THE FOOL 

We have already looked at the Fool in one aspect, the image of aspirit totally free. But we can look at the Fool from another side -the leap into the archetypal world of the trumps.

 Imagine yourself entering a strange landscape. A world of magicians, of people hanging upside down, and of dancers in the brightair. You can enter through a leap from a height, through a darkcave, a labyrinth, or even by climbing down a rabbit hole chasing aVictorian rabbit with a pocket watch. Whichever way you choose,you are a fool to do it. Why look into the deep world of the mindwhen you can stay safely in the ordinary landscape of job, homeand family? Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, warned his readers notto take even a step outside the ordinary path laid out for you bysociety. You might not get back again. 

And yet, for those willing to take the chance, the leap can bringjoy, adventure, and finally, for those with the courage to keep goingwhen the wonderland becomes more fearsome than joyous, the leapcan bring knowledge, peace, and liberation. Interestingly, the Foolarchetype appears more in mythology than in structured religion.An institutionalized Church can hardly urge people beyond the limits of institutions. Instead, the churches offer us a safe haven from thefears of life. Mythology leads directly into the heart of those fears,and in every culture the mythological landscape contains the imageof the Trickster - pushing, goading, jabbing the kings and heroeswhenever they turn away from the inner world of truth. 

In the King Arthur legends Merlin appears not only as a sorcerer and wise man but as a trickster. Constantly he appears beforeArthur in disguise, as a child, a beggar, an old peasant. The youngking, already seduced into pompousness by his high social position,never recognizes Merlin until his companions point out that he hasbeen tricked again. More important than laws or military strategy isthe ability to see through illusions. The Taoist masters were famousfor playing tricks on their disciples. 

The Fool archetype has even found social expression, as the realcourt jester. We all know the image from King Lear of 'the fool',permitted to tell the king truths no one else would dare to express.Today, our comedians and satirists enjoy something of the sameprivilege. 

In many countries a yearly carnival releases all the wildnessrepressed through the rest of the year. Sex is freer, various laws aresuspended, people go in disguises and the King of Fools is chosento preside over the festival. Today, in Europe and North America,April the first remains 'April Fool's Day ', a time for tricks andpractical jokes. 

The picture beside that of the Rider pack shows the Fool asconceived by Oswald Wirth. An older tradition than that ofWaite, it pictures the archetype as a grotesque wanderer. Thisimage has been interpreted variously as the soul before enlightenment, a newborn child entering the world of experience and theprinciple of anarchy. Elizabeth Haich has provided an interestinginterpretation of Wirth's grotesque image of the Fool. Placinghim between Judgement and the World, she describes the Fool aswhat the outside world sees when it looks upon someone who istruly enlightened. Because the Fool does not follow their rules orshare their weaknesses, he appears to them in this ugly distortedway. Haich describes the Fool's face as a mask, put there not byhimself but by the outside world. The last card, the World, presents the same enlightened person, but viewed from inside, that is,by himself. 

In some early Tarot decks the Fool appeared as a giant courtjester, towering over the people around him. His title was 'the Foolof God' . The term has also been used for idiots, harmless madmen,and severe epileptics, all of whom were thought to be in touch witha greater wisdom precisely because they were out of touch with therest of us. 

The archetype persists in modern popular mythology as well. Bytheir fantastic primitive nature comic books often reflect mythological themes better than novels. In Batman the hero's strongest enemyis called the Joker, a figure who has no past and is never seen without the wild make-up of a joker in a deck of cards. The joker is notdescended from the Fool as I, and other Tarotists, have assumed. Itwas invented by a New York poker club as a 'wild card' to makethe game more interesting. It does, however, call forth the samearchetype as the Fool, being based on the court jester. The rivalryof Batman and the Joker sends a clear message to their readers: donot rebel against social values. Support law and order. In recentyears the magazine has described the Joker as insane rather thancriminal. To society the way of the Fool, instinct rather than rules,is a dangerous insanity. 

