Hierophant Wisdom for Modern Times
You may have heard some people in the tarot world saying that this is a Hierophant year- let me break down what that means!
The card that rules over the year is dictated by the addition of the numbers of the year we are in. We have just started 2021- 2+0+2+1=5 and the number 5 rules over The Hierophant card in tarot.
Whether that lights you up or not, The Hierophant archetype is one worth exploring. Yesterday we watched followers of a “charismatic leader” attempt a coup. They did this unquestioningly and unflinchingly. A leader was appointed to a position of power, authority, and “knowing” and the followers of that leader have been further indoctrinated into the cult of white supremacist America.
Putting a figure up on a pedestal of power, especially one that is politically motivated, is unethical and dangerous.
It’s also the way the archetype of the Hierophant has been traditionally interpreted. I disagree with that interpretation and the idolatry of human beings in positions of perceived power. In this piece, I will illustrate how this archetype has shifted along with our societal values.
There is an opportunity here to really start making some impactful societal changes but first we have to really know who we are and what we believe in.
I love this archetype because it’s interpreted in a zillion different ways, it’s widely misunderstood, and (in tarot speak) it is THE card in the first line of the Major Arcana that people just don’t seem to know what to do with. It’s one of the hardest ones to understand. I’m still learning this archetype. And that constant learning and reworking is part of the lesson the Hierophant.
The Hierophant has been said to be a wise teacher, a channel appointed by God to deliver messages to masses, a guru-type figure. And it can be all of these things but archetypes exist because they are a representation of all of us. We all carry all archetypes within us, some are just more prominent than others. But let me give you little background so you understand the evolution of this figure:
Waaaay back a number of centuries ago before monarchies and imperialism, we understood that everyone has their own gifts and access to a connection with spirit/the divine. Over time, we started to (were forced to) lose this understanding. Even persecuted for it. Fast forward to around the 15th century- an artist named Bonifacio Bembo created a set of cards for the Visconti family of Milan- four suits (this is where our modern day set of playing cards originated) and 22 cards depicting common scenes or archetypal of medieval types. Later, these archetypes or virtues or concepts were given names. The name for The Hierophant card in tarot was initially The Pope. Historically in this time period, people were denied their right to connect with God (aka spirit/the divine) individually and needed an appointed figure to do so for them. It was blasphemous not to and had dire consequences. You can read more about the history of Tarot and theories about how/why A.E. Waite (co-creator of the Rider-Waite deck) changed the name of this archetype from Pope to Hierophant in Rachel Pollack’s, “78 Degrees of Wisdom”if you’re so inclined.
SO the interpretation of The Hierophant has traditionally been about an ordained public figure speaking the word of God to the masses, or a spiritual teacher.
We are now -once again- in a time where we are again understanding our own connection to spirit or god outside of an organized religion or structure. And even now, it’s still unique because we have so much access to so many different streams of information. The nature of archetypes change with the times and this one is no different- The Hierophant we are seeing now is someone who questions the systems of belief that were passed down to them, and then synthesizes what they’ve been learning from both the internal and external world. That becomes the code they live by and the code they speak to others.
Hierophants do internal root work before they channel or communicate the information they have received. And with that, because the world is always changing around us, they are constantly revising, reassessing, and reworking their belief system and their message out to the world.
You are a hierophant. So is your housemate. Your brother. Your friends. Everyone has this capability.
The Hierophant lives by their own code; it’s a code they had to learn for themselves. Not one that was passed down to them and that they accepted unflinchingly. Really coming into ourselves and understanding why we believe what we believe, taking responsibility for the impact of what we say, and respecting our duties to our communities is step one. Question your teachers! Question yourself!
To my fellow white people: Maybe last year you you woke up to a lot. Maybe up until then you’d been living under a simpler system. Maybe you learned about the world/your practice/your politics in a particular way from a teacher or significant figure you love and those are the sets of beliefs you’ve been holding. If so, last year packed a real punch and you had to adjust. You had to question why you believed what you believed. And that work is going to continue. This an opportunity for gaining wisdom and not a burden.
There are a lot of ideas going around lately about the Jupiter Saturn Conjunction and the portal we’d be going through and how we are heading into this kind of Aquarian Utopia and maybe we are but let’s face it that’s gonna take a while to build. And it’s not just going to happen, it’s something we are actively going to take part in. We may not even live to see it happen in our lifetime- but we will be an integral part of the creation of the world that’s being shaped right now. To do this, we have to get really clear. What institutions work for us and which ones don’t? Which streams of thought are problematic or need adjustment? We also have to get really specific about why these institutions or thought patterns aren’t working.
The Hierophant is an invitation to question if the belief systems we’ve adopted still resonate with us. To inquire if they still feel true or relevant. Once we are aware of the belief, we can start to work with it- alter it if we need to. Adjust accordingly.
This archetype also gives us permission to pause and ask ourselves if we understand what we’re engaging in. Maybe we don’t. Maybe we are in over our heads. This energy is an invitation to let ourselves hear that nudge of “hey you don’t know about this thing and you should learn more about it”.
The wiser we become, the more equipped we are to synthesize information. Our channel and/or ability to see the world becomes clearer.
Okay, so a quick personal tarot/astrological line of inquiry for those of you that are into that: The Hierophant is ruled by the astrological sign Taurus which is ruled by the planet Venus and that’s all well and good but there’s something that’s extremely mercurial about the Hierophant. The Hierophant channels information from spirit through their body and out to the world and takes time to go back and revise what they learn regularly- that sounds like Mercury and the regular retrogrades Mercury takes to me but idk what y’all think. Let me know if you’ve read any other interpretations like this as I haven’t found any and would love to learn more. There’s also something that’s kind of Sagittarian or 9th House-y here too with this seeking and synthesizing (but maybe I’m interpreting it with this lens because Jupiter and Saturn are transiting my 9th house now).
Some reflection questions to sit with might be:
What are the stories you’ve been told that have become your beliefs? Are they really yours?
What have you been told about what is possible for you?
Do you have a mentor or teacher? What does that relationship look like? Do they encourage you to have your own views? Are they consistently growing, shifting, refining?
What is my relationship to God, Spirit, The Universe? Where did I learn about that and from who? Does anything need to be weeded out or added in to my relationship with what I consider holy?
What is the ideology of the social circles you run in? How do your views differ?
We are responsible for finding our way. We are responsible for questioning our teachers, our mentors, and ourselves.
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Stevie Joy Leigh
