Haindl Tarot
V - THE HIEROPHANT
HEBREW LETTER: VAV, "NAIL"
RUNE: RADH, "WHEEL"
ASTROLOGY: TAURUS
ELEMENT: EARTH
The word hierophantos is Greek, the title of the high priest of the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone. The title, therefore, subtly links the card to the High Priestess and the Empress. Hierophant means "the one who shows the sacred objects:" Religious tradition, one of the major themes of the card, involves wisdom, but even more so, the sharing of veneration (verering).
The Hebrew letter is Vav, which means "Nail," a shape we can see in the form of the letter. A nail joins things together and this also suggests the theme of religious tradition, for tradition unites a culture. However, by its phallic shape, the nail also signifies a particularly masculine tradition, something reflected in the picture.
The Rune belonging to this card, Radh, or R, means "Wheel:" It represents ritual, an essential quality in any tradition (such as the Mysteries). Ritual serves several functions. Firstly, it gives an outer form to religious teachings. Ritual takes concepts and spiritual insights and puts them into words for people to say and actions for them to perform. In the Jewish tradition especially represented by this card, the primary ritual consists of removing the Torah (the scroll of the first five books of the Bible) and placing it on a special table for the reading of the Law. When the ritual occurs people experience a surge of spirituality in their emotions and bodies. Christian tradition centers even more on ritual, especially the communion, in which the bread and wine miraculously change into the body and blood of Christ.
Secondly, ritual connects people to history. The circumcision of a Jewish boy and the baptism of Christian babies serve their spiritual meanings, but they also join people to the tradition. Ritual can also bind people to each other, forming a community. Again, we find this very much among the Jews, where a service requires ten men for a "minyan" or quorum (modern nonOrthodox congregations count women as well as men). Someone alone, away from a synagogue, may pray privately, but the full effect of prayer requires that minimal community of ten.
Finally, ritual carries people through crises. When someone dies, those mourners who do not follow any rituals or religious tradition often feel incomplete, or guilty, unable to leave the experience behind. Those who do mourn according to some ritual will feel they have done what needed to be done and can continue with their lives, carrying their memories with them.
The astrological sign for card 5 is Taurus, and the element is Earth. Both of these indicate what esotericists call manifestation, that is, concrete reality. In most cases, this card connects with the High Priestess. Some decks call it the High Priest. Older Tarots designate card 5 as the Pope and card 2 as the Papess, or female Pope. While card 2 signifies the inner or secret truth, the mystery at the heart of religious experience, card 5 signifies the concrete ways in which this mystery expresses itself in the world - in other words, religious tradition. In this sense, it does not actually matter whether the card refers to ordinary established religion or to occult teachings (such as the Hierophant of Aleister Crowley). Either way, the image symbolizes specific teachings derived from the intuitive wisdom of the High Priestess.
Taurus means "bull"; like the Emperor's Aries, it is a symbol of male power and sexuality. Yet we have seen how such animals joined with the Goddess as her consorts, bringing her seed to awaken her fertility - and her pleasure. In astrology Taurus is linked to the planet Venus. This connection tells us that despite the all-male appearance of patriarchal religion, its life and reality entwine with the Empress.
We see in this card three generations of men. The grandfather fills most of the picture. To his right, entering the picture from the outside, appears the father, in profile. At bottom, outside the border, but looking in, we see the back of a boy's head. He wears a skullcap. The three are in a room with one window overhead and another to the left. Haindl based this structure on his own studio, a converted four-hundred-year-old barn, where the top room is used for group ceremony and meditations.
The faces look toward a light which shines in the upper quarter of the card. This light symbolizes God, always a lord of light in the patriarchal tradition, whether Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, or Buddhist. The light appears on the left, in the darkness, to indicate the unknowable truth of the divine. In Judaism God is both an intimate part of us and beyond human comprehension, beyond the physical universe. The light shines on a key, which seems to hang in the air above the pages of an old book. The light also shines on the R Rune and partly illuminates the three faces.
