Tarot Card Meanings: The Hierophant

I’ve got the key
I’ve got the secret
I’ve got the key to another way

‘The Key, The Secret’ by Urban Cookie Collective (Rizzatti / Moratto / Persi / Heath)

Welcome to my circle of wisdom!

In this post I am focusing on the Hierophant (typo-enemy of indie deck producers everywhere 😂). The Hierophant is the fifth card of the Major Arcana, representing tradition, spiritual teaching, community wisdom, and the bridge between the sacred and the everyday. Here I’ll explore what the Hierophant means in Tarot readings, how the archetype has evolved, and how to work with both its light and shadow.

Given The Hierophant can be accused of many of the same institutional sins of the patriarchy as the Emperor (authoritarian, fearful of change, stodgy, literal) – with an added dollop of organised religion thrown in for good measure – I expected to struggle with this card, but I really don’t. I think because I see The Hierophant primarily as a teacher, and so it’s easy for me to connect this card with folks who have taught, inspired, and mentored me. I also am a teacher, so a lot of the messages of this card resonate with me.

The word ‘Hierophant’ comes from the Ancient Greek words for “holy” (τὰ ἱερά) and “to reveal” (φαίνω). While this can literally be the person who reveals to us what is holy (traditionally The Pope, as this card was often named in older Tarot decks), we can also view the Hierophant as anything which reveals to us “the values that we hold holy, so that we may forge our path according to them” (Charlie Claire Burgess). So, in a reading this card can be about tradition and custom, but also our own spiritual beliefs and values and how they guide our lives and decision making.

In addition, long before the Pope was on the scene, the Hierophant was the name given to the chief priest at the Eleusinian Mysteries, initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone in ancient Greece. The Mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades, and were observed in a cycle with three phases: the descent (loss), the search, and the ascent.

The most important theme was the ascent of Persephone back to our world and her joyful reunion with her mother – bringing about the first Spring. Given the High Priestess‘s strong links with Persephone, we can see that there is a clear relationship between the High Priestess and the Hierophant – the bringer-back-to-life goddess and the revealer of her mysteries here on Earth. As Maddy Elruna explains, “if the High Priestess is our experience of the divine (spirit/soul/unconscious), then the Hierophant is our understanding of it”. 

In my High Priestess post, I talked about how the High Priestess can be seen as a Tarot reader, but now I come to reflect on it, I think the High Priestess is the Tarot deck. The Hierophant is the Tarot reader.

An intuitive reading of the Tarot belongs to the High Priestess. But understanding and communicating the wisdom of the cards to others is the Hierophant’s gift. It is The Hierophant who allows us to decode, use, and explain to others the message of The High Priestess. The High Priestess, with all her guts and feelings and instinctive knowledge, is like an empathetic flow of consciousness. Without The Hierophant to help us structure and articulate our spirituality, without his wisdom to help us apply The High Priestess’ visions to real life, her raw mysticism is hard for us to harness and make use of.

Again, as a (fellow) teacher, it reminds me of Socrates who described teachers as ‘midwives of self-knowledge’. (Fun fact: Socrates’ mum was a midwife!) When Socrates’ student Theaetetus is anxious about finding a satisfactory answer to a philosophical question he is wrestling with, Socrates explains to him that the process of reaching a new understanding of the world is like the labour of child birthing, saying, “you have something within you which you are bringing to birth”. Socrates goes on to add that while Theatetus must labour alone – as anyone who’s given birth will know, no one else can help with the pushing, more’s the pity! – he can ask for the assistance of a “midwife”. Socrates is that midwife – while he can’t tell Thaetetus what to think, he can help him in his progress towards enlightenment. The Hierophant is also that midwife: our spiritual / religious / community leaders, our teachers and mentors – helping us to grow and better understand ourselves and our position in the world. Helping us to birth our own enlightenment.

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind”

Khalil Gibran, from ‘The Prophet’

Symbolism in The Hierophant Tarot Card

The RWS Hierophant is, as per usual, a visual feast of symbolism, with one of the most prominent symbols being the keys. Keys are such a core (key, lol) part of the Hierophant’s message that of my 120 odd decks (don’t judge me!), it’s unusual to find one that doesn’t feature them! The metaphor is pretty obvious – keys unlock things, and the Hierophant holds the keys to unlock spiritual knowledge and wisdom, the “keys to the kingdom of heaven”.

