The Tarot Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: The High Priestess

What’s behind the curtain?

That’s the whole point of this card.

The front of the curtain, the part we can see, is alive with green palm trees and crimson pomegranates. It represents our world and all the things we know about it.

Everything Else lies behind it, on the Other Side.

This is the realm of the subconscious, the hidden memories of things past, present, and future; dark secrets; dangerous knowledge; those umpteen other dimensions mathematicians keep talking about, and all the things that inhabit them and “go bump in the night.” The High Priestess guards the veil between this world and our everyday world. She has the power to give or withhold access to it and all the hidden wisdom it contains. The scroll in her hands suggests that this wisdom is at her fingertips.

Gimel is the Hebrew letter associated with The High Priestess card, and the camel is one of its meanings. To cultures in arid parts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, camel meat and milk are major sources of protein; and camel bone is carved into jewelry. Even our dim awareness of the High Priestess’s mysteries nourishes our souls and heightens our sense of beauty. The camel carries people and their belongings from place to place, just as The High Priestess transports knowledge from behind the veil into our everyday lives.

I associate Hekate, the ancient Greek goddess of magic, witchcraft and death with the High Priestess. She is the bearer of hidden wisdom and secrets that whisper to us from across the veil as dreams and visions. She rules the magically potent spaces and times between this and that—shorelines, twilight, and timberlines. Like Hermes and Thoth, her torches guide souls to the underworld. But as the protector of women in labor, she also guides souls into this world. Her visions have the power to either heal or bring on madness. At first glance, these appear to be sets of contradictory traits. But to the mystic, birth and death are the same thing, and any healer will tell you that there is a thin line between health and madness. This dual nature echoes the number of the High Priestess—2, as do the black and white pillars and the equal armed cross at her breast.

The Moon is the ruler of this card, and Hekate is usually thought of as a Moon goddess, although she is just as comfortable on earth or in the underworld as she is in the heavens, hence her name, Hekate Trivia—Hekate of the three ways. In her Moon goddess persona, she controls both the ocean tides and the ebbs and flows of our emotions. The High Priestess’s watery blue cloak flows out of the lower right hand corner of the card and forms all the rivers, lakes, ponds and oceans in the rest of the Major Arcana cards.

The High Priestess is the yin to the Magician’s yang.

Other Goddesses that correlate to the High Priestess are Isis (in her veiled aspect), Selene, Artemis, Diana, and Brigid–any of the ever-virgin (translate: fiercely independent) and/or lunar goddesses.

When she appears in a Tarot reading, she signifies a wise, powerful woman; a diviner; or a beautiful, mysterious woman. The card can mean secrets, balance, inner wisdom, the option of stillness, or the suggestion that no decision is necessary at this time. It can also mean that the querent already has the knowledge he is seeking and should inquire within.

In the hero’s journey, The High Priestess is usually a threshold guardian and often has trickster, shapeshifter, or shadow qualities. She may be a mentor/ally, but never of the faithful sidekick sort. She usually appears out of nowhere at opportune times, delivers aid or advice, and then exits in a puff of smoke, or something equally dramatic.

And she makes a most excellent shadow character.