Key 2 (The Thirteenth Path)

Key 2 - The High Priestess - Gimel - Camel
Gematria Value: 3
13th Path Camphor, aloes | Moonstone, Pearl
From Tipharet to Keter | BELOW 2

THE HIGH PRIESTESS / ISIS / POPESS

DAUGHTER OF THE MOON / CTHONIC REALMS / MOON

The bridge over the abyss

RECEPTIVITY - PSYCHIC REALMS - MAYA

Hidden influences

Unconscious awareness, intuition, dreams, imagination, memory, plexus, Prakriti

Da'at, and K'Gavna, invocation of the Shekhina

Role of daughter, ways in which the daughter remains part of the mother

The number 2 suggests duplicity, deception, untruth, illusion, error, and delusion. This is where the subconcsious repeats, reflects, and elaborates mistaken results of faulty observations or conclusions.

Intuitively feminine virginal guardian of the temple of the mysteries; enigmatic mistress of the night. First path of contact between the human and divine worlds. The longest path without a stopping point, the most dangerous.

The virgin Priestess, reserved for the God, and trained in the highest Magic, meets the Horned One at Beltane, to conceive a Mystical Child.

This is the myriad Anima forms; this woman can be a chameleon, a shape-shifter, seductive, supportive, friendly, beautiful, and charming, or an arbitrary, cruel, deceptive hag. She is the Hindu Kali, offering boons with one hand and slitting throats with the other. She wears a necklace of human skulls.

This female can be antagonistic to the male "agon," or "line of fire." She is menses, the lunar flux of the female body, the monthly rejection of blood and albumen and preparation for new fecundity.

She is also the chthonic realm. Chthonic means "of the earth," or "the bowels of the earth." These rocks grinding against each other are the horrific bloodshed that nature also is. Nature is brutal, along with everything else it is. Being at the top of the food chain allows us to forget that fact.

The High Priestess is the Virgin Mary, Hera, Diana, or Hecate, who has all of the secret powers of nature at her command.

The Empress and the High Priestess are the two halves of the female archetype.

The Empress is pregnant, actively generating life, while the High Priestess is the consecrated virgin, the field ready for planting.

The High Priestess is the Veiled Isis, while the Empress is Isis Unveiled.

The High Priestess is undifferentiated cosmic subconsious; the Empress is activity in the subconscious mind, gestating the idea-seed planted by the personal self.

The Empress is Venus, the warm mother Goddess; the High Priestess is Diana, the cool virgin Moon-Goddess.
This is the Anima, the archetypal female human, Eve. For a man, The High Priestess is the Women in his life. All other archetypes can be said to descend from these two. For a woman, the Magus, Key 1 is the Men in her life.

This is the true face of the Anima, unmasked by the Persona, or mask, in the domain of Key 21. It is a general principle in Jungian thought that inner and outer personalites are complementary: a methodical and scientific Persona usually suggests an emotional and irrational inner being.

PRAKRITI

The High Priestess is "Prakriti" - the "universal substance" or "mind-stuff" of existence, symbolized by her blue robe and the water it turns into.

from Patanjali:

"Prakriti, it has been said, is the elemental, undifferentiated stuff of mind and matter. In what relation does it stand to the highly differentiated phenomena of this apparent universe? In order to answer this question, we must trace the whole course of a creation from the beginning. We say "a creation" deliberately -- for Hindu philosphy sees creation and dissolution as an endlessly repeated process.... Prakriti is said to be composed of three forces, sattwa, rajas, and tamas, the three Gunas.
The Gunas "permute" Prakriti as the fractal of creation unfolds. Prakriti is the "protoplasm" and the Gunas are the "DNA."

Prakriti is the water from the High Priestess's robes, also representing the unconscious, dream realms, and flows through Keys 3, 7, 14, 17, and 18, as it wends its way through creation.

The curtain hanging between the two pillars symbolizes virginity - and fruitfulness - it depicts palms (male) and pomegranites (female), and conceals a view of Eden.

The curtain connects pllars of light and dark, and all other pairs of opposites, symbolizing the associative powers of the subconscious. She sits on the stone cube that will be created in Key 4. P. F. Case says the cube is made of salt, which crystallizes in cubes, and represents the salty waters of the the ocean/womb/mother.

Da'at

Da'at is a "conjectured" sephirah that falls on the path of Gimel. In Hebrew, Da'at is "knowledge, perception, or learning." It is not really a sephirah; it is a "result" of it's location on the Tree of Life. It is midway on the longest path, and central in the upper hexagonal array. Binah and Chochma straddle the polarity between undefined knowledge and differentiation; Keter and Da'at straddle the polarity between cosmic consciousness and individual consciousness.

Da'at really is knowledge in the "Biblical Sense-" it is the focal point of the mystical union that is prescribed for sanctified couples to perform on Shabbat night, consummated at the darkest hour.

This joining opens a path for the Shekhina - a Hebrew word for the immanent aspect of the Creator, seen in Jewish philosophy as the female aspect of God. The "above" aspect of Shekhina is Binah, and the "below" aspect is Malchut.

The Shekhina, crowned as the Shabbes Queen, is welcomed with the reading of the Song of Songs, Solomon's love poem of yearning for closeness to the Creator Before Time, Lecha Dodi to welcome the bride, and the aramaic K'Gavna prayer from the Zohar, read in the Kabbalat Shabbat service, at sunset.

While the Fool and the Magus represent only the potential, the will, to create, the High Priestess has the latent power to manifest. She is the link between the seen and the unseen.

This path connects Tipharet and Keter, creating the longest of the paths. This is the mystical, archetypal Bridge - spanning the mysteries, balanced between Chesed and Gevurah, Mercy and Severity. It is manifested by the High Priestess combined with the power of the bridge builder, the Hierophant, Key 5.


"All the world is a narrow bridge - but the point is to be fearless." Hasidic proverb
This is the same passage manifested as a door in Key 3. Both are links to the higher realms; they are a "plexus," a "siddhi," or a "revelation."

"Gimel," the Hebrew letter for Key 2, means camel. Camels, the "Ships of the Desert," travel in caravans, lines flanked by hostile desert; they are adapted for long, hard journeys, appropriate for the longest path.

"The dogs bark, but the caravan passes - "
Arabic proverb
The camel connects distant places, like the Popess, and her domain of telepathy and subconcious connections between people.

Gimel is a "Double Letter," with two sounds, also reflected in the duality of the black and white pillars.

Key 2 is Maya - the veil of illusion that conceals the full experience of Brahman (Keter) from the Jiva, or individual soul (Tipharet).

Maya is Brahman's power, a result of Brahman - like the heat from fire. Maya causes us to see manifold reality, instead of the one Reality. Maya has two aspects:


Avidya Maya leads us further away from the realization of Brahman into greater worldliness and bondage, expressing itself as passions and cravings.

Vidya Maya leads us closer to the realization of Brahman, and expresses itself as spiritual virtues.
Both Avidya and Vidya Maya are transcended when a being realizes Brahman.


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