Learning to Read the High Priestess
This series on the major arcana presents some ways that I like to think about each of the majors with the hope that it helps you learn more about or think differently about these cards. In each of these posts, I provide an overview of how I read the relevant major arcanum through a few different lenses: with keywords; in the context of other majors; and through visuals. You can read more about the premise behind this structure in the introductory post on the “Learning to Read the Major Arcana” series.
These may represent just a small sample of what I might consider when I see a major arcanum, but they are still quite deep takes, so they can be a lot to take in all at once. Don’t be afraid to skip around and come back to it paragraph by paragraph as needed.
Keywords
As a reminder, these keywords are examples and not exhaustive of all possible meanings of the High Priestess. Remember to take what works for you and question what doesn’t. I’ve tried to arrange these keywords by broad concept to help organize them and make them easier to learn.
Intuition, Divination, Mystery, Secrets
Secret knowledge, Occult, Counterculture
Books, Wisdom
Solitude, Quiet
Mothers, Virginity, Triple Goddess, Divine feminine
Moon, Water, Spiritual veil
In Context
As with the previous posts in this series, it makes the most sense to continue this Fool’s Journey into understanding the major arcana by looking behind to the Magician and ahead to the Empress. In the combination, we can see the High Priestess as a magical woman, but that’s superficial at best, so let’s dive in.
The Magician expresses his magical talents outward, whereas the High Priestess contains magical power that is used in secret out of sight, possibly even in the dark. As described in the previous post in the series (on learning to read the Magician), the Magician communicates and focuses outside of himself. In contrast, the High Priestess is quiet and contained. She is often depicted indoors, unlike the Magician who is outside at a table for all to see. And unlike the Magician with his tools used to enact magic or to fool a gullible crowd, the High Priestess often holds only a scroll or book, a form of received knowledge. The Magician’s work has no obvious permanence, whereas the High Priestess is much more established and enshrined in some kind of religious system, much like the knowledge recorded in her scroll (and there’s also a legacy to such an old form of recorded knowledge). Hers is a much more intuitive and receptive form of magical working, fitting for divination. But the knowledge that she has to share is also more about long-term wisdom than facts and figures.
The High Priestess is the first feminine figure in the major arcana, and the Empress reinforces some of the High Priestess’s feminine and interpersonal qualities. Both women are often seated—more receptive than active—and awaiting penitents. Even when they are not shown seated, both women usually look outward and seem to expect an audience. No one is there yet, but their counsel is likely to be sought because they are respected and empowered by others. (There may also be some expectation that they serve others, as well as rule them.) The Fool and the Magician may entertain, but they are also somewhat focused on self. Instead, the Empress helps us see that the High Priestess is a woman holding court for others. By her title, she is already part of a community, placed within a society of some kind (again unlike the Magician) just as the Empress is. Even if she is only a priestess in a secret temple; there is someone who knows to turn to her for spiritual guidance.
But the Empress and High Priestess differ in their typically feminine roles. The Empress is often pregnant or obviously a mother or somehow tied to creation, whereas the High Priestess almost never shows signs of motherhood. Mapped to a monastic religious system, it would be more appropriate to think of her as a virgin or possibly a crone since she has the age and experience to be a full priestess or even the high priestess, not just an acolyte. With her lunar associations and iconography, it’s easy to see her tied to the Triple Goddess and to the Great Mother (a kind of literal recreation of Mother Superior), but in most systems the Empress more obviously fills that function (and in the Thoth Tarot, she has crescents as well for the waxing and waning of Venus). Still, it’s worth examining what forms of femininity the High Priestess can embody.
Shifting gears slightly from my normal schema, we should also consider the High Priestess in relation to the High Priest, the Hierophant, because of their similarly religious roles and, in the Marseille, their similar titles (La Papesse and le Pape). I won’t dwell too long on their differences, but it is worth noting the difference in modern history between priests and priestesses. Priests have existed in Western religious systems consistently for millennia; priestesses have often been missing from the historical record. While some religions or sects have offered priestesses an official role, many dominant religions prioritize the divine masculine represented by the Hierophant minimize the importance of the divine feminine. This can reinforce both the ancient quality of the High Priestess and her need for secrecy or her role outside of official culture. Consider even that some depictions show the Hierophant or Pope with an audience, whereas the High Priestess is often depicted alone.
That’s probably plenty for new tarot readers to chew on, but if you want to think about other majors, you can go further by comparing the High Priestess to the other majors by its number and by its element or astrological correspondence. Of course, we could compare the High Priestess to all majors, but that’s probably not that helpful unless you’re an advanced reader who isn’t reading this anyway.
