The Hierophant

The 5th Key

Colour: Red Orange
Sound: C Sharp
Sign: Taurus (Fixed Earth)
SIMPLE LETTER: Hearing

This is the Path between Mercy and Wisdom. The earthy aspect of the Garden of Eden. The rhythm of the Hierophant is such that it moves at intervals of 2000 years.

It the opposite of the Chariot, the vehicle. It is the celestial road on which the Chariot rides, the foundation of the process of revelation. Attributed to this card is Taurus which is fixed earth and therefore this is a stable foundation. It forms the base of experience between the Spiritual Self and Ego of Beauty of which memory is one aspect.

Also attributed to the Hierophant is the nail or hook which binds things together thus unifying the microcosm with the macrocosm. All that we are is tied to the divine spirit. The intelligent energy which binds the pure inner Spirit to the outer aspects of manifestation and is also the source of our understanding of that inner Spirit. He is our teacher.

The act of hearing is depicted by the two figures kneeling before the pope. These are the opposite aspects of ourselves in the human condition, united in their listening attention to the universal teacher. They represent the Sun and Moon currents of the body. Reason and intuition, consciousness and subconsciousness. What is heard is the law expounded by the Hierophant via the word which is creation. To understand the universe is to hear the word. A lot can be said about what is considered to be the law. In Gnosticism, the pope has sinister undertones, being linked to the Demiurge of the Old Testament. The Demiurge is said to have invented conventional religion and morality to keep men enslaved to him by inducing them to worship and obey his laws.

The Hierophant is the administrator of the duality which emerges with Wisdom, is structured by Understanding and which begins as manifestation below the abyss in Mercy.

The Hierophant is on the feeling side of the Tree of Life and thus we learn its lessons through intuition whilst on the Path of the Chariot we learn through intellect. Here concepts are collected by reason and built up by memory.

Taken in descending order, the trump cards from the Fool to the Hierophant recall the accounts of the creation of the Universe. In the beginning there was one that became two by thinking, so that there was a mind and a thought. The Fool is the divine mind, the Hierophant the thought in its original purity and the Empress the thought after it is impregnated by the mind to become the mother of all the lower worlds. She is at the root of the Hierophant's teachings.