Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc
By Sarah Taylor
In tarot, The Hierophant is a natural counterpart to The High Priestess in that they both have access to spiritual knowledge and hold the ability to mediate between the non-incarnate and incarnate realms.
However, while The High Priestess “is an outsider by virtue of the fact that she is not completely of this world“, The Hierophant is spirit’s representative on Earth. He is very much grounded here. This is further reflected in both cards’ astrological associations. The High Priestess represents The Moon, governing emotions and the unconscious, and which waxes and wanes with the passing days. The Hierophant, on the other hand, is associated with the earth sign Taurus and denotes strength, courage, sensuality (literally ‘of the senses’).
The Hierophant on the Rider-Waite Smith card, which I’m using today, cuts a striking figure, which takes up a sizeable chunk of the card. The background is a uniform grey, as if irrelevant. What holds my gaze are his robes and authoritative expression.
He is clothed in red (a potent religious colour, possibly referring to the blood of martyrs), with white trim on which are embroidered three crosses — with two further crosses on his white slippers. In his left hand he carries a papal cross, his right hand held as if he is performing a blessing. On his head is set the papal tiara. At his feet lie the crossed keys of Simon Peter. The image is replete with religious imagery — notably papal.
However, I don’t believe that this card necessarily represents a particular religion. I believe that the imagery is being used in another way: to emphasise that the spirituality that The Hierophant embodies is one that is very much tied to the physical and to the everyday. It is not ethereal, intuitive, mystical. It is the spirituality of learning, devotion, ritual, discipline.
The High Priestess card has the Priestess as its sole figure. In this card, there are two figures at The Hierophant’s feet. The human aspect is further expressed in their presence: this is not ‘personal spirituality’, but rather where individuality is set aside in service to a higher principle. The two figures are symmetrical, dressed in their own vestments, each bearing the colour of a part of The Hierophant’s robes. They are a part of him. They do not act independently. Individual will is subject to the will of the divine. When we are followers of a particular religion, we are bound to that religion’s rules and codes as part of that membership — in the same way that some spiritual disciplines require the relinquishment of individuality for a time so as to acquire knowledge and experience.
When The Hierophant comes up in our lives as an archetype in balance, he speaks of holding to one’s principles; of discipline and commitment to a particular cause — perhaps one of learning, of service to something or someone — and of course to a spiritual path. We live The Hierophant in balance when we put aside personal desires to pursue something that demands more from us than we are perhaps used to or are comfortable with. We embody it when our actions, thoughts and words are aligned with the principles to which we commit ourselves.
The shadow Hierophant is the wayward guru or religious leader who fails to live up to the divine standards to which he or she holds his followers, or who takes advantage of their devotees’ faith in some form or other. We express the shadow when we show outward allegiance to a cause or a belief, but in doing so we suppress aspects of ourselves that we find unacceptable, resorting to empty ritual to stave off fear and anxiety or projecting our fears and anxieties onto others. Another way that the shadow Hierophant takes form is when we forget our station, step out of our role as intermediary or caretaker and ‘play God’. At these moments, we forget that our true power is drawn from something separate from our egos. We usurp the godly throne. Various cult leaders through history embody the shadow Hierophant.
I look at The Hierophant today and I wonder what he is telling me. My thoughts jump immediately to his more religious connotations, and how that is playing out in the news with the cases of abuse that the Roman Catholic church is finally starting to own up to. But that is not his whole story. When I cast my net further, I can perhaps begin to recognise The Hierophant in its myriad forms, whether shadow or light, as devotion to a cause.
More personally, it is perhaps my own devotion to a path that requires more of me than simply a voiced agreement, blind acceptance, half-baked action. It invites my full participation and the alignment of my inner and outer worlds — in the words of one organisation, “a searching and fearless moral inventory.” It is a daunting card; but perhaps it is daunting because the figure, like the ideal, is uncompromising. Am I ready to commit? Am I up to what is being asked of me? They are questions worth asking.
