The Priestess:

 

The Priestess:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

The Priestess is numbered the second card in the Tarot and corresponds to the third path on the Tree of Life, which is attributed to the moon and the Hebrew letter Gimel.

This is the path that links Tiphareth to Kether and so must be where one is first exposed to the nature of Pure Consciousness, or as described by Plotinus, it is from the ‘Vision of Beauty’ that one gets a glimpse at The Unity. What The Unity in this vision entails is debatable, however it seems to have something to do with life and death. Which makes sense as the path is dedicated to Luna, who accordingly symbolizes this gate between life and death through her roles as Diana and Hecate. It is easy to find this as corresponding to the life and death ordeal that childbirth must have presented to the ancients and also reasons for us, the exalted stature by which she was held and characterized by her worship within the ancient Greek pantheon. This reasoning gives a quite satisfactory motive for her twin characters and lends credence, as at least one reason, for her also being associated with fertility and motherhood. It is by no means an accident that she is called the Great Mother and her influence often referred to as the gate, relating to a womb, such as with Yesod. Accordingly, if the above is true, we would have to concede that her characteristics must indeed stem from a mother’s role in the creation of and the fragility of new life, as owing to the archaic precedent of her initial worship. The ‘Vision of Beauty’ is thus associated with The Priestess and Tiphareth is appropriately the sphere of Beauty on the Tree of Life, what this may entail is the loss of subject in the union between Phanes and Aether, with the latter also known as Brightness and Phanes is consciousness. Perhaps, one may ascribe the aforementioned method of contemplating the relationship between consciousness as light (Phanes) and Brightness (Aether L.V.X.), as being similar to contemplating Beauty without any adage of morality and prejudice involved for greasing the wheels to attainment. This contemplation is then comparable to Raja Yoga and in particular Dharana, being the loss of separateness between subject and object, which may be understood as a lesser form of Samadhi and translates to meditation. The vision itself then, according to the above, is the loss of separateness between self and the whole, henceforth being referred to as one’s first glimpse at the Unity, which serves as awakening one to the true nature of the Good. This path is thus attributable to Samadhi, or union with the All, whereby Atman is awakened to expand consciousness and unite with Brahman, wherefrom the New Life becomes conscious, or Hadit unites with the Goddess Nuit, from whence they become lovers.

“Love is the law, love under will.”