lark
LOL.firemaiden said:
Not good.
Sorry.
I think at least for me all associations to a specific group, religion, or person are out.
Is the Hierophant a Dictator?
Not good.
Sorry.
I think at least for me all associations to a specific group, religion, or person are out.
lark
I think we have never really seen a true human Hierophant in our world history.
Maybe that is why it is so hard to define him/her.
Maybe that is why it is so hard to define him/her.
Satori
lark said:LOL.
Not good.
Sorry.
I think at least for me all associations to a specific group, religion, or person are out.
The thing is Lark, I don't really care what people specifically feel about the Dalai Lama, the idea is to look at what we have, where it lies on the spectrum and see that we don't just have to work within the emotional response we get from the picture of the card.
Satori
lark said:
Hmm.
I do think that there are some humble folk out there who don't make headlines who would qualify as Hierophants. But they don't move the masses, just their families or extended communities. And they are wise and spiritual and leaders...and maybe mothers and fathers or local leaders.
At what point is the Hierophant quantifiable.
Perhaps if we change the word to Avatar...?
Thing is, we just don't know what a real Hierophant would look like.
It is going to be different for every single one of us.
My Hierophant may be your maniac.
lark
I don't really understand...elf said:
The pictures are there to evoke an emotional response.
If the Dali Lama was used he would represent certain things to certain people.
I like what you said about the Hierophant being the god or goddess in your own heart....
But neither the Pope or the Dalai Lama express that to me.
To me that would be a picture of me with a big ray of light coming out of my heart.
I am only one person with one set of experiences and not to take this thread way off track, but here it is in a nut shell.
As bad and sometimes cruel as my childhood associations with religion were they served a purpose...they taught a lesson.
And I don't know if I can put this in the right words but...the way I see the Hierophant is the way I am supposed to see him...it is my personal connection to him...and it is what I am ment to bring to the people I read for...if someone needs a different view..they will be lead to a different reader.
And that is what I truly believe...and I believe that is true of everyone of us here who read.
And why our takes on him are so different.
Nevada
I so agree that the image is very often the wrong image, at least for me.
Elf, I remember also being amazed to see the Pope in the RWS decks, after starting out with Voyager and then Thoth. The Marseilles card was a great shock to me. Anything related to Catholicism, in fact, has some negative connotations for me, mainly because it's a foreign religion to me, even though many family and friends follow it. That's something you have to grow up with or become indoctrinated in to understand. I remember when Vatican II came through and my cousins were so excited they could do things that I'd been able to do all along, and I just thought what a constrictive religion. It didn't make sense to me, things like not eating meat on Fridays, and all that. Someone speaking in Latin every Sunday? I was happy for them that had ended, but I still didn't see the point.
Additionally, my most unhappy year in school was when we first moved into a Catholic neighborhood and I felt completely alienated by the other kids. That didn't stem entirely from religion, but it was a big part of it because they all went to the same church, and I didn't, so it was just another difference, another thing to feel outcast for.
I wouldn't mind the Dalai Lama or Buddha, for myself, but I can see how some people would be as put off by that as I am by the Pope.
One of my favorite V cards now is the Osho Zen, No-Thingness--simply a black card, no visible image. I can insert (in my mind) whatever I think belongs there.
Nevada
Elf, I remember also being amazed to see the Pope in the RWS decks, after starting out with Voyager and then Thoth. The Marseilles card was a great shock to me. Anything related to Catholicism, in fact, has some negative connotations for me, mainly because it's a foreign religion to me, even though many family and friends follow it. That's something you have to grow up with or become indoctrinated in to understand. I remember when Vatican II came through and my cousins were so excited they could do things that I'd been able to do all along, and I just thought what a constrictive religion. It didn't make sense to me, things like not eating meat on Fridays, and all that. Someone speaking in Latin every Sunday? I was happy for them that had ended, but I still didn't see the point.
Additionally, my most unhappy year in school was when we first moved into a Catholic neighborhood and I felt completely alienated by the other kids. That didn't stem entirely from religion, but it was a big part of it because they all went to the same church, and I didn't, so it was just another difference, another thing to feel outcast for.
I wouldn't mind the Dalai Lama or Buddha, for myself, but I can see how some people would be as put off by that as I am by the Pope.
One of my favorite V cards now is the Osho Zen, No-Thingness--simply a black card, no visible image. I can insert (in my mind) whatever I think belongs there.
Nevada
Satori
lark, I agree with what you are saying. I agree that we see the cards a certain way and that people come to us for the reasons you state.
I also know that I have been changing the way I see things over the years, changing the way the cards come up for me, as I heal my inner self, my conflicts and struggles. As I navigate the Tarot, and progress on the path thru spiritual growth.
All I'm saying is that you may further heal the view you have of that ruby and that is part of the path. Or, perhaps you have healed and the perspective you hold now is the endpoint. I don't know!
I find this discussion and the twists and turns it has taken as a sort of Hierophants journey. Each of us could be the children at the feet of the Hierophant...and since God's face is inscrutuble perhaps we are all right now trading places and acting as Hierophant and petitioner. Because each of us has something to offer up and to teach.
I wouldn't mind a card of you with beautiful light coming out of your heart as Hierophant....send it to me if you ever create one!
I also know that I have been changing the way I see things over the years, changing the way the cards come up for me, as I heal my inner self, my conflicts and struggles. As I navigate the Tarot, and progress on the path thru spiritual growth.