Thanks Sarah, the Tower is a really neat card, it seems like destruction for the purpose of rebuilding, using the parts for new things in new ways, but it’s still upsetting to see stuff, usually mental stuff, strewn all over like a tornado hit. Today’s spread was all princesses and knights (I did a seven card spread that I thought looked interesting on the internet) with the Devil and Hanged man for trumps (I usually get a trump or two in there somewhere). Think I’ll stick to the three card ones for a bit, at least it’s not too much for me to figure out all at once.
Hazel – Congratulations in taking first steps … with tarot as well as with the changes on your work front!
What you’ve suggested about your reading makes sense. The only thing I would add that stood out for me is that The Tower is often an event – internal or external – that lies outside of our immediate control, although it can be precipated by things that we do control, i.e. by decisions that we make. For example, The Tower can symbolise something that happens as a result of our decisions that we weren’t fully expecting, but which is significant nonetheless. We cannot fully control The Tower; nor, I think, are we meant to. But it can be liberating in very powerful ways.
Jere – I think you are absolutely spot on with that one. Thank you for sharing your insights!
..I’ll tangent and hope coherency assists me..
..When I view the trumps of the tarot, I find myself looking at a “pathway/broader-archetypal/right of passage through life type transit”.
The Hierophant, being where it is in succession along “the path”, speaks to me of the formal, and ritualistic evolution of the ‘soul’ of ‘life’, an ‘ordered’ perception of the ‘laws of nature’.
..How that relates within a reading I believe is up to the querents..
I dig these discussions.
Love ya,
Jere
I did a three card spread (I’m just learning and I thought I’d start simple – past, present, future) and it was Prince of Cups for past, Hierophant for present and Tower for future. So I’m thinking the Prince might be my tendency to being a bit emotionally impulsive, the Hierophant would be me maturing a bit and using my emotions as gifts that can inform my decisions instead of running off like a loon and the Tower would be the change that I’m working on happening sooner than I thought, even though I haven’t slept in two nights because I’m freaking out about changing jobs, even though I don’t have a new job yet, just the idea of really changing is scary to me.
Charles – The Hierophant is a sticky one for me too, sometimes; most notably, I think, because of its heavy religious symbolism. Regarding the portal – perhaps the fact that it is faded out is key, in that it isn’t the portal that is of central importance, but what The Hierophant does with the information that he gathers. The portal is one step remove, as The Hierophant is one step further into the mundane than The High Priestess.
And I love what you’ve written here, Eric. It reframes it. It also holds a very personal resonance for me.
The Heirophant is the destination or maybe the journey. I think one key to the card is that the two monks who make it there are adorned in red and in white flowers: red on the left, white on the right (roses and lilies). This represents what you might call Red Tantra, the path of passion; and White Tantra, the path of purity. They both lead to the same place. Balance is implied.
Note that it is often a seemingly subsidiary image that that is the key to the card. Crowley puts Horus in the seat of the Hierophant and before him is Isis, a manifestation of Venus.
The Hierophant is also the leader of his age; it is the name of an office or position, similar to The Christ or The President, rather than a specific person. I believe the garb of pope is one of many little items in the Tarot designed to trick the Christians into thinking the tarot is an innocuous little ‘game of life’. Oh, the pope’s there — it must be wholesome.
In mundane reading, I view this as a cautionary card, suggesting yes that we keep to our principles, honor the inner teacher and strive for balance — but mostly to remember, Left Tantra is not inferior or superior to Right Tantra. Either will get you to where you need to be; each has its own perils and rewards.
I always have trouble interpreting the Hierophant. He is another figure between two columns, which represents a portal. But I am never quite sure what it is a portal between, in this card. I read an interesting quote, “the Hierophant is about thinking, as the Emperor is about doing.” So the Hierophant establishes order by his thoughts about the way things should be, while the Emperor sets things in order by his actions.