
The lunar symbols on the High Priestess’s crown and at her feet reflect an ancient association with the moon and psychic receptivity. By psychic, I refer not only to abilities such as ESP and clairvoyance. Psychic means “of the soul.”
-Paul Quinn
The High Priestess is the quintessential archetype pointing us in the direction of the soul. Her knowledge comes not so much from her clairvoyant extra-sensory ability, as it comes from her deeper understanding of the fundamental laws of life – the type of knowledge held within our soul consciousness.
The High Priestess sits at the gateway to the soul – she is the presence within us that knows our reasons for coming into a human body, she is the presence within us that knows the specific things we have come to accomplish, she is the presence within us that is fully aware of our other lifetimes and dimensional connections. She has within her possession a draft of our Life Plan – the life plan carefully crafted by our souls – not our incarnating personalities.
The High Priestess as an archetype embodies the understanding that it is the soul that has the answers we seek. She embodies a curious paradox of the human experience: we each have the answers that we seek within us, but we also stand guard, preventing access to these answers. The conscious mind stands guard as it firmly situates our awareness in our present, physical, time-space reality. The conscious mind is the mechanism that keeps us occupied here, while our super-conscious mind and soul stand quiet behind the scenes, situated in other dimensional realities.
Truly therapeutic work carried out within the archetypal framework of the High Priestess is based on the following premises: i) the person seeking therapy has their own High Priestess within them, and therefore has the answers, ii) because the person seeking therapy has the answers within them, they are their own healers, iii) all therapeutic interventions therefore amount to self-healing whether or not a facilitator guides this process, iv) for therapy to be effective – the High Priestess must let us pass her veil, even just a little – we must reach for insights that lie beneath the surface, somewhere below the conscious mind. We must access deeper levels of perception that lie beyond our normal, waking consciousness or usual ways of thinking about an event, or situation. We must cross the bridge between conscious and unconscious.
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