The High Priestess

The High Priestess (II) is the third card of the Major Arcana in Tarot, representing intuition, mystery, and hidden knowledge. In a reading, it signals a need to trust your inner voice and look beneath the surface for deeper understanding.

She knows what you have not yet told yourself.

That is the unsettling gift of the High Priestess. She is the card that appears when the answer you need already exists inside you, fully formed, waiting not to be discovered but to be acknowledged. She does not speak in the Magician's clear, directed language. She speaks in the language of dreams, of gut feelings, of the things you notice from the corner of your eye and forget to mention aloud.

At a Glance

Visual Traditions: Three Decks

The Major Arcana's imagery varies significantly across the three major traditions. Understanding these differences deepens your reading of any deck.

Rider-Waite-Smith (1909) · The image shown above.

Tarot de Marseille (17th-18th century) · In the Tarot de Marseille, La Papesse (the Popess) is a more explicitly religious figure, referencing the legend of Pope Joan. She wears a papal tiara and holds an open book, but the image lacks the RWS version's elaborate esoteric symbolism. The Marseille version is blunter: this is a woman who holds power in a space normally reserved for men.

Thoth Tarot (1943) · Crowley's Priestess is veiled in light, seated on a crescent moon with a camel at her feet (the Hebrew letter Gimel). She holds a bow and arrows on her lap, suggesting that intuition is not passive but a directed force. The card is more overtly lunar and more dynamic than the RWS version, emphasizing the Priestess as an active cosmic principle.

Key Imagery and Symbolism

A robed female figure sits between two pillars: one black (Boaz, severity) and one white (Jachin, mercy), the pillars of Solomon's Temple, representing the threshold between the known and the unknown. She wears a crown featuring a lunar crescent and full moon, and a solar cross on her chest. A crescent moon rests at her feet.

She holds a scroll marked 'TORA' (Torah, Tarot, Rota: divine law in multiple readings), partially concealed by her robe, indicating hidden wisdom not fully revealed. Behind her hangs a veil decorated with pomegranates (Persephone, the underworld, fertility) and palms (victory). Behind the veil lies a body of water: the unconscious itself, vast and still.

What The High Priestess Means

Upright

Intuition, hidden knowledge, the unconscious mind, mystery, inner voice, patience, passive wisdom. The answers are within. Trust what you sense but cannot yet articulate. Sacred feminine wisdom.

The High Priestess upright appears when you need to stop doing and start listening. She is the counterpoint to the Magician's active will: where he creates, she receives. Where he speaks, she listens. Where he uses tools, she uses stillness. The High Priestess says: the information you need is already available, but you cannot access it through effort. You must wait, be receptive, and trust.

Reversed

Secrets withheld, disconnection from intuition, surface appearances, repressed feelings, information hidden or manipulated. Ignoring the inner voice. Over-intellectualizing at the expense of knowing.

Reversed, the High Priestess warns that you are out of touch with your inner wisdom. Perhaps you are thinking when you should be feeling. Perhaps someone is withholding information, or you are withholding it from yourself. The reversed High Priestess can indicate repressed emotions surfacing, secrets about to be revealed, or the consequences of ignoring intuitive warning signs.

How Position and Surrounding Cards Shift the Meaning

The High Priestess's meaning deepens considerably with surrounding cards. Next to the Moon, the unconscious is speaking loudly and the message requires careful interpretation. Next to the Magician, intuition and will are in balance, creating a powerful combination for manifestation. Next to the Hierophant, inner knowing meets outer teaching, and the question becomes: which authority do you trust?

In timing, the High Priestess suggests patience. Whatever you are waiting for will arrive in its own time.

The Archetype: A Jungian Perspective

The High Priestess is the Anima in her first, most mysterious form: the soul-image that draws the ego toward the unconscious. She is Sophia (divine feminine wisdom), the Virgin Mary, Isis, Persephone. In Jungian terms, she is the threshold guardian between consciousness and the deeper layers of the psyche. She does not act; she knows. She represents receptive, lunar consciousness: the counterpart to the Magician's active, solar will.

Her shadow side is secrecy that becomes manipulation, and passivity that becomes paralysis. The woman who knows everything but says nothing can be wise, or she can be complicit in her own silence. The High Priestess asks: what do you know that you are not yet willing to speak?

The Fool's Journey: The High Priestess's Place in the Story

After discovering active will with the Magician, the Fool encounters its complement: passive knowing. The High Priestess teaches: 'Not everything can be willed into being. Some knowledge comes through stillness, receptivity, and patience. There is a hidden world behind the veil of appearances.' The Fool learns that consciousness has depths it has not yet explored, and that the unseen is as real as the seen.

Previous: The Magician · Next: The Empress

The High Priestess in Love, Work, and Health

Love and Relationships

Upright in love, the High Priestess suggests a deep, intuitive connection that may not be fully expressed in words. She points to attraction that operates below the surface: chemistry, unspoken understanding, the sense that someone knows you without being told. For those who are single, she may indicate that a connection is developing beneath your awareness, or that patience is needed before a relationship reveals its true nature.

In established relationships, she signals a need for deeper emotional intimacy, for sharing what has been kept hidden, for trusting the intuitive bond between partners.

Reversed in love, the High Priestess warns about secrets, withheld feelings, or a relationship where important things remain unspoken. Someone may be hiding something, or you may be hiding from your own feelings about the relationship.

Career and Finances

In career readings, the High Priestess suggests using intuition alongside analysis. She favours roles that involve research, counselling, healing, teaching, and any work that requires reading between the lines. The High Priestess in a career spread says: the answer to your professional question is not in the data alone. Trust your instincts about people, timing, and direction.

