The High Priestess (The Oracle
The Oracle sits on a throne made of an open oyster shell, holding articles of divination: coral, sea grapes, and an ancient scroll of sacred knowledge preserved in a corked bottle of glass. She is framed by two billowing columns of hydrothermal smoke. He skin interprets the world around her, balancing forces of dark and light. Around her swim moon jellyfish. At the base of her throne is a stargazer fish, like her, reading the future in the night sky.
Symbolism of The High Priestess aka The Female Pope
This card is intended to denote intuition and unconscious power, and a physical sensitivity to the fabric of reality. It’s often used as a querent card in the same was The Magician is.
This card has changed names and interpretations over time. Originally it was the Papess, or female Pope, considered a dark inversion of power in the patriarchal middle ages. The Smith-Waite deck tried to move away from this Christian imagery and adopted the term 'The High Priestess', which invokes a hypothetical pagan matriarchal religious structure. Smith and Waite were looking at syncretic associations of the mother goddess as represented by Astarte or the Virgin Mary.
The Papesse, Marseilles deck
The High Priestess, Smith-Waite deck.
The Priestess, Thoth deck.
The Oracle of Delphi
The Oracle, oil on canvas by Camillo Miola, 1880.
In meditating on the card I was me reminded me of the priestess class of classical Hellenic culture, specifically the Oracle of Delphi.
According to tradition, Hellenes from across the Aegean would travel to Delphi to ask questions of the Oracle, who possessed a connection to the Earth and could give predictions about the future.
The oracle was said to undergo a kind of trance while in a mountainous cave. Some have speculated that this was a kind of performance, potentially enhanced by a drug. Another quite interesting theory put forth by geis that the oracle was inhaling fumes from the volcanic spring below the site of Delphi itself.
The location of the temple is notable for a spring, and indeed other lesser temples of the female priest class in Hellenic culture were located at sites of natural springs. The spring at Delphi is notable for a particularly unique underground volcanic structure. Geochemical surveys have found evidence emissions of light hydrocarbon gases inside the inner sanctum, both in the past and present.
The site of the oracle's seat itself was situated in a place where gasses from the earth might have wafted up into the enclosed space. It's reasonable to think that the ancient Greeks would have known about this and potentially even selected this site as their central temple because of its unique geographical features.
The Oracle of Octopolis
In my worldbuilding of Octopolis, I have taken inspiration from these stories to invent a religious cult around an Oracle in the city of Polyps who operates at the base of a hydrothermal vent, though which all sorts of mind-altering hydrocarbons must be emanating. In the card, rather than the two columns of a temple, the Oracle of Octopolis is framed by two columns of billowing sulphuric underwater smoke.
Other symbolic details to note:
The Priestess is often associated with the moon, so I chose moon jellies to adorn the background of her throne.
The throne is an open oyster shell. The symbolism of the oyster shell to feminine power is well-documented, and I encourage anyone ignorant of it to do some reading. It’s also shaped like a whale tail, which references the Cult of the Whale in Octopolis.
Most versions of this card have some kind of holy text in the hands of the Priestess. The Oracle holds a literal message in a bottle— an ancient artifact containing revelations written in an ancient script no the meaning of which has been lost to time.
The fish at the bottom is a Stargazer, a nocturnal ambush hunter with a permanently haunted stare. Perhaps they have been cursed with a vision of the future?
Reflections on The Oracle
The “first” Oracle.
This piece was hard to finish. I have a tendency to get caught up in perfectionism, and this subject was particularly important to me because one of the first pieces of artwork I created for Octopolis was a piece I called The Oracle. I wanted it to be right, and I vacillated for a long time about the color choices, texture, detail.
At some point I couldn't determine whether one version was superior to another, and felt quite frustrated with myself. But then after stepping away from the piece for a while I was able to meditate more on the subject.
The Oracle represents unconscious power, and by trying to seek a technical perfection with an objective correct answer I was denying my intuition. So I let go of seeking perfection and trusted myself to have brought it to the right place.
