[NatKat]

Naming the Heirophant card as Faith bothers me. I feel I have not been able to understand this card.
In RWS I read the Heirophant as "orthodox". Doing things the orthodox way. I also read it as a marriage card.
If someone would ask about a man and I got Heirophant and 4 wands ... I knew it meant a MARRIED man!

But the Gateway name puts a different spin on this card (at least for me) ... although the book says it retains its traditional references to establishments and hierarchies.

How do YOU read this card?

[WhiteWolfy]

If you mean the Legacy of the Divine deck, i think the Hierophant could easily mean faith. I could see it as someone's own spirituality or spiritual practice. I think it could represent marriage, churches, libraries or large institutions. It all depends on other cards. I don't see a problem with it being named Faith

[rylla]

Hierophant - as it can be related to religion - faith makes sense to me.

I also read it as ethics and morality.

[Theta Choir]

I can totally understand being a little put off by a renamed card. It certainly takes us out of our comfort zone.

In this particular case, I really liked the Legacy of the Divine's renaming of the Hierophant card. I had a very negative take on the Hierophant. To me, it meant mindless dogma, refusal to change, and the forced application of traditional rule-sets onto others, regardless of the harm done in the process. This card always spoke to me about the need to control others.

It never quite occurred to me that -- at least for some -- these rigid rule-sets had actual tenants of faith at their core; that some people followed orthodoxy due to true spiritual beliefs instead of political convenience. Now, however, I see both sides of the coin. I see both the value in adhering to tradition *and* the danger in refusing to change one's beliefs.

In the end, there is nothing stopping you from continuing to interpret the Hierophant as you always have, no matter what deck you are using. But as our understanding of -- and relationships to -- various cards morph and change as we grow, it's not really a bad thing to have a deck push our boundaries of what we think a particular card means.

In my opinion, it's good to question what we thought we knew; it's the only way to make sure that our knowledge keeps growing.

[NatKat]

Originally Posted by Theta Choir

I can totally understand being a little put off by a renamed card. It certainly takes us out of our comfort zone.

In this particular case, I really liked the Legacy of the Divine's renaming of the Hierophant card. I had a very negative take on the Hierophant. To me, it meant mindless dogma, refusal to change, and the forced application of traditional rule-sets onto others, regardless of the harm done in the process. This card always spoke to me about the need to control others.

It never quite occurred to me that -- at least for some -- these rigid rule-sets had actual tenants of faith at their core; that some people followed orthodoxy due to true spiritual beliefs instead of political convenience. Now, however, I see both sides of the coin. I see both the value in adhering to tradition *and* the danger in refusing to change one's beliefs.

In the end, there is nothing stopping you from continuing to interpret the Hierophant as you always have, no matter what deck you are using. But as our understanding of -- and relationships to -- various cards morph and change as we grow, it's not really a bad thing to have a deck push our boundaries of what we think a particular card means.

In my opinion, it's good to question what we thought we knew; it's the only way to make sure that our knowledge keeps growing.

Thank you for such an interesting reply! I think my deck is actually GATEWAY to the Divine but a couple times I have called it Legacy of the Divine ... OY!
In any case ... I finally decided to do as you suggest in the end ... to read the card more-or-less as I have always read it ... Heirophant is a useful card to me in terms of representing things like traditional marriage and traditional forms of religion.
B/c I am so visual ... SEEING the name FAITH ... threw me ... but the actual artwork stays true to the Heirophant meaning (at least for me) so ... basically I just ignore the name of the card and let the picture support my normal reading of the card.

Thank you all for your ideas on the matter!

Natasya