2 - The High Priestess Tarot Card
The High Priestess is tarot card number 2, although it is the 3rd card of the Major Arcana because the 1st of the 22 Major Arcana cards is number 0 (The Fool).
The High Priestess tarot card includes an element of mystery and
is generally associated with sacred or higher knowledge not
yet fully revealed.
Images appearing on the High Priestess card vary considerably,
even among modern tarot decks. Many decks depict a young woman together with symbols indicating spirituality and connection with the mystery or essence of life.
The theme of the High Priestess tarot card is
of inner knowledge connecting each individual with the natural
world. This card is also associated with feminine wisdom
and
intuition. Nevertheless, part of the message of this card
is the need to balance all things, including the masculine.
Some possible interpretations of this card include:
- the need
to search for and recognize the spiritual component of
an issue,
- the benefit of trusting ones intuition,
- the need
to
research
an issue (to consider other aspects of it), or
- advice to
await further information.
Note: The image of this tarot card shown on the right (above-right) is from an early French tarot deck that has been made available for general use via the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. This shows a distinctly different style of illustration from that of modern tarot decks but is of historical and artistic interest.
More about the Major Arcana
The cards of the Major Arcana are widely considered to be the
most powerful cards in the Tarot Deck. The 22 cards of the Major
Arcana tell a complete story when arranged in upright and numerical
order (beginning with 0 - The
Fool then progressing through the sequence of Major Arcana cards until 21 - The World).
This is a story of personal development and enlightenment
that is sometimes referred to as "The Fool's Journey".
Some texts also include meanings for "reversed
cards". These are for the situation in which the cards are shuffled in both
order and orientation. The theoretical advantage to this is that
it effectively doubles the number of possible "cards" in
the deck from 78 to 156. However, in terms of the calculation
of obtaining results according to chance alone, it is not a simple
mathematical doubling because once a card has been drawn it cannot be drawn again in the opposite orientation in the same reading.
Click here for more Major Arcana cards
