Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings. Today’s post is about the Hierophant card in Tarot. The Hierophant is the fifth card of the Major Arcana most commonly depicted as a religious leader or pope, like in the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
The Hierophant card is often one that is misunderstood and viewed only from the perspective of a figure at the top of the religious hierarchy, becoming a symbol of dogmatic control. However, there is much more to this card than just the power of hierarchical authority. At its heart, the Hierophant is a card about teaching and learning. It is truthfully a card about passing on knowledge from elders to pupils. This does align with a religious elder teaching students about spiritual matters, but it does not have to take on the context of dogma. In fact, the idea of being dogmatic in how you relate to your students as a spiritual teacher is the dark side of the Hierophant card, with the positive aspects of the card being about ancestral remembrance and spreading ancient wisdom.
When we take a more balanced approach to this card, we can see that the Hierophant is an archetype that can help us tap more deeply into our spirituality. The Hierophant archetype is also the ancestor of the land made manifest, serving as a spiritual teacher to all of us! These aspects of the card are on full display in my two favorite interpretations of the card. The Wildwood Tarot literally refers to the Hierophant as the Ancestor, featuring a female ancestral land spirit with the head of a deer as the imagery. The Sacred Circle Tarot calls the Hierophant the Druid, tapping into the more balanced spiritual teacher angle, as Druids were known to have studied for many years before they could reach full initiation. With both of these cards, we see the Hierophant spreading knowledge and working closely with the spirits of the land, if not already a spirit of the land themselves. This highlights another aspect of the Hierophant. In my interpretation, honoring the cycles of nature is an important aspect of the Hierophant energy and an element that is not spoken about often.
At the end of the day, the Hierophant like other misunderstood cards I have already discussed, for example, Death and the Devil, needs to be approached with nuance to gain a better understanding of why it has appeared in a reading. I hope you have enjoyed this short look at the Hierophant card. What is your favorite thing about the Hierophant? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the Ancestor card from The Wildwood Tarot. I found the image on https://chrysalistarot.com/2022/02/16/a-goddess-for-our-times/.
Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services! I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon! Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/
Further Reading
- The Only Tarot Book You’ll Ever Need by Skye Alexander
- The Wildwood Tarot by Mark Ryan & John Matthews
- The Sacred Circle Tarot by Anna Franklin & illustrated by Paul Mason