Waite's understanding of these symbols is so much deeper then people would ever believe. The material is "occult," or hidden, simply because each image alludes to so many fields and works with which you have to have familiarity to get the references. The fact that the images can also be read entirely intuitively is the pure genius of it, in great part added through the intuitive brilliance and deceptive simplicity of Pamela Colman Smith.
For instance, regarding the palm and pomegranate veil:
“The sex of Metatron is said to be transformed momently before the veil of palms and pomegranates on the threshold of the inmost shrine in the Supernals. In the indistinguishable state which arises it may be said almost that the male is with the female and neither male nor female: at least they are both or either. . . .
"The mystery if the whole subject is that the Mother in transcendance abides with the male only in so far as he has constituted himself a house by his attachment to the female: there must be a local habitation, an union below to offer a point of contact with the union that is on high, and then the Divine Mother pours down her blessings thereon – that is to say, on male and female in equal measures. So is the male below said to be encompassed by two females, and all the ways of blessings in the two worlds are open before him. He reads the Secret Doctrine in the womanhood on earth, and it is read by her who sits between the pillars of the eternal Temple with the Book of the Secret Law lying open on her sacred knees." (_Secret Doctrine in Israel_, Waite.)
It's interesting that so many people have discerned a certain male quality in Smith's depiction of the High Priestess.
I hope you got the reference to the male (Magician) being the house (Beth). And the reference to the Lovers (the male encompassed by two females). We also now know that the HP's book is that of the Secret Doctrine/Law. But, why are her knees sacred?
Regarding Metatron: In the GD, this is the archangel of Kether and the most powerful of all Hebrew archangels, said to be the archangel who governs the entire Tree of Life and the white pillar specifically. He is also right-hand Kerub of the Ark of the Covenant. Metatron is sometimes identified as Jesus: the glory of God and the highest angel. Waite, on occasion, equates Metatron with the Shekinah: "The Father, the Mother and the Begotten Son are Chokmah, Binah and Daath, overshadowing the lower Sephiroth. These three are symbolized by Yod, He, and Vau in the Sacred Name, while the He final, the Bride in manifestation is in Malkuth since the legendary Fall, so that the kingdom of this world may become in the fullness of the Messianic day the Kingdom of Heaven. Outside these there is Kether, and it should be noted in this connection that Jehovah abides, in the deep hiddenness, with Shekinah in that Supernal Sephira. As the first of created things she becomes Metatron."
An unpublished GD manuscript tells us this regarding the transition from the 10 of Wands to the Ace of Cups (in the Trees of the 4 Worlds): "Thus in Atziluth the Archetypal World it passes from Eheieh the Creative Breath to Adonai Malekh. This gives its impulse to Kether of Briah the Archangelic World, and in this plane it passes from Metatron the Male Kerub to Sandalphon the Female Kerub."
Mary