It’s also a metaphor we’ve often been exposed to as it’s deeply embedded into Christian imagery – gold and silver crossed keys are seen on the Papal coats of arms (those of individual popes), and those of the Holy See and Vatican City State. They represent the power given to Saint Peter by Christ to “bind and loose” in the Kingdom of Heaven, and thus stand for the Pope’s authority on Earth. The Catholic Church views the Pope as Pontifex (from pont- bridge and facere to make) – the bridge between the magical and the mundane. He is an intermediary figure, or translator, between God and man. In the Tarot, then, this card can represent anything that helps connect our daily lives and practices to something bigger than ourselves – be that our religion or spirituality, or our communities and ancestors.

The crossed keys can also be linked to Hades, who was another figure viewed as the holder of the keys to heaven (higher consciousness) and hell (unconscious or instinctual life). I really love how Maddy Elruna writes about the Hierophant’s keys – he’s offering them up to us! While he owns spiritual knowledge, he’s not hoarding it or keeping it all to himself. Instead he lays the keys before us in a gesture of giving. A true Hierophant will not just teach us, but will teach us well enough that we become self sufficient; we no longer walk in his footsteps but instead are able to think for ourselves with the critical skills he has imparted to us: “A true Hierophant will not keep the key secrets back, creating a co-dependency. He gives you the tools and knowledge to be independent”.

Many traditional Hierophant cards also feature a triple crown and a staff with a triple cross. In a straightforward sense, the Hierophant wears a triple crown and carries a triple cross because the (real) Pope does – and the Pope does so because Christianity loves a good trinity! The triregnum (papal triple crown) is also taken to signify the threefold pontifical power that is inferred upon a Pope during his coronation (father of kings, governor of the world, and vicar of Christ), and the triple cross signifies his three realms of religious authority: the church, the world, and heaven. It also calls back to pre-Christian thought, as the legendary figure of Hermes Trismesgistus (a sort of mash-up of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth) has a name that literally means ‘thrice crowned’ or ‘thrice great’ – ‘as great as can be’.

Much as I am categorically Not A Fan of organised religion, there’s no way round the fact that, in older decks, the Hierophant is clearly intended to be a religious figure, in all his pomp. The visuals of the crown and the sceptre smack you round the face with this fact, lol.

In ‘Tarot For Change‘, Jessica Dore argues that it’s important not to disconnect a modern interpretation of the Hierophant from his religious lineage. She believes that, no matter how far we may swing, individually or culturally, towards the pragmatic or scientific (or atheist), we “remain spiritual, meaning-making beings with an inclination towards the numinous… The Hierophant is and must be symbolic of spiritual life, of the engagement with and interpretation of the sacred, that which transcends the material realm”.

Maddy Elruna concedes that while the pomp – and therefore pompousness – of the card can be a bit off-putting, “there is nothing wrong with props and rituals, so long as you recognise them for what they are”. She points out that many people use ritual to get themselves in the right frame of mind to connect with their spiritual self and/or the divine. Our minds are so busy dealing with the everyday that sometimes it’s hard to enter sacred space without a few bells and whistles to get us in the mood.

I am always reminded of clients who sit down at my Tarot stall and immediately say “oh, I’m not good at shuffling!” when I ask them to shuffle, or look at me askance / doubt my claim to be a secular reader, when I ask them to cut the deck and pick the pile they’re most drawn to. For me the process of asking a client to shuffle and cut isn’t about demonstrating Vegas-style croupier skills or about ‘magic energies’ drawing us to a particular pile, it’s about the ritual of sitting, focusing, breathing, and doing a repetitive and purposeful action that stills the mind and narrows our attention – so we can better ask for the sort of support we’d like in our lives. A question you want to ask of the Tarot is a question about your life and happiness, and that is important. That deserves a little pomp!

As Meg Jones Wall explains, “there is a deep, strange, wonderful magic that dwells in repetitive rituals. We tap into something beyond ourselves when we echo words and actions that are older than we know, create and reinforce connections to past communities, bind ourselves to the sacred threads that were woven long before we were born”.

The traditional RWS card also features two clergymen, kneeling before the Hierophant (you can see them sneaking into frame in the Broken Mirror Tarot, above) – one dressed in red roses, one in white lilies. The white lilies are meant to represent our spiritual life, and the red roses our physical life, with red being the colour of the blood that carries all we need around our bodies. These two figures remind us that spiritual development requires the commitment of body and soul.

Finally, the Hierophant is classically depicted as sitting or standing between two pillars (the Tarot loves these two pillars! They also crop up in The High Priestess, Justice, Death, The Moon…) Waite describes these two pillars as Law and Liberty; they can also be seen as the pillars of Mercy and Severity. The pillar of mercy represents forgiveness for our wrongs. The pillar of severity represents the law of necessity – that we must reap what we sow (or, karma if you will!) Both are necessary for justice to be served.

