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The Pope and the Hierophant: Tarot in the New Aeon
It’s often said that humans are machines of pattern recognition, inventing meaning in the randomness of chaos. It’s the principle argument of skeptics and detractors of the occult, a chief commandment of atheism. Yet it hasn’t stopped millions of human minds from seeking wisdom in these patterns, many of which predate our written histories. Archetypes and allegories teach us about people, events, and imperatives that contribute to our development as both individuals and members of society at large.
We see this play out in tarot. What began as a simple playing card game became a deeply nuanced system of symbolic language with the addition of the Triumphs (later Trumps). In gameplay, they mimicked the constant domination and submission of characters and events: the Triumph of Love as a parade of brilliance and beauty, the Triumph of Death indiscriminate of status or wealth, the Triumph of Eternity and the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom. But to occultists like Jean-Baptiste Alliette, better known as Etteilla, they were encapsulations of astrological and alchemical imperatives. Etteilla and his School saw larger cosmic patterns in tarot that changed not only their use, but the cards themselves: tarot was no longer simply a plaything or pastime — it would forevermore be a tool of inner wisdom.
When we discussed the Hierophant at the beginning of this year, we focused mainly on his role as spiritual bureaucrat, a holdover from his position as the Pope in older decks. To understand the evolution of this card and unravel its astrological association with Taurus, we need to start with Eliphas Levi. Like Etteilla before him, Levi saw the tarot as symbolic of the magical path. Each card in the Major Arcana — or Grand Secret — related explicitly to a pathway along the Tree of Life, embodying unique lessons for the seeker. Levi saw no coincidence in the number of Trumps — certainly, the 22 cards corresponded with the 22 letters of the Aleph Bet, a cornerstone of Kabbalistic tradition. In his work with the Tarot de Marseilles Levi linked the Pope to the letter Heh, the fifth card to the fifth letter. In the mystic traditions, Heh is a composite letter representing both the material and the spiritual — each stroke works together to unify our experience of the divine with the world around us: its topmost horizontal stroke…
