The Hierophant as a Sacred Revealer

Images from Spiral Tarot copyright 1997 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Used with persmission.

I have written about the Hierophant a few times over my years as a blogger. Yet, there always seems to be more to say about this multi-faceted Major Arcana card.

I wrote a poem for the Hierophant as part of my 78 Poems Project.

I complained about certain tarot decks that attempt to change the Hierophant in a 2014 blogpost emphatically entitled “Stop Fixing the Hierophant”.

Most recently, I wrote about the Hierophant and its numerological counterpart, Temperance. That was in January, in honor of the fact that 2021 is the year of the Hierophant.

Over the past week the Hierophant appeared in two client readings in deeply appropriate ways; ways that make me appreciate the most traditional interpretations of the Hierophant archetype.

This caused me to begin an ongoing conversation amongst my YouTube channel members, and, of course, to write yet another blogpost about Major Arcana 5, the Hierophant.

The word ‘hierophant’ is Greek in origin. That translates as ‘sacred reveal’.  I have always been struck by the similarity to the word ‘hierarchy’. That similarity is not accidental. ‘Hierarchy’ is also of Greek origin, meaning ‘sacred ruler’.

The Hierophant is Key 5 in the Major Arcana. That places the card in the first seven numbered cards, which I see as the lessons of the physical plane. That means that, to me, cards 1-7, Magician through Chariot, each teach us what we need to know to live well on the planet. When we see these seven cards together as a story, we see our journey as we learn these basic life skills and lessons of human existence.

We know the Hierophant is tricky simply because the card is number Five. In tarot, all the Five (5) cards deal with expansion. That is, moving out of the safety of the comfort zone, breaking out of the confines of what we know, and moving into something more. Before we get to that something more there is a moment of unsurety, of conflict, and of fear. The Hierophant encompasses these processes and feelings.

The Hierophant is related to Taurus, and therefore the element of Earth. Although sacred, the Hierophant is grounded and connected to the earth, and not always in the best way. In this we see the materialism often associated with religious institutions. That Taurus energy can reflect the Hierophant’s stubborn adherence to outmoded traditions.

Archetypally, the Hierophant is the Pope. In Roman Catholicism, the Pope is God’s appointed representative on earth.

In early tarot decks, Major Arcana 5 was literally named ‘The Pope’. In many tarot decks we see the Hierophant in the regalia of Catholic religious hierarchy.

Some modern decks show the Hierophant as a religious leader from other traditions. For example, in World Spirit Tarot the Hierophant is an Incan priest conducting a ritual.

The problem with the Hierophant is the problem with any religious authority. Religious authorities may be loving spiritual mentors, teachers, healers, and guides. Or they may misuse their power, misunderstand their doctrine, and abuse their congregants.

Key 5 in tarot represents the doctrine and dogma as well as those who teach it. Operationally, in a tarot reading, the Hierophant can speak of the ‘priest’ of any ‘church’, or the ‘church’ itself. The Hierophant is both the authority and the doctrine. The Hierophant can represent a doctor, and medicine, or an attorney, and the law.

The Hierophant is the boss. That means the Hierophant can represent a business owner. I often say that the Hierophant who owns a business likes to be the boss. The Hierophant reversed who owns a business doesn’t like having a boss tell them what to do. That subtle energy difference can be quite apparent in readings for entrepreneurs.

This brings me, finally, to the two recent readings in which the Hierophant figured prominently.

The first reading was for a business owner who was vaguely dissatisfied with the way her business was going. I did my usual eleven-card Celtic Cross. In this spread Card Two is the atmosphere around the client. The Crossing Card, or the Challenge Card, is Card Three, and is placed to cross Card Two.

In this reading the Hierophant was reversed in that second position, referencing the atmosphere around the client. The Hierophant was crossed by the Star. I immediately interpreted this as her dissatisfaction in the way her business was going.

As we got a little further into the reading, it became clear that those two cards, the Star crossing the reversed Hierophant, had an additional, more traditional, more hard-hitting and more important interpretation.

My client had been speaking with a friend who had experienced a lot of dogmatic spiritual and financial abuse within institutional structures such as Islam, Catholicism, and some New Age and yoga-based traditions. Every spiritual organization this person had been involved in turned out to be patriarchal, rigid, and personally abusive of her. This had caused my client’s friend to turn away from any possibility of spirituality, and spiritual healing. All of this weighed heavily on my client.