The Hierophant is between the two (ah, yes, Tarot’s favourite theme: BALANCE!) He doesn’t pertain absolutely to either one, any more than the High Priestess pertains to either one of her pillars. As the ‘teacher’ of the deck, part of The Hierophant’s job is to teach opposites what they need to know about each other. He is the ‘Earth’ that is between Heaven and the Underworld, the middle path between reason and intuition. And without The Hierophant’s wisdom and, yes, pomp, such opposites can’t understand each other. The Hierophant, as Wang points out, is the one that everyone listens to. When he speaks, every one goes quiet and pays attention to what he has to say.

The Aeclectic Tarot website explains how this is a very important role. When things are going wrong in the world, it is The Hierophant who “wades in, quiets the panic, and offers good, practical advice, as well as spiritual assurances. He is the teacher, therapist, counsellor, advisor, priest, or rabbi. He [not only] answers questions people would ask of the divine, but also acts as the voice of the people, speaking for them as well as to them”.

The Old Ways Still Whisper: Positive aspects of the Hierophant in Tarot

Nevertheless, all the religiosity in traditional Hierophant cards can, understandably, elicit strong feelings in people who use Tarot cards. Some find it hard to dissociate the Hierophant from organised religions which they view as domineering, irrational, or even cruel (much as I struggle to see The Emperor as separate from the patriarchy). There can be a tendency, then, to interpret the Hierophant only by his potential negatives: “hidebound, literal, and stodgy” (Aeclectic Tarot). So I can definitely see why some decks choose to depict less conventional spiritual leaders, such as the three decks pictured below.

I really love these versions of the Hierophant that emphasise his [their] role as a fount of ancestral and community spiritual wisdom as opposed to the Pope (who always has a Very Important Religious Princeling no-one-accesses-the-divine-but-through-me kinda vibe to me). Both The Witches’ Wisdom Tarot and the Tarot of The Abyss have renamed the card as Wise One / Wisdom Keeper, and I am very here for this! The Hierophant is there to help you access your shared ancestral knowledge, not to act as a gatekeeper to spirituality/the divine. I also LOVE the idea of Hierophant as an ancestral stone circle from the Spacious Tarot – this so nearly made the cut as my absolute favourite card! So clever to link this spiritually resonant space to a general idea of community, learning, and mysticism.

These cards illustrate to us that when the Hierophant turns up in a reading he is often asking us to seek guidance. He reminds us that problems are much bigger than us as individuals, and we can’t always fix them alone. He stands for the power of the organisation, the benefit and wonder of being part of something bigger than yourself.

I really like the re-imagining of The Hierophant as ‘Ancestors’ in The Liberation Tarot (below), with its image of an octopus floating above the fossilised tracks of a slowworm. As the guidebook explains, “the ocean floor, the octopus, and the ancestral worm create an evolutionary dance across water and land… from above and below, the Ancestors remind us that wisdom is an inheritance to cultivate“. The Hierophant asks us to seek guidance, and embrace the wisdom passed down to us from those who came before. As Thirteen writes on the Aeclectic Tarot website, “remember where you came from: the traditions of your foremothers, the lessons of your faith, and you will know how to survive this crisis”.

Charlie Claire Burgess explains “tradition isn’t a static thing. It’s a living body of practice and knowledge that grows and changes over time”. Tradition is the practices, beliefs, value systems, and knowledge that came before us.  Tradition connects us to our culture and our lineage, “it’s grandma’s recipes, regional folk tales, and even how we celebrate birthdays…  Whether you’re a philosopher, plumber, drag queen, or nurse practitioner, you have learned your trade from the people who came before you. You have participated in, learned from, and likely built upon tradition”.  In The Gourmet Tarot “The Hierophant is depicted by a comforting and classic dish of lasagne, symbolising the importance of tradition, structure, and the passing down of knowledge through layers of generations“.

Many of us do have a deep respect, even reverence, for traditional practices, and the so-called ‘old ways’ of doing things. Where I live in the UK, people get very upset if a historic building is slated to be knocked down, or if the council wants to build a bus way through an ancient woodland. We often really appreciate old-fashioned craftmanship, praising someone who has handstitched a patchwork quilt just like our ancestors did, instead of buying a machine-made one.

