The Hierophant Tarot Card Meaning

The Hierophant tarot card from 3 different tarot decks.

Left to right: The Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, The Thoth tarot deck, The Light Seers Tarot by Chris-Anne

The Hierophant Keywords

  • education 
  • spiritual direction 
  • large organizations 
  • traditional values 
  • teacher or teachings 
  • spiritual growth 

Shadow Keyword Meanings (if badly aspected or reversed)

  • loss of faith 
  • corruption โ€“ either in an organizations leadership or a teacher/mentor 
  • dogma 
  • cultish 
  • a need to think for yourself instead of relying on โ€œauthoritiesโ€ 


What The Heck Is A Hierophant?

Ok. Letโ€™s cut to the chase. What the heck is a Hierophant? Because not only is it a strange word, itโ€™s one of โ€œthose cardsโ€ that tend to create confusion in many peopleโ€™s minds when they study tarot. 

Itโ€™s from the Greek and basically means โ€œone who reveals holy things.โ€  Hiero=holy and phainen = to reveal 

The whole bedrock of Tarot is built upon the wisdom of the ages which is that the โ€œkingdom of God is within.โ€ 

In contemporary language, non-duality or unity. 


We Need Guiding Lights

Itโ€™s not only helpful, but necessary for us to have a guiding light. 

This is the role of The Hierophant. 

There are a lot of different forces and influences pushing and pulling us in the world. Thatโ€™s one of the reasons people will get tarot readings โ€“ to help them make sense of these cross currents.  

If you think of your life as a boat sailing across the seas, you would need to have a lighthouse or something to guide your direction so you could avoid the rocks. 

Maybe youโ€™re wondering that if thatโ€™s indeed true, and God/Goddess/All That Is were alive within you, why would you need an external teacher or books? 

When we learn from books or a teacher, and something resonates strongly with us, itโ€™s because we already know it within. We just forgot or never looked any deeper. Learning is actually a kind of remembering what we already knew before we incarnated. 

 

The Hierophant Is A Bridge

As you discover this inner Light within, the secret to effective and harmonious living is to mediate between this inner Light and the physical world. 

The Hierophant is here to reveal those mysteries to us.  

Even though The Hierophant as an archetype is your Inner Teacher, he also comes in the form of external teachers or teachings. But this is a reflection of your own Inner Teacher. 

The Hierophant is the active, teaching element of what the High Priestess symbolizes. 

 

The Sacred Marriage & Evolution

The Universe is always evolving toward more complexity, but paradoxically, a greater unity at the same time. It knows where Itโ€™s going. Itโ€™s always sending out signals, but in order to hear them, we need to get still and listen. 

The Hierophant conducts the sacred marriage of the macrocosm and the microcosm; the macrocosm being Universal Being-ness, and the microcosm being the individual being. 

What has it to do with us in this day and age? 


Stress & Mental Health

Weโ€™re all familiar with the stories of how stress is impacting our lives and how mental health is such an important quality to maintain for ourselves. 

Everything is changing so rapidly that many people are confused and overwhelmed. Thereโ€™s so much information along with a staggering array of choices to make. 

โ€œAm I going in the right direction?โ€ is the universal cry. 

Many people are afraid to trust and open up, or worse, theyโ€™ve completely given up and become cynical and bitter.  

The Hierophant is available to help us. 


The Hierophant tarot card from the Light Seers Tarot deck

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How The Hierophant Helps You

If we have a problem we need to solve, the best thing to do is get still in order to listen. We donโ€™t listen to our mind or personality. We listen for the still, small voice. We let go completely of our problem for a few minutes.  

If youโ€™re really worried or afraid, this might need to be done several times a day in order to gently calm your mind from its materialistic hypnosis. 

Even if nothing comes, answers will begin to come in the form of messages, ideas and whatever you need to help you solve your problem. 

It can be in a dream or a timely message. 

The kneeling figures symbolize the devotion thatโ€™s required as we listen to this source of instruction. 

This gives us the clue that while The Hierophant may appear to us as an external teacher or โ€œguru,โ€ the real Hierophant is our Inner Self. 

This is the best way to learn how to solve our problems and this is what the Hierophant is here to show us. 


The Hierophant & the Importance of Tradition

To reiterate, The Hierophant is a mediator. This means that although weโ€™re to always rely upon our Inner Teacher, we need the wisdom of tradition to help keep us on track. 

This doesnโ€™t mean that we need to become religious in the sense of belonging to a church or temple.  

And if we already have a religious affiliation, we donโ€™t necessarily need to change anything. 

Some people these days seem to value โ€œprogressโ€ above all else and donโ€™t mind throwing out the baby with the bath water. 

But many people through the ages have devoted their lives to the study of Life and its deep secrets, leaving us a legacy of supportive instruction. 


The Legacy of Tarot

To me, the Tarot is one of these legacies. 

This also means that we need to study some of the masters such as Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Plotinus or any good modern teachers and teachings. 