Clearly, the Hierophant reversed was the need to leave all patriarchal abusive traditions behind. The Crossing Card, the Challenge, was the Star. My client and her friend needed true spiritual healing, true connection to grace, and an end to fundamentalist abuse.

In a reading, tarot cards can mean so many different things. It is poignant when a card shows up so clearly and powerfully in a traditional archetypal interpretation.

Just a few days later I was reading for a tarot student who was raised in an oppressive religion. She has left that religion though still dances the fine line with her indoctrinated family. She is now finding spiritual healing and inspiration through tarot reading, Reiki and magic. Obviously, she must hide this from most of her family. Occasionally, she still feels a tug of guilt for abandoning the religion of her family and her childhood.

In this reading, the Hierophant crossed the High Priestess. The meaning was clear. She needs to honor her inner priestess, her inner wisdom, her inner magic, and her intuition. The Hierophant as a crossing card was challenging her to resist the feelings of guilt instilled by the doctrine of her oppressive church and family.

We are in a time in history when many are polarized and divided by their belief systems. Many are indoctrinated in dogma, both spiritual and political, that is illogical and hurtful. It is no wonder the Hierophant is finding his way into some powerful readings. It makes sense that the Star and the High Priestess appeared to challenge the Hierophant. These feminine cards bring the healing that comes with direct and intuitive spiritual connection to Source. They offered needed messages of feminist spiritual empowerment.

The Hierophant is named as the keeper and revealer of sacred truth. Even when he represents a perversion of what is sacred, he is still a sacred revealer, and still points the way to truth.

Archetypes in Action: How Tarot Updates Itself

Archetypes in Action

How Tarot Updates Itself

I feel as though I spend half my life waiting for updates to install on my many devices. I understand the need for this and try not to complain too much. Updates are necessary to respond to changes in security threats, user needs and machine capabilities. Recently, I have seen some social media conversations that suggest tarot needs to be updated, perhaps for metaphorically similar reasons.

Updates and revisions to sacred texts often cause acrimony. I remember in the 1970s that the Evangelical teachers at my private Christian high school hated the then-modern “Good News Bible” that my father, a fairly hip United Methodist Minister, revered.

As sacred texts go, tarot differs from the Bible in many ways, not the least of which being it is made of pictures instead of words. Another difference is that in tarot, multiple interpretations of the cards, both in art and divination, are welcome.

There are many tarot artists who seek to ‘update’ tarot by using modern images, and working to make the image more inclusive, and more reflective of our diverse society. There are many tarot authors and readers who do the same, finding within the cards interpretations that reflect our modern lives.

I submit that the reason it is relatively simple for an artist to create modern versions of our beloved tarot characters, and for readers and writers of tarot to find new, modern interpretations, is that archetypes are timeless.

I sometimes think that, as the world of tarot has grown exponentially, many new tarotists have focused more on tarot images than on tarot archetypes. This is reflected in much modern tarot art that takes significant liberties in the depictions of the tarot archetypes. It happens to the point that some tarotists worry this might encourage a potential loss of universal tarot understanding – that our beloved archetypes might slip away in the sands of time.

Our understanding of those archetypes has already changed over decades – that’s part of the ongoing living process of tarot. Yet, many of us don’t want there to be so much change that we lose cohesion to the point that tarot becomes any random oracle.

I vacillate between two moods here. Do I trust the process and trust that the truth of tarot will keep itself, nurtured by the tarot historians and scholars in each generation? Or, do I give in to a sense of unease that, in a sea of “Divine Child,” Ancestor,” and “Master of the Head” cards, we will lose the Hierophant. That’s ironic, of course, since “Hierophant” itself is a modern renaming of the original Major Arcana Five, the Pope.

Creative tarot depictions work to define the archetype even as they redefine it. Archetypal assignment tarot decks help us find the commonality between different depictions. The central energy we find as we compare depictions is the archetype in its present moment.