When we view the message of the Hierophant as stuffy or old-fashioned, we forget that saying “this is the way it’s always been done” is something that we all value from time to time. As Meg Jones Wall reminds us, “there is… power in surveying what has always been, the old ways, the traditions. This is the turning of weathered pages, the aromas of incense and beeswax, the intersection of deep knowledge and rich insight: questions and answers, seeking and finding, expanding wisdom, and unpacking ideas”.

The card can also be a timely reminder that it can be a good idea to stick to approved methods because sometimes ‘the road less travelled’ is less travelled because it leads into a nasty, big swamp!

The Sacred Made Speakable: Spirtualism and the Hierophant in the Tarot

Jessica Dore thinks this connection to all that has come before us is a key part of the Hierophant’s message, and that, when we see this card, it is a reminder of the importance of spiritual practice: “spiritual practice is a way of practicing relationships; it’s how we position ourselves as at once important and not all-powerful. When we open the lines of communication between the self and something greater, we position ourselves to recall that we have a voice in things, but never the final say. This might feel frightening at first, but it can also be a relief. Because it takes a bit off the plate of who we understand as ‘I’ and opens us up to input from something beyond the sphere of our own influence. Even if your spiritual practice is just recognising in some way, each day, that there are things unfolding that you have no say in, that’s a way of honouring something greater.”

She goes on to explain that if we understand this, then when things don’t work out, we no longer have to automatically assume it’s because we’ve failed in some way, because we’ve messed up, or that the undesirable circumstance we find ourselves in is an indication of our worth or lovability or competence. In this sense, embracing The Hierophant’s message “gives us grace when things don’t go our way”. 

The Bottanical Deck has the Hierophant as a sacred fig. The creator writes that this tree holds religious significance for three major religions, “Buddhists believe Buddha attained enlightenment under a sacred fig, and Hindus and Jains… will also meditate and worship under the trees”.

I really like the idea of *nature* as being what bridges the gap between the mundane and the divine, and what helps us to feel connected to a wider community of wisdom. It reminds me of my absolute favourite Jesus saying (disclaimer: I am not Christian, but studied Christianity) from the non-canonical Gospel of St Thomas: “The Kingdom of God is inside you and outside you… Split a piece of wood, I am there. Lift up a rock, you will find me”.

The Universal Folk Tarot‘s Hierophant depicts a Fin Wife, pictured here with her shapeshifting fish cat, who is the real hero of the card, IMO! He lives with the Fin Wife on the land, but can deliver messages to her kin in the sea (Finfolkaheem). In this sense, the seal-cat, like the Hierophant, is a conduit between two realms (heaven/earth, land/sea). As well as the customary keys and crossed sceptre, the card shows a lighthouse where the Fin Wife lives, which “serves as a beacon to the wider community, who seek her out for counsel and guidance“.

Bakara Wintner points out the “non-negotiable need for community in spiritual work”. The Hierophant can be a sign that we need others around us and guidance we trust in order to progress. While a lot of the Tarot is concerned with our individual spiritual growth (e.g. the Hermit, the Hanged Man), the Hierophant reminds us that spirituality is a shared experience, not just a solitary journey. Ultimately most people are social animals who want to share our divine experiences, and this card reminds us of the value of doing that.

I love Jamie Sawyer’s depiction of The Hierophant as a teacher, educating the community, but conversely I also like the Slow Tarot. This Hierophant has all the trappings of organised Christian religion, but such a humble, kindly face and posture – Lacey Bryant is such a clever, nuanced artist! Here we can really see the Hierophant as the ‘bridge maker’ (pontifex) who unites outer experience with inner illumination. For me the doves and the pigeons show that this unifying force is love (of which the dove is a classic symbol), and that love is open to even us lowly sky rat pigeons, not just the pure white pedigree doves, haha.

“A stranger can go into any church or mosque or temple they belong to, almost anywhere in the world, and feel not like a stranger, but a part of the community. Because the prayers are all the same, and the traditions are all the same. Or think on your own family, the morals, ethics and traditions that your parents passed down to you, and that you will pass down to your kids. The ones you respect and want to maintain – be it making something by hand or reading from a certain story book on a certain day every year. These unite the generations, and keep the family together. This is the realm of the Hierophant”.

Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot Website

By The Book: Learning from the Hierophant card

In ‘Wild Card‘, Jen Cownie and Fiona Lensvelt point out that while the High Priestess is about the subtle,  intuitive knowledge we are all born with, the Hierophant is about applied learning – the kind of knowledge we have to make a conscious decision to gain. If you’re preparing for an exam, the Hierophant represents the materials and work of studying – the books, the memory exercises, the effort. This card “speaks to the fact that almost anything can be learnt, and that there is nearly always someone or something to show you the way”.