In many Tarot decks, the Hierophant card shows a priest or a pope, sitting on a throne with two disciples at his feet. The keys of the kingdom appear crossed, in the shape of an X, at the throne's bottom. The Haindl Tarot uses three figures - a family rather than a strict hierarchy, emphasizing the idea of tradition as something passed through generations, rather than through a formal Church. We see a single key, but with three prongs (tanden van een vork). The image of the crossed keys remains in the crossed thumbs of the old man as he raises his hands in prayer. This subtle image, another example of Haindl's economy of symbolism, indicates union. By replacing St. Peter's keys, it indicates as well that simple prayer can join us to God. Finally, the image suggests the emphasis on community rather than hierarchy.
The cast of the faces, the skullcap, and, more subtly, the book all indicate Judaism. Hermann Haindl changed the card from a specifically Christian image to a specifically Jewish one for several reasons. For one thing, as a German who served in World War II, he wished to honor the people so horribly persecuted by his own nation. (We saw in the Introduction how similar thoughts led him to join the Runes to the Hebrew letters.) He also chose Judaism for this card of tradition because he saw it as representing the positive values of patriarchal religion - Judaism, the "father" of both Christianity and Islam (but distinct from both of them), represents in European history the essential image of patriarchy.
In historical practice Judaism has been extremely patriarchal, with women not allowed to take part in services. At deeper levels, however, Judaism contains the feminine as well as the masculine. Ancient rabbis described God as hermaphroditic; some Biblical terms for God derive from female attributes, including breasts and the womb.
The Emperor symbolizes vitality but also arrogance. The Hierophant remains unbalanced, for we see no women. Nevertheless, the card shows a gentler image, one devoted to learning and prayer. The world thinks of Jewish culture as somehow dedicated to suffering. In fact, Judaism at its best gives us an image of life. Legend tells us that when the Romans besieged Jerusalem the chief rabbi had his disciples declare him dead so they could smuggle him out of the city in a coffin. Death, however heroic, would have served no purpose; the rabbi needed to live in order to teach. Many cultures (including, perhaps, present-day Israel) would consider such an escape cowardly.
The book, and the keys before it, symbolize the Torah, the five books of Moses and the "key" to Jewish culture. The Taurean symbolism also suggests Moses, for a mistake in translating the Bible caused Christians to believe that Moses, and by extension all Jews, had horns, an idea shown in Michelangelo's statue of Moses. The Torah represents both the idea of a written tradition and a God-given law of human ethics, as summarized in the Ten Commandments. The book also symbolizes human culture and knowledge, for writing enables us to pass knowledge from one generation to the next. At the same time, there is a shadow side to written law, for it can become too rigid, separated from people's immediate experience and from nature. The law becomes absolute.
We see in the picture three figures. Unlike the Christian trinity, with its Holy Ghost, they are all human, a symbol of Judaism's emphasis on ethics over mysticism. In the Bible, and in the rabbinic tradition, we read of people (such as Abraham) who argue with God or even put God on trial on behalf of suffering humanity.
The ages of the three - boy, adult, and old man - suggest a male version of the triple Goddess, maiden, mother, crone. But there is no suggestion here of a link to the Moon or the Earth (except for card's traditional connection to Taurus, an Earth sign).
The boy appears outside the border, looking in. Though cicumcision binds an infant Jewish boy to his heritage, he does not actually become a member of the community until his bar mitzvah. Bar mitzvah, in which the thirteen-year-old stands before the Torah and reads from the Scriptures, forms an initiation ceremony. Unlike initiation ceremonies in such places as Australia or Africa, it does not involve physical tests or fearful encounters with spirits. It simply requires learning. Until recently (and still among orthodox Jews), it applied only to boys.
Each prong of the key contains a hole and a piece pointing out, symbols of female and male sexuality. While Jewish tradition honors sex (calling on Jews to make love on the Sabbath), the outer teachings often depict God as entirely male but at the same time lacking a body. Therefore, the idea of divine sexuality becomes an esoteric secret, brought out in Kabbalah but not in ordinary religious practice. The bible says "Male and female, He created them." Grammatically, the term male and female refers to "He," that is, God. From this, rabbis derived that God is both male and female. This idea, however, does not appear in ordinary Jewish teaching; the Hebrew language does not even contain a word for "goddess."
