Popess

The Seba library treats Popess in 9 passages, across 2 authors (including Nichols, Sallie, Dvornik, Francis).

In the library 9 passages

it is through the Popess that the spirit will be real-ized, brought down into reality. Traditionally, woman does not make the law, she is the instrument of its enactment; she does not control her destiny, it will evolve as it was written.

Nichols articulates the Popess’s core archetypal function as the feminine vessel through which spiritual potential descends into manifestation, her receptivity and passivity being constitutive rather than deficient qualities.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980thesis

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Whereas the Popess holds her arms in a closed position, protecting the secrets of her body, the Empress’s arms are open, indicating a more outgoing nature… The creative potential concealed with the Popess is now brought forth into reality.

Nichols establishes the Popess-Empress dyad as a developmental polarity within the feminine archetype, the Popess embodying concealed potential that the Empress subsequently externalizes.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980thesis

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Madam Popess, many women today feel that you should be Tarot number one. Do you agree with them? ‘Mercy no!’ she replied… ‘for my magic that funny fat number two is just right. I’m very happy with it.’

Through dramatic dialogue, Nichols voices the Popess’s affirmation of the number two as intrinsically suited to feminine, receptive, and generative modes of being, in contrast to the singular, phallic authority of Trump I.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980thesis

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the powers symbolized by The Magician, The Popess, The Empress, and The Emperor controlled our lives without challenge or question. Their magic seemed so powerful that weak ego consciousness could not confront them.

Nichols situates the Popess within the first tier of the Tarot sequence as a pre-egoic archetypal force that operates autonomously before individual human consciousness differentiates itself from the collective psyche.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting

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‘Dear me,’ said The Popess shaking her head. ‘Whoever starts such rumors — not a woman you may be sure!’… ‘the whole question of first or second is really irrelevant. Two is the number of all life; one alone can do nothing.’

The Popess defends the equal cosmic dignity of the lunar-feminine principle against its subordination to the solar-masculine, grounding her authority in the metaphysics of duality as the precondition of all creation.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting

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Woman’s temperament, like that of the goddess, is more related to rhythms of nature than to systems of logic. A man’s situation is different. Both physiologically and psychologically he is usually less attuned to the ebb and flow of his moods than is woman.

In elaborating the psychic context surrounding the Popess, Nichols connects feminine consciousness to cyclical natural rhythms and the Great Goddess, providing the archetypal background against which the Popess’s imagery acquires its meaning.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting

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deep in the unconscious of every woman pregnancy is still experienced as a fateful annunciation. For her, every birth is a recreation of the Divine Child.

Nichols extends the Popess’s symbolism of concealed potential into a depth-psychological account of feminine experience of pregnancy as archetypal annunciation, linking the card to themes of the Divine Child and sacred creation.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting

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In contrast to the two puny figures before him, he appears to be of superhuman size. And rightly, too, for he is God’s representative on earth.

In discussing the Pope card, Nichols implicitly contrasts the papal masculine authority with the earlier feminine authority of the Popess, illustrating the developmental arc from unconscious archetype to conscious spiritual mediation.

Nichols, Sallie, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980aside

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