This resonates with me, and so I love Hierophant cards that place an emphasis on books as a way of showing shared collective wisdom. Note that all of the books shown below are open; the secrets are there to be read by all.

The card’s message also stresses the importance of really absorbing the knowledge we acquire. It’s easy to learn something and then move on so quickly that we don’t ever really integrate it into our lives. This card is a reminder to make sure that our learning goes beyond the intellect, and that we find a way to integrate that into our life and our own world view – make it part of our everyday practices.

The Way, The Truth, The Light: The Hierophant card and Light Work in the Tarot

I also like Hierophant cards that veer a little into the Hermit‘s territory, with the depiction of community knowledge/wisdom as light, or a candle as in the Twice Told Tarot. Similarly, the Holloway Tarot shows the handing of knowledge, or light, from one hand to another (although I’m sure there’s a creepy Nightvale message here too!), and the TrueBlack Tarot shows the idea of the Hierophant as the missing piece to unlock the puzzle of (luminous) collective knowledge.

Sometimes The Hierophant can be about following this light: doing the right thing even if it feels ‘stuffy’ or old-fashioned, not taking short cuts, not cheating even if you think you’re certain not to be found out. Integrity. Honour.

Bad Faith: The Hierophant and Shadow Work

While I generally take a positive view of The Hierophant, like all cards in the deck he has a shadow side. Sometimes he can represent people in our lives who preach by the book in a way that’s so rigid it’s harmful – who refuse to deviate even fractionally from the old-fashioned ways of doing things.

The Aeclectic Tarot website reminds us that such “irascible, orthodox types are usually acting out of fear – they’re terrified that any change will weaken the community and its faith. This is ironic, as… traditions are meant to erase fear and create peace and harmony, not generate more fear”. The Hierophant could appear as a reminder that the aim of traditions is not to follow them by rote, but to use them to keep alive the spirit and faith of a people. He can also be a warning to us not to be too stubborn, too fearful of change, particularly in matters of our spiritual beliefs or our traditional cultural customs and practices.

Jen Cownie and Fiona Lensvelt point out that “the other thing about rules – and indeed about Rome – is you need to know when to break with them. The Hierophant is a reminder that understanding the status quo is a pre-requisite for challenging it…  If you’re tying to break tradition, shatter a glass ceiling, or just chat to your grandad about politics, you may find yourself up against a great deal of resistance. The hardest part of encountering the Hierophant is knowing whether you should work with him, push against him, or throw him in the bin.”

The card can draw our attention to the importance of being mindful whose counsel we keep and who we give spiritual authority to. As Charlie Claire Burgess explains, “the systems we look to for meaning matter, and it’s in how we engage with these systems to define our values and guide our actions – in other words, what we make of them – that all the grace and all the trouble lie”.

The Delta Enduring Tarot‘s two faced Hierophant highlights this, with the guidebook explaining “the Hierophant, like the people, is still human, and as his second face suggests, equally privy to his human faults”.

Likewise, the spooky Hierophant in The Lubanko Tarot, with his mask slipping and his many hands all clawed and bloodied points to the dark side of this card. The artist and creator E. Lubanko writes “the mask is hypnotic, but reveals intentions not overtly stated. It extends hands of blessing and knowledge, but do we let its hands touch our own? Does the knowledge contained in the books strengthen or bind us?” Lubanko reminds us that “the history society and tradition shows a history of power”, and that power has served to oppress many.

The Hierophant FAQs

.

.

.

Works Cited

Burgess, C. C. (2023). Radical Tarot: Queer the Cards, Liberate Your Practice and Create the Future. Hay House.
Cownie, J. & Lensvelt, F. (2022). Wild Card: Let the Tarot Tell Your Story. Bluebird.
Dore, J. (2021). Tarot for Change. Hay House.
Elruna, M. (2022). Tarot: A Life Guided by the Cards. Matador.
Jones Wall, M. (2023). Finding the Fool: A Tarot Journey to Radical Transformation. Weiser.
Plato. (1992). Theaetetus (M. J. Levett, Trans.; revised by M. Burnyeat). Hackett Publishing. (Original work published ca. 369 BCE)
Wang, R. (1983). The Qabalistic Tarot Book: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy. Red Wheel / Weiser.
Wintner, B. (2017). WTF is Tarot? And How Do I Do It? Page Street Publishing.