Spiritual Lineages of Priestess Pathway
Part 2 of “Becoming a Priestess” series: What lineages have the most influence on the modern-day priestesses?
Hello Dear Friend,
Welcome to Part 2 of my priestess series. This blog series introduces a path of a modern - day priestess. My intention is to provide guidance about who is a modern-day priestess, how to become one, what rituals are out there and how to practice them with integrity… I cover history, traditions, types, rituals, initiations, mystery schools, Goddesses and more… If you have lingering questions on the theme, reach out to me by commenting below, sending a DM or an email.
The intention behind all my work is to provide more spiritual, esoteric and metaphysical tools for all women on the path of self-discovery. This is about knowing who you are, learning from your heart, integrating energies, walking your purpose and emanating high vibrational energy even through the toughest times.
Head to Part 1 for a brief description of some of the priestess historical lineages, find out what is a priestess and how to begin your priestess path.
Below is an overview of spiritual lineages and priestess types that have been around since the ancient times and continue their service today. Considering the diversity of lineages, traditions, and authentic pathways to priestesshood, it would be challenging to explore all the existing spiritual lines in one post. So, here, I offer the pillar types whose history, traditions, rituals and energy bear the most significance for a modern-day priestess.
Introduction
A priestess embodies the Divine Feminine pathway. She is devoted to a Goddess, often more than one, she performs ceremonies and rituals, and serves her community with ease, grace and love. What is intriguing about being a priestess is the harmony of energies she encapsulates within her. One of the most profound attributes of a priestess is her mastery of polarities: light and dark, masculine and feminine, heaven and earth, human and divine. By acknowledging your spiritual lineage, you are building a foundation for the way you will master the opposite energies. I feel, this mastery is essential for everyone who is ready for a profound changes in life.
You don’t have to become a priestess to share a priestess pathway, but learning from the Divine feminine is the way to master all of the energies.
Why embrace your spiritual lineage and know your priestess type?
To honour your Goddess with her traditions, rituals and altar artefacts
To stay focused on a theme of your work (community, health, love, nature, peace, etc)
To belong to communities of both divine and human realms
To have a clear path for your self-discovery journey
To create your authentic priestess
Choosing your spiritual lineage …
There are three ways you can align with your spiritual lineage:
Be born into a family following a Goddess lineage
Hear your Soul’s calling (via intuition, dreams, a vision, meditations, etc) and receive attunement from a higher priestess of the lineage you are drawn to
Receive a direct invite from a Divine Feminine archetype (usually this happens during meditations, dreams, rituals, ceremonies, visions)
The spiritual lineage of a priestess is identified by a Goddess, a divine mystical feminine with deep spiritual traditions, various rituals, prayers and festivals in honour of love, peace, nature, divine, the directions and the elements. Some lineages acknowledge their type of priestess in the name such as Witch Priestesses, others are more broad such as Temple Priestesses. In a way, all priestess lineages include temple priestesses. Most modern-day priestesses practice temple art while creating Goddess altars, organize communities, follow the rhythms of nature and the moon. Ultimately, it is about your spiritual calling and path you want to explore. You have all the freedom to discover your own type of priestess and share it with others. Always listen to your heart and follow its guidance.
The description below begin with the types of priestesses whose energy has the most influence on modern day priestesses of the West.
Temple Priestess:
In the ancient times, the temples were large and complex structures build above ground. Each temple was dedicated to a specific Goddess. The priestesses were in charge of the upkeep of their temples, took care of the altars and its artefacts. They would honour their specific Goddess through prayers, meditations, rituals, ceremonies, dance, music and offerings. They led festivals, community gatherings and public events. A good example would be the Goddess Hathor Priestesses, who were known for their ceremonial dances, musicals talents and as mediators between the divine and human realms. All the temple priestess are believed to have a direct connection to the specific Goddess.
During the rise of Christianity, the Goddess temples were either destroyed or transformed into religious institutions. The priestesses who survived in hiding continued their duties in a small capacity. Many priestesses became travelling pilgrims and nomads, they walked the Earth spreading their teachings in secret. The surviving priestesses had to adjust to their new life without the massive temples. The travelling priestess would create a sacred space for a time while she preached, played music, prayed, healed, performed a ritual or a ceremony.
