The Hierophant Card

The Hierophant: Interpretations today

     There are at least two ways of finding meaning in the figure in The Hierophant card of Tarot: (1) An authoritative religious leader of an organized religion, or (2) An historical High Priest of religious practice in an early, ancient, pre-Christian civilization.

The Pope

      In some Tarot decks, including the Waite and Marseilles decks, “The Hierophant” resembles a Pope dressed in a papal robe and a three-tiered papal tiara. His two fingers are raised in the sign of blessing and he is holding a three-tiered cross. There are also two pillars behind him and two crossed keys in front of two acolytes at his feet. The keys are metaphoric symbols of the keys to heaven given to St. Peter by Jesus. They represent the authority to “bind” (forbid) and “loose” (permit) behavior. The interpretation is clearly a Christian authoritarian figure such as the leader of the Catholic Church. Symbolically, this interpretation of The Hierophant represents the teaching of esoteric religious dogma and signifies one who instructs followers in the rules and regulations of acceptable behavior determined by the church, based on the principles and morals of a Christian life, or in a more inclusive view, the practices of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or other religious traditions.  In a positive sense, The Hierophant represents a wise Father-image, the leader of a community or congregation, guiding his children by acting as a go-between God and the people, who says prayers and sends blessings on their behalf.

   

      In a reading, considering the reference to a Pope, the interpretation here is that you better know who you are in relation to God, or Goddess, Creator/Creatrix, or not at all. When you receive “The Hierophant,” this indicates someone in your life who is a teacher, a mentor, or guide, as one who instructs you in the doctrines of some religious practice or institution, such as a church, monastery, synagogue, mosque, ashram, or Temple. This could be someone who provides spiritual direction when you need help rather than psychological counseling. When the card is reversed, you might question authority and rebel against anyone trying to tell you what to do, or not to do.

     One of the most well-known Popes, Pope Julius II, (1503-13) was made famous by his interactions with Michelangelo in the 16^th century in their feud over how to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The Pope complained constantly about how long it was taking and Michelangelo complained that he didn’t pay him often enough. They argued over what it should look like and what biblical personages to paint, but meanwhile, the Pope was also engaging in a war with France. (He was called the “Warrior Pope.”) So, Michelangelo painted the Pope’s face on the prophet Zechariah. Ever since the church’s founder, St. Peter, was the first Pope (32-67), there have been 266 Pope’s to the present Pope Francis (2013). Today, it is hard to imagine the power the Popes had in earlier European history.

“The Hierophant, even while giving you his blessing…warns you…here are laws of order and harmony

that must be complied with, in order to achieve success and happiness.”

 “Tarot and Astrology,” (Muriel Hasbrouck, Destiny Books, 1989)

Original Historical Hierophant

     In another interpretation, the term Hierophant referred to the High Priest officiating in the cult of the Grecian Goddess Demeter (Ceres), located in Eleusis, Greece. The Hierophant presided over seasonal celebrations of the Greek pantheon of gods around 1500 B.C. Those were pre-Christian times, and secret rituals and sacred ceremonies were carried out by the Hierophant expressive of the agrarian earth goddess. These were called the Eleusinian Mysteries and mysterious rites were enacted in observance of Demeter, goddess of nature, and told the story about the abduction of her daughter, Persephone, by Hades, who took her to the underworld. These rituals may have been enacted as a play. Demeter’s symbol was a sheaf of wheat symbolic of the goddess of agriculture. The Hierophant may have performed secret rites that would have evoked a vision for the participants of the goddess herself. We are still reminded of Demeter today in astronomy and astrology with the asteroid named Ceres.  (See my previous blog on The Hierophant, August 2010)

“The Eleusinian Mysteries were a celebration of the forces of earth…”

“The Mysteries,” (Colin Wilson, Putnam, 1978).

     The Hierophant card of Tarot of Cosmic Consciousness symbolizes a teacher of nature’s mysterious and complex processes of earthly life: cell-division, exponential growth (Logarithmical Spiral), and the great mystery of life of flora and fauna (Chambered Nautilus),

evolving in a vast, interconnected living system. Life is emerging spontaneously through a process of self-organization, self-replication, self-operation and self-correction. It’s time to contemplate the question: What is life? What is consciousness? How can a tiny seed contain what it takes to grow into a huge tree? What prompts cells to divide and create more cells? What motivates a living entity? James lovelock has proposed the Gaia theory, a non-mechanistic view, “…about the tightly coupled system whose constituents are the biota and their material environment, which comprise the atmosphere, the oceans and rocks. Self-regulation of important properties such as climate and chemical composition, is seen as a consequence of this evolutionary process.” Gaia, A New Look at Life on Earth (James Lovelock, Oxford University Press, 1979)

“We urgently need to find practical ways of re-establishing our conscious

sense of connection with living nature.”

