The High Priestess - "15 Steps" by Radiohead

[The ambition and certainty of the Magician is immediately undercut by the elliptical utterances of the Priestess, which offer both mercy and severity. I don't have a special Tarot understanding of the "15 steps" -- other than that the card that's 15 steps away from her is the Star.]

How come I end up where I started
How come I end up where I went wrong
Won't take my eyes off the ball again
You reel me out and you cut the string.

How come I end up where I started
How come I end up where I went wrong
Won't take my eyes off the ball again
First you reel me out and then you cut the string

You used to be all right
What happened?
Did the cat get your tongue?
Did your string come undone?
One by one
One by one
It comes to us all
It's as soft as your pillow

You used to be all right
What happened?
Et cetera et cetera
Facts for whatever!
15 steps
Then a sheer drop

How come I end up where I started?
How come I end up where I went wrong
Won't take my eyes off the ball again
You reel me out and you cut the string.

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Aesop's Fables - The High Priestess

(Click here for large version)

The moral here, "Nature will out," ought to sound incredibly encouraging. But to the extent that our culture depends on repression as a cure for most of our problems, personal and otherwise, it is a terrifying thing to hear.

The Priestess card represents a secret that will reveal itself to anyone who pays special attention. It may be a quiet truth, easily drowned out by the volume of every day life, but it is there all the same, waiting patiently to meet us when the noise dies down. Unearthed details have a way of hiding in plain sight; the idea that a man could unwittingly marry a woman who had recently been a cat says far more about him than it does about her.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The High Priestess

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The High Priestess - II

1. Penetration into areas previously unknown or obscured
2. Hidden secrets
3. Change and fluctuation.

-- David Allen Hulse, The Western Mysteries

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"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...

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The Priestess

When we hear the word "automaton" we think foremost of mindlessness, a creation with no will of its own, so not many beautiful images spring to mind. Some objects, however, brim with delectable mystery and secret wisdom that is far greater than the sum of their gears. The Silver Swan, for example, was built in 1773 by mechanical prodigy John Joseph Merlin. To this day, rapt audiences gather at the Bowes Museum in England to watch it spring to life, preening and dipping its beak to catch fish. An equally enchanting automaton plays the harp while surveying her audience with eyes that are unnervingly wide and arrestingly gentle.

These clockworks exert a strange power over us. They grasp at our imaginations and communicate with us on a level we barely understand. It's this secret source of wisdom that we can rely on the Priestess to provide, as this card represents powerful revelations that come to us naturally on their own, information that can't be sought or taught. It's something you can merely acknowledge, after it has already become clear.

The best you can do to actively cultivate this sort of knowledge is remain open and observant. Pay keen attention to your dreams, or to any unexplained emotional reactions that crop up. Explore your connections to certain works of art. Look for the places in your life where worlds overlap, and explore that twilit space. And keep your eyes peeled for signs of secrets and conspiracies around you, whose walls may finally tumble on their own and reveal what has been going on right under your nose. Parts of your life that you thought mindless and meaningless may take on fascinating secret properties, all you have to do is dust them off and wind them up.

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