So far we have looked at the Fool as the 'other', prodding usfrom complacency with his jokes and disguises. As the 'self' he represents that long tradition of the foolish brother or sister, despisedby the older brothers and sisters, yet finally able to win the princessor the prince through instinctive wit and kindness. 

Curiously the image of the Fool as self occurs more in fairy talesthan myths. We look at myths as representing forces larger thanourselves; the simpler fairy tale allows us to express our own foolishness. 

Like 'Boots' or 'Gluck' in the fairy tale, always accompanied byvarious animal helpers, the Fool in almost every deck walks with acompanion. In Waite the figure is a leaping dog, in others a cat oreven a crocodile. The animal symbolizes the forces of nature andthe animal self of man, all in harmony with the spirit who acts frominstinct. Mythological dogs are often terrifying, for example, theHound of Hell chasing lost souls. But it is really the same beast;only our attitude changes. Deny your inner self and it becomesferocious. Obey it and it becomes benign. 

Waite's Fool holds a white rose. Roses symbolize passion, whilewhite, the traditional colour of purity, together with the delicateway the flower is held, indicate the passions raised to a higher level.The Greeks saw Eros, the god of love, as a trickster, making themost proper people act ridiculous. But those who already expresstheir folly will not be thrown by love. The Greeks also spoke ofEros, in other forms, as the animating force of the universe. 

The bag behind him carries his experiences. He does not abandon them, he is not mindless, they simply do not control him inthe way that our memories and traumas so often control our lives.The bag bears the head of an eagle, symbol of the soaring spirit. Hishigh instinct fills and transforms all experience. The eagle is also thesymbol of Scorpio raised to a higher level, that is, sexuality raisedto spirit. This idea of the connection between sex and spirit willcome up again with the card of the Devil. 

Over his shoulder the Fool carries a stick, like a tramp. But thisstick is actually a wand, symbol of power. The Magician and theChariot driver also carry wands, but self-consciously, with a powerful grip. The Fool and the World Dancer hold their wands so casually we hardly notice them. What could be more foolish than totake a magic wand and use it to carry your bags? We can imagine afairy tale in which the foolish younger brother finds a stick by theside of the road and carries it, not recognizing it as the lost wand of a wizard, and therefore not being destroyed like his two olderbrothers who tried to wield it for their own profit. 

The Fool's wand is black; the others are white. For the unconscious Fool the spirit force remains always in potential, alwaysready, because he is not consciously directing it. We tend to misunderstand the colour black, seeing it as evil, or negation of life.Rather, black means all things being possible, infinite energy of lifebefore consciousness has constructed any boundaries. When wefear blackness or darkness we fear the deep unconscious source oflife itself. 

Like the joker, the Fool really belongs anywhere in the deck, incombination with and between any of the other cards. He is theanimating force giving life to the static images. In the Major Arcanahe belongs wherever there is a difficult transition. Hence his position at the beginning, where there is the transition from the everyday world of the Minor Arcana to the world of archetypes. TheFool also helps us jump the gap from one line to the next, that is,from the Chariot to Strength, from Temperance to the Devil. Toreach the Chariot or Temperance requires great effort and courage,and without the Fool's readiness to leap into new territory wewould likely stop with what we have already achieved.

The Fool belongs as well with those cards of difficult passage,such as the Moon and Death (observe the winding road on each ofthese two), where he urges us on despite our fears. 

In the Minor Arcana the Fool relates first of all to Wands -action, eagerness, movement without thought. But it connects aswell to Cups, with their emphasis on imagination and instinct. TheFool, in fact, combines these two suits. Later we will see that thiscombination, fire and water, represents the way of transformation.                   

  Finally the question arises of the Fool's place in divinatory readings. I have already mentioned the importance of readings for afuller understanding of the cards. Even more, they help us apply thewisdom of the cards to our daily lives. In readings the Fool speaksto us of courage and optimism, urging faith in ourselves and in life.At difficult times, when we come under pressure from peoplearound us to be practical, the Fool reminds us that our own innerselves can best tell us what to do. 

