The High Priestess

Quick answer

The core meaning of The High Priestess is Inner wisdom and intuition. Upright, it usually points to Intuition, the subconscious, mystery, inner wisdom. Symbolizes silent observatio; reversed, it may suggest Secrets revealed, suppressed intuition, superficiality, emotional instability. M.

Card imagery

A solemn woman sits between two pillars, one black and one white (marked B and J), before a veil embroidered with pomegranates and palms. She holds a scroll (TORA), and a crescent moon rests at her feet.

Upright meaning

Intuition, the subconscious, mystery, inner wisdom. Symbolizes silent observation and listening to the inner voice, finding answers through intuition rather than logic.

Reversed meaning

Secrets revealed, suppressed intuition, superficiality, emotional instability. May indicate ignoring the inner voice, or becoming withdrawn and distant.

Love, Career, Money and Growth

Love

In love, The High Priestess points to Inner wisdom and intuition. Read it back against how the relationship actually behaves and what you are both choosing.

Career

In career matters, The High Priestess points to Inner wisdom and intuition. Start by working out which resources you control and what your next move is.

Money

In money matters, The High Priestess points to Inner wisdom and intuition. Do not treat a symbolic reading as an investment conclusion — go by facts, budget and your own risk tolerance.

Personal growth

For personal growth, The High Priestess points to Inner wisdom and intuition. Write down the question it raises, then turn that into an action you can actually check.

Yes or No

Upright

Undecided

Reversed

No

This is our own quick read, based on which way the card’s meaning leans. Traditions disagree about individual cards, and an "Undecided" needs to be weighed against the position in the spread and your actual situation rather than taken as a one-word answer.

Waite’s Original Text (1911)

Inner Symbolism (original)

She has the lunar crescent at her feet, a horned diadem on her head, with a globe in the middle place, and a large solar cross on her breast. The scroll in her hands is inscribed with the word Tora, signifying the Greater Law, the Secret Law and the second sense of the Word. It is partly covered by her mantle, to show that some things are implied and some spoken. She is seated between the white and black pillars—J. and B.—of the mystic Temple and the veil of the Temple is behind her: it is embroidered with palms and pomegranates. The vestments are flowing and gauzy, and the mantle suggests light—a shimmering radiance. She has been called Occult Science on the threshhold of the Sanctuary of Isis, but she is really the Secret Church, the House which is of God (Nature) and man. She represents also the Second Marriage of the Prince who is no longer of this world; she is the spiritual Bride and Mother, the daughter of the stars and the Higher Garden of Eden. She is, in fine, the Queen of the borrowed light, but this is the light of all. She is the Moon nourished by the milk of the Supernal Mother.

In a manner, she is also the Supernal Mother herself—that is to say, she is the bright reflection. It is in this sense of reflection that her truest and highest name in symbolism is Shekinah—the co-habiting glory. According to Kabalism, there is a Shekinah both above and below. In the superior world it is called Binah, the Supernal Understanding which reflects to the emanations that are beneath. In the lower world it is Malkuth—that world being, for this purpose, understood as a blessed Kingdom—that with which it is made blessed being the Indwelling Glory. Mystically speaking, the Shekinah is the Spiritual Bride of the just man, and when he reads the Law she gives the Divine meaning. There are some respects in which this card is the highest and holiest of the Greater Arcana.

Original Upright Meaning

Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science.

Original Reversed Meaning

Passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, surface knowledge.

Quoted from A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. The text is in the public domain.