The High Priestess

[4] In the Rider–Waite Tarot, illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith, the Popess was changed into The High Priestess sitting between the pillars of Boaz and Jachin (which has a particular meaning to Freemasonry).

A. E. Waite, the co-creator of the Rider–Waite deck, dismissed the idea that the card originally depicted Pope Joan and speculated that it was instead connected to the ancient cult of Astarte.

[citation needed] La Papessa in the Visconti-Sforza Tarot has been identified as a depiction of Sister Manfreda, an Umiliata nun and a relative of the Visconti family who was elected Pope by the heretical Guglielmite sect of Lombardy.

In The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo, Gertrude Moakley writes: Their leader, Guglielma of Bohemia, had died in Milan in 1281.

They believed that Guglielma would return to earth on the Feast of Pentecost in the year 1300, and that the male dominated Papacy would then pass away, yielding to a line of female Popes.

In preparation for this event they elected Sister Manfreda the first of the Popesses, and several wealthy families of Lombardy provided at great cost the sacred vessels they expected her to use when she said Mass in Rome at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

The scroll in her hands, partly covered by her mantle, bears the letters TORA (meaning "divine law"), that symbolizes the memory we carry inside about the past, present and future, named Akasha.

[citation needed] The modern interpretation of the High Priestess represents the unknown, mystery, intuition, spiritual knowledge, and the subconscious mind.