High Priestess- Love outcome multiple times

I am having a great deal of trouble applying this card to love outcomes. Can anyone help me out with what it means as the sole outcome card for a relationship or love reading?

I would say it denotes a courtly, platonic love. It would be a steady devotion, without expectation or physicality. It could also indicate peace, perhaps to the point of repression, (like if the people in question have had a torrid affair, full of drama and arguments. This card would tell me they've called it pax, and it's over, even if they still feel something.)

Then again, I also see the High Priestess as the guardian of the old faith, with fertility orgy rituals and all. That could, without being negative, indicate the opposite: a purely physical relationship, no strings attached, no false expectations.

triple_entendre said:

I would say it denotes a courtly, platonic love. It would be a steady devotion, without expectation or physicality. It could also indicate peace, perhaps to the point of repression.

Then again, I also see the High Priestess as the guardian of the old faith, with fertility orgy rituals and all. That could, without being negative, indicate the opposite: a purely physical relationship, no strings attached, no false expectations, no fawning over each other.

Click to expand...

That is very possible to be accurate. There is one person in my life who I've been having very confusing feelings for. And because of that confusion, I've been considering asking him to be friends with benefits and leave it at that.

This can possibly help you out:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=54487

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=87221

The high priestess is such a lonely card. She sits engrossed in her books and her duty to rise spiritually.

In a love relationship its more the people involved would be more engrossed in other things especially learning, ancient literature, spirituality, searching for higher self etc.

The High Priestess could indicate feelings you are keeping secret (possibly because you don't fully understand them yourself.) The High Priestess is more of a "sisterly" energy than a passionate one, to me...as others have said--more platonic than romantic or passionate, I think. (One can have a highly-charged sexual relationship without really understanding romance or passion--but it is just going through the motions until s/he truly understands how one can relate to another on a whole other spiritual level, which makes the experience so much deeper and better.)

So, she has a lot to learn about the kinds of connections that make love and romance, and she needs to tap into her intuitive and psychic connections more so that she can one day experience the whole romantic love experience (right now and into the immediate future, she may be experiencing only glimpses of what constitutes a whole, real, romantic relationship.) In that way, she still has a lot to learn and may be trying to ride a bicycle without training wheels before she has even mastered maneuvering a tricycle, metaphorically speaking. She is only Number 2 in the Fool's journey...so still has much to learn.

schwammyy said:

I am having a great deal of trouble applying this card to love outcomes. Can anyone help me out with what it means as the sole outcome card for a relationship or love reading?

Click to expand...

As an outcome this means that the relationship does not happen as expected. The High Priestess is a rest, lull or hiatus. She is passivity. In a similar way to winter when nothing visible grows. However, I think it means that you will undergo an unconscious transformation and a deep and lasting change in your psyche. The High Priestess is linked to the Moon, the card of the psyche.

starrystarrynight said:

The High Priestess could indicate feelings you are keeping secret (possibly because you don't fully understand them yourself.) The High Priestess is more of a "sisterly" energy than a passionate one, to me...as others have said--more platonic than romantic or passionate, I think.

Click to expand...

I tend to agree with this. Any love is a high, altruistic, idealistic one, not a matter of desire at all. It could be the love of family members, long-term friends or colleagues, or an idealistic love like "love of mankind" or "love of animals".

The secrecy side ... well, one person is in love, the other manifestly isn't, so it seems best to keep feelings under wraps and enjoy them in secret fantasies.

The High Priestess doesn't seem to me to be someone who would be so anxious for a relationship that she'd lower herself to being just friends with benefits, but maybe I have a whole upside down concept of the High Priestess. She just seems to me to be secure enough within herself that she'd hold out for a real, reciprocal love relationship instead of that. Her self-love and spirituality would make it unnecessary to settle for anything less.

The High Priestess is a keeper of secrets, so sometimes when it comes up, I read it as something that isn't meant to be known at this time.

Coming back to add: I don't mean to infer by using the word "lower" that you're not a good person for considering it. I'm no prude. It's just that it seems it would be a lower standard than the High Priestess would set for herself.

She just loves a no-good scoundrel

Our player of hocus pocus lays down
his wand, takes up
a ball and cup,
prays "come closeup"
and moves them round and round.

Our Lord's lady in her bridal habit
just loves to look
upon the crook;
her open book
mere pretense for the abbot.