The High Priestess

Names for the High Priestess go on and on: Indwelling Glory, Gate of the Sanctuary, Queen of the Borrowed Light, Psyche, Eros’ bride, Spiritual Bride of the Just Man, and Diana the Huntress. She is the woman withheld, unrevealed, and unpenetrated. Her book or scroll may also be called the Book of Science, Torah, or the Akashic Record, all those things men dream of knowing while already pretending to know. Many incorrect things are said about her. Secret, occult, or esoteric knowledge are common errors. Most books assert that some secret knowledge is to be found here. We don’t require knowledge for clarity. She isn’t knowledge any more than the Magician is power: she’s what we do not know. Fertility is often mentioned, but this whole idea is a really bad fit with virgo intacta. She is only fertile in theory. An important distinction may now be drawn between secrets and mysteries that was not there in the beginning, when mystes meant an initiate sworn to secrecy and silence. Now we can say that a mystery will open itself to someone who is both ready and worthy. Secrets are held by the culture or the cult, and many have heard them or had them revealed. The Hiero- phant deals in those. The Priestess holds deeper mysteries than this, many still beyond any human comprehension. If you come away from her with answers, you’re doing it wrong. She also babysits for the mother of the nine Muses, Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, a fundamental function of the subconscious, where much of our potential knowledge is indeed occult or occluded. But down in those depths, it isn’t gnosis or knowledge at all. There is no inner teacher deep down in there. There is, however, a learner deep within. Our emergent awareness has no hindsight for its origins. The Priestess is a channel of sorts, not of knowledge, but of the wisdom of unknowing, where knowledge should not even try to go. She is the stimulation or draw of mystery, the stimulus to discovery, the need to listen, the need to ask better ques- tions. She inspired Einstein’s credo about mystery and awe. Wonder heightens our perceptions, not knowing wakes us up. There are messages and lessons for us here, but they are not answers. We might, for example, need to settle for learning to be true instead of learning the truth. The larger reality here is not for wrapping heads around: it’s just too big for that. With all the stuff beneath the surface, and all the stuff beyond our horizons, and all the unknowable pasts and futures, it’s just sad that we can be so pretentious to think that we can have all the answers. But it’s great that we can go looking into the darkness and listening into the silence, despite the lack of reflections and echoes. There are mysterious wisdoms to be had and touched that never will be packaged, inscrutable things that we nevertheless can still play with, and states so altered that we have to alter ourselves just to go there. It’s gift enough that we are drawn to these. Mystery doesn't need solving: it just needs to be left to work its magic, take us down deeper, and open us up. Mystery teaches with questions. If you’re getting answers out of some version of Torah, you’re doing it wrong. Then what comfort is there here? Is there a home for us? What wisdom is there in such an insecurity in our knowledge? We certainly don’t belong in such a sanctuary as long as we are full of ourselves, still smug and pretentious in what we think we know. Nobody who believes the Priestess holds knowledge for us should be allowed past the gate. We must even forget the hope that the Priestess knows what we don’t. She’s not a fount of wisdom but its guardian. This is also no place for the dilettante, the dabbler, or the hasty. This isn’t welcome here. We need to earn some value or worth and raise our standards out of respect. There is no unmerited knowing. This is a sacred space. The wisdom here is not transferable. We make ourselves ready and worthy. We will not be given any undeserved secrets. She is not there to offer you wisdom, she will not read to you when you finally reach her, not even from the subtext. Some think it needful to bring some religion along, but this is the same error as trying to enter with answers. Yes, the place of unknowing is sacred, but that does not make this the house of some god. Nature is wonder and divine enough. It’s worthy of reverence, but that does not mean that some deity stands behind it. It’s worthy of gratitude, but this does not require someone to be grateful to. All of these props only signify lack of humility, despite what they pretend to be. Even the wisest of us must drop the pride we have in our present degree of wisdom. Making ourselves at home here is as simple and difficult as running into the ocean or jumping into the lake. It’s best to get naked first, and sincere, and then we simply commit. The cold isn’t so ethereal after all, but we still must abandon our reason to make the leap. The otherworldliness was only the view from the previous world. Now it’s just a richer and deeper world, and a lot less crowded with pilgrims and seekers.