The Hierophant — “Structure Versus Control”

The card of rules

The Hierophant is a card of spiritual growth. A card of the past. Tradition, conservatism, learning and education, working in a group. Following higher principles. Your own ethics and morals. Knowledge from people with authority, wanting to understand the rules and how things are done. Growing up by taking in other people’s experience and learning from it.

On the path of the Major Arcana, the Hierophant comes after the Emperor. By now a person can do a lot on their own. But a new question comes up: “What am I actually building my life on?” This is when a person stops just living and acting and starts looking for a system that explains life to them.

But the card has a shadow side: being a bore, pushing your values and morals on others, blindly following rules that no longer work. Or deception, charlatanism.

The same structure can hold a person up — or choke them.

When rules choke

A woman once came to me with a question: I want to understand what’s going on with my husband, with his mind, what’s wrong with him. Maybe everything I’ve done isn’t the help he needs.

The first card down was the Hierophant. As if he had built a clear picture of the world earlier on, with firm beliefs about how a family should be. He had probably spent a long time trying to play that role and follow those rules.

Next to it came the Moon: fear about the future — what’s next, where do I go? He can’t see the path as a whole. There’s a strong inner conflict in him, a lot of uncertainty, suppressed feelings, fear. And the Eight of Cups: he is most likely leaving this relationship, or will leave it, because he thinks it has burned out.

That’s what a structure looks like once it stops holding: a person lives for a long time by the rules, the way things “should be,” and then can’t do it any more.

The teacher

The Hierophant is also a teacher. The card points to an adviser or mentor who can help resolve a crisis.

For about a year I couldn’t find a tarot teacher I wanted to learn from myself. I went to one tarot seminar but decided not to study with that teacher. Then for a long time I watched tarot readers online and asked friends where and how they had learned — but something kept stopping me. The turning point came in Thailand: “I was amazed that in Thailand people read tarot everywhere, out in the open, and it’s completely normal — a very social thing.” I took it as a sign that I needed to find my teacher as soon as possible and start learning.

What I choose from all this

The Hierophant says: “Here are the knowledge, rules, traditions and values that exist.” And right after him come the Lovers, asking: “Fine. But which of these do I actually choose?”

Structure is there to lean on. But it can’t live your life for you.