BUT this doesnโ€™t mean that we donโ€™t think for ourselves! Because then we need to compare these outer teachings with what we know from our Inner Self.  

And from there, we need to begin applying any insights to the laboratory of our own lives to see what works. Not in the sense of magic, but in the sense of the integral laws of The Universe. 

 Back to the weight and grounding of the Hierophantโ€™s association with Taurus. When our exploration is backed by tradition, it keeps us from wandering too far into trouble.  

Left entirely to our own devices, there is always the danger of becoming lost in the subconscious without any external guidance from those who have gone before us. 

Not to mention such easy to miss ego traps such as spiritual bypassing or some kind of โ€œholier than thouโ€ complex. 


The Search for Hidden Truth

According to Hajo Banzhaf in The Crowley Tarotthe instinct of The Hierophant is โ€œthe search for hidden truthโ€ and the goal is โ€œknowledge and enlightenment independent of science and dogmatic religion.โ€  

The Hierophant is essentially leading us to a spiritual enlightenment where we have real trust and faith in the processes of The Universe in our lives. 

Itโ€™s a deep certainty of being connected to a higher order of existence. 

Maureen Clark, in her fascinating study of Tarot and Cabala, says that the 2 disciples in the Hierophant card represent soul and body. 

Soul needs body in order to experience and body needs soul in order to live. 

The Hierophant can appear in many guises or forms. In folk tales, he can appear as an animal like a bird or a fish to help the seeker deal with a problem on his quest. 

"Soul needs body in order to experience and body needs soul in order to live." - Maureen Clark

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The Hierophant as Intervention with Our Problems

The Hierophant doesnโ€™t actually solve our problems for us. He instructs us with just enough to inspire us and strengthen our faith so that we can find the solution ourselves. 

In order to gain wisdom and enlightenment, we must solve problems. Our sleepy souls eventually begin to realize that most problems are created from within and can be solved from within. 

As we go through a challenge or crisis, the mercy of The Hierophant intervenes to support us in finding answers. The intensity of the experience helps us gain knowledge of the invisible as an actual objective awareness behind all things, including ourselves. 


The Hierophant Symbolism


The Hierophant tarot card from the RWS tarot deck
The Hierophant from the Thoth tarot deck
The Hierophant tarot card from the Light Seers Tarot deck

From left to right: the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, The Thoth tarot deck, The Light Seers Tarot deck

Here we have some examples of The Hierophant from some different decks.  

In the RWS deck, The Hierophant is the point of the triangle with the 2 disciples forming the base.  

This is the same shape as the top supernal in the Tree of Life. It also references the Holy Trinity as well as the sacred 3 in many traditions.  

See the Hierophant "trine" below

The Tree of Life image from Cabala





Some examples of this are the 3 gunas in Hindu tradition, the salt, mercury and sulphur in alchemy or the maiden, mother, crone in Celtic paganism. 

But the Hierophant is numbered 5 in the sequence. And, as you see in the Thoth tarot, there is a 5-pointed star, or pentagram. Actually, a smaller one and also a larger one which is a bit harder to see. 

The top point of the pentagram represents formless Spirit which transcends and includes the other 4 points which represent form (fire, water, air, earth). 

All the points are connected so this really speaks to the meaning of The Hierophant as a bridge between the Formless and form; the Changeless and that which is constantly changing. 

In the Light Seers deck, we see the staircase symbolizing the same idea. Stairway To Heaven by English rock band Led Zeppelin is a masterpiece song on this theme. 

The Hierophant in Divination

In divination, The Hierophant has come to mean tradition as well as large organizations or institutions because of the association with the pope and the church. 

But it could be any large organization such as a corporation. Iโ€™ve done readings where Iโ€™ve seen The Hierophant referring to social media platforms! 

It can often be schools or universities where learning occurs.  

Of course, The Hierophant can also be pointing to something more sublime such as a need to look within and connect with a spiritual teaching of some kind. 

In other words, a time to become more emotionally intelligent and spiritually aware.  

 A teacher who has something important to impart to you may be appearing in your life. This doesnโ€™t necessarily have to mean something spiritual โ€“ it could be something thatโ€™s important for your growth and to help you solve a problem. 

Because of the connection with traditional values, this archetype can also show marriage in a reading. For me, this would need to be supported with other cards in the spread such as court cards (representing people) and something like the 4 of Wands showing a celebration. 

Astrologically, The Hierophant is associated with Taurus, the bull. This suggests the grounding power and weight behind the โ€œinvisibleโ€ knowledge of The Hierophant expressed here on earth.  


Main Takeaways from The Hierophant Tarot Card

We need the devotion of body and soul to listen to our Inner Teacher for solutions to problems. 

Our Inner Teacher can also take the form of outer teachers or teachings. Could be books, dream messages, etc.  

But it needs to connect with our inner knowing in order to give us that spark to help us solve a particular problem โ€“ even if that problem is wanting to be more spiritually aware and present. 

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