The Goddess Tarot Deck

By Kris Waldherr

For example, the Magician in Kris Waldherr’s Goddess Tarot is Isis. In Lisa Hunt’s Animals Divine Tarot the Magician is Cerridwen. When we look at Isis and Cerridwen together, we can try to find the central themes that relate them to each other, and then connect that theme to more traditional associations like Hermes, the number one, the element of Air, Mercury, the path from Kether to Binah, and keywords like “tools, skills and abilities andtrickster”. If we are able to do that successfully, then our tarot knowledge, and tarot itself, is on a firm foundation.

Animals Divine Tarot

By Lisa Hunt

My primary thesis here is that, regardless of imagery, tarot can stay relevant to a changing world without major overhaul, because of the way the archetypes speak in divination. For example, in our modern world, our automobiles are very important. While there were no cars during tarot’s inception, the Chariot has come to signify our vehicles, and our issues of transportation.

Computers and the internet easily appear in the Pages, and some of the Swords cards. Even the World can now speak of the World Wide Web. There is nothing in modern life that tarot can’t depict. The dating app Tinder looks to me like the Seven of Cups, while Bumble sometimes shows up as the Queen of Swords.

I’ve seen these spontaneous tarot updates happen relative to locale as well. I first started reading professionally in Putnam, Connecticut, right as the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Casinos were becoming some of the largest casinos in the world. I started noticing that the Wheel of Fortune would appear for casino workers, those hoping to be employed by the casinos, and those who were developing gambling addictions.

The question is, how do we come to know modern meanings for ancient cards? The answer is, the cards tell us!

There are three important ways to consider modern meanings for your cards. One is through communication with other tarotists. As we share our stories, we share our oddball experiences with the cards and our offbeat card interpretations. When we keep these stories in mind, sometimes they pop up in our memories to inform a particular reading. When that happens in a way that is accurate and helpful, that new meaning will forever be a possibility whenever we see that card.

The second way is to look through your deck with an imaginative eye. Think about what cards might mean. Then, when you see those cards in action, you can see if those modern alternative interpretations might be pertinent.

These two methods for learning new card meanings illustrate a reason it is so important to have in your practice real-time readings for others; it’s a solid way to confirm the truth in the cards.

The third method of allowing tarot to update itself is simply to pay attention in readings. As you look at the cards, let your intuition lead you to what they might be saying. Over time in your practice you will remember the first time a particular card gave you a new type of message. After that, the possibility of that message with be present every time that card appears.

In this way we grow as tarotists, and tarot grows with us. When needed, each card has the ability to express its archetype in a new and relevant way.

An Example of Reversal: Two Angles on the Same Card

There is so much controversy and misunderstanding around reversed cards in tarot. The quandary is this. Since it is the reader’s choice whether to honor reversals, we must acknowledge that one can conduct a perfectly good reading without them. That being the case, then, why do some tarotists find reversals so integral to their reading process? One answer might be this.

A reversal changes the energy of the card. While the reversal may not change the overall message, it can change the way you deliver the message.  For some of us, the reversal is like a stage direction – those italicized words in a script that don’t tell you what to say, but instead tell you how to say it.

Here’s an example. Let’s look at the Hierophant, both upright and reversed. One possible interpretation that often comes up for me when I see this card in a particular context is “self-employment”.  When I see the Hierophant in an upright position, I might think, “This person likes to be the boss, and so they probably have their own business”. When I see the Hierophant reversed in the same context, I might think, “This person does not like having to answer to a boss, so they probably have their own business”.

The common factor with this card in this context, whether upright or reversed, is self-employment. The nuance that the reversal adds is the personality difference between liking to be the boss and preferring not to have a boss. If the reader can determine these sorts of subtleties, the reading will certainly have more resonance and detail.

At the same time, we can understand that, without that small distinction, the accuracy of the reading remains intact.

Interpreting reversals is not the only way to determine the dignity of a card.  We can consider cards well dignified or ill dignified based on surrounding cards and elemental factors as well. My concern is not necessarily to be an advocate for reversals. My concern is that so many people seem to eschew reversals simply because they misunderstand them.  If we can think of a reversal, or any ill dignity, simply as an energy shift, we open ourselves to a new world of possibilities in divination.

Answers to your Questions about Tarot: The Emperor and the Hierophant

Recently I wrote a blog post about the archetype of the Hierophant, and the ways in which three modern tarot artists had reinterpreted that archetype. After reading that post, a number of people requested that I make a comparison between the Emperor and the Hierophant.

