Gothic Tarot of the Vampires- 2 the High priestess

This card shows a kindred with cut wrists & blood on her mouth. She knows full well of the thirst, & the power in the blood. She is old, more than likley an elder that teaches the young ones. She looks as if she has just finished a ritual blood bond that is needed to teach the stronger powers to the neonates. This is a nesisary iniation in the kinderd world, one must be devoted in order to learn.

Is she the initiated or the initiate? There is mystery. The sight of blood is surely tempting for a vampire. Only the woman knows what really happening, the situation and the context.

The Gothic tarot of Vampires – II The High Priestess

The Gothic tarot of Vampires – II The High Priestess

The High Priestess –

I really didn’t understand this card until I studied it. I didn’t get the woman with her wrist slashed. This is one of those major cards in this deck that you have to question several times before you get the answer. I would like to share with you my thoughts.

A woman possibly a vampire, since this is a vampire tarot can we make an assumption that she is a vampire, especially since she has blood dripping down her mouth. If you aren’t a vampire would you drink blood?

The woman/vampire is comfortable in a winged back chair. She is a little forward with her extended arm over a table, perhaps to drain her slashed wrist into an awaiting cup. Both hands are clenched – Is this to increase blood flow, so that her wounds could flow quicker?

There are two cups full of blood (the cups are bloodied) with a knife between them. Who is the second one for? And why not drink it from the source. Is she offering her Blood in exchange, so that she is on equal footing to the person that she is waiting for or who just visited her.

The woman is dressed very casual, jeans, shirt, and sweat jacket.

The LWB says:

“Temptation – Limit, invitation, offer of immortality and knowledge.”

I don’t get the temptation part. The woman/vampire seems comfortable in her surroundings, offering immortality by drinking her blood. It’s not done out of seduction, intimacy, but out of friendship trust. She is comfortable so she is not doing out of fear or impending doom. She is not regally dressed and her demeanor is not that of a master, but of an everyday woman. She, I believe is offering as an equal.

There is a book on the table, is that supposed to represent knowledge.

The knife is death.

The apparent slash of the wrist (suicide like) could mean you have to die by your own hand in order to live. You have to be willing to change in order to gain knowledge. Since the woman is a vampire, your death won’t be for long, once you drink freely and equally from her blood.

Is immortality, temptation? And is temptation bad, if there are limits to it.

This is a very contriversal card. In my opinion, the woman is a vampire offering her blood to someone seeking knowledge. The knowledge is, in it self, a temptation. The unknown person who the vampire is offering her blood to must make a choice: gain the knowledge, becoming immortal (if the unknown person is mortal), or reject the offer.

The vampire is relaxed to make herself more inviting, to put the unknown person at ease. The offer is more tempting if coming from a calm, relaxed person, and the vampire knows this. The vampire also knows there are limits to how much blood the unknown person can take.

The limitation could be seen from one of many angles. One such angle could be if the unknown person takes enough blood, the vampire holds a certain level of power and control over them. Another angle could be if the vampire looses too much blood, it could be fatal to her. And another is the limitation of how much knowledge is being offered and learned.

This is a difficult card for me in this deck. Most decks I don't have a problem with the High Priestess. Maybe it's because I'm try to make this card fit my "usual" meanings.
I will need to think on this one more.

There is no action or movement in this card, the background and table are pastel colors with dark shadows. There is blood on her face (I originally thought she was smirking), on her arms and in the glasses and on the table. This is not a gaunt woman, she is fulfilled by what she represents and offers.

The fact that the blood is dripping from her face and smeared around, shows me that while blood is valued it’s not constrained. I guess I mean they don’t measure it out with an eye dropper, it and what it represents is to be reveled in. It’s messy and glorious. Do you dare? she seems to ask. The blood represents the “hidden secrets” and that’s what’s on offer here.

While the Magician card was very "romantic"... everything was as in a commercial... the High priestess is a raw card. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is presented as better... or as wonderful. Knowledge is very cold sometimes.

She sort of says: do you want to know what is to be a vampire?
She offer... but doesn't give any warning on the price to be paid.
And yet she does not "seduce", she does not lie.

Temptation is ours... as is the limit... our inability to see past tempation... to understand that knowledge must be paid for, one way or the other.

ric

I think we are meant to question the High Priestess. We are meant to question, but are unlikely to get an answer.

I think this card is deliberatly ambiguous to show the secret, hidden nature of the High Priestess.

KoW