MadeiraDarling
Apologies if this is overexcited and confusing, but so like the hierophant is Bacchus in the Flemish deck by Vandenborre which is very very interesting given that “Hierophant” was the name of the high priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece. Which given the connection between both Dionysus and Demeter (both agricultural deities at the center of mystery cults, also Eleusis the city where the Eleusinian mysteries got their name sounds a bit like Dionysus’s epithet Eleutherios and like Eleutherios might be descended from the ancient Greek "Arriving at where one loves" which is a very interesting idea with the Demeter and Persophone myth. Also Demeter and Dionysus were both abducted by pirates in myth so like what's that about) and the parallels between Dionysus and Hades as Heraclitus said they were the same god.
Additionally with the pope thing like Christ looks a lot like Dionysus in a lot of depictions and is a dying and rising god like Dionysus (and in the Bacchae Dionysus is persecuted in a Christ-like manner AND pretends to be his own high priest which like... given the pope symbolism is interesting) and then there are parallels between Demeter and Persephone and Cybele and Attis sort of (especially if you include the Adgistis bit, in which Dionysus shows up to castrate Adgistis, because in that case Adgistis is sort of Attis's parent and Attis dies and is resurrected sort of like Persophone but also if Dionysus is an aspect of both Demeter and Hades it's especially connected because Adgistis, who in some versions becomes Cybele, is both the consort and the parent of Attis. Also the cult of Cybele had self castrating crossdressing priests which suggests like shifting gender was a part of going on, and like men dressing as women was part of the Dionysian rites as well and then also the castration brings up Osiris who is another dying and rising god, often compared to Christ, who lost his phallus and had to have a wooden replacement which brings to mind the wounded, probably castrated, Fisher king whose land suffers until his virility is restored by the holy grail which of course brings to mind winter lasting until Persephone is restored to Demeter)
So basically like what in the seven hells is going on with all that? And how does it affect one's reading of the hierophant?
Sources:
[Some sources (I know a lot of this is wikipedia but I checked the sources and I didn’t feel like linking to all of them individually):
http://www.earlywomenmasters.net/demeter/myth_118.html and http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2013/06/greek-myth-dionysus-and-pirates.html
https://books.google.com/books?id=cXL-QIIhn5gC&pg=PA239#v=onepage&q&f=false http://zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/Hades.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus#Parallels_with_Christianity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agdistis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galli
https://www.amazon.com/God-Ecstasy-Roles-Madness-Dionysus/dp/031202214X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hierophant
https://books.google.com/books?id=oE8vW4BX9kwC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_King
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyrsus
Griffiths, J. Gwyn, ed. (1970). Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride. University of Wales Press.
Additionally with the pope thing like Christ looks a lot like Dionysus in a lot of depictions and is a dying and rising god like Dionysus (and in the Bacchae Dionysus is persecuted in a Christ-like manner AND pretends to be his own high priest which like... given the pope symbolism is interesting) and then there are parallels between Demeter and Persephone and Cybele and Attis sort of (especially if you include the Adgistis bit, in which Dionysus shows up to castrate Adgistis, because in that case Adgistis is sort of Attis's parent and Attis dies and is resurrected sort of like Persophone but also if Dionysus is an aspect of both Demeter and Hades it's especially connected because Adgistis, who in some versions becomes Cybele, is both the consort and the parent of Attis. Also the cult of Cybele had self castrating crossdressing priests which suggests like shifting gender was a part of going on, and like men dressing as women was part of the Dionysian rites as well and then also the castration brings up Osiris who is another dying and rising god, often compared to Christ, who lost his phallus and had to have a wooden replacement which brings to mind the wounded, probably castrated, Fisher king whose land suffers until his virility is restored by the holy grail which of course brings to mind winter lasting until Persephone is restored to Demeter)
So basically like what in the seven hells is going on with all that? And how does it affect one's reading of the hierophant?
Sources:
[Some sources (I know a lot of this is wikipedia but I checked the sources and I didn’t feel like linking to all of them individually):
http://www.earlywomenmasters.net/demeter/myth_118.html and http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2013/06/greek-myth-dionysus-and-pirates.html
https://books.google.com/books?id=cXL-QIIhn5gC&pg=PA239#v=onepage&q&f=false http://zero-point.tripod.com/pantheon/Hades.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus#Parallels_with_Christianity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agdistis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galli
https://www.amazon.com/God-Ecstasy-Roles-Madness-Dionysus/dp/031202214X
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hierophant
https://books.google.com/books?id=oE8vW4BX9kwC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_King
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyrsus
Griffiths, J. Gwyn, ed. (1970). Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride. University of Wales Press.