The Fool can often symbolize beginnings, courageously leapingoff into some new phase of life, particularly when that leap is takenfrom some deep feeling rather than careful planning. 

These belong to the Fool in its normal position. We must alsoconsider the 'reversed' meanings, that is, when the way we havemixed the cards makes the Fool come out with the feet on the top.Reversed meanings are controversial among Tarot commentators.Those who give formulas as meanings usually just turn the formula around, a simplistic method which has led several interpreters toabandon the whole idea of reversed meanings. But we can also lookat reversals as deepening the meaning of the card as a whole. Ingeneral, a reversed card indicates that the qualities of that card havebecome blocked, distorted or channelled in another direction.

For the Fool a reversal means first of all a failure to follow yourinstincts. It can mean not taking a chance at some crucial time,because of fear or depending too much on plans and the practicaladvice of others. 

Another reversed meaning of the Fool will appear at first to contradict the one just given. Recklessness, wildness, crazy schemes allseem the opposite of over-caution. And yet, they originate fromthe same weakness, a failure to act from inside. The reckless personsuperimposes a conscious or artificial foolishness on his life bothbecause he does not trust the unconscious to act as a guide andbecause is also afraid of doing nothing.

This second reversed meaning suggests another dimension to theFool - the awareness that great chances must be taken only at theproper time. There are, after all, many times when caution is needed, and times when it is better to do nothing at all. The basic thingany oracle teaches us is that no action or attitude is right or wrong,except in its proper context.

As we go further into the Tarot we will see that this concept ofthe proper time permeates the cards and is, in fact, the true keyto their correct use. The card in the Rider pack that falls exactlyin the middle of the three lines, that is, Justice, means a properresponse.     

  THE MAGICIAN 

The Magician emerges very directly from the Fool in the image ofthe trickster-wizard. As mentioned above, Merlin fulfils both theseroles (as well as that of teacher and wise man), and many othermyths make the same connection. Earlier Tarot decks picturedtrump number one as a conjurer rather than a magus, or even ajuggler tossing coloured balls in the air. Charles Williams describedhim as a juggler tossing the stars and planets. 

Most modern images of the trump follow Waite's wizard, raisinga magic wand to bring into reality the spirit force - the energy oflife in its most creative form. He holds the wand carefully, aware ofthat psychic power the Fool carried so lightly on his shoulder.Thus, the Magician, as the beginning of the Major Arcana proper,represents consciousness, action and creation. He symbolizesthe idea of manifestation, that is, making something real out of thepossibilities in life. Therefore, we see the four emblems of theMinor Arcana - lying on a table in front of him. He not only usesthe physical world for his magical operations (the four emblems areall objects used by wizards in their rituals), but he also creates theworld, in the sense of giving life a meaning and direction. 

The Magician stands surrounded by flowers to remind us thatthe emotional and creative power we feel in our lives needs to begrounded in physical reality for us to get any value from it. Unlesswe make something of our potentials they do not really exist. 

'In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.' TheBible begins at the moment the spirit descends into physical reality.For us, in the physical world, we can talk of nothing before thismoment. In the linking of the Tarot with the Hebrew alphabet theFool often receives the first letter Aleph. (Aleph bears no sound; it isa silent carrier of vowels, and therefore symbolizes nothingness. Itis the first letter of the Ten Commandments.) This would assign thesecond Hebrew letter, Beth, the first letter with an actual sound, tothe Magician. Beth is the first letter of Genesis.    

  Look at Waite's picture of the Magician. He is not casting spells,or conjuring up demons. He simply stands with one hand raised toheaven and the other pointed to the green earth. He is a lightningrod. By opening himself up to the spirit he draws it down intohimself, and then that downward hand, like a lightning rod buriedin the ground, runs the energy into the earth. Into reality. 

