The High Priestess

The High Priestess upright: the quiet that already holds the answer

The High Priestess is the card of intuition and of knowledge that has not yet been put into words. She is card II of the Major Arcana, the 22 trump cards that describe life’s larger themes, and she follows the Magician directly. The Magician speaks, acts and lays his tools on the table; the High Priestess sits between two pillars and waits. Her power is not in doing but in noticing.

The figure is an old one. In the Marseille version she is La Papesse, the Popess: a veiled woman seated with an open book in her lap. In the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith to A. E. Waite’s design and published in 1909, she sits at the threshold of a temple with a scroll half hidden in her robe. In both images the knowledge is there, but it does not open itself to everyone. It is approached with patience.

Her astrology explains this receptiveness. In the Golden Dawn system, which shaped the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, the High Priestess belongs to the Moon, ruler of tides, feelings, dreams and cycles. The Moon makes no light of its own; it reflects the Sun’s. The High Priestess is that kind of receptive awareness, and the sensitivity of Cancer, the sign the Moon rules, echoes through her.

Upright, she asks for listening rather than a decision. A dream that keeps returning, an unease you cannot explain, the odd stillness you feel around a certain person: each of these is information. You do not know everything yet, and that is not a failure. Some answers arrive only when they are waited for, not when they are forced.

The High Priestess reversed: an inner voice pushed aside

The High Priestess reversed shows an inner voice that is either not being heard or is buried under other voices. The knowledge is still there; the path to it is blocked. It tends to show up in four ways:

• Overriding your instinct: something inside says “wait”, but logic, habit or other people’s opinions win the argument.
• Information held back: an unspoken truth or an undeclared intention, kept from you or by you.
• Too much withdrawal: keeping everything to yourself and letting no one in, not even the people closest to you.
• Looking for approval: knowing your answer yet polling everyone around you, until your own voice gets lost in the noise.

You can read which face is showing from the cards beside it. Beside the Moon or the Seven of Swords, the emphasis falls on hidden information. Beside the Hermit or the Four of Swords, withdrawal is a genuine need rather than an escape. Next to the Magician, the time for silence is over: it is time to say what you know.

The High Priestess in love

In love, the High Priestess represents privacy, intuition and what remains unspoken between two people. Its quiet atmosphere is expressed through glances, pauses and careful disclosure rather than open declarations. Notice the difference between what you sense and what you have actually discussed together.

If you are getting to know someone new, the card asks you to leave room for a gradual conversation. You do not have to disclose everything at once. Write down your first impression, then compare it with what the person actually says and does as you get to know them.

In a long relationship, the card shows either a deep closeness in which partners read each other quietly, or an unspoken subject that is making the air between you heavy. You are the one best placed to know which of the two is your story.

Reversed, coldness, distance or the shadow of a secret come forward. Rather than trying to guess what is going on in the other person’s head, say what you feel in a calm, simple way. The cure for the reversed High Priestess is to bring what is hidden gently into the light.

The High Priestess in career and work

At work, the High Priestess favours the person who listens while everyone else is talking. Research, counselling, teaching, archives, writing and any work that rewards depth belong to this card. Noticing what goes unsaid in a meeting, or sensing before anyone else why a project is stalling, becomes your edge.

Before an important work decision, write down your first reaction and identify what prompted it. Set that impression beside the information you have, and note what remains unclear. Choosing when to share your knowledge matters too: a pause gives you room to listen and ask a precise question.

Reversed, the card points to office rumours, instructions passed on with gaps, or pushing your instinct aside to do only what you are told. Whatever remains unclear, ask about it directly.

The High Priestess and money

With money, the High Priestess asks for quiet attention rather than display. Instead of talking about your finances, she suggests truly knowing your own numbers: where the money goes by the end of the month, which spending calms you and which only fills a gap.

Intuition is useful here too. If an offer looks bright on paper but leaves a knot of unease in your stomach, take the unease seriously and read the small print. This is not a card for agreements signed in a hurry.

