Taking on the responsibility of being a Hierophant is no easy task and is a responsibility that does not go away even if the person quits magic and takes up knitting. The weave of power in the position of Hierophant is such that it permeates all aspects of the soul, the echoes of which can be heard for millennia.
When a Hierophant develops a consecrated line, he takes on responsibility for those adepts and initiates for the length of their lifetime — even if the consecrated person stops practicing magic they are consecrated for ever. So when ever something powerful or dangerous happens to an adept or initiate of that line, it will tug on the energy of the Hierophant. When consecrated people walk away from magic, it doesn’t stop just because they have; it settles in to a deeper more subtle mode where the person is slowly manoeuvred from situation to situation to supply an inner demand. When a consecrated person is put in the middle of a powerful tangle that could take them into very difficult territory and they cry out for help, the first person to get the inner call is the Hierophant.
So it is wise to take into account, before rushing off to become the Hierophant, just what a responsibility and burden it truly is. Most people who take up the mantle are not fully aware of what they are getting themselves into, and once there are there, there is no backing out. Besides the energetic tie to consecrated people, the Hierophant also carries the burden of the lodge and its many magical workings. If the group drop the energy, it will fall to the Hierophant. If the inner temple is hacked, it will affect the Hierophant before it affects anyone else.
The other burdens of responsibility that fall upon the Hierophant are to keep an eye on everyone in the lodge in matters of health, happiness, training, safety, food, general well-being — it is like being a parent to a lot of people. Unfortunately there are some who become heads of groups/lodges and focus primarily on making money for themselves, and set themselves up with almost pop star status. The two parasite desserts of ego and greed disengage any hope of the magus/leader truly achieving anything of true lasting worth. They usually care little about their group or indeed very little about their work. The road to such ruin is a very wide one and it is bypassed in the very beginning by sticking to one’s intent and putting the group/work before anything else.
CONTROL
The other major stumbling block for the Hierophant is the issue of control. It’s a sticky one as it is not straight forward and simple. If the group is run as a democracy, then the decisions are being made by people who may or may not understand the complexities that underpin certain magical issues. It also can also end up with very little being done and the decisions reached are potentially the popular ones rather than the necessary ones.
The other extreme is the Hierophant having absolute control and then abusing it, which leaves the group with the choice of ‘put up with it or leave’. Having such control is an easy hole to fall down and does not give room for the Hierophant to allow people to make mistakes, take responsibility, or have a say in decisions.
For myself, I think the best way is to have the final say (as I would be carrying the burden), but that the group’s adepts all have specific responsibility within their areas of capability in the temple/inner temple. The Hierophant could use passive governance, i.e. encourage discussion, encourage joint solutions, give the workers space to make non-fatal decisions, and not assign anyone with lodge status other than ‘adepts’ and ‘initiates’. Having hierarchies beyond what is totally necessary creates a disharmony and encourages distracting but meaningless goals. It is better to recognise each person’s strengths and abilities, and honor them for that, and to also recognise a person’s weak area and help them to recognise it so that it can be strengthened.
It is also important that the Hierophant does not head every bit of work, that he takes a back seat in some of the work, or refrains from doing parts of the work altogether so that he can keep an eye on the group in general. If the Hierophant heads all the work, the adepts do not get the chance to lead work, do exploratory work, create, build etc. It is very important that the adepts who are capable can learn those skills so that they can pass them on to the next generation. A working lodge that has adepts working to the highest levels is a lodge that will survive for a very long time.
OLD AGE
If the Hierophant has allowed the adepts in the lodge to flourish fully and they have strengthened fully, then the transition of power for the Hierophant in old age is easy and smooth. The hardest thing for the Hierophant is to come to the understanding that they have become too old to carry the burden of the lodge and that it is time to hand on to someone younger and more in touch with the world of the time.
If done properly, the transmission of power should go smoothly so that the Hierophant can stay in the background as an honoured elder which also teaches the younger members of the lodge the importance of the wisdom (and crankiness) of the elderly and it teaches them how to respect and honor their elders. It is not common in today’s western culture to keep your family elders close but to put them away in ‘kennels’ which I find extremely odd.