We see many accounts of the 'descent of the spirit' in the Bible,in other religious texts and in contemporary religious experience.People 'speak in tongues' in Pentecostal churches, they scream andshout and roll on the floor at Gospel meetings. The priest givingcommunion sees himself as a 'vessel' or channel for the HolyGhost. But we can see this experience in much simpler, nonreligious, terms as well. People tremble with excitement at sportingevents. 'I'm so excited I could burst!' In a new love affair or at thestart of a new career, we feel a power filling us. You can sometimessee people at the opening of some important phase of their lives,tapping their legs up and down, half bouncing in their seats, filledwith some energy they cannot seem to discharge. And writers andartists, when their work is going well, will experience themselves asalmost passive channels for a spirit-like force. The word 'inspiration'originally meant 'filled with a holy breath', and derives from thesame root as 'spirit'.   

  Notice that of all these examples all but the priest and the artistare seized with a frenzy. The possessed church-goer and the teenager about to burst at a football game share the feeling that theirbodies are overwhelmed by a power too great for it. Far from being gentle the surge of energy can be almost painful. The person inreligious fervour shouts and leaps about in order to release anunbearable energy. 

The life force that fills the universe is not gentle or benign. Itmust be discharged, grounded in something real, because our bodies, our selves, are not meant to contain it, but only pass it on.Thus, the artist does not join in the physical frenzy because she orhe is discharging that power into the painting. Similarly the priestpasses the power into the bread and wine. 

We function best as a channel for energy. Unless we follow thepath of the High Priestess in withdrawing from the world, we liveour lives most fully when we create or are active. 'Create' does notmean simply art, but any activity that produces something real andvaluable outside of ourselves.  

  Many people experience feelings of being powerful so infrequently they try to hold on to them. By doing nothing they hopeto preserve their magic moments. But we can really hold on topower in our lives only by constantly discharging it. By releasingcreative power we open ourselves up to receive a further flow.However, by trying to hold on to it, we block the channels and thesense of power, which is really life itself, withers within us. Thespectator at the football game, even the possessed church-goer, willfind their excitement gone after the event that triggered it hasended. But the craftsman or scientist or teacher - or, for thatmatter, the Tarot reader - will find the power increase over theyears the more they discharge it into physical reality. 

When we look at the Magician those of us who feel a lack or aflatness in our lives will be drawn to the wand raised towards heaven. But the real magic rests in that finger pointing to the earth.That ability to create gives him his title. His image stems not onlyfrom the trickster-conjurer, but also from the archetypal hero. Inour culture this would be Prometheus, who brought the heavenlyfire down to weak and cold humanity. 

In the West we tend to see wizards as manipulators. They learnsecret techniques or make deals with Satan in order to gain personal power. This somewhat decadent image comes partly from themagicians themselves, since they make charms to find buriedtreasure, but also from the Church, which sees magicians, who dealdirectly with the spirit instead of going through the official priesthood, as competitors. The Tarot and all occult sciences are in asense revolutionary, because they teach direct salvation, in this life,through your own efforts. 

We can get a different concept of the Magician through theimage of the shaman, or medicine man. Because no hierarchicalChurch has arisen to banish the shamans they have not becomeisolated from the community. They serve as healers, teachers, anddirectors of the soul after death. Like the wizards, the shamansstudy and learn complicated techniques. Their magical vocabularyis often much larger than the everyday vocabulary of the peoplearound them. None of this training, however, is used to manipulatethe spirit or for personal gain. Rather, the shaman only seeks tobecome a proper channel, both for himself so he will not be overwhelmed, and for the community so he can serve them better. Heknows the great power that will enter him at moments of ecstasyand he wants to make sure it does not destroy him and make himof no use to the people around him.   

  Like the wizard the shaman has developed his will to the pointwhere he can direct the fire that fills him. At the same time heremains open, allowing his ego to dissolve under the directonslaught of the spirit. It says something about our culture that ourwizards stand inside magic circles to make sure the demons cannottouch them. 

