The High Priestess
The High Priestess (also called The Popess) is major arcanum II of the tarot. It represents intuitive wisdom, secret knowledge, receptivity, feminine mysteries and everything one knows without need for words. She is the guardian of the threshold between conscious and unconscious.
Origin and symbolism
In the Italian decks, this card was La Papessa ("the popess"), a female figure seated with a book or scroll. Some historians associate her with the legend of Pope Joan (mythical woman said to have occupied the throne of Saint Peter disguised as a man in the 9th century) or with Manfreda Visconti, a 13th-century Milanese religious proclaimed popess by a heterodox sect. In the Rider-Waite-Smith, A.E. Waite renamed the card The High Priestess and reinvented her with initiatic symbology: two columns (Boaz and Jachin from the Temple of Solomon), a veiled curtain with pomegranates, a moon at her feet and a scroll with the word TORA.
The card is the feminine counterpart to the Magician: if he manifests what he knows, she knows what is not yet manifest. The two columns represent the poles (light and shadow, known and unknown); the High Priestess sits between them as mediator.
Meaning in a spread
Appearance in a reading: listen to your intuition, there is hidden information that asks to come to light, a moment of silence and receptivity, deep wisdom you already have but do not see yet, do not act — observe. It is the card of fertile pause: what looks like "doing nothing" is actually an inner process of great spiritual productivity.
In shadow: pathological secrecy, evasive withdrawal from the world, emotional coldness, paralysis from excessive introspection, rejection of action when the situation calls for it. The High Priestess's trap is to confuse contemplation with escapism. Her lesson is to know when to be silent and when to speak.
Also known as
- La Papessa
- La Papesse
- The Priestess