Hierophant means approval or approved, and ‘passing’ as in a passing grade or being accepted in a social circle.

Hierophant is your natural assumptions, the way it’s done and the way things are. You know how people say “Is the pope Catholic?” Well, that ‘Of course’ groove is what this illustration of the pope doing his routine expresses.

There are things we only think we believe, and that is where Hierophant lives: the consensus.

Here’s the pope in his regalia doing an official public ritual, which means one thing to the people and another to the in-crowd in the know.

Hierophant is the official story, the surface of the matter, the face we and our organizations put on. There’s a secret treaty humans have that I’ll act like I believe yours if you act like you believe mine, and some people – different types – do not honor this treaty and therefore pay the usually invisible price.

I call the price they pay The Cassandra Effect because when you live the facts and tell the truth, most people assume you are wrong or assume you lie because you contradict their assumptions, the way you live.