TOTD June 21 2018 - Day 3: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The High Priestess
I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the third session follows.
TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round.
Today, we will go over the High Priestess. With her, we enter a group of 4 cards that to some may seem to be almost duplicates of one another: The High priestess and Empress, and the Emperor and Hierophant. You will want to look closely as we progress through these four cards and learn to make the distinction between the two ‘couples’.
The Rider-Waite deck shows the high priestess dressed in blue/white robes, sitting in the center of the card on a stone block, holding a scroll marked TORA in her hands (either the Jewish Torah or an anagram of TAROT where the final letter is left unseen, but more likely the Jewish Torah due to the connection between the tarot and the Kabbalah), a white solar cross at her breast, wearing a crown similar to the triple goddess symbol, but is the Moon Crown of Egyptian Goddess Isis. On either side of her are two lotus, topped pillars, the left one is black stone with a B carved in to it (B is for Boaz, signifying ‘negation’), and the right one is grey/white stone with a J carved into it (J is for Jachin, meaning ‘beginning’. Spread between the pillars and behind the Priestess is a tapestry showing a garden of pomegranates and other foliage, and behind it are the waters of enlightenment and knowledge. The priestesses’ robes become a stream at her feet, and a crescent moon rests in that stream. This card is simply loaded with some very heavy symbolism and opn references to a lot of stuff. We will address more of this later on.
The booklet offers these keywords for The High Priestess: secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed, the woman who interests the querent if male, the querent if female, silence, tenacity, wisdom, science (upright,) and passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, and surface knowledge (reversed.)
The High Priestess is often seen as the guardian or gatekeeper of knowledge, one who you must path along your path to reach enlightenment. When she turns up in a non-signifier role, I sometimes read her as indicative of something the person I’m reading for is seeking, or something that is being hidden from them.
In the Raven’s prophecy deck, Maggie Stiefvater drew a hand holding a looking glass. The background is either a night sky or a dark room lit with candles or magic, and in the looking glass is a cloudy sky. She writes:
“In many ways, the High Priestess represents the art of tarot to me. She is a mystical force - unknowable, unfathomable, spiritual, and mysterious. Her secrets are not secret because of deception but rather because they are mystical, arcane, and hidden until you are wise enough to discover them inside yourself as well. ..the mirror on the card reflects you, but what you glimpse inside the glass is far more than your physical form. You are ever so much more than your body or your mind.
When the High Priestess appears in your reading, it’s a sign that you need to step away from external concerns and look inside. Embrace your unconscious.”
The keywords Maggie provides for the High Priestess are spirituality, holiness, dreaming, and unconscious. She does not offer reverse meanings, writing, "Some tarot readers read cards with slightly different meanings (often negative) if they appear upside down when laid out in a reading. I'm not going to go over reversed card meanings in this book; I find the cards carry all the nuance they need without complicating it even more with additional definitions to memorize."
Maggie’s interpretation is appropriate to its traditional role in the tarot, however, as we will learn later on, removes most of the many layers of symbolism and meaning hidden within the Rider-Waite deck’s illustrations.
TOMORROW: The Empress
I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, comment with your perspectives and questions!
I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the third session follows.
TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round.
Today, we will go over the High Priestess. With her, we enter a group of 4 cards that to some may seem to be almost duplicates of one another: The High priestess and Empress, and the Emperor and Hierophant. You will want to look closely as we progress through these four cards and learn to make the distinction between the two ‘couples’.
The Rider-Waite deck shows the high priestess dressed in blue/white robes, sitting in the center of the card on a stone block, holding a scroll marked TORA in her hands (either the Jewish Torah or an anagram of TAROT where the final letter is left unseen, but more likely the Jewish Torah due to the connection between the tarot and the Kabbalah), a white solar cross at her breast, wearing a crown similar to the triple goddess symbol, but is the Moon Crown of Egyptian Goddess Isis. On either side of her are two lotus, topped pillars, the left one is black stone with a B carved in to it (B is for Boaz, signifying ‘negation’), and the right one is grey/white stone with a J carved into it (J is for Jachin, meaning ‘beginning’. Spread between the pillars and behind the Priestess is a tapestry showing a garden of pomegranates and other foliage, and behind it are the waters of enlightenment and knowledge. The priestesses’ robes become a stream at her feet, and a crescent moon rests in that stream. This card is simply loaded with some very heavy symbolism and opn references to a lot of stuff. We will address more of this later on.
The booklet offers these keywords for The High Priestess: secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed, the woman who interests the querent if male, the querent if female, silence, tenacity, wisdom, science (upright,) and passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, and surface knowledge (reversed.)
The High Priestess is often seen as the guardian or gatekeeper of knowledge, one who you must path along your path to reach enlightenment. When she turns up in a non-signifier role, I sometimes read her as indicative of something the person I’m reading for is seeking, or something that is being hidden from them.
In the Raven’s prophecy deck, Maggie Stiefvater drew a hand holding a looking glass. The background is either a night sky or a dark room lit with candles or magic, and in the looking glass is a cloudy sky. She writes:
“In many ways, the High Priestess represents the art of tarot to me. She is a mystical force - unknowable, unfathomable, spiritual, and mysterious. Her secrets are not secret because of deception but rather because they are mystical, arcane, and hidden until you are wise enough to discover them inside yourself as well. ..the mirror on the card reflects you, but what you glimpse inside the glass is far more than your physical form. You are ever so much more than your body or your mind.
When the High Priestess appears in your reading, it’s a sign that you need to step away from external concerns and look inside. Embrace your unconscious.”
The keywords Maggie provides for the High Priestess are spirituality, holiness, dreaming, and unconscious. She does not offer reverse meanings, writing, "Some tarot readers read cards with slightly different meanings (often negative) if they appear upside down when laid out in a reading. I'm not going to go over reversed card meanings in this book; I find the cards carry all the nuance they need without complicating it even more with additional definitions to memorize."
Maggie’s interpretation is appropriate to its traditional role in the tarot, however, as we will learn later on, removes most of the many layers of symbolism and meaning hidden within the Rider-Waite deck’s illustrations.
TOMORROW: The Empress
I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, comment with your perspectives and questions!
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