The High Priestess

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The High Priestess or The Popess (II) in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck

The High Priestess (II) is the second trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. This card is used in game playing as well as in divination.

In the first tarot pack with inscriptions, the 18th-century woodcut Marseilles Tarot, this figure is crowned with the Papal tiara and labelled "La Papesse", the Popess. For historians or heresiologists, such a figure suggests the supposed female equality practiced among the Cathar perfecti, who had been extirpated from Northern Italy and Southern France shortly before the Tarot first appeared at these locales. Some say that it referred to the legend of Pope Joan.^{[citation needed]}

Description

In the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck, upon which many modern decks are based, The High Priestess wears plain blue robes and sits with her hands in her lap. She has a lunar crescent at her feet, a horned diadem centering a globe on her head and a large cross on her breast. The scroll in her hands, partly covered by her mantle, bears the word TORA. She is seated between the white and black pillars—'J' and 'B' for Jachin and Boaz—of the mystic Temple of Solomon. The veil of the Temple is behind her: it is embroidered with palm leaves and pomegranates. ^[1] Further behind all of that is what seems to be a body of water, most probably the sea.

Interpretations

• Knowingness -- Love -- Relationships
• Wisdom -- Sound judgment -- Serenity
• Common sense --- Intuition
• Mystical vision -- introspection -- otherworldliness

Alternative decks

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In the Vikings Tarot the High Priestess is Frigg, the wife of Odin. She is sitting on a throne in a swamp, with her golden slippers emitting a blinding light from the hem of her dress.

In the Golden Tarot the High Priestess is portrayed as The Papess.

In the Mythic Tarot, created by Juliet Sharman-Burke and Liz Greene, the High Priestess is portrayed by Persephone, descending a staircase into the Underworld, with the Earth behind her, dressed in white, and holding falling, white flowers. She holds up a pomegranate, both seen in her most famous myth and the Rider-Waite deck. The pillars beside her are the standard black (left) and white (right), and she also wears a crown, being the Queen of the Underworld.

The Osho Tarot calls this card Inner Voice and depicts it as a quiet person with a circle face in her center, holding a crystal in both hands and surrounded by two dolphins, a crescent-moon crown, and water.

The Asteroth Tarot depicts the High Priestess as bathed in the energy of the crescent moon.^[2]

In pop culture

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• In the X/1999 Tarot version made by CLAMP, The High Priestess is Princess Hinoto.
• In Live and Let Die, the Tarot card representing Solitaire is the High Priestess.
• Priestess arcana are associated with character Fuuka Yamagishi in the video game Persona 3 and Yukiko Amagi in Persona 4. The arcanum also feature various mythological figures such as Ganga and Scáthach.
• In Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Midler's stand is the High Priestess.

See also

• La Papessa

References

1. ^ Juliet Sharman Burke (1985). The Complete Book of Tarot. London: Pan Books Ltd. ISBN 0 330 28974 8. 
2. ^ the high priestess

• A. E. Waite's 1910 Pictorial Key to the Tarot

External links

• "Popess" cards from many decks and articles to "Popess" iconography
• The History of the High Priestess (Papess) Card from The Hermitage
• "The Priestess," Movie Armenian film by director, Vigen Chaldranian

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1910 book Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite. Please feel free to update the text.