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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.
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The cards of the Major Arcana are widely considered to be the
most powerful cards in the Tarot Deck. The 22 cards of the Major
Arcana tell a complete story when arranged in upright and numerical
order (beginning with The
Fool). This is a story of of development and enlightenment
and is sometimes referred to as "The Fool's Journey".
Some texts also include meanings for "reversed
cards". These
are for the situation in which the cards are shuffled in both
order and orientation. The theoretical advantage to this is that
it effectively doubles the number of possible "cards" in
the deck from 78 to 156. (However, in terms of the calculation
of obtaining results according to chance alone, it is not a simple
mathematical doubling because once a card
has been
drawn
it
cannot be drawn
again in the opposite orientation in the same reading.) |
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