When we discuss tarot cards from an archetypal perspective, we need to understand that archetypes are different from interpretations. Tarot interpretations can vary a great deal, based on the reader’s intuition, preferred tarot traditions, and the context of both the question and the surrounding cards.

Archetypes, on the other hand, are fixed. The only wiggle room with an archetype is in our relationship to it and our resonance with it.  This is an especially important point to consider regarding the Emperor and the Hierophant, since these archetypes both include the very yang energy of masculine authority. How we react to these cards says a lot about how we feel about masculine authority!

I often call the Emperor the authority of the community, and the Hierophant the authority of the church. When I say this, I am thinking about the time and place that gave birth to tarot, where religious authority would have carried a bit more weight than mere political authority. The question is how these archetypes translate into our modern times, when neither politicians nor priests are automatically feared or respected. In fact, some of the funniest jokes I know are about politicians and priests!

Every personality, every character, and every archetype has a light side and a shadow side. I generally see the archetypes of both the Emperor and the Hierophant as positive and well-intentioned. However, both of these archetypal characters have the potential for corruption and abuse.

It is easy to see the ways in which the archetypes of the Emperor and the Hierophant are similar. In what ways are they different?

It might be helpful to look at some of the cards’ correspondences. The Emperor is card number four, the number of stability. The Hierophant is card number five, the number of expansion.

The Emperor is related to Aries, and the element of Fire. The Hierophant is related to Taurus, and the element of Earth.

To me, the numbers and the elements of these two cards seem to balance each other out.  Four is stable, but Fire is expansive. Five is expansive, but Earth is stable.

What do I conclude from this?  The Emperor needs routine, but may step outside of daily activity in extraordinary circumstances. As a politician, he can declare war. The Hierophant seeks spiritual enlightenment, but is limited by his own humanity. As a priest, he longs to be something more than his human self. In fact, some people may worship the Hierophant.

When I consider the archetype of the Emperor, I see a respected community and family leader, a father and a politician. When I consider the archetype of the Hierophant, I see a person who has mastered a particular doctrine, a person who has become an authority of some specific body of knowledge. By comparison, the Emperor has earned his position by being responsible, likeable and present, rather than by learning a body of knowledge.

In a reading, both the Emperor and the Hierophant could indicate people, generally men. Both of these people could be either domineering or helpful. Both of these people are leaders. The Emperor may be political in the way he operates. The Emperor will do what is necessary to keep his people happy, or to protect them. The Hierophant will operate based on the particular discipline of his body of knowledge or his belief set. He cares less about how others regard him– his concern is adherence to his discipline or dogma.

Both the Emperor and the Hierophant can also represent institutions such as banks, hospitals, governments or corporations.

In a reading, the Hierophant can indicate advanced education, business ownership or being the boss. The Hierophant can also predict a wedding.

In a reading, the Emperor can indicate a position of stability and responsibility, or suggest that a particular situation is stable and reliable.

Thanks to everyone who asked this question. I hope you enjoy the video!

If you have questions about tarot, please email me.

Christiana Answers a Question about the Emperor and the Hierophant

Video of Christiana Answers a Question about the Emperor and the Hierophant

Stop Fixing the Hierophant!

Modern tarot creators enjoy stretching tarot to fit every possible theme and worldview. That’s a good thing. Tarot’s ability to speak universally, using the imagery of so many cultures, is part of its awesome power.

I believe it is the strength and power of the tarot archetypes that allow tarot this much flexibility. Unfortunately, it is possible to stretch a card so far beyond its archetype that you lose the archetype entirely.

We are all aware of the trend to rename some of the more difficult Major Arcana cards. Death becomes Transition; the Devil becomes Materialism, and so on. We often discuss this trend in terms of the dark cards, the Tower, the Devil and Death.

Another Major Arcana card that often receives this same treatment at the hands of deck creators is the Hierophant. Weirdly, there is generally very little protest when a well-intentioned modern deck mangles this particular archetype.

I think deck creators’ tendency to mangle the Hierophant, and our tendency to put up with it, comes from two factors. First is the way most tarotists seem to feel about Hierophant energy. We don’t like rules and structure. We fear the religious hierophants in our own community who discriminate against us and disrespect us. Of course, we don’t want any of them in our tarot decks!