“The Rebirth of Nature,” (Rupert Sheldrake, Bantam Books, 1994)

      In a reading, The Hierophant card can be viewed as someone who interprets and gives

instructions in the laws of nature and celebrates events heralding the change of seasons. Pay attention to your local gardener. Take time to contemplate what nature means to you and how you are participating and engaged in the processes of nature: growing and tending a garden; joining the environmental movement; hiking in the woods, the mountains; listening to the birds; observing pollinators do their thing; preserving endangered species; or just watching how the planted seed emerges from the womb of earth. It miraculously grows, blooms and produces new seeds for the next generation of plant life. What can you do to pass on this information to the next generation of humanity?

The Emperor: the good, bad, and scary

The Emperor
TOCC

Concepts about The Emperor of Tarot can easily be associated with, or extracted from, what historians have written about the governments of early Roman Emperors. Their diligent and industrious city planning was exemplified in the design of Roman cities, and the layout of roads and streets. Roman rule consisted of a constitution, king, a senate with a lot of power, and an assembly of publicans. Modeled on this system, our own US government is set up in much the same way.

The general meaning of The Emperor in a Tarot reading is a person who has authority; a leader who may be the head of government with the power to set things in order and to declare war. The Empire is larger than a kingdom and may include many territories and other countries. An Emperor takes precedence over kings and, in the past, there have been many famous Emperors, both good and bad, wielding power over the citizens.

“The fault, dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings

…the die is cast.” Julius Caesar, Shakespeare

After the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, 44 B.C., by Brutus and Cassius, his adopted son, Octavius became the first Roman Emperor known as Caesar Augustus.  All this has been made famous of course by Shakespeare in the play “Julius Caesar.” In 27 B.C., Octavian instituted Imperial Rome and the senate was then considered a secondary power. The Empire covered the countries we now know as Italy, Spain, France, Greece, England, Lebanon and Syria, Turkey and North Africa. It did not include Germania, or the countries east of the Rhine and Danube Rivers. Eventually in 313 A.D., Constantine became the first Christian Emperor who then established a new capital in Istanbul, which became Constantinople. There were many other Emperors in between, some good, and others that were very bad. Most of the Roman Empire ended by the 5^th century when Italy was overrun by the Goths and Vandals. Later, there was the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806) the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) and the Napoleon Empire (1804-1815).

(Reference: The Ancient World, Thomas W. Africa, University of Southern California, 1967)

How does one describe a so-called “good” Emperor” versus a “bad” Emperor? The known tyrannical, violent, Roman Emperors were Caligula (37-41 A. D.) and Nero (56-68 A.D.) Emperors who worked for the betterment of society were Trajan (98-117 A.D.) and Hadrian (117-138 A.D.).  There have been many Emperors since, both good and bad.

The Good

The qualities of a good Emperor are expressed in the ability to create reliable and stable governance based on creating order and structure. This is achieved through fairness and well thought out leadership. Like a strong Father, he expresses compassion, patience, and benevolence in making wise decisions for the good of society. In Roman times, these Emperors were known for their courage and responsibility, and allowing the constituents of each country to basically govern themselves and practice their own religions without a strict overlay of rules and regulations.

The Bad

Ship of Fools Tarot

These are arrogant and ruthless Emperors drunk on power, who are conquerors trying to gather more empire through war, plunder, and destruction. They rule by fear and tyranny of underlings; use censorship and suppression of critics, dispense misinformation, and have a disregard for rule of law. In Rome, they were overriding the decisions of the senate. The bad Emperors were domineering dictators and tyrants crazed by the corruption of power and had no moral parameters.  More recent despots like Napoleon (1769-1821) and Hitler (1889-1945) come to mind. Traits to look for in the bad Emperor consists of their use of propaganda and censorship to control information; vilifying unwanted populations and, in Hitler’s case, resorting to murder and genocide in the form of an authoritarian, fascist regime. In the extreme, these leaders engaged in war and military takeover of land and other countries. They were unpredictable and had the urge to overpower everyone by bullying and threatening punishment while playing on the weaknesses of others.

This type of Emperor is generally followed by a group of dutiful “yes men,” which recalls Hans Christian Anderson’s story of The Emperor’s New clothes. The story was about 2 weavers who were “con-men,” who convince the Emperor that they can make magical clothing, and when viewed by his constituents, the clothes will become invisible if those workers are not fit for their jobs and they will be fired. The Emperor’s minister goes to look at the weaver’s progress and sees nothing on the looms. But as he fears reprisal and loss of his job, he lies and tells the Emperor how beautiful the clothes are. Then when the Emperor parades in his so-called “new clothes,” the public cheers him on.  He doesn’t see anything either, but thinks he will also lose his job when the public sees the invisibility of the clothes. But when a child in the crowd says, “He doesn’t have any clothes on,” the whole population, who were afraid to question his judgement and criticize him, now recognized the reality of the situation. He became the laughingstock of the people.

The moral of the story is - question everything and tell the truth. Lies and obfuscation can’t be covered up - eventually, every lie gets exposed.

