"No One Is Fully Immune To Her Dark Charms..."

People will be talking about Alexander McQueen's latest show in Paris for some time; through these armored maidens, their mouths defiantly smeared with paint and bodies sheathed in rich garments and ripe garbage, McQueen achieved something that's not very easy in the increasingly mainstream fashion world -- he shocked and entranced the world, striking the perfect magnetic balance between alluring and repulsive.

The High Priestess is a mysterious figure, one of the most complex cards in the Tarot. She is the counterpart of the Hierophant, and they are considered to be the two channels through which we receive wisdom and guidance. The solar Hierophant (who was once referred to as the Pope) imparts his two-cents quite openly and directly, representing the established teachings and mores of our society; the lunar Priestess, on the other hand remains silent, remote. She does not teach, she conveys. Instead of prescribing solutions, she sows inspiration, transmitting reflections that illuminate from within, leaving you to interpret them how you will and figure out your own way. Aliester Crowley referred to her as "God's Angel-Minister to every man." To Arthur Edward Waite, she was "The Queen of the borrowed light." She is the dreams we have, the hopes we foster, and those suspicions we have about the world that we struggle to articulate and act on.

Yes, this makes the Priestess something of an anarchist -- which is why some people take less comfort in the her method of revelation than in the Hierophant's, though each has its time and place, and no one is fully immune to her dark charms and the richness of her symbolic language. Which is why people can't tear their eyes away from the beautifully defaced women in McQueen's collection -- they seem engineered to push us away, to repel our attention, and yet we're beckoned. Their mouths are both sublimated and obliterated -- thus accoutred, what use have they for words? Beholding them, our imagination of the world expands ever so slightly, which is, of course, the whole point of any art-form.

Previously On Arcanalogue...