The second factor is that we seem to lack a basic understanding of the Hierophant. Because we don’t understand him, we don’t see his value along the Fool’s Journey.

I can think of three well-loved tarot decks that, in my opinion, really get the Hierophant wrong.

The first and oldest is Motherpeace, my second-ever tarot deck. In Motherpeace, the Hierophant is a man wearing false breasts, pretending to be a woman. Clearly, sensitivity toward the transgender community was not on the minds of these deck designers when they were creating the then-definitive feminist tarot of the 1980s.

The idea behind this vision of the Hierophant is that the matriarchy is the keeper of true spiritual authority. By pretending to be a woman, the Hierophant is trying to claim an authority that is not his. Trust me, this played better in the 1980s than it does now.

Modern spiritual decks with Pagan and New Age themes often try to “fix” the Hierophant. Tarot of Transformation renamed him “Spiritual Leaders” and used the key phrase “Taking the Hierophant off the Pedestal.” Chrysalis Tarot calls the Hierophant the “Divine Child” and says this in its LBW (Little White Book) to justify the change.

“Most tarot decks title this card the Hierophant, a religious authority figure. In Chrysalis Tarot, the task of spiritual growth is an individual responsibility that requires an open mind and critical thinking.”

To me, this kind of thinking shows an incomplete understanding of the Hierophant and of tarot in general. When we fail to embrace the Hierophant, and all the archetypes of tarot, we become unable to gain the knowledge, wisdom, insight and divinatory intelligence that tarot can provide.

Five hundred years ago, the Hierophant was the Pope. That’s why we see him as a religious authority. When we consider the position held by the Roman Catholic Church in Italy at the time of tarot’s emergence, we understand that the Pope was not just a religious authority, he was the ultimate authority.

Today, the Hierophant speaks to authority in relevant and important ways. To remove the Hierophant’s authority, as the three decks I mentioned have done, removes an important piece of the tarot puzzle, and risks making tarot less effective.

In a reading, the Hierophant can represent the rules and the authority of any “church.” That can be the “church” of medicine, law, or governance, of corporate, educational or military structure or spiritual doctrine.

When we need to submit ourselves to the church of medicine for surgery, we need the Hierophant, a surgeon who knows every piece of the doctrine, rather than a Divine Child who wants us to figure it out ourselves.

When we earn an academic honor, we have become expert in the doctrine of the Hierophant, not the introspection of a Divine Child.

In a reading, the Hierophant can suggest consulting a doctor or an attorney. The Hierophant can encourage your professional authority as a manager or a business owner. When the Hierophant appears to suggest these things, he commands our respect for the due process we all must endure. A Divine Child has no need or respect for due process, achievement, or a learned body of knowledge.

When we understand and portray tarot in a limited way, we limit the power of tarot. Right now, we seem to be inclined to limit the powers of the Hierophant.

When we examine the way our culture processes a tarot card, we understand something about our culture. At a time of corrupt governments, disenfranchised citizenry and economic disparity, none of us like the Hierophant energy very much.

The answer, though, is not to engage in navel-gazing and withdrawn self-discovery. The answer is to earn your own authority, and wield it wisely. That’s the way to change the authoritarian structures of the hierophants that don’t serve us.  At the same time, when you need an authority – a doctor, a lawyer, a priest, you really can’t accept any substitutes.

Sometime the Hierophant comes up in a reading to describe a stubborn and didactic personality. The Hierophant has told me of a client’s dogmatic Evangelical husband, whom she would later divorce. The Hierophant has told me of a client’s spiritual leader who was abusing her sexually. The Divine Child in the same place would not have been able to communicate these things to me.

Our discomfort with the Hierophant is understandable. However, when we remove the Hierophant from tarot we miss the opportunity to explore the dichotomy of this specific energy. When does honoring tradition build our community, and when does it oppress us? When do we need the authority of a body of knowledge, and when is it best to trust or inner guidance?

True enlightenment comes from both studied knowledge and intuitive wisdom. The Hierophant is an important part of that journey. Through studying difficult tarot images, and seeing the ways in which they speak in readings, we learn about ourselves, and our society. The tarot archetype of the Hierophant is complex, and irreplaceable.