The Hierophant - Nails...?

[LotusSong]

I am lost when it comes to the significance of the nails on this card.

I know that The Hierophant is Vau, which means nail. I believe I read here that vau is like "and" - a word that ties things together, a connector. So then, why are there nine nails on this card? To me, they appear to be nailing the dead snake to the top of the window behind the Hierophant's head. Crowley said that they're keeping the window in place. ([...] they serve to fix the oriel behind the main figure of the picture.) Why are there so many? Is the number nine significant here?

That's not the only thing that I don't understand about the nails. Crowley says this: In this sign the Moon is "exalted"; her influence is represented not only by the woman, but by the nine nails. What do nails, and by extension connecting things together, have to do with the moon?

I feel that each part of the images have meaning, and by not understanding the nails I'm missing something about the meaning of The Hierophant. I would be very, very thankful if someone could help clear up my confusion.

 

[Abrac]

Here are some random ideas. Uncle Al doesn't give us much to go on.

The best clue he seems to give is his comment, "her (the moon's) influence is represented not only by the woman, but by the nine nails." The fact that they are "nails" may be an illusion. The round tops could be seen as "moons." In this case, the shafts would represent lunar rays of influence. Each nail represents a phase of the moon. Starting at the left the moon is furthest away from the Hierophant and has a weaker influence. As it moves closer to the center, its influence grows stronger to the point where it actually touches the tip of the Hierophant's crown (In the number 5 position). Then moves on to complete the cycle. If you used the image at the top of this web page as a guide, the two outer "nails" would represent new moons and the other seven the different phases.

Nine is the number of completed cycles. It's the last number before starting over (Ten is simply 1 with a zero added). It's also the triple 3, a number frequently equated with perfection in numerology. The degrees of a circle are 360 (6+3=9).

The fact that they resemble nails and Crowley identifies them as nails may serve a dual purpose- that of tying them to the Hebrew letter Vau and of frustrating the "profane."

 

[thorhammer]

I love your idea of the moon phases, Abrac.

9 is also what you get when you reduce the number of the Tarot Trump called The Moon - Atu XVIII. Simple, but there it is.

Do you have DuQuette's Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot? There is an amazing section in there on the Rosy Cross, which shed immense light for me on the symbolism of the nail. I highly recommend the book for this section alone (I find the majority of the book less helpful than Crowley, to be honest, but most disagree with me - but this section is pure gold).

\m/ Kat

 

[Grigori]

The Hierophant is a priest, the thing that connects us with deity (at least traditionally). The goal of Crowley's magick was to unite the individual with deity (which btw we all are deity, but that's a different topic). In the Golden Dawn it was the Hierophant who was the initiator, who started you on your journey on the way to godhood. Initiatory magick

The number 5 and the pentagram is the number of man, and the created world (four elements under the influence of Spirit). The Hierophant is card 5. The letter Vau attributed to the Hierophant also represents the number 6. 6 is the number of the divine. 6 is the hexagram, and in from of the Hierophantyou see a hexagram containing a pentagram (containing a child). 5 pinned/nailed to 6 is 11, the number of magick and the goal of initiation I.e. Union with the divine.

The Hierophant is also attributed to Taurus. Taurus is ruled by the planet Venus and The Moon is exhalted in Taurus. Refer to the woman (Venus) in front of the Hierophant, holding a lunar crescent (the moon). The Moon is also Yesod, the 9th sephira on the tree of life, hence the 9 nails.

 

[Grigori]

I forgot to add, the journey from the material world of Malkuth may be seen as a vertical one, upwards on the middle pillar of the tree of life. Step one is yesod, the realm of the Moon, and the astral world. One of the first milestones on the journey of initiation.

 

[Αρσιησισ]

The Hierophant is also attributed to Taurus. Taurus is ruled by the planet Venus and The Moon is exhalted in Taurus.

Bingo ...you hit the nail on the head.

Fr. 729

 

[Probie]

And the woman shows up again in Atu VIII, full-size, front & center.

The Vav...

(actually "vav"-"vowel point under the first vav"-"vav", so why do people transliterate "vav" as "v" at the front and then the "vav" becomes a "u" at the end of the word? Unnecessary equivocation, need to update to a 20th/21st century CE transliteration paradigm. There are no vowels except by cultural placement in Hebrew! For a bunch a smart people, I swear...)

...is Crowley tipping his hat to the tradition and then doing some novel with it. The novel is above. I like the Thoth Tarot because it's a wedding with whatever came before - "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." When I see it in a reading, I either go with social mores/conventions, exoteric teaching (spiritual or no), or practical (read: "applied") theology interpretation. The tradition that Crowley married the deck with was this:

Pairing the cards with Hebrew letters has been tough and everyone had their own paradigm. Their justification for these pairings are essentially the same as what our sisters and brothers from the Intuitive School say, "It came to me." They made it up, pure & simple. After making it up, they tried it out (applied theology) and it worked for them. The problem was everyone had a different paradigm & they all worked.

For example, Papus & Fredrick Holland attributed Heh (from 17/The Star or 4/The Emperor for non-Crowley decks) with 5/The Hierophant. A little off subject, but Levi placed Sin/Shin (pronounced "seen" & "sheen" - two letters traditionally considered one by Judaism for the likes of Psalm 119 & Proverbs 31:10-31) on The Fool, which he numbered as "21" and The World [our "Universere"] as "22."

The Golden Dawn's "special" manuscript, Cypher MS (aside: talk about "Trumped" ), broke ranks with everyone and attributed "0" & Aleph (transliterates into English as a soft breathing mark, not "a") to The Fool and, as it's the most well-known "tradition" (i.e., why you call the RWS-descendant approach the "Traditional School") it stuck. While you could argue Eteilla made The Fool "0," most likely it was "78" for him. Of course with these shifts and the tradition from Levi of "vav=nails," the GD had to make up something for it to mean. There's no good reason why "vav=nails" (I never heard of that in four years of grad school training in Hebrew), but you had better have something (i.e., a "deep" esoteric meaning that supposedly Levi lied about in-print - or why else join the GD?) for your initiates. After all as Uncle Al says, you can't make people swear terrible oaths and call down divine imprecations upon themselves when all you do is teach them the Hebrew alphabet.

If the nails grove for you, cool. The Thoth Tarot approach isn't a branch of the Systems-Based school of Tarot interpretation for nothing! If the nails don't work for you, no problem. For example, I love the Kundalini serpent on The Universere card & make a point in readings about activating your power at your base, being conscious of prana, and so forth. What I keep in mind is this, Mahatma Ghandi is most likely off the Wheel [of Life] while it's most likely Mathers and Crowley are still taking turns. Knowing without doing equals still turning. Namaste.

 

[Always Wondering]

The Moon is also Yesod, the 9th sephira on the tree of life, hence the 9 nails.

My mind was wanting to tie it to the sephira somehow. I might have even gotten there by myself. . .

Eventually.


AW

 

[Abrac]

thorhammer, I have DuQuette's book. Are you talking about chapter 8, Secrets of the Rose Cross Back? I can't seem to find the information about nail symbolism you mentioned, but I may not be in the right place. What pages is it on exactly?

 

[thorhammer]

thorhammer, I have DuQuette's book. Are you talking about chapter 8, Secrets of the Rose Cross Back? I can't seem to find the information about nail symbolism you mentioned, but I may not be in the right place. What pages is it on exactly?

Yes, that's the chapter. I think the first mentio of the nail is on page 40, but the whole chapter helped me to see Atu V in terms of that which joins us, or connects us, to divinity.

\m/ Kat