II - The High Priestess

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Photo Credits:-

The High Priestess tarot card
(Wikipedia;
public domain)

Keywords

Mystery. Divine Mother. Secrets of the Goddess. Spiritual Knowledge. Esoteric Science. Wisdom. Inspiration. Inner Knowing. Receptivity. Powerful Femininity. Wise Woman. Cosmic Law. Revelation. Enlightenment.

Themes

She defies patriarchy. As a virgin, she dedicates herself entirely to Great Spirit. She is a spiritual midwife. She births the divine child, the Holy Spirit, the Inner Sun. She leads and counsels all women and all who humbly listen.

To access her, you must pass between the two pillars of opposites. Handle evil - rather than direct confrontation, learn to neutralise it, transmute it, rise above it. To the light!

Her voice whispers many secret things into your ear, things that will rise into your conscious mind when they are needed.

Comparisons

Her magic is more hidden than that of The Magician.
She is more mystic than his sage.

Notes & Quotes

"A Priestess holds the Key of Cosmic Law." (Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki)

"I am everything that was, that is, that ever will be. Nor has any mortal man ever been able to discover what lies under my veil. The fruit of my womb was the sun." (Isis statue inscription)

"Life is based on the notion of opposites, in other words on the principle of polarity; of active and passive, masculine and feminine, emissive and receptive, good and evil. This opposition is really just a complementarity, and is what creates movement. This concept is expressed in the number 2, which is the number of polarization. 2 is 1 turned into positive and negative. In Tarot cards, number 2 is represented by the High Priestess, who is holding a book open on her lap. A closed book represents the number 1 and an open book the number 2. People who are able to decipher this arcanum are capable of resolving the problem of evil in their life. They understand that good and evil, love and hate, light and darkness, although opposites in their manifestation, are the two aspects of the same reality. It is pointless, therefore, to want to fight against evil thinking that we will one day destroy it. We must simply learn to use the forces of evil (the problems and the hardships), to transform them into constructive energies." (O.M. Aïvanhov)

"The goal of initiation is to lift a veil. This is the origin of the expression ‘lifting the veil of Isis’ passed down by tradition. In Isis, the great female figure of Egyptian religion, initiates saw a symbol of primordial Nature from which all beings and all the elements of creation issued forth, and they took her as their main object of study. In their desire to know her, they strive to seek and understand all of the existences she generates and through which she manifests herself, until they discover the ultimate reality." (O.M. Aïvanhov)

"There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen." (Rumi)

Also see:-

Major Arcana

Tarot

Maps of Consciousness articles

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