Letter: Heh (E) = Aries
Path: Between Keter and Chakhmah
Quality: House of Life
Trump 5 is the High Priest of every lineage, the master of the doctrine of correspondences. He is also the headmaster of the temple university, setting the curriculum and choosing the students. He wears the triple crown and enacts the role of Hermes/Mercurius (the Philosopher’s Stone), separating out the ascending, expanding influences (Sun, Mars, and Venus, with Elements Fire and Air, thumbs up) from the descending, consolidating influences (Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn, with Elements Water and Earth, thumbs down).
Hierophant is the role for which the soul is being prepared and tutored by Sophia. The person who wears the mitre assumes political and administrative responsibilities of a cosmic nature. As antithesis to the Emperor’s thesis in this fiery responsive triangle, the Hierophant departs from the sensuality and worldliness of the court to establish the medieval institution of the “holy hill”: a cathedral with a monastery, a bookbinding operation, and a university attached.
This High Priest or Pope transmits the Mysteries, opening his students to a new dimension of awareness. His position in the receptive trine is analogous to that of the High Priestess in the active trine; but instead of working with consciousness born from the pure interior life, his gift is the consciousness generated from studies of the historical Mysteries. She uses her time at the altar to cement her communion with God, but the Hierophant is more attached to the symbols of the Arcana: the letters and numbers, the charts and glyphs of Astrology, the alchemical and Kabbalistic concepts.
Where the Popess occupies the inner sanctum, attuning her consciousness to the harmonic proportions of the holy shrine, the High Priest faces the outer temple, seeking those who could become initiates and inviting them to the Mysteries. The Hierophant faces down the test of technical transmission every day. The intelligence of the body is a pristine gift of Nature, but it is largely unconscious and inarticulate.
The Hierophant trains people to penetrate that obscurity and bring the unconscious into consciousness. Having gained voluntary control over his bodily energies, this Pope can shift his life force at will, from interior to exterior, active to receptive at need. This is why he is associated with the sign Aries: He has been reborn through the mystery teachings to live simultaneously in both worlds, the temporal and the eternal.
He uses the doctrine of in both worlds, the temporal and the eternal. He uses the doctrine of correspondences to work the energy world like a Taoist or a martial artist, simultaneously tracking subtle energies while operating on multiple realities. This Trump provides the Magus with his first formal teacher, who administers the program of established tradition impartially.
His school is a boot camp of sorts, but in this case the goal is to awaken the spiritual faculties. The Hierophant winnows out the psychically-gifted from those whose mentality or emotionality interfere with their intuition. As he comes to understand the strengths and special gifts of his students, the Hierophant will reassign the natural empaths for further tutoring with the High Priestess.
Those who are intuitively denser and less transparent will stay with him to fill out the functional ranks of the outer church. Such people keep the temple running and administer the social services that churches have historically provided.
The Hierophant performs this sorting and sifting process under our gaze. At the top of the image in the Hierophant’s astral laboratory, he separates the subtle from the gross. Wearing Hermes’ triple crown, he balances the Lights around the summer signs. I mean this literally: Mercury who is Hermes (ruler of Gemini/Virgo) balances the Lights (Moon/Cancer and Sun/Leo) around the Summer Solstice. These are the most active times of the year for the alchemical work.
The above text is an excerpt from our book Tarot of the Holy Light: A Continental Esoteric Tarot - Volume One.