Reversed, it points to hidden costs, missing information or avoiding the facts about your money: unopened envelopes, statements you have not looked at. Like the half-open scroll in her hands, money matters show only part of themselves until you unroll them: your intuition points the direction, but opening the envelope and reading the figures with your own eyes turns that hunch into solid knowledge.

The High Priestess, mood and inner balance

When the High Priestess appears, your inner world is busier than it looks from outside. Upright, it reflects a calm but deep mood: you want solitude, time to think and room to remember your dreams. Give that inward turn some space. A short walk, a notebook or an evening without screens helps your intuition become audible again.

Reversed, the inward turn grows heavy: feelings you cannot share, thoughts that circle without finding words, or vivid dreams you keep returning to in your waking reflections. Write the thought, its accompanying feeling and the remembered dream image separately. The crescent at her feet gives changing emotional phases a symbolic form. Name the feeling you have left unspoken; notice when it appears, how long it lasts and which information you associate with it. Consider the place this inward turn occupies in your daily life.

Which way does the High Priestess lean in a yes or no question?

The upright High Priestess leans towards yes when the answer already lives inside you, and towards “not yet” when the question depends on information that has not arrived. The full picture is not visible yet, and she does not pretend otherwise.

Reversed, she leans towards “not this way”: information is missing or an inner response is being ignored. Take time to distinguish what you have observed from what you are assuming. Instead of “Will they come back?”, ask “What do I already know about this relationship, and what still needs to be said openly?”

Advice from the High Priestess

The High Priestess’s advice is short: be still and listen. You do not have to answer every question at once or fill every silence. Silence is where the answer ripens.

For a few days, write down your dreams, sudden feelings and thoughts that keep coming back. The links between them often reveal what you are looking for without any effort on your part.

Use the Single Card spread in the Larisa app to reflect on one question. If the High Priestess appears, write down your first response to its symbols before reading the interpretation. Compare the two accounts, noting both similarities and differences, and identify one question that deserves more thought or clearer information.

Key combinations with the High Priestess

These pairings distinguish the High Priestess’s quiet attention from secrecy, fantasy and insight:

Combination	What it points to
The High Priestess + the Magician	Knowing and saying: intuition turning into action
The High Priestess + the Moon	Deep, murky water; dreams are strong but facts are not yet clear
The High Priestess + the Empress	Creativity fed by intuition, an idea growing from within
The High Priestess + the Hermit	A productive stretch of thinking alone
The High Priestess + Queen of Cups	Emotional sensitivity; noticing your own responses without assuming what someone else feels
The High Priestess + Seven of Swords	Something kept quiet; verify before you trust
The High Priestess + Seven of Cups	Telling fantasy from intuition: which is the real inner voice?
The High Priestess + Ace of Pentacles	A gut feeling pointing to a concrete opportunity

Symbols of the High Priestess in the Larisa deck

Against a starry night sky, a young woman sits between two pillars. A deep blue veil embroidered with stars wraps her long, dark, wavy hair, and beneath it she wears a silver gown that catches the light like water. Her eyes are closed: her gaze is turned inward, not out towards the viewer.

The Moon appears three times. A thin crescent floats above her head, another crescent set with a blue stone sits at the centre of her diadem, and a large golden crescent lies at her feet. Her ruling planet repeated like this recalls the waxing, full and waning phases, the card’s language of cycles.

She holds a half-open scroll in both hands, and on it you can read “TORA” and the Latin “scientia occulta”, hidden knowledge. The scroll is not fully unrolled: knowledge is given, but not all at once. A small cross hangs on her breast from a necklace set with blue stones.

On the left of the card rises a black marble pillar marked B, on the right a white one marked J. The letters name Boaz and Jachin, the two pillars at the entrance of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, and they stand for paired opposites: dark and light, the unknown and the known. She sits exactly between them, the third way that knows both.

White lilies bloom at the foot of the pillars, and fine golden tendrils climb their shafts. At the top of the card, the numeral II sits in a winged medallion: the number of duality, reflection and exchange.