The High Priestess is number 2, so it’s associated with the major arcana numbered 11, Justice and Lust / La Force, as well as Judgment / Aeon (numbered 20). Because I don’t really consider the Fool to be major arcanum 22, I won’t address the Fool here.
The numerological ties to Justice seem visually intentional in the Rider / Smith-Waite, where the two women both sit between two columns before a curtain of some kind. Both women oversee a court of sorts, even if we can’t see the people who petition them. Their wisdom is sought in making difficult decisions, but Justice works as part of a public system with more openness, light, and visibility than the High Priestess. This contrast helps reinforce the dual supports of intuition (Priestess) and logic (Justice). Of course, as the two columns show, one support rarely suffices, and, truthfully, both logic and intuition are used in most good decisions.
The cards of Lust and La Force offer quite a contrast to the (typically) inactive Priestess. Although the Thoth Priestess and Marseille Papesse seem to have very little in common, neither one is engaged in any activity, and there’s no sign of the physical, externalized power of the cards. Instead, the Priestess’s power remains internal and something to access through quiet or at least polite methods, not through the rough-and-tumble activity of the other cards.
As with the Empress, the High Priestess’s link to Justice and Lust / La Force reinforces her role as a powerhouse of energy based in feminine power. While it may seem stereotypical and unnecessarily binary to identify the feminine power of these cards, it’s worth accepting that femininity is part of some archetypes, just as masculinity and androgyny and formlessness are part of some archetypes. For the High Priestess, it seems more clearly tied to multiple forms of feminine power, and that may help with any discomfort in seeing her as a divine feminine—she is tied to the Empress and Justice and Lust / La Force, so she accesses all of it.
With Judgment (the Aeon), we see the progression from the High Priestess’s internal consideration and into Justice’s socially informed, public decisions before entering the spiritual decision-making that is often represented by Judgment or the Aeon. While Judgment has obviously religious overtones in many decks and the name can suggest a specific kind of decision-making (i.e., who’s getting into Heaven?), there’s a more important spiritual decision-making that happens while we live: how do you want to live? For me, Judgment is about personal callings and awakening to one’s full potential. The High Priestess answered her calling long ago to become a priestess; it’s an honor and spiritually fulfilling work to be the High Priestess. And that decision that seems so personal and internal-to-oneself is actually part of a higher-level evaluation of options. The Priestess, like the Hierophant, asks you to examine how you can connect with the divine. You don’t have to wait to die and be reborn.
Numerologically, we could also tie the High Priestess to the World (21) and the Hanged Man (12) because of those cards’ use of the number 2, but I don’t want to go into all of that, and it would be a fun exercise for more advanced readers to take on. Also, I’ll talk about the Hanged Man when we get into elemental associations next.
Now we’ll look at the astrological and elemental correspondences, which are based on the High Priestess’s association with the moon: Cancer (the Chariot) as the sign ruled by the moon, the sun (the Sun) as the moon’s complement, and the other water signs and planet represented by Death (Scorpio), the Moon (Pisces), and the Hanged Man (Water / Neptune).
The Chariot is a card that can symbol one’s divine vessel, which is important for an intuitive worker like the High Priestess, but it’s often seen as more closely tied to the Magician and his manifestations through their shared association with will and willpower. The Chariot (through Cancer) is also a symbol of protection and of sensitivity or vulnerability, tying into associations with home and of safe spaces, bringing to mind the High Priestess’s role as “mother” to her spiritual community: her veil and silence may be able to hide you under the right circumstances. What or who else will you find hidden there? I could go on, but it’s getting more abstract than is helpful.
Thinking about Smith’s illustration of the Chariot, there are some visual parallels worth noting. You might notice the black and white binaries presented on either side of the High Priestess and the black and white sphinxes carrying the Chariot forward. What do those two forces represent? Those same forces of light and dark are relevant to the High Priestess. There’s a balance in that proper guidance, as seen with Justice, but you may find that what’s meant by those two polarities is unique to you or your reading: it could be wisdom and desire as readily as it could be light work and shadow work and as readily yin and yang or earth and air. Less obvious are the celestial thrones. What does it mean, if anything, that the Chariot is under a canopy of stars while a crescent moon swims in the High Priestess’s robes? One idea is that the Chariot driver is crowned with victory because he is guided by the stars, while the High Priestess is tied to the fluctuations of the moon’s cycle and the ebb and flow of waves without clear direction, but you’ll have to look inward to find an answer that makes sense to you.
Contrasting the Sun and the High Priestess as cards tied to complementary “planets” (or luminaries), we can see the nature of the Sun with its openness and fun and innocence in sharp contrast to the High Priestess. She has no openness and no signs of fun (and no signs of daylight). She may have innocence, but it comes from covering herself rather than in being open and free to all that the world has to offer. She obviously has power and energy, but it stems from the moon, not the sun.