The elder of the lodge should be cared for, respected, consulted for their wisdom, and different way of thinking, and to help them kept up to date on what is happening. It is the responsibility of the retired Hierophant to be just that, ‘retired’, and to honor the new Hierophant by letting the reins go. Too many Hierophants cling to power, even after they are dead, because they fear that the newer generation cannot do things properly. That is a symptom of not accepting the flow of time: power and knowledge go up and down in waves; it is part of the larger pattern of how consciousness works. So the Hierophant needs to understand that while it may be true that the younger upcoming pups may not know what they are doing, that is not the business of the retired Hierophant. It is the job of the inner contacts to quietly steer the ship over longer periods of time and they should be trusted to do just that.
If the lodge is solidly contacted, then inheritance of power will not be an issue. The inner priesthoods are good chess players — you don’t always see the moves coming, but they do work well. If the new Hierophant does not seem up to the job, then it is up to the inner contacts and the lodge to deal with that, not the retired elder. The letting go is very important from a magical point of view for the longer-term magical health of the lodge and the elder.
Sometimes the power in a lodge needs to lull for a generation, sometimes it is just a situation where the elder does not recognise the ability of the new Hierophant, or that they forget just how clumsy they were when they first became Hierophant. Because the twists and turns can get so complicated, it is important when a person of power retires and hands on the mantle, that it is done completely and without reservation.
The letting go is more than a psychological lesson, it is a preparation for the next step in the development of the old Hierophant — if they let go of the old job, the new one can be stepped into easily and smoothly. If not, what can happen is that after death the retired Hierophant tries to maintain control as an inner contact. But trying to keep an outer control from an inner perspective is really unhealthy. It can end up with the lodge having to banish what essentially has become a troublesome ghost; they are not truly an inner contact as they have not allowed the natural transition to happen. This damages the soul of the dead person and puts the new Hierophant in the terrible position of having to banish their elder.
All of this can be avoided if the Hierophant recognises when they have become too old for the responsibility and offers to step down into an honorary role. By letting go internally, the inner power flows out of them to the new Hierophant which creates a space in the old Hierophant for what is coming next.
THE PASSING ON OF POWER
The ‘Passing On of Power’ ritual is a very important part of the letting go and moving on process, and it also prepares the new Hierophant for the burdens that they will undertake. Taking up the mantle of new Hierophant is not just an outer action, it is an inner undertaking too which carries a great deal of inner burden and responsibility with it.
Essentially, the old Hierophant has to take the new one in vision back to the beginning of the creation of the lodge line, back to the very anchor of power that the founding Hierophant used to create the consecrated line. The old leader takes the new one in vision and recreates the original action with the new one, so that the new Hierophant essentially becomes one with the founder. This is one of the hidden mysteries in the Vatican — the Pope becomes Peter in a very simple private working where a monk of a specific order bridges the new pope to the first one. It is done as an outer ritual, but it is essentially the same thing.
When the Hierophant takes the new one in the vision, they speak out exactly where they are and what they are doing, and the new one joins in so that they are both doing the action of anchoring the line. It ties the new Hierophant to the anchor power and to that founding moment in time.
Once that is done, then it is time for both of them to go into the inner temple. Stood before the main inner altar, the old Hierophant places their hand upon the head of the new, both physically and in vision, and allows all the wealth of inner knowledge to flow from the old to the new. This is not a flow of intellectual knowledge; it is a flow of inner knowledge gained from years of working with Divinity, angelic beings, and inner adepts. It is passed on to the new Hierophant and will lay dormant until needed.
The completion of the flow of inner knowledge and power heralds the time for the new Hierophant to take the old one to the point of ‘letting go’. This is an inner action which has major outer implications for the development of the old Hierophant in preparation for work after death. It is an octave of a specific action that happens in death, but it is conducted within life.
The new Hierophant takes the old one to the lake of the egregore and walks them through the egregore to the edge of the void. There, the Hierophant turns around to look at the egregore/lake and says goodbye. He steps off the threshold of the void and falls into nothingness, letting his life experiences fall away from him, letting the ties to the egregore break, and their tie to the mantle of Hierophant fall away. The old Hierophant stays silently in the void for a time before gently coming out of vision.
After that working, the old Hierophant no longer holds the power of the lodge, the new one does. Although the old one has disconnected at a certain level from the lodge, there is a deeper connection that still lives, but is beyond form and only kicks in after death.