Other priestesses continued their work in hiding. They would establish their temples in a cave or in a similar structure away from the majority, allowing to receive only those in need and trusted friends of the coven.
The temple priestess culture never completely vanished, but it greatly transformed. Today, the original temples of the Goddesses continue their dominion in the astral realms of the Universe. History of humanity will always shift in various directions, but the divine spirits will never stop to provide their guidance for us, hence, the rise of the modern-day priestess culter.
The work of many modern-day priestesses is rooted in the pathway of the ancient temple priestess of the Goddess. Currently, you will find modern temples in established priestess communities and online. I found a wonderful directory of physical Goddess Temples around the world here.
Oracle Priestess and Sibyls:
The most ancient type of priestess is known as the oracle in Greece and the sibyl in Rome. These women were chosen by the Gods to be their voice, the one of the divine. The most famous ancient oracle priestess is Pythia, a priestess of Apollo at Delphi. In Ancient Greece, Pythia was one of the most powerful advisory positions and Delphi was considered the centre of the world. The Pythia would receive travellers with questions of various importance ranging from private affairs to how to win a war.
The travellers would approach the Temple at Delphi via a path, the Sacred Way, lined up with treasure houses full of precious gifts. They would make a sacrifice and then purify themselves in the Castilian Springs. Only then they were allowed to approach the special room (the adyton) in the Temple and ask their question. The Pythia would receive the question, then enter a state of trance and begin to deliver prophecies. She would speak the words of Apollo, the God of the Sun. The priests would write down what she said and translate it into a poem written in hexameters, imagine Odyssey or Ovid’s Metamorphosis. The priests would pass on the poem to the traveller. The belief was that the recipient must interpret the oracle for themselves.
The first priestess of Delphi was Phemonoe, Apollo’s daughter and the creator of hexameter verses. In the beginning, the Delphi priestesses were young virgins, but as a legend goes, a military man Echecrates, kidnapped and violated Pythia, since then women over fifty were initiated, but their jewellery and clothes had to depict a maiden.
The Delphi priestesses would also receive their prophecies through a laurel plant and dreams.
The oldest oracles were located in Dodona, the northern Greece. They were the oracles of Zeus. They listened to the sounds of nature, particularly the wind, through which, they believed the voice of Zeus could be heard. The oracle of Dodona would consult on individual questions, unlike the oracle of Delphi, who advised the government in political affairs as well as the community.
Meanwhile, in ancient Rome, there were prophetesses known as sibyls. They are very similar to the Greek oracles. The differences are the sources that provide the information and the way they relate this information to the people. An oracle would speak the words of the God/Goddess, she would say: “She/He said…” and sibyl often speaks her own words. Sibyls are known to utter prediction without being consulted, unlike the oracles they would act spontaneously and wildly. It is said sibyls dwelled in the grottos and wondered the countries, unlike the oracle who would receive visitors at her special location. Both sibyls and oracles are known to answer questions in a state of trance and relate replies in the hexamer verses.
The first mentioned sibyl was Sambethe, who could of a Babylonian or a Hebrew priestess lineages.
Today the oracle priestesses are channellers and mediums practising the way of the Goddess; Taro and oracle cards readers; divination tools practitioner; crystal healers; spiritual dream interpreters; star and plant readers.
Witch Priestesses:
The oldest pagan tradition is based on honouring the Mother Nature. The Witch Priestess or the High Priestess are the practitioners of magick* associated with witchcraft, divination and The Wheel of the Year. The Witch Priestess performed her rituals in the coven, a gathering of witches dedicated to a specific Divine Feminine deity. Many of the Witch Priestesses led an isolated life establishing a home deep in the forest or in a village with a small community.
Witch Priestesses possess magical powers, worship nature, brew healing potions for physical, mental and emotional misalignments. These witches are well known for their love, relationship and attraction spells or hexes. Essentially, the witch priestesses are wise women with strong spiritual authority. Their superpower is the ability to see through the shadows or dark sides and integrate that knowledge so it provides the most potent outcome. This type of priestess are closely connected to the upper and lower realms.