And yet the Goddess, the Empress, remains - in the variations on the number three, in the sexual symbolism of the key, in the image of the bull, who not only "belongs" to the Empress but also belongs to the High Priestess, for the horns suggest the Moon's curved sickle.
Even the Hierophant's number 5, brings us back to the Goddess. We can break it down in two ways, one male, the other female. Five is 1 + 4; that is, the Magician and the Emperor. More commonly, however, we think of 5 as 3 + 2, the High Priestess and the Empress. Five is the sacred number of Wicca, or "witchcraft," the form of Goddess worship that has survived the patriarchal centuries and has re-emerged in our own time.
Witches take as their most sacred symbol the pentacle, the five-pointed star. If you cut an apple in half through the middle instead of from top to bottom, you will discover a pentacle in each half. Over a period of eight years the path of the planet Venus in the Earth sky forms a five petaled flower. When Adam accepted the apple from Eve he was accepting the rule of the Empress - the greatest crime for the patriarchal Hebrews. The pentacle represents humanity as well. If you stand with your head up, your legs apart, and your arms out to the side, your body will form a pentacle. Therefore, the pentacle, the number 5, connects human beings to nature and the heavens.
And the idea of a human relationship to divinity - through teachings, through the passage of tradition from one generation to the next - forms the deepest value of the Hierophant.
DIVINATORY MEANINGS
Several ideas relate to the Hierophant, and any of these may come up in a reading. They draw from three connected issues: tradition, community, and teachings. Tradition permeates a great deal of ordinary behavior; the way we dress, the holidays we celebrate, the ways men and women or parents and children relate to each other. The Hierophant can show a time in a person's life when traditional patterns are a strong influence. This influence may be helpful (support in a crisis), or problematic (preventing the person from acting independently). Very often, the Hierophant signifies conformity, acting from society's expectations rather than your own desires. The Hierophant may indicate some life path that other people, such as family or friends, expect a person to follow.
Connected to tradition, the card shows the influence of institutions. These may be religious; for instance, the Church influencing a Catholic on such issues as birth control or divorce. More generally, the card can refer to society and its varied institutions, not just religions. These may include organizations, such as universities or government bureaucracies, or it may signify social institutions, particularly marriage. In contrast with the next card, the Lovers, the Hierophant indicates the formal institution of marriage, the laws and vows. This can be stultifying or positive. If a couple have been together a long time the Hierophant may show that they have created a life that gives them support and framework for their actions. In connection with marriage the Hierophant can refer to any solemn commitment made by the couple.
The Hierophant signifies community, either the influence of society as a whole, or a smaller group. This influence may help or hinder the person. Does the person feel the community supports him or her? Or do the community's attitudes limit the person's choices?
In the Hierophant as teachings we find the same dichotomy. The card signifies the value of knowledge and education. It may refer to a specific religious teaching, sometimes of an occult order. It refers to the doctrines, and without the High Priestess it can lose the inner meanings that give those doctrines their value.
REVERSED
The reversed card may intensify the problems or may show the person going in the opposite direction. The reversed Hierophant may emphasize social pressure. It may show a marriage or a long term relationship that has lost the passion that inspired it. It may indicate doctrines and ideas that have lost their meaning.
More commonly, the reversed Hierophant shows the person rejecting such things. It may indicate refusing to continue in an empty relationship. This does not necessarily mean leaving. It might show the person insisting on changes, or bringing up longburied problems. Besides ending a meaningless relationship, the reversed Hierophant can indicate avoiding such a relationship from the beginning. A person rejects some situation or path others want him or her to follow.
More generally the Hierophant can indicate a person who is unorthodox, original. Sometimes this leads to gullibility, for without some fixed standard by which to measure new ideas, the person may accept anything new, as long as it appears fresh and exciting. Which of these possibilities actually apply? As before, you must look at the other cards to decide. When you have worked with the cards for some time you will discover that intuition will help you choose the correct meanings. Remember, too, that several meanings may apply at the same time.
