The scroll marked TORA
Torah, the Hebrew teaching of Moses, is the word on the scroll half hidden in the High Priestess’s robe. For Waite it stands for the secret law under the letter of scripture.
In the tradition
Torah is the Hebrew name for the teaching given to Moses, the first five books of the Bible. Waite spells it TORA, so the letters echo TARO and ROTA on the Wheel of Fortune, a play on words the French occultists had made famous.
His point is in the half: part of the scroll is covered by her mantle. The High Priestess, in his account, keeps the hidden sense of scripture, the reading under the letter that the Hierophant’s public teaching leaves out.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Various, The Bible (King James Version 1611; the Latin Vulgate, 4th century). The source of much of the Temple, Eden and Revelation imagery in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
Updated October 9, 2026.
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