Tarot card meanings · Major Arcana 2
What does The High Priestess mean in tarot?
In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the High Priestess upright means “if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science”, and reversed “Passion, moral or physical ardour, conceit, surface knowledge”.
Upright
If female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Reversed
Passion, moral or physical ardour, conceit, surface knowledge.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
What does the picture show?
She has the lunar crescent at her feet, a horned diadem on her head, with a globe in the middle place, and a large solar cross on her breast.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 2
Where does the High Priestess fall in a reading?
The High Priestess belongs to the Major Arcana. On this site you draw three cards, which take three of the places in the ten-card method Waite describes: “This covers him”, “This crosses him”, “This is before him”. The same card reads differently in each place, and the I Ching cast beside it may agree or disagree.
Ask one question. Draw three cards, and cast an I Ching hexagram beside them to see where East and West agree. Free.
Draw three cardsWaite's words are quoted as printed, and left out where they speak of money, law, illness or disaster. The pictures are the 1909 deck drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. For entertainment and self-reflection.