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.
These premises are the basis of past life and spiritual regression therapy, AND they are the basis of effective intuitive work, where a client interacts with a professional intuitive. In conventional “readings”, there is typically a one-sided flow of information. In conventional approaches to “reading” [for] a client, the professional intuitive is seen as the “expert” on the client’s experience. Readings become primarily about how “good” the professional intuitive is.
When the High Priestess becomes a framework for intuitive counselling, when the High Priestess guides client-therapist interaction, the client is his or her own oracle. This has implications for how the intuitive counsellor-therapist sees the client, and what her role really is. The professional intuitive therapist understands that the client, more than anyone else is the authority on himself, he has all the wisdom and knowledge about himself, and the role of the therapist is to assist the client in getting past conscious mind debris, to be able to access the most unfiltered wisdom from his or her Inner Self.
In intuitive readings, yes, we talk to the client’s conscious mind, but we are helping to bridge the gap between the client’s conscious awareness and the deeper parts of himself that contain transformative insights. Therapeutic intuitive readings with Tarot allow us to access energies and messages that are below the conscious mind level, or which are slightly removed from full cognizance. In therapeutic intuitive readings, the counsellor-therapist helps reveal the client to himself. When guided by the High Priestess as a framework, the professional intuitive counsellor works with techniques and therapeutic approaches which help reveal the client’s own inner wisdom, whilst adding the counsellor’s perceptive intuitive insights and information.
For intuitive client-counsellor interaction to be truly therapeutic and healing, the professional intuitive counsellor’s insights must work along with the client’s Inner Guide, the client’s Inner High Priestess. The professional intuitive understands that she is in service to the client, and that her intuitive skills are used to help further illuminate what the client already knows at some level.
Here is a recent testimonial from one of my clients. She said:
Tara did not attempt to “read my life.” Choosing the cards myself reinforced that they came up because I invited those energies into my own life. In my reading with Tara the cards became a platform for discussion – prompting me to have a discussion with myself.
If the client herself chooses a card that represents a course of action or advice that she is a little wary of on a conscious-mind level, but which is truly in her best interest, the advice becomes more compelling because the simple act of choosing the card herself is a powerful signal that her own innate wisdom has guided her toward that. In choosing a “random” card, she has bypassed her conscious mind, and gone directly to the wisdom that her Inner Guide suggests. She, the client is her own oracle, and contains the answers she seeks.
With the High Priestess as a guiding framework, the professional intuitive counsellor’s role is supportive: it is to provide a safe container for the insights, catharsis, and the honest confrontation that takes place in a therapeutic session.
We are holding space for another’s inner revelation.
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