Currently, there are many practising comminutes of witches throughout the world. In the USA, Salem, MA and New Orleans, LA are the two most historic places, preserving the ancient European and Voodoo (Haitian mambo) traditions of the witch priestesses.
Modern-day priestesses are very much influenced by the witchcraft. You will find that most priestesses celebrate Sabbaths, the 8 festivals that honour the rhythms of nature. They observe the lunar cycle and gather around the Full and New Moons for meditations, ceremonies and rituals.
The prominent Divine Feminine of the Witch Priestesses covens and lineages:
Hecate. She is the first witch of the Greek gods. Hecate is the daughter of the Titan Perses and the nymph Asteria. She is associated with the Moon, the Underworld, magic, nightmares and crossroads. Hecate is often depicted holding two torches and adorned with the crescent Moon headdress. Her attributes are a wheel, a lantern, a serpent, a key and a dog.
Lilith. She is a Divine Feminine archetype typically associated with the Black Magic and the Witch Priestess, however, that is a misleading portrayal of Lilith. Her story is much too complicated and nonlinear, to really know Lilith you need to understand all of her faces and sides. She is the main heroine of Jewish midrash that tells a story of Lilith as the first wife of Adam, who was banished from the Garden of Eden because she didn’t allow Adam to dominate her. Unlike Eve, who was made from Adam’s rib, Lilith and Adam were made from the same earth at the same time. Lilith saw them as equals and refused Adam’s superiority over her. After Lilith left, she turned into a she-demon and became known as babies eating monster. Due to this midrash and its many interpretations, Lilith became known as the first woman, the first feminist, the first woman to experience emotions such anger and jealousy, and a powerful demoness.
The Mórrígan — the Great Queen from the Irish and Welsh mythology. She was a shape-shifting goddess, connect to the world of the dead, fertility, war, battle and prophecy. The Mórrígan is a trio of individual women, each with her own powers.
Morgan Le Fay is a sorceress, a beautiful enchantress from the Legends of King Arthur. Her character was likely inspired by Dea Matrona, the Great Mother in Celtic mythology; Modron, the Mother Goddess in Welsh folklore; the Matres, a trinity of goddesses. Morgan is associated with fertility, harvest, nurturing, protection, and known as the healer of the island of Avalon.
The Green Witch. These type of witches live a green path with awareness to natural energies and rhythms of nature of her environment. The path of the Green witch is an all-encompassing experience, unlike Wicca and witchcraft, where ritual magic is separated from daily activities.
“The path of a green witch is an intensely personal path that integrates ability, likes and dislikes, the climate of a particular geographic location, and interaction with the energy of that environment. It isn’t a tradition so much as a personal adaptation of an ideal.” - Arin Murphy-Hiscock, “The Green Witch”
* “magick” - we use this spelling when referring to a spiritual, metaphysical or esoteric rituals, a form of working with the subtle energies of the Universe vs. “magic” - tricks performed to entertain the public.
Shamanic Priestess
This type of priestess undergoes an extensive apprenticeship, even when born into the family lineage of shamans. She learns to attune to all energies, concentrating on spirits of nature, elements, elementals, plant and animal spirits. The shamanic priestess is a guardian of visible and invisible realms. She is skilled to use plant concoctions in her rituals and healings. Through musical instruments such as a handheld drum, rattles, bells, wands, feathers, she aligns with her spirit guides, listens closely and transforms their energy into a healing ceremony. While establishing sacred connection with all the energies, male and female shamans are trained to tap into the ancestral lineages (the past) and the afterlife.
These priestesses come from different traditional and cultural backgrounds: South and parts of North America, Africa, Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet are some places with deep history, shamanic traditions and culture.
What is your lineage and what kind of priestess tradition will you practice?
So, now you have learned the four major types of priestesses and spiritual lineages you can pursue. Remember, there are more you can explore, however, all the pathways and lineages will have a foundation of a Temple Priestess, a Witch, an Oracle or a Shaman Priestesses. What is essential on your priestess path is your love and devotion to the path of the Divine Feminine.
Thank you so much for reading Part 2 of “Becoming a Priestess” blog series. Stay tune for Part 3: “The Types of Priestess Initiations”: Exploration of the Divine Feminine priestess archetype.
xxx,
Katia