Financially, she suggests a period of waiting. The right opportunity has not yet fully revealed itself. Patience will serve you better than impulsive action.

Reversed in career, the High Priestess warns against ignoring your gut feeling about a workplace situation, or against information being withheld by a colleague or institution.

For students exploring the Major Arcana in depth, Linda Marson's course TarotNav: A GPS for Life devotes a full lesson to each Major Arcana card, exploring its symbolism, reading techniques, and personal significance.

Health and Wellbeing

The High Priestess connects to the lymphatic system, hormonal cycles, and the unconscious signals the body sends. Upright, she suggests paying attention to subtle symptoms, dreams about health, and the body's own wisdom. She favours holistic and intuitive approaches to healing.

Reversed, she may indicate a hidden health issue, repressed emotional stress manifesting as physical symptoms, or the need for a second opinion when something feels off despite reassuring test results.

Esoteric Correspondences

Kabbalah

The High Priestess corresponds to Gimel, the camel: the vehicle that carries one across the desert of the Abyss. On the Tree of Life, she walks Path 13, the longest path, connecting Kether (Crown) to Tiferet (Beauty/Heart). This path crosses the Abyss directly, making the High Priestess the bridge between the highest unity and the centre of conscious integration.

For more on the paths of the Tree of Life and their Tarot correspondences, see the complete Kabbalah paths guide.

Astrology

The Moon: cycles, tides, the unconscious, reflection, the feminine, dreams, intuition. The Moon does not generate its own light but reflects the Sun's, just as the High Priestess receives and reflects wisdom rather than generating it through active will. Lunar consciousness is cyclical, shifting through phases, and deeply connected to the rhythms of the body and the natural world.

Numerology

Two: duality, polarity, the first division (from 1 to 2), the tension of opposites, receptivity, the threshold between. The dyad. Where 1 (the Magician) is unity and will, 2 introduces the possibility of relationship, reflection, and the space between. The High Priestess is the space between the pillars: neither one thing nor the other, but the threshold where both meet.

Element

Water: emotion, intuition, the unconscious, depth, receptivity. The body of water behind the High Priestess's veil is the unconscious mind itself: vast, still, and containing everything that conscious awareness has not yet retrieved. Water takes the shape of its container, flows around obstacles, and finds its own level. So does intuition.

Card Pairings and Relationships

Every Major Arcana card takes on different dimensions depending on its neighbours. These pairings are not fixed rules but starting points for interpretation.

• The High Priestess + The Magician (balance of powers): Active will meets passive knowing. The complete spectrum of consciousness: doing and being, speaking and listening, creating and receiving.

• The High Priestess + The Empress (the two mothers): Hidden wisdom meets abundant nature. The spiritual mother (Priestess) and the physical mother (Empress). Together they represent the complete feminine principle: inner knowing and outer nurturing.

• The High Priestess + The Hierophant (inner vs outer teaching): Personal intuition meets established tradition. The question: do you trust your own inner knowing or the wisdom of the collective? At their best, both serve truth.

• The High Priestess + The Hermit (solitary wisdom): Two seekers of hidden truth. The High Priestess holds the scroll; the Hermit carries the lantern. Together they suggest a deep period of contemplation that yields genuine insight.

• The High Priestess + The Moon (the deep unconscious): The unconscious doubled. Dreams, illusions, fears, and profound intuitive wisdom all intensified. The most mysterious pairing in the deck.

• The High Priestess + Justice (hidden truth revealed): What was concealed (Priestess) is brought into the light of honest examination (Justice). Secrets and their consequences. The moment hidden knowledge demands a verdict.

• The High Priestess + The Star (healing wisdom): Intuitive wisdom flows as healing grace. The Priestess's hidden knowledge becomes the Star's open generosity. Spiritual insight that heals.

• The High Priestess + Death (transformation through surrender): The ego's active grasp must be released. What you know intuitively is confirmed by the transformation that follows. Trust the process.

Related Cards

Row 1: Conscious Awareness · cards sharing the High Priestess's realm of foundational development:
- The Magician · I · Active counterpart to the Priestess's receptivity
- The Empress · III · The nurturing principle that follows intuitive wisdom

Numerological column (2-9-16) · cards sharing the High Priestess's vertical correspondence:
- The Hermit · IX · Hidden knowledge deepened by solitary wisdom
- The Tower · XVI · Hidden knowledge revealed through sudden revelation

Lunar and water cards · cards sharing the High Priestess's connection to intuition and the unconscious:
- The Moon · XVIII · The collective unconscious in its most overwhelming form
- The Chariot · VII · Emotional will: Cancer's shell protecting the journey

Explore the Major Arcana Further

The High Priestess is one of 22 archetypal encounters in the Major Arcana · and its meaning deepens when read alongside the cards that surround it. If you are drawn to the Tarot's psychological and spiritual dimensions, these courses offer a guided path from first reading to archetypal mastery.

Recommended courses:

• A Jungian Approach to the Tarot · Archetypal analysis and psychological depth through the Tarot · Taught by Mary K. Greer
• Tarot and Intuition · Developing intuitive reading skills with the Tarot · Taught by Mary K. Greer
• Major Arcana Only Readings · Reading techniques using only the 22 Trumps · Taught by Rachel Pollack

For the complete guide to all 22 Major Arcana cards, visit The Major Arcana: Complete Guide to the 22 Trumps.

For a comprehensive introduction to reading all 78 Tarot cards, see How to Read Tarot Cards: A Complete Guide.

Go deeper · explore our Tarot courses with Mary K. Greer, Rachel Pollack and more.

← The Magician · I | The Empress · III →