The High Priestess: Golden Dawn Name
Posted By Jade on June 26, 2009
Priestess of the Silver Star
The High Priestess’ Golden Dawn name: Priestess of the Silver Star
Unlike for The Fool and The Magician, dictionary definitions aren’t going to help us much in breaking down this name. We can look up the exact definition of the word priestess:
priest-ess. n. A woman who officiates in sacred rites.
– Dictionary.com
Looking up silver and star, however, won’t give us the true intent behind the name. For that, we’ll need to turn to the Golden Dawn’s writings. Looking up Priestess of the Silver Star in Israel Regardie’s The Golden Dawn (Llewellyn Publications, ©1993), simply gives a reference to see High Priestess, The, which in turn gives us the Golden Dawn’s divination interpretation of the card, but no explanation of their title for it.
Looking up the word silver in the same book proves more productive. On page 60, we find:
Luna Philosophorum: The Pure Living Alchemical Spirit of Silver — the Refined Essence of Heat and Moisture. [emphases mine]
From this we can make a good guess that the silver star refers to Luna, our moon. This seems a valid interpretation, given that the astrological correspondence for The High Priestess is the Moon. Putting this together, we have:
A woman who officiates in sacred rites for the moon
Alternate Names for The High Priestess
The Papess (Popess/Female Pope)
The name “The High Priestess” is actually a fairly modern one, the first reference (we know of) to it was in the Grandpretre tarot, dated approximately 1800.1 Prior to that, The High Priestess card was called The Papess or “female pope”. The Tarot Hermit’s The History of the High Priestess page gives an excellent overview of the meaning behind the name Papess; I refer you to that page for more information, since they cover the subject much better than I could in this short space.
Vanderborre Tarot: Le’spangol
Interestingly, the Vanderborre Tarot changes The Papess/High Priestess to Le’spangnol: Capitano Eracasse, a character from Commedia dell’Arte. You can find more information about the character at Italian Comedy: The Captain and Theatre Database’s Commedia dell’arte Many tarot decks contain references to Commedia, Andy’s Playing Cards – The Tarot and Other Early Cards provides in-depth information about the subject.
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