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More Major Arcana Cards:
0 - The Fool
1 - The Magician
2 - The High Priestess
3 - The Empress
4 - The Emperor
5 - The Hierophant
6 - The Lovers
7 - The Chariot
8 - Strength
9 - The Hermit
10 - Wheel of Fortune
11 - Justice
12 - The Hanged Man
13 - Death
14 - Temperance
15 - The Devil
16 - The Tower
17 - The Star
18 - The Moon
19 - The Sun
20 - Judgement
21 - The World

Other Tarot Cards:
Suit of Cups
Suit of Pentacles
Suit of Swords
Suit of Wands

 

5 - The Hierophant

The Hierophant is usually depicted as a person in the office of an establish religion.
For example, the Robin Wood Tarot Deck clearly depicts the Hierophant as a christian bishop. In some Tarot Decks, "The Hierophant" card is called "The Pope" card.

Regardless of the religion, faith, or philosophy illustrated on the card (if any), the Tarot Hierophant is generally considered to be a protector of ancient cultures, traditions, and established practices concerning faith, spirituality, and wisdom.

In some Tarot Decks, the Hierophant is portrayed harshly and so is interpreted by some readers as representing "rigid dogma" and the authoritarian aspects of organized religion. However, to others such interpretation would be a gross over-simplification because the Hierophant can also refer to our ability to balance the physical and spiritual aspects of life, and to develop moral codes.

The presence of the Hierophant in a spread can indicate a variety of concepts (incl. for e.g. tradition, servitude, ritual, mythology, dogma, the interaction of the physical world with that of spirit, metaphysics) depending on his position in the spead and the reader's intuition in that particular case.

 

The Major Arcana cards are thought to be the most powerful cards in the Tarot. They tell a complete story when arranged in upright and numerical order. It is a story of development and enlightenment, sometimes called "The Fool's Journey".

Some texts include meanings for "reversed cards", which apply when the cards are shuffled in both order and orientation. This doubles the number of possible "cards" in the deck from 78 to 156. (In terms of the probabilities of obtaining results by chance alone, it is not a simple doubling as once a card has been drawn it cannot be selected again in the opposite orientation in the same reading.)

Why doesn't this page include a picture of this Tarot Card ?