The Empress: another look

Why is this Tarot card titled The Empress? What significance does she have in a Tarot deck? For a reality check, who was she in the historical past? Why is she in the Tarot anyway?

The Empress

There are two ways to think about The Empress in the Tarot: One is historical concerning several real Empresses of the past. The other is symbolical and mythological with references to an earlier ancient earth Goddess from the Middle East, Africa and early European cultures. (See my previous BlogSpot article on The High Priestess)

 Historical Empresses were the female sovereigns of past empires, especially the ancient Egyptian Empire; the Roman Empire; Persian Empire; Chinese Empire; and later European Empires, such as the Austrian Empire and British Empire. An Empress was usually the consort of the ruling Emperor but, in some cases, she was the supreme monarch, governing and having the power to command armies and rule other kingdoms. This was a position of power that was very rare for women in a male-dominated hierarchy of rulership. Empress Wu Zetian (625–705) ruler in the Tang Dynasty of China, achieved her power by eliminating her enemies in taking over the throne after her husband died. In a monarchy, the title Empress or Emperor is superior to a King or Queen, and the Empire is larger than a kingdom, sometimes incorporating many entire city-states. And the last historical Empresses are not too far in the distant past. British Queen Victoria, Empress of India, ruled many colonial countries around the world and she died in 1901. Her granddaughter, Alexandra, was the last Tsarina in Russia and she was murdered in 1918 with her family and spouse Tsar Nicolas I, during the Russian Revolution and overthrow of the Russian Empire. In some ways, it is hard for us to comprehend how such power was exerted in the past, which is the very reason that The Empress and The Emperor are part of the more traditional Tarot deck: emphasizing vast powers, supreme leadership, and control of their subjects.  

In a contemporary context, some Tarot decks present The Empress as the Great Mother Goddess, as in The Motherpeace Tarot by Vicki Noble. This deck exemplifies the resurgence of the modern Goddess movement in Feminism. In certain “back to nature” communities, the Goddess is viewed as immanent in nature with all its processes; therefore, most of nature’s functions on earth are regarded as sacred: cell-division and the self-generating processes of plant growth and seed-bearing; the fertility and abundance of crops; the sustenance of water; the reproductive and formative processes of animals and birds.

Archaeologist, Marija Gimbutas, in her extensive book, The Civilization of the Goddess, talks about the veneration of an earth Goddess in Eastern European prehistory who was represented by small clay female figurines found everywhere, particularly in areas that appeared to be temples. Archaeological evidence points to agricultural communities at least as far back to the 7^th millennia B.C. where agrarian cultures were [thought to be] more ‘gynocentric,’ and women reflected the “sovereignty of motherhood,” she says. These little figurines were found by the hundreds at digs mostly in Eastern Europe.

Ashera

“In Gimbutas’ view, old European female imagery expresses metaphoric concepts of sacred cosmology within a mother-kinship culture.”

(The realm of the Ancestors, Ed Joan Marler)

In another sense, there are derogatory Biblical references to the Middle Eastern goddess Ashera, or Ashtoreth/Astarte, a Canaanite Goddess worshipped as far back as 9^th century B.C.; yet, in contrast, she was revered in Ugaritic legends and mythological texts from Ras-Shamara, discovered in Syria. In I Kings 18:19, worship of the goddess instead of the one God by the Hebrews was blamed on Jezebel, and in Deuteronomy 12:3, the destruction of a statue of Ashera was demanded by burning it. Ashera was condemned by the Hebrews as one of the gods to eliminate. These religious beliefs and the story of Eve’s downfall and deception, paved the way for many centuries of treating women as second class citizens and subordinate to men. Then there was Ishtar of Nineveh. She was the goddess of the Akkadian pantheon and was written about in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a poem inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets around 3,000 B.C., where the goddess, Inanna, descended into the underworld; was killed by her sister Erishkigal, and resurrected by her priestess and companions. She was more of a warrior goddess of fecundity and procreation. (Descent to the Goddess by Sylvia Brinton Perera)

What meaning can we extract from The Empress card in a reading? She represents leadership in the community; self-respect as a liberated person free from dehumanizing oppression; exhibits mature judgment, and is not afraid to speak up against injustice. Her attributes are that of a self-actualizing person who is supporting, caring for, protecting, and nurturing her community. In a broader sense, she is the goddess of fertility, birth, motherhood, love, and the abundance of nature.

“The power to regain our own life comes from the discovery of the cosmic covenant, the deep harmony in the community of being in which we participate.” (Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, Beacon Press, 1985)

When you get The Empress card in a reading, ask yourself these questions: How are you being an Empress in your life in taking charge and demonstrating leadership in your community? Are you speaking up, resisting, and pointing out injustices? Are you nurturing and caring for your family and friends? Are you helping to eliminate oppression, violence and war? What are you doing to promote the common good for everyone?