DEATH AND THE INNER WORLDS: WORKING WITH THE LODGE
Once the old Hierophant dies, so long as they have let go of everything, they will go through their recycling process pretty quickly, usually in days, and will be ready to work in the lodge as a true inner contact. The ability to be able to do this comes specifically from the ability in life to let go — it is one of the inner dynamics of the mysteries that when you let go: you lose nothing that is needed. If you cling, you lose everything. That is why in life it is good to constantly give and let go of things you really do not want to let go of as it stops the clinging and hoarding that is so destructive in magic.
When the old Hierophant has gone through the primary death path, then they bypass the rest of the death journey and step into the pattern of the inner lodge. By letting go, the ego and life personality of the Hierophant easily falls away, leaving behind the deeper soul with its magical knowledge and strengths. Sometimes, when the strength is complete and balanced, he can take on some of the ‘dressing’ of the life that he led so that he can be recognised by the lodge members. That usually is best to do only when he has truly let go of everything, so that it does not limit him or pull him back to a life that no longer exists.
If the old Hierophant joins the lodge as an inner contact, he will be able to be accessed by the initiates for learning and guidance in the library, for council with the new Hierophant at the lake/egregore, and for general guidance or joining in the work of the adepts in the main temple.
The service as an inner contact is not for ever and it is difficult from a living perspective to know how long that contact will be there. Therefore it is important for the new Hierophant to work with the old to learn as much as they can just in case the old one passes deeper into the void. I worked with a very interesting inner adept for a few years who presented himself in his young form, and he taught me a great deal. Then one day, without warning, he told me I would not see him again as he was going back into life. I never did see him again but I was very thankful of the time and teaching I was given.
CLEANSING THE LODGE AFTER DEATH
When the Hierophant is getting older, he must appoint a death guardian from among the adepts. The job of the death guardian is to deal with the magical aspects of the death both for the person who has just died and for the inner and outer temples.
The death guardian will need to deal with the personal magical items of the Hierophant and make sure they go to the grave with him, that the body is blessed, the death vision is conducted for the soul, and that the new Hierophant works with them in the death work.
When the Hierophant dies, the temple must be closed immediately and no-one should go into the inner temple or outer temple until the death guardian has cleared everything. All elemental gateways must be closed and any flames must be extinguished, any vessels of water emptied and any stones taken out and buried. This is a very important ritual action to stop the lower self of the Hierophant trying to find its way back to the lodge in the first instance of the shock of death. This is vitally important if the death was swift and the old Hierophant was not given the chance to disengage slowly from life.
If there is a slow death, then the death guardian will work regularly with the dying person taking them in and out of the death vision in preparation. If the soul is properly prepared, then the lower self and personality will crumble immediately as some of it will already be in the void. If the death is unexpected and swift, it can be a shock to the system and the base self reaches out for what is powerful and familiar.
To stop that from contaminating the lodge, all doorways must be closed, all activities ceased, any pictures of the Hierophant taken down and put away, any mirrors covered etc. It is helpful to burn frankincense, myrrh and leave a CD going of Tibetan or similar chants of the skeleton dance, or music that has a clearing effect. These actions drive away any base clinging that might happen and will cleanse the lodge.
The cleansing and stripping of the outer temple should be completed before burial and once the body has been buried, then a further 10 day wait should be undergone before the lodge is opened again. Once opened it should be cleansed, purified, and retuned from both an inner and outer point of view. A vision to re-establish the consecrated line will need to be undertaken by the lodge members which can be achieved by going around the directions to the altars, connecting with the inner contacts, and establishing new elemental gates/flames etc.
The new Hierophant will hopefully already be in place. If not, then the fall back is the ‘chosen box’. It is the responsibility of the Hierophant to always have a name in the ‘chosen box’, naming who they think would be the best new Hierophant of that time. As they watch people develop, the name may be changed and it is one of the Hierophant’s responsibilities to make sure that name is kept up to date.
If the choosing is post mortem, then the new Hierophant will have to do the vision of the anchor of the line in vision with the old Hierophant once they have appeared in the inner temple: it is a different dynamic doing it this way, but it still works. As soon as the lodge is back to normal, work should commence straight away and the old Hierophant will most likely make an appearance when they are ready.