We can apply the shaman attitude to our use of the whole Tarotdeck. We study the cards, learn the symbolic language, even specific formulas, in order to give a direction to the feelings they arousein us. But we must not forget that the true magic lies in the imagesthemselves and not the explanations.   

  The divinatory meanings of the Magician derive from bothhands, the one which receives the power and the one which directs.The card means first of all an awareness of power in your life, ofspirit or simple excitement possessing you. It can also mean,depending on its position and your reaction to it, someone else'spower affecting you. Like the Fool, the card refers to beginnings,but here the first actual steps. It can mean both the inspiration tobegin some new project or phase of life, and the excitement thatsustains you through the hard work to reach your goal. For many people the Magician can become a strong personal symbol for thecreative force throughout their lives. 

Secondly, the Magician means will-power; the will unified anddirected towards goals. It means having great strength because allyour energy is channelled in a specific direction. People who seemalways to get what they want in life are often people who simplyknow what they want and can direct their energy. The Magicianteaches us that both will-power and success derive from being conscious of the power available to everyone. Most people rarely act;instead they react, being knocked from one experience to the next.To act is to direct your strength, through the will, to the placeswhere you want it to go. 

The Magician reversed signifies that in some way the properflow of energy has become disrupted or blocked. It can mean aweakness, a lack of will or a confusion of purpose that leads todoing nothing. The power is there, but we cannot touch it. Thecard reversed can mean the lethargic apathy that characterizesdepression. 

The reversed trump can also mean power abused, a person whouses his or her very strong character to exert a destructive influenceon others. The most direct example of this would of course be thepsychic aggression of 'black magic'.    

  Finally, the Magician reversed indicates mental disquiet, hallucinations, fear and particularly fear of madness. This problem ariseswhen the energy or spirit fire enters a person who does not knowhow to direct it into an outer reality. If we do not ground the lightning it can become trapped in the body and force itself on ourawareness as anxiety or hallucinations. Anyone who has ever gonethrough a moment of total panic will know that acute mental anxiety is a very physical experience, a feeling of the body runningwild, like a fire out of control. The word 'panic' means 'possessedby the god Pan', himself a symbol of magical forces. 

Think again of the lightning rod. It not only attracts the bolt butruns it into the dirt. Without that connection to the earth the lightning would burn down the house. 

Several writers have commented on the relationship betweenshamanism and what the West calls 'schizophrenia'. Shamans areoften not so much chosen as found. If, in our culture, a young  person experiences visions, fearful hallucinations, we do not knowwhat to do with such experiences other than to try and stop them,by drugs and self-control. But in other cultures, such people receivetraining. This is not to say that madness does not exist or is notrecognized in archaic cultures. Rather, the training is meant toprevent madness by channelling the experiences into a productivedirection. 

The initiates learn, through study with an established shaman,and through physical techniques such as fasting, how to understand,structure and finally direct these visionary experiences towards theservice of the community. The Magician reversed should not bebanished or confined; instead, we must find the way to turn it rightside up.

  THE HIGH PRIESTESS  

  Bill Butler, in The Dtifinitive Tarot has commented on the historicallegendary sources for this female archetype. Throughout theMiddle Ages the story persisted that a woman was once electedPope. Disguised for years as a man, this supposed 'Pope Joan' madeher way through the Church hierarchy to the top position, only todie in childbirth during an Easter celebration. 

Pope Joan was most likely a legend; the Visconti Papess was real.In the late thirteenth century an Italian group called the Guglielrnitesbelieved that their founder, Guglielma of Bohemia, who died in1281, would rise again in 1300 and begin a new age in whichwomen would be popes. Jumping ahead they elected a womannamed Manfreda Visconti as the first papess. The Church graphically ended this heresy by burning Sister Manfreda in 1300, the year ofthe expected new age. Some one hundred and fifty years later thesame Visconti family commissioned the first set of Tarot cards as weknow them. Among these unnumbered and unnamed trumpsappeared a picture of a woman later decks titled 'The Papess'. 