All I'm saying is that you may further heal the view you have of that ruby and that is part of the path. Or, perhaps you have healed and the perspective you hold now is the endpoint. I don't know!
I find this discussion and the twists and turns it has taken as a sort of Hierophants journey. Each of us could be the children at the feet of the Hierophant...and since God's face is inscrutuble perhaps we are all right now trading places and acting as Hierophant and petitioner. Because each of us has something to offer up and to teach.
I wouldn't mind a card of you with beautiful light coming out of your heart as Hierophant....send it to me if you ever create one!
earth en lady
elf said:
I couldn't agree more Elf
I am also thinking of that saying when the pupil is ready the teacher will come ,which doesn't fit in with our current social situation as we are all pressganged and pushed into schools or religions in our youth which can cause a lot of damage .
All we can do is keep on seeking for our own truth and if we are lucky enough to find a path that resonates with the soul we can also find others who already travel the path and can open out more too us educate us help us grow into ourselves . I think one of the factors in the Heirophant is that it should be something your heart believes in a path with heart .
An Education
An Initiation................
lovedeathmagick
I have always chosen to look at both he Hierophant and Emporer as characters of outstanding social achievement with both distinctions and similarities.
I see the Emporor being more unified as the spirit of outstanding social achievement ruling over the spiritual bodies of a collective majority. Where I see the emporer ruling over spiritual bodies, I only see the Hierophant ruling over the spirit, not the body, of the collective majority. For this reason I see the Emporer holding more of a connection to the common man than the Hierophant, and I see the Hierophant describing things that could be generally applied to the spiritual nature of every living organism. If both were management types, the Emporer would specialize in one given field while the Hierophant would be more flexible.
Nonetheless, both appear to me as characters of outstanding achievement and both rule over the collective majority as opposed to the individual.
In Legend: The Authorian Tarot the Hierophant is richly decorated by golden ornaments because he has the power influence the present with the past. In the Robin Wood Tarot the Hierophant, to me at least, is presented as a humiliator inflicting younger generations with the pain of outmoded belief systems. I prefer to think of it in terms of the former of the two. It seems more astrologically tact to me as well. The Hierophant rewards the spirit with positions that can neither bee seen nor touched. Still it is a reward that enriches the spirit. I often feel that richness when looking at the hierophant. I suppose it would not really bother me if it were guilded pomp or a line of subservient businessmen leaping through a plasma mask and into a promotion.
I see the Emporor being more unified as the spirit of outstanding social achievement ruling over the spiritual bodies of a collective majority. Where I see the emporer ruling over spiritual bodies, I only see the Hierophant ruling over the spirit, not the body, of the collective majority. For this reason I see the Emporer holding more of a connection to the common man than the Hierophant, and I see the Hierophant describing things that could be generally applied to the spiritual nature of every living organism. If both were management types, the Emporer would specialize in one given field while the Hierophant would be more flexible.
Nonetheless, both appear to me as characters of outstanding achievement and both rule over the collective majority as opposed to the individual.
In Legend: The Authorian Tarot the Hierophant is richly decorated by golden ornaments because he has the power influence the present with the past. In the Robin Wood Tarot the Hierophant, to me at least, is presented as a humiliator inflicting younger generations with the pain of outmoded belief systems. I prefer to think of it in terms of the former of the two. It seems more astrologically tact to me as well. The Hierophant rewards the spirit with positions that can neither bee seen nor touched. Still it is a reward that enriches the spirit. I often feel that richness when looking at the hierophant. I suppose it would not really bother me if it were guilded pomp or a line of subservient businessmen leaping through a plasma mask and into a promotion.
Alissa
I know someone will start throwing tomatoes at me for saying this...
...but anyone else but me notice that the pronoun "he" is the gender that 99.9% of us have used in this thread? (Yes yes, I know, RWS is a male, after all.)
And yet, as Tarotists, we know the elemental connotations attributed to the Male principle (yang, active, light) and the Female principle (yin, passive, dark) are vastly different.
How much of what we express here comes from gender associations?
My favorite Hierophant comes from the Shapeshifters, a woman who holds a hand over a book, as she shapeshifts into an elephant. Is she a Dictator? Leader? Inspiration to her community? Is she studying to advance herself, or her community... or both?
What about when the Hierophant isn't a person at all, can the Hierophant be called a dictator then? Is a book a dictator? Is the Hierophant really a personage, ever? Or is it a person who embodies an ideal of Knowledge to us - like a beloved college professor who knows the subject we study inside and out, a walking encyclopedia?
(I can't answer these questions, and to me, yes a book could be a dictator when its used for several millenium to enforce an idea).
...but anyone else but me notice that the pronoun "he" is the gender that 99.9% of us have used in this thread? (Yes yes, I know, RWS is a male, after all.)
And yet, as Tarotists, we know the elemental connotations attributed to the Male principle (yang, active, light) and the Female principle (yin, passive, dark) are vastly different.
How much of what we express here comes from gender associations?
My favorite Hierophant comes from the Shapeshifters, a woman who holds a hand over a book, as she shapeshifts into an elephant. Is she a Dictator? Leader? Inspiration to her community? Is she studying to advance herself, or her community... or both?
What about when the Hierophant isn't a person at all, can the Hierophant be called a dictator then? Is a book a dictator? Is the Hierophant really a personage, ever? Or is it a person who embodies an ideal of Knowledge to us - like a beloved college professor who knows the subject we study inside and out, a walking encyclopedia?
(I can't answer these questions, and to me, yes a book could be a dictator when its used for several millenium to enforce an idea).