THE NEW HIEROPHANT AND THE HALL OF ELDERS
It is important for the new Hierophant to establish themselves quickly and solidly, marking their own path as needs be, without the feeling of having to be seen to be different. It is important that on-going work is continued and new work is commenced. The ‘back to business but with a fresh flavour’ will ensure the lodge survives and does not mummify or fall apart.
Responsibilities as the first new Hierophant include the building of the hall of adepts. When the first Hierophant of a line has died, an inner temple that will house the dead Hierophant and all others that come after is an important structure to secure the very long term survival of the work. It becomes a temple offshoot to the main one, and it houses all the specific wisdoms of the Hierophants. As a Hierophant withdraws from the main inner temple, they retreat back to this more obscure and timeless place that is accessible to a wider range of magical workers throughout time who find them. It holds the essence of the consecrated line and keeps it from contamination so even if the main inner temple degenerates, the hall of the elders stays clear.
To build this hall, it has to be built out from the main inner temple which acts as a foundation and lends to the power of the construction. A doorway near to the back door is built which has stairs leading upwards away from the level of the main inner temple. The stairway emerges out at the desert of the Abyss and the Sandalphon are called to assist in the construction.
The new Hierophant and the adepts work with angelic contacts that the Sandalphon call and a temple is built in the desert with a front door onto the desert so that any adept can find it. The construction methods are similar to the main temple, but it has no egregore, no library, just a single space where the inner adepts/Hierophants can gather.
This is a place that is deeper in to the inner realms than the inner temple so it has less form and there is less interaction for people visiting there. It is like a threshold between the void and the desert where the elders stay to hold the threads of the work and stop it vanishing completely into the void. From an outer/physical point of view, usually only the living Hierophant would go to this place as long as the lodge exists, and this keeps the hall focussed.
The Hierophant can go there for advice, learning, and joining — a living Hierophant is the sum total of all the Hierophants that have been in that line, so it becomes a little like a group mind that holds the line of magic in the inner consciousness of humanity. Once the lodge is no more, the knowledge and work of the lodge will be stored in this place for others to find over time and work with. It has its own angelic filtering on the doors which will only allow those who are called there to gain access. Once the lodge has died, the elders of the hall put out a call throughout the worlds for anyone who can pick it up to gather the work and re establish it in the outside world.
This is one of the reasons why only the Hierophant goes here and not the other lodge members — it is a condensed and preserved space of the magical line which can be easily damaged. It becomes a parallel to the anchor of the line, a sort of an echo of the anchor power. It is not immortal; rather it will live in the inner worlds for as long as there is a humanity to pick up on it. As humanity dies off, or the consciousness becomes so different that it is no longer compatible, then it will fade into the Abyss where it will no longer be accessed by anyone. It will slowly cross the Abyss and merge with Divinity.
The living Hierophant has a responsibility to go there periodically to learn, update, and keep it alive through interaction, and it is a place where much deeper powers can be reached. Living humanity has its limits as to how deep into the inner worlds it can go without beginning to lose its hold on life. The hall of the elders is a midway stage for that deep power. The inner elders can reach much deeper into those realms and act as a go between if necessary.
A recently dead Hierophant will need escorting into the hall from the inner temple and they will pass between the hall and the inner temple for a considerable time (or not if they have been called back into life) but eventually they will fragment with their deepest part going into the hall and the rest of their consciousness going into the void. If the hall has been around for a very long time, then some of the Hierophants that can be reached in there will be composites of a few generations. They merge together into eras of work so that when you talk to a group of say five of them, you are probably working with at least fifty in real terms.
SUMMARY
The responsibility of a Hierophant is staggering if it is approached in real terms, and it alters the soul forever. It is not a role to be taken lightly but it is a role that will develop the soul at a very deep level and will have a lasting effect in the realm of magic one way or another for a very long time. Such dedication to work is rapidly dying in the modern commercial world of magic, hence this book. Too many lodges are run as clubs and too many are run as businesses or hobbies — the true line of deep magic in the Western World is growing thin. Just as the mystery and power of the sleepers is fading, so is the power of the Hierophant.
And yet it is the most wonderful gift any human can give to the world, to give of themselves as a bridge between worlds. They stand between the Archon and the Aeon as a fulcrum for humanity in its quest for a path home to the Divine nothing.