The name persisted until the eighteenth century when Court deGebelin, believing the Tarot to originate in the Isis religion ofancient Egypt, changed the name to the High Priestess. Today bothnames exist (as well as 'Veiled Isis'), and the Waite image of the cardderives directly from the Isis priestess's symbolic clothing, particularly the crown representing the three phases of the moon. 

The Pope Joan legend and Manfreda Visconti are not simply historical curiosities. They illustrate a major social development in theMiddle Ages, the reintroduction of the female and feminine principles into religion and cosmology. The images and the conceptsassociated with the masculine role had dominated both the Churchand Jewish religion for centuries. As a result ordinary people experienced the religions of the priests and rabbis as remote, harsh, andunapproachable, with their emphasis on sin, judgement, and punishment. They wanted qualities of mercy and love. And they identified these with women. Like a mother shelters her child from thesomewhat distant strictness of the father, a female diety supposedlywould intrude for the pathetic sinners against the unremittingjudgement of the Father. 

    It is interesting to realize that in many ways the Church sawChrist, as the Son, in exactly that role of introducing love and compassion. Yet, the people demanded a female. Even the idea of theChurch as 'Mother Church' did not go far enough. Finally, theChurch capitulated by raising the Virgin Mary almost to the levelof Christ himself. 

Church's desire to assimilate a persistent goddess religion from thedays before Christianity. If this is true it would indicate not somuch a cultural conservatism as the power of the female archetypeto maintain a hold and partially triumph against suppression. 

In Judaism the official religion of the rabbis managed to resistany insurgent feminism. The people's need, however, took hold inanother area: the long tradition of the Kabbalah. The Kabbaliststook a term from the Talmud, 'Shekinah', which meant God'sglory manifest in the physical world, and revised it to make it God'sanima, or female side. The Kabbalists also revised the idea of Adam,making him originally hermaphroditic. The separation of Eve fromAdam, even the separation of the Shekinah from God, becameimages of isolation and exile, sometimes connected to Adam andthe sin of disobedience.

  So far we have looked at the benign motherly qualities of femalemythological figures. Historically, however, female deities havealways shown a dark, hidden side as well. To introduce the femaleat all is to introduce the whole archetype. The Tarot splits up thefeminine archetype into two trumps and actually assigns the benignqualities to the second one (trump 3) , the Empress. The HighPriestess herself represents a deeper, more subtle aspect of thefemale; that of the dark, the mysterious and the hidden. As such,she connects to the virgin side of the Virgin Mary, the pure daughter side of the Shekinah (who was pictured simultaneously asmother, wife, and daughter) . 

We should realize that this assigning of qualities to womencomes mostly from men and male ideas. The Kabbalists, theoccultists, and the Tarot designers, all deplored the separation ofmen and women into categories and taught unification as a finalgoal. This is shown by the World dancer of the Tarot. They wereahead of the established religion which even debated whetherwomen had souls at all. Nevertheless, men still made the categories.To men, women have always appeared mysterious, strange, and,when safely in their mother role, loving and merciful. Women seemalien to men, more subtle in their thinking and non-rational. In ourtime, constant novels and films have pictured simple men manipulated by cunning women. 

The fact that the menstrual cycle lasts about as long as the lunar cycle links women to that remote silvery body. Menstruation itself,a copious bleeding from the genitals, with no loss of life, has simplyterrified men through the centuries. Even today superstitious Jewsbelieve that one drop of menstrual blood will kill a plant. The fearful mystery of birth further connected women to the idea of darkness. The foetus grows and the soul enters it in the warm moistdarkness of the womb. Motherhood linked women to the earth,and there too darkness dominates. Seeds lie in the ground throughthe dark dead winter, to emerge as food under the warm reassuringrays of the sun which, in many cultures, is considered as male. 

