Secret of the High Priestess Spread

Difficulty: Average

This spread is a nice alternative to the Celtic Cross, which covers basically the same ground. It is useful when a question doesn’t quite call for the Ankh spread. This spread is helpful when you are looking into a current trend. The High Priestess may or may not present a mysterious secret to be analyzed after the rest of the spread.

1. and 2. Main impulses that represent the topic at hand. They may compliment or oppose one another.

3. This is the current influence at this time.

5. The Waning Moon is the influence that you are putting behind you, what is moving into the past.

4. The Waxing Moon indicates what is on the horizon, or the approaching influence. This is the immediate future.

7. The Light is what is clearly recognized, what is conscious.

6. The Dark shows what is there but not fully perceived, though noticed on a deeper level of consciousness.

8. The Next Step is the near future, where this journey will take you.

9. The last card, if it happens to be of the Major Arcana, reveals the Secret of the High Priestess. This is a special message that you should pay extra special attention to.

Your Secret of the High Priestess Reading

The Waxing Moon Death	The Full Moon Knight of Disks		The Waning Moon 6 of Wands
	Significator #1 10 of Cups	Significator #2 Lust
The Dark 3 of Cups	The Secret of the High Priestess 2 of Disks		The Light 7 of Wands
	The Next Step The Hanged Man

Significator #1  

Mars in Pisces – Satiety

This card represents a conflicting element. On the one hand, it receives the influence of the Ten, Malkah the Virgin. The arrangement of the cups is that of the Tree of Life. But, on the other hand, they are themselves unstable. They are tilted; they spill the water from the great Lotus which overhangs the whole system from one into the other. The work proper to water is complete: and disturbance is due.

Significator #2  

Leo

Mitigate Energy with Love; but let Love devour all things. Worship the name _______, foursquare, mystic, wonderful, and the name of His House 418.

Courage, strength, energy and action, une grande passion; resort to magick, the use of magical power.

The Waning Moon is the influence that you are putting behind you, as it moves into the past. 

Jupiter in Leo – Victory

This card represents Tiphareth of the suit of Fire. This shows Energy in completely balanced manifestation. The Five has broken up the closed forces of the Four with revolutionary ardour, but a marriage has taken place between them; and the result is the Son, and the Sun.

The reference is also to Jupiter and Leo, which seems to imply a benediction on the harmony and beauty of this arrangement. It Will be seen that the Three Wands of the Three Adepts are now orderly arranged; and the flames themselves, instead of shooting out in all directions, burn steadily as in lamps. They are nine in number, in reference to Yesod and the Moon. This shows the stabilisation of the Energy, and its reception and reflection by the Feminine.

There is no circle to enclose the system. It is self-supporting, like the Sun.

The Full Moon is the current influence at this time. 

Virgo

The Knight of Disks represents the fiery part of Earth, and refers in particular to the phenomena of mountains, earthquakes, and gravitation; but it also represents the activity of Earth regarded as the producer of Life. This warrior is short and sturdy in type. He rides through the fertile land; even the distant hills are cultivated fields.

Those whom he symbolises tend to be dull, heavy and pre-occupied with material things. They are laborious and patient, but would have little intellectual grasp even of matters which concern them most closely. Their success in these is due to instinct, to imitation of Nature. They lack initiative; their fire is the smouldering fire of the process of growth.

The Waxing Moon indicates what is on the horizon; the approaching influence. 

Scorpio

The Universe is Change; every Change is the effect of an Act of Love; all Acts of Love contain Pure Joy. Die daily. Death is the apex of one curve of the snake Life: behold all Opposites as necessary complements, and rejoice.

Transformation, change, voluntary or involuntary, in either case logical development of existing conditions, yet perhaps sudden and unexpected. Apparent death or destruction, but such interpretation is illusion.

The Light is what is clearly recognized. 

Mars in Leo – Valour

This card derives from Netzach (Victory) in the suit of Fire. But the Seven is a weak, earthy, feminine number as regards the Tree of Life, and represents a departure from the balance so low down on the Tree that this implies a loss of confidence.

Fortunately, the card is also attributed to Mars in Leo. The army has been thrown into disorder; if victory is to be won, it will be by dint of individual valour – a 'soldiers' battle'.

The Dark shows what is there but not fully perceived, though it has been noticed on a deeper level of consciousness. 

Mercury in Cancer – Abundance

This card refers to Binah in the suit of Water. This is the card of Demeter or Persephone. The Cups are pomegranates: they are filled bountifully to overflowing a single lotus, arising from the dark calm sea characteristic of Binah. There is here the fulfilment of the Will of Love in abounding joy. It is the spiritual basis of fertility.

The card is referred to the influence of Mercury in Cancer; this carries further the above thesis. Mercury is the Will or Word of the All-Father; here its influence descends upon the most receptive of the Signs. At the same time, the combination of these forms of energy brings in the possibility of somewhat mysterious ideas. Binah, the Great Sea, is the Moon in one aspect, but Saturn in another; and Mercury, besides being the Word or Will of the All-One, is the guide of the souls of the Dead. The pomegranate was the fruit which Persephone ate in the realms of Pluto, thereby enabling him to hold her in the lower world, even after the most powerful influence had been brought to bear. The lesson seems to be that the good things of life, although enjoyed, should be distrusted.

The Next Step is the near future, where this journey will take you. 

Water

Let not the waters whereon thou journeyest wet thee. And, being come to shore, plant thou the Vine and rejoice without shame.

Enforced sacrifice, punishment, loss, fatal or voluntary, suffering, defeat, failure, death.

The Secret of the High Priestess - if, and only if this card a Major Arcana, it reveals the Secret of the High Priestess. This is a special spiritual message that you should pay extra special attention to. If it is not a trump, the Priestess has revealed no secret. 

Jupiter in Capricorn – Change

The number Two, Chokmah, here rules in the suit pertaining to Earth. It shows the type of Energy appropriate to Two, in its most fixed form. According to the doctrine that Change is the support of stability, the card is called Change.

The card represents two Pantacles, one above the other; they are the Chinese symbols of the Yang and Yin duplicated as in the Hsiang. One wheel is dextro- and the other laevo-rotatory. They thus represent the harmonious interplay of the Four Elements in constant movement. One may in fact consider the card as the picture of the complete manifested Universe, in respect of its dynamics.