The High Priestess

The 2nd Key

Colour: Blue
Sound: G Sharp
Planet: Moon
DOUBLE LETTER: Peace / War

This Path connects Beauty and the Crown. She is the vessel for all the operations of the Supernal Triangle. It is within her that the activity of Mercury, Salt and Sulpher takes place. She is the uniting element of Spirit, the fifth element and regulator over the other four paths that make up the Garden of Eden.

She is the purest essence of consciousness, the source of all water, the idea behind the idea behind form. No matter how many forms develop from her, her purity remains unchanged. She is the source of the vibratory patterns of the universe which underly everything. Nothing will grow in the garden of the Empress without these underlying structures of energy.

The High Priestess carries out what the Magician initiates. The Magician symbolises the condition prior to unconscious thought which acts upon the High Priestess in such a way that she becomes the mind capable of carrying the thought forms of which the universe will eventually be composed of. The energy of the Magician is held in a reciprocal, alternating pattern by the High Priestess. This holding, enclosing and duplicating function is the first female quality on the tree.

To this path is attributed the Moon. Her fluctuating rates of vibration establishes the direction of the first matter as it descends just like the Moon controls the tides of water. The attribution of the Moon also means the application of its deities Hecate and Artimis. The triple Moon Godeses, being the maiden, the nymph and old crone all at once.

Also attributed to this card is camel, an animal capable of retaining large quantities of water for crossing the desert. This retention of water can be likened to memory. Within the High Priestess are concealed the memories of the race as well as the cosmos which her vail conceals. She is the one that established the scroll of the law appearing on her lap, representing here the repository of cosmic memory.

The Path of the High Priestess, Temperence and the Universe are all three different aspects of the same devotional energy that make up the middle pillar.

Crowley referred to her as the Soul of Light, the Light that conceals the True Spirit. Light in this sense to be understood as not revealing but concealing by its very brilliance.