Just as the sun's rays penetrate the earth so the male organ penetrates the female to leave a seed in her mysterious womb. We caneasily see how men came to view themselves as active and womenas both passive and mysterious. People often link passive with 'negative' or that is, inferior and weak. But passivity contains its ownpower. It gives the mind a chance to work. People who only knowaction never get a chance to reflect on what that action has taughtthem. In a deeper sense, passivity allows the unconscious to emerge.Only through withdrawal from outer involvement can we allowthe inner voice of vision and psychic forces to speak to us. It is precisely to avoid this inner voice that many people never rest fromaction and movement. Our society, based completely on outerachievement, fosters a terror of the unconscious, yet without itswisdom we can never fully know ourselves or the world.

The High Priestess represents all these qualities: darkness, mystery, psychic forces, the power of the moon to stir the unconscious,passivity, and the wisdom gained from it. This wisdom cannot beexpressed in rational terms; to try to do so would be to immediately limit, narrow, and falsify it. Most people at some time have feltthey understood something in such a deep way that they couldnever manage to explain it. Myths serve as metaphors for deep psychic feelings; yet the myths themselves, like the explanations givenby theologians and anthropologists, are only symbols. The HighPriestess signifies inner wisdom at its deepest level. 

She sits before two pillars, representing both the temple of Isisand the ancient Hebrew temple in Jerusalem, the dwelling place ofGod on earth, in other words, the home of the Shekinah. A veilhangs between the two pillars, indicating that we are barred fromentering the place of wisdom. The image of the veiled temple orsanctuary appears in many religions. The Shekinah was indeed saidto dwell within the veiled ark of the temple. 

Now, most people assume we are somehow forbidden to pass thepillars of the High Priestess. In reality, we simply do not know howto. To enter behind the veil would be to know consciously the irrational wisdom of the unconscious. That is the goal of the entireMajor Arcana. Look carefully at Smith's picture. You can see whatlies behind the veil by looking between the veil and the pillars. Andwhat lies behind is water. No great temple or complex symbols,simply a pool of water, a line of hills, and the sky. The pool signifies the unconscious and the truth hidden there. The water ismotionless, the secrets in its darkest depths, hidden under a smoothsurface. For most of us, at most times, the turbulent unconsciousremains hidden under a placid layer of consciousness. We cannotenter the temple because we do not know how to go into ourselves; therefore we must travel through the trumps until we reachthe Star and the Moon, where we can finally stir up the waters andreturn with the wisdom to the conscious light of the Sun. 

The temple introduces the image of the two pillars, and thetheme of duality and opposites. The image occurs again and againthrough the trumps, in such obvious places as the Hierophant'schurch pillars or the two towers of the Moon (the pillars of theHigh Priestess seen from the other side), but also in more subtleways, such as the two sphinxes of the Chariot, or the man andwoman of the Lovers. Finally, Judgement, with the child risingbetween a man and a woman, and the World, holding two wands,resolves the duality by uniting the inner mysteries with the outerawareness. 

  The letters 'B' and ']' stand for Boaz and Jakin, the names givento the two main pillars of the temple in Jerusalem. Obviously, thedark Boaz stands for passivity and mystery while Jakin symbolizesaction and consciousness. Notice, though, that the letters carry thereverse indications, a white B and a black J. Like the dots in the Taosymbol the letters signify that duality is an illusion, and eachextreme carries the other imbedded inside it. 

In her lap she holds a scroll marked 'Tora' . This name refers tothe Jewish law, the Five Books of Moses which is usually spelled 'Torah' in English. This particular spelling allows the word to serveas an anagram for 'Taro'. As the ultimate subject of all Kabbalisticmeditations (like Christ's crucifixion for Christian mystics) theTorah carries a great deal of esoteric significance. The Kabbalistsbelieved that the Torah read on Saturday mornings in the synagogues was only a representation, a kind of shadow of the trueTorah, the living word of God that existed before the universe andcontains within it all true existence. The Tora held by the HighPriestess, rolled up and partly concealed in her cloak, thereforesignifies a higher knowledge closed to us with our lower understanding. We can describe it also as the psychic truths available tous only in the distorted form of myths and dreams. 