Shifting into the other water cards, we can see the continued theme of darkness and an uneasy path. The High Priestess isn’t hanged or dead or underwater, but she is hidden and out of a conventional space. Death, the Moon, and the Hanged Man are all tied to some kind of uncomfortable enlightenment. The Priestess seems to have avoided some of that pain, but at what cost? Has she given up her contrary nature? Must she remain in the dark and out of public sight? Is she naive and still early enough in her power to not yet have met such challenging fates?
But the Priestess’s connection to these cards also emphasizes the liminal position she holds between this world and another. How does she connect to the other side? Does she guide disciples into the underworld, the place of Death, or the realm of dreams and psychic power, seen in the Moon? Does she help penitents shift their perspectives to find an enlightened way of seeing, as the Hanged Man has found? What may her secrets lead the Fool to, and at what cost to the Fool?
Looking for these kinds of distinctions between similar cards (and it would be easy to bring in others) often raises more questions than it answers, but it can open up new ways of thinking about the High Priestess.
Visuals
For interpreting the visuals, I chose one of my favorite images of the High Priestess, the one in Chris-Anne Donnelly’s Light Seer’s Tarot. (You can read my interview with that deck here, but Chris-Anne also provides a lot of great information about her cards, such as her post on the High Priestess if you want to know more about the card.)
The most visible aspects of the High Priestess’s power as an archetype come from her stillness as she receives divine downloads. She is a channel from and to higher knowledge, seen in the transmission of white circles to and from her third eye into the Heavens along a purple/pink channel of celestial beauty that collects in a crescent moon hairpin. This moon recalls her lunar associations and divine feminine power, in which the moon is feminine to complement the masculine sun. (One of her earrings clearly shows a little crescent, so there could be three moons for the Triple Goddess.)
Around her calm form is a swirl of divine mist suggesting spiritual connection, and her mouth is closed suggesting reception rather than immediate expression. She will take all of this in and process it and, if she wants, she will share it later. But that mist also shows spiritual protection and spiritual embodiment. The High Priestess here seems to be a true medium, a connection point between the worlds.
This in-between state is perfectly depicted by the two pairs of eyes in the image. On the surface, it’s easy to see only either the High Priestess’s closed eyes or a pair of open, translucent blue eyes. But they’re both there. Her eyes are closed, yet her spirit eyes are wide open and seeing clearly. It’s a subtle detail, but it’s so powerful to seeing how the High Priestess can connect seamlessly to two worlds.
Other details to notice that may be meaningful for your interpretation or reading are that the High Priestess wears a scarf with embellishments (or jewelry) combining pomegranate and a solar cross. The cross is balanced and could recall the symbol for aid and healing, as much as solar power, which would not fit as easily with traditional meanings. (But who needs to stick to those?) The cross is also vaguely religious, unlike the lack of obvious other signs of religious institution. But the little decorations beside the cross seem to be pomegranates, a fruit tied to the underworld and to being in both the spirit world and mundane world. In the myth of Persephone, Demeter, and Hades, Persephone eats some of the seeds of a pomegranate and, because of this, she has to stay in the underworld half the year, which is why we have winter. (These same fruits are seen in some of Smith’s illustrations for the Smith-Waite Tarot.) There’s a sense of the light and dark balance through that myth which would otherwise be missing from the solitary figure of the Priestess.
The last physical characteristic of the High Priestess that I think is worth noting is her hair. It’s pinned up, contained like the veiled and put-together priestesses in other decks, but her power allows some of it to fly free. Perhaps more important to interpreting this card for useful practice is that her hair is (mostly) shades of red. While that could be an extraneous detail, it could be a useful shortcut for identifying her as a witch (redheads were supposedly thought to be witches), a practitioner of magic outside of the rules of conventional society and religious dogma.
Moving beyond the woman herself, I’m drawn to the background and the runes floating at the top. One of the most consistent but unusual additions to this deck’s symbolism are Elder Futhark runes depicted in the major arcana. Here, we have four: Mannaz, Laguz, Perthro, and Wunjo. The first three seem perfectly meaningful and apt for the High Priestess. Mannaz can represent human consciousness and the full potential of humanity. Laguz is tied to the ocean and water and the tides. Perthro is tied to choice and chance within the threads of fate woven by the Norns. Wunjo, as I understand it, is a little off-brand, since it means joy. But another translation of joy is ecstasy, and that’s a word that derives from intense spiritual connections. There isn’t much to the visuals of those runes, but it’s worth looking up the meanings of runes if you aren’t familiar with them. (Look up the Wikipedia page or a similar visual collection so that you can then find the actual runes if you can’t yet identify them.)
Did you learn something?
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