What is on the veil behind the High Priestess?

PhantomAH

Is this some kind of fruit or flower? I am looking at the Universal Waite deck and what is does it mean.

Thanks in advance..

AH
 

Flavio

They are pomegranates almost imposible to guess :) there are some threads about this fruits.
 

Rosanne

Hi PhantomAh, They are as Flavio said, Pomegranates. The word means 'apple full of seed' Blood red juice as well. It has natural estrogen and symbolises among other things rebirth. Persephone(Myth) never quite returns to a state of 'unknowing' after having eaten the pomegranate. It also means immortality and is the emblem of Juno (Intuition) and sometimes thought to be missing from the Tarot Deck along with Jupiter.
What I really want to tell you is that if you look at the veil the pomegranates are arranged like the tree of life with the uncoloured one in the position of Daat, the unseen sefirot, and her head is over the sefirot Tiferet(beauty). She was a clever lady Pamela Coleman Smith and her insight is profound. I hope all this was not 'too much' information :D ~Rosanne
 

PhantomAH

Thank you both!!

AH
 

Penelope

from:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=42051

Da'ath is within You
Fulgour said:
Innana was the Goddess of the Date Palm Warehouse,
and just as each harvest would fill it, soon it was empty,
and yet she was always there, waiting to be filled anew.

Colman Smith's "High Priestess" from 1909 original
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/img/ar02.jpg

Date palms are the source of many mysterious myths,
from the lotus to papyrus, from the sacred to the daily
things of life ~ all wonderment and gratitude is there.
I find it helps to imagine the physical reality of a symbol,
as well as the context of its origins, everyday goings-on
that were known and significant to the original signifiers.

Agricultural communities teaching farming skills and writing,
how to plant and harvest as well as how to read a book...
or make one yourself: the joys and the priveledges of living.
 

wizzle

Rosanne said:
Hi PhantomAh, They are as Flavio said, Pomegranates. The word means 'apple full of seed' Blood red juice as well. It has natural estrogen and symbolises among other things rebirth. Persephone(Myth) never quite returns to a state of 'unknowing' after having eaten the pomegranate. It also means immortality and is the emblem of Juno (Intuition) and sometimes thought to be missing from the Tarot Deck along with Jupiter.
What I really want to tell you is that if you look at the veil the pomegranates are arranged like the tree of life with the uncoloured one in the position of Daat, the unseen sefirot, and her head is over the sefirot Tiferet(beauty). She was a clever lady Pamela Coleman Smith and her insight is profound. I hope all this was not 'too much' information :D ~Rosanne
Ah, but Waite says "She had to be spoon-fed carefully over the Priestess Card, over that which is called the Fool and over the Hanged Man." ... "she" being PCS. And we know from her own words that her work was limited to the line drawings in black and white. Color was added by the printers.
 

Rosanne

I cannot let wizzles post go uncontested :D
From Kaplan
"Waites choice of Smith for the execution of his tarot indicates he thought highly of her work, yet it seems that he underestimated her intellectual and spiritual depth."
In 1909 Pamela undertook for token payment a series of 78 allegorical paintings (NB Paintings not drawings or etchings) described as a rectified tarot pack. It was her style to outline and colour her figures and quite often handcoloured her printed work; she used a style without shading. I believe she would have followed the Golden Dawn colour requisites and you can see the uses of yellow and red and blue are predominate. With all her previous printed watercolours and broadsheets, Pamela was well aware of the printing process and in her letter I think she was disparaging of the lithographic process.
The fact that the cards were printed by lithographic methods, does not mean the printer chose the colours.
While Waite was 'spoon feeding her' I imagine she was listening to music and doing her mystical colourful paintings. I wonder if she wore a bib? ;) ~Rosanne
 

wizzle

I have a great deal of respect for PCS's contributions to the RWS deck and certainly think she should get more recognition. However, the symbolism of the deck is the work of a mage, which PCS wasn't.

This statement has me truly puzzled
What I really want to tell you is that if you look at the veil the pomegranates are arranged like the tree of life with the uncoloured one in the position of Daat, the unseen sefirot, and her head is over the sefirot Tiferet(beauty). She was a clever lady Pamela Coleman Smith and her insight is profound. I hope all this was not 'too much' information ~Rosanne

The HP's shoulders are clearly between Chesed and Geburah, no? The supernals are over her head. Well, the last time I looked Tipareth was below Chesed and Geburah but above Hod and Netzach (which are about hip level on the card). So saying this HP's head is over Tipareth is odd. I will buy that the white cross on her breast might be over Tipareth, but not her head. In fact, PKT says the cross is "the solar cross." Maybe you meant Daath is about where her head is? That would be about right according to Regardie, who puts Daath on the Middle Pillar/abyss conjunction and consistent with the observation that the uncolored fruit represents Daath.
 

Rosanne

I have now taken my foot out of my mouth- Wizzle I meant heart not head.Your knowledge of the qabalah is more advanced than mine :D
You are right she did not view herself as a Mage, she once said she was the goddaughter to a witch and sister to a fairy. I think the symbolist in her life was William Butler Yeats who was a magician at the Isis Urania Temple. He was also a Hermetic. She was a Rosicrucian and her Art reflects the Symbolist movement. I think if Waite did any thing for her it was introduce her to Catholicism which would have appealed to her well developed symbolic way of thinking and painting.
What I am trying to say is that she had been a mystic painter for years before Waite commisioned her work and she had seen Yeat's Golden Dawn Notebook as well. Her interest in astrology is documented from earlier as well. I think Waite's influence is the overemphasised part of the work. Pamela converted to Catholicism in 1911 and the local priests she would have had contact with would have discouraged the the Yeats type spiritualityand her interest in Astrology. Pamela also did not have a 'Business head" and was oft taken advantage of. I think Waite was one of those who did-sorry to be a heretic in this! Thanks for pointing out my error over Tiporeth Wizzle ~Rosanne