Earlier we spoke of the Fool coming in at crucial moments ofchange to push us along. The gap between the High Priestess andthe Empress is one such moment. We can too easily be seduced bythe dark coolness of the second trump, even if we never really penetrate its secrets. The person beginning in spiritual discipline oftenprefers to stay at the visionary level rather than go through the slowhard work needed to advance. Many people in more ordinary situations will find life too overwhelming, too vast and demanding, forthem to take part. We can best use the High Priestess's passivity asa balance to the outward-looking attitude of the Magician, butmany people find the passive side extremely attractive. It representsan answer to struggle, a quiet retreat instead of the harsh glare ofself-exposure when we involve ourselves openly with other people. 

But the human mind does not work like that. It requires passionand it needs to connect itself to the world. If we cannot penetratethe veil the temple remains for us an empty place, devoid of meaning. The person who tries to live a completely passive life becomesdepressed, more and more trapped in a cycle of apathy and fear. 

Virtually all moon goddess religions feature myths of the goddess's ferocious side. Ovid tells the story of Actaeon, a hunter, andtherefore a figure who properly belonged to the world of action.He happened one day to see a stream and decided to follow it to itssource (again, water as a symbol of the unconscious). Thus hebecame separated from his dogs and the other hunters, and whenhe had reached the source, away from the active world, he saw agroup of maidens. Among them, naked, stood the virgin goddess,Diana. Now, if Actaeon had returned immediately to the outerworld he would have found his life enriched. Instead, he allowedDiana's beauty to fascinate him; he stayed too long, and the goddess, discovering that a man had seen her nakedness (compare theHigh Priestess's layers of clothing with the Star maiden's nudity)turned Actaeon into a stag. When he ran away, terrified, his owndogs tore him to pieces. 

Here the Fool comes in (and remember the Fool's dog, leapingat his side), reminding us to dance lightly away from both thesevisions, the Magician as well as the High Priestess, until we aretruly ready to assimilate them. 

The divinatory meanings of the High Priestess deal first with asense of mystery in life, both things we do not know, and thingswe cannot know. It indicates a sense of darkness, sometimes as anarea of fear in our lives, but also one of beauty. A period ofpassive withdrawal can enrich our lives by allowing things insideto awaken.

As an emblem of secret knowledge the trump indicates that feeling of intuitively understanding the answer to some great problem,if only we could express that answer consciously. More specifically,the card can refer to visions and to occult and psychic powers, suchas clairvoyance.

 In its most positive aspect the High Priestess signifies the potential in our lives - very strong possibilities we have not realized,though we can sense them as possible. Action must follow or thepotential will never be realized.      

      Despite its deep wisdom the card can sometimes carry a negativemeaning. Like most of the trumps, the High Priestess's valuedepends on the context of the other cards. Negatively the trumpindicates passiveness at the wrong time or for too long, leading toweakness, fear of life and other people. It shows a person withstrong intuition who cannot translate feelings into action, or aperson afraid to open up to other people. Whether the good orbad aspect of the card comes up in a particular reading depends onthe surrounding cards and of course the reader's intuition (wepartake of the High Priestess every time we read the cards) . Veryoften both meanings will apply. Human beings have more thanone side.

  The High Priestess is an archetype, a single-minded picture ofone aspect of existence. When we reverse it we bring in the missing qualities. The card reversed signifies a turn towards passion,towards a deep involvement with life and other people, in all ways,emotionally, sexually and competitively. However, the pendulumcan swing too far, and then the card reversed can symbolize a lossof that most precious knowledge: the sense of our inner selves.