Does anyone know the symbolic meaning of the two columns appearing on the High Priestess (balance between heart and mind?) and the Death (far right hand corner) and the Moon?
What do these columns signify? Has anyone noticed in the Rider Waite deck the same columns/towers in the Moon are also in the right hand corner of the Death card?

I read that the Two columns on the High Priestess is the balance between the heart and the mind. What would the columns/towers on the other cards mean? I see two columns on the Justice card too.

cedars

Hi Cedars,

I found something regarding this,

The Moon Card no 18, is made up with 1 Yod=10 and Chet=8, but chet is made up of Vav and Zain, 6 and seven, joined at the top with a thin line. Chet is the letter of life as Vav is the letter of mankind, understanding that God created man on the sixth day. But chet is also the number of Grace. Chet is also the letter representing light.

So althoug chet is 8, strength, the gematria is thirteen, Death. Now look at the repetition of the colums. So on the death card a sunrise sits between the two pillars. Indication to new beginnings?

The word Chai is short for Chaim and the letter Chet is the first letter or the letter that "starts these words". The letter chaim
also reads: "life".

Chet also resembles a doorway where the blood of the lambs was applied to during the first passover. Therefore chet then resembles a doorway to life.

So let's revive this into understandable terms.

Chet then representing a doorway to life, the columns, and the enlightenment received in the Yods decending between the colomns. So symbology regarding the pathway i would think that we can safely assume that it would be going throuh the doorway of life to receive divine enlightenment. Then now if we look at the card Justice, we see that she represents divine justice and not those of man, the Hierophant being the translator of divine instruction. The tower divine intervention.

I hope this makes sense!!

Blessed be

Cedars the two columns or pillars are giving the theme of duality and opposties, good and evil, darkness and light, the B is for Boaz and the J is for Jakin or Jachin, the names of the two pillars of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem.  

They reappear to reinforce the idea of duality, concious unconscious, good evil, spirit and body etc etc

Hi Cedars, Gem.

If looking is at the High Priestess, the duality of the columns is obvious. The duality in the Moon is related to the Moon and Sun. In earlier decks, these were not columns but towers. Also Empress, Emperor. See ;

www.tarothermit.com/moon.htm

I came across an interesting partnership for the Empress and The High Priestess. on the high priestess's curtain we see the pomegranates adorning it! on the Empress's dress find the same. The theory is that Persepone and the Emress are sisters?

Blessed be

I personally think that you are confusing two timelines and threads of history. I doubt that AE Waite had Persephone in mind at all?