. A door, a ladder, a bridge, whatever. In that sense, it is about a “crisis”, as every new possibility is.

Anyway, I also understand why Le Pape could be seen as stability: he is, of course, a paternalist, protective figure, and takes upon him much of the onus of change and hazard that is present in the spiritual adventure this card presents. I mean, in Le Pape we are not alone before God, or the Spirit, because he is a mediator. We will be there “by ourselves” latter…

K, maybe I'm tarnished ;) by Golden Dawn DMs, but I think of Le Pape as representing tradition, conformity, authority. Then the Pope himself is supposed to represent the spiritual leader who helps one in a time of crisis, not the cause of a crisis...unless he's a Borgia. })

But as representing the "5th Element" perhaps, the spiritual thing that causes "disruption" to the solid world of L'Empereur. I'm starting to see it, but, like I've said, it's just not as blatantly obvious to me as others correspondences.

Or element 115...;)