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The Significator of the Mind: The Heirophant

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What is most striking about this particular card is that there is a box within a box: The pillars the High Priestess sits between have nothing above and below, but the pillars that the Heirophant sits between have both foundation and shelter. Thus there is a box (the illusion to which the Heirophant subscribes) within a box (the illusion within which the Heirophant operates).

We know from looking at Archetype 7 that the larger box is the physical illusion and that it moves as the Significator of the Mind grows and evolves. In this sector of the Universe, the Significator of the Mind is predicated upon the veiling process, so without the illusion of separation, the Significator could not even exist as a Creator independent from other incarnations and thus could not be capable of making its own choices freely.

We also know from our own experiences that the smaller box is representative of the belief system within which one chooses to operate. The larger box is an illusion chosen before incarnation in order that the Significator may experience freedom. The smaller box, however, is an illusion chosen during incarnation so that the Significator may Create. This smaller box is both a Creation of the Significator and the stuff of which the Significator is made. This box is the replica which you have generated within your own mind of the larger box that surrounds you, and, as such, it is what grounds you within the illusion. I like to think of the smaller box as the theory and the larger box as the reality, and every good theorist knows that the whole point is to make the theory match the reality. Ra says in 92.18 that even in newborn babies, the Significator of the Mind is a storehouse for biases. What could a mental bias be except a belief? The mind is mired in belief since birth and this fact is clearly depicted by the small box attached to the Heirophant.

This is another card in which the arms are very significant in my view. The right hand makes the magical gesture, suggesting that the mind is actively and constantly creating/projecting the body (which includes the environment, by the way), while the left hand absorbs from the structure upon which the Heirophant stands. While Ra points out the significance of these hands in relation to the right and left hand paths, I think that there is even more significance to them. The right hand is the giving hand, while the left hand is the receiving hand, so it appears that the Heirophant is receiving something through the staff in the left hand and giving something through the magical gesture of the right. If we reflect on the nature of the previous 4 archetypes, which I have called the turning gears of the Significator, we will notice that what is received is information from the self through our interaction with the illusion, and what is given is the act of Creation which generates the body from the mind (recall that the “body is the creature of the mind”). So it appears that the Heirophant receives information from itself through the mechanisms of the physical illusion, it processes them through its belief system, then it projects the results back into the physical illusion.

As Ra also points out in 97.16 , the figures which serve the Heirophant are the aspects of the illusion which offer seemingly positive and negative experience. What seems to be positive (wealth, security, pleasure) often serves the STS entity, while what seems to be negative (poverty, loss, pain) often serves the STO entity.

Ra makes much significance of the “cartouches” beneath the Heirophant, stating that they not only signify the octaves and sub-octaves of 3-d experience, but that the symbols on them also have verbal meaning approximated by the phrase “And you shall be born again to eternal life”. This Heirophant is constantly revealing information to itself about itself, and this information can be categorized into information regarding each of the energy centers. That these energy centers have sub-octaves is no surprise, nor is it a surprise that they fall within a larger octave (consider, for example, that each of the seven bodies has all seven energy centers). But the phrase (which I think is a paraphrase of something Christ said) suggests a connection here to the wings above the Heirophant. Ra says in 99.7 that “the outstretched wings of spirit, high above manifestation, yet draw the caged mind onward,” which suggests that should the Heirophant follow where the wings seem to lead, he will be born again into eternal life. It is also relevant to observe that harvestability only requires the green-ray chakra to be opened. This means that a harvestable entity (ready to be born again into eternal life) need not move very far through the evolutions of the spirit or even the body. For learning to love the self (and the other self) happens in the evolutions of the mind. It is for this reason that the Mind Cycle can be seen as the fundamental and most critical realm of transformation within all of 3-D. This fact is evident when one considers that the Body Cycle is heavily involved with balancing love and wisdom (i.e. balancing green and blue ray with each other), and the Spirit Cycle is heavily involved with contacting intelligent infinity (i.e. balancing indigo ray and opening violet ray).
Hello JustLikeYou, this is such a helpful analysis. Its interesting why the polarities appear reversed in this card. The perceptions gained through interacting with the 'apparent' positive/negative experiences of 3d illusion appears to resolve that issue somewhat?
The polarities are also reversed in the Moon card, the Experience of the Spirit. The reason is the same. Positive experiences have enormous potential for revealing weaknesses to those on the negative path and negative experiences have enormous potential for revealing fears and self-service motivations on the positive path.
Which makes both very useful to both. Smile