Barleywine
In a recent blog post on Auntietarot, author Tony Willis gave some of his views on the Hierophant. After going over the usual religious connotations (and making the interesting comment that he only sees the Hierophant as a "teacher" in an initiatory setting, not in a general sense), he mentioned that "continental gypsies" (who according to Willis had little use for the Catholic liturgical trappings of the card) neatly resolved the often conflicting meanings A.E. Waite cobbled together in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by simply saying that the Hierophant upright shows "the courage to resist temptation," while reversed it can mean "beware of deceivers and intriguers."
These less exalted interpretations make a lot of sense to me since they seem to strengthen my own visual impression that the RWS versions of the Hierophant and Devil card look like opposite sides of the same coin. In fact, I just had the two paired (Devil upright, Hierophant rx) in a career reading for my son, who is going through a difficult time with his job of the last ten years due to deceptive behavior by his management, to the point that he almost walked out.
These less exalted interpretations make a lot of sense to me since they seem to strengthen my own visual impression that the RWS versions of the Hierophant and Devil card look like opposite sides of the same coin. In fact, I just had the two paired (Devil upright, Hierophant rx) in a career reading for my son, who is going through a difficult time with his job of the last ten years due to deceptive behavior by his management, to the point that he almost walked out.