The Hierophant: keys at the feet

Start with the picture: a sign above the seat, keys below it

Waite opens the Hierophant with crown and pillars. He wears the triple crown and is seated between two pillars, but they are not those of the Temple which is guarded by the High Priestess. In his left hand he holds a sceptre terminating in the triple cross, and with his right hand he gives the well-known ecclesiastical sign which is called that of esotericism, distinguishing between the manifest and concealed part of doctrine. At his feet are the crossed keys, and two priestly ministers in albs kneel before him. He adds that the figure has usually been called the Pope, a particular application of the more general office that he symbolizes.

Open the full-size diagram

The Hierophant: BaZiFlow's card with three prompts

Check the Rider-Waite-Smith card and most of it is there: the Roman numeral V at the top and grey pillars at the sides; a figure in a tall tiered crown and a red robe, a long white band with crosses hanging at his chest; one hand raised in a gesture and the other holding the triple-cross staff; a pair of crossed golden keys at his feet, and two figures with tonsured heads, seen from behind, kneeling at either side in patterned vestments. The picture falls into three places: crown and hand on the seat, staff and pillars at the side, keys and kneelers below.

What Waite lists: a group of bonds, and mercy and inspiration by another account

The Hierophant's divinatory meaning reads: marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude; by another account, mercy and goodness; inspiration; the man to whom the Querent has recourse. Reversed: society, good understanding, concord, over-kindness, weakness.

Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude; by another account, mercy and goodness; inspiration; the man to whom the Querent has recourse. Reversed: Society, good understanding, concord, over-kindness, weakness.

The main line reads as a group of bonds: marriage and alliance bind together, captivity and servitude are being bound, and both ends sit on the same line. The "other account" turns toward giving, while the reversed column leans toward loosening: society, accord, concord, and then, with over-kindness and weakness, loosening too far. That grouping is this article's summary, and Waite does not divide them this way.

One more pair to set side by side: in Part II Waite says plainly that the Hierophant is not inspiration, yet the "other account" in Part III lists inspiration. One passage defines the symbol, the other lists divinatory terms, so say which one you are quoting.

Triple crown, gesture and keys: the line Waite draws

Waite's Part II on the Hierophant is mostly about drawing a boundary. He complains that the card's meanings have suffered woeful admixture from nearly all hands, quotes a commentator, Grand Orient, who "says truly" that the Hierophant is the power of the keys, exoteric orthodox doctrine and the outer side of the life that leads to the doctrine, and corrects another commentator: he is certainly not the prince of occult doctrine. He is rather the summa of theology when it has passed into the utmost rigidity of expression, yet he symbolizes all things righteous and sacred on the manifest side, the channel of grace belonging to the world of institution as distinct from that of Nature, and the leader of salvation for the human race at large.

Reading the keys as "ways in" and the kneeling figures as "those who receive a tradition" is a metaphor modern teaching has lent the picture; it is not in Waite's text, so give its origin when you use it.

How to read it: a sign and what it points to, then one key

Waite leaves a warning in the Hierophant entry: the pontiff may forget the significance of his symbolic state and act as if he contained within his proper measures all that his sign signifies. That sentence is already a practice form: a sign is not the thing it points to. Before a move, with one drawer of old things, it works like this.

1. 1

   This is a sign: what does it point to?

   Write item by item whom it points to, and which stretch of life or which event. If you cannot write what it points to, it is probably just taking up room.

2. 2

   Does what it points to outlast it?

   Do not assume that giving it away means losing the memory. Try keeping the pointed-to thing another way: a photograph, a few written lines, a phone call.

3. 3

   For each kind, which one is the key?

   The keys lie crossed at his feet. In teaching the image is borrowed: keep for each kind of object the one that best "opens" that memory. This is a borrowing, not Waite's sentence.

An example: before a move, sort the bottom drawer of a desk, asking all three questions of three old things:

Reversed and neighboring cards: concord and weakness, and three cards on "seat" and "key"

The Hierophant's reversed words follow straight after the upright ones in the same entry:

Society, good understanding, concord, over-kindness, weakness.

The first three words lean harmonious and the last two lean excessive, so say first which half a reading draws on.