The Hierophant

Child me had always felt curious about a higher power but was discouraged from such inclinations. I grew up with an atheist father and a lapsed catholic mother, and church was not a thing we did. Then when I was 15, my dad became a Christian. His conversion changed our lives. I went from living in a household void of religious ritual to parents who now had an unconcealed zeal for Christ. We began attending catholic church every Sunday, and I embraced our new life - I loved the ritual, the singing, the praying. It felt good to commune with a higher power, something I had longed to do on my own.

When I came out at 19, I was shamed and gaslit right back into the closet. When I came out again at 25, I was cast out. My parents’ new beliefs had created a sharp and painful division between us. Religion now felt like a weapon I had to fight off. When progressive Christians try to minister to me, I turn away, thinking that they can’t possibly understand my trauma. I still believed God existed, but I was deeply angry with him. 

This summer, I took a reiki class. Discomfited by the disembodiment of the pandemic zoom world, I decided to explore somatic modalities. Reiki could be done distantly apparently. Why not? I took my time looking for a teacher I wanted to learn from. I happened upon @reikimedicinegoddess, and as luck would have it, she was offering a level 1 attunement. Camille held a consult session with all students prior to class, and I remember her voluntarily telling me that there had been great care taken not to culturally appropriate this practice, that there was respectful exchange between practitioners in Japan and here.

I attended the class with 11 others on zoom. As she introduced herself, Camille shared her own spiritual journey. She talked about her mediumship capabilities and the helping spirits that showed up when she did a Reiki healing. 

I felt a prick of fear on my neck. My mind started racing - Spirits? What? I didn’t sign up for this! I just wanted to learn how to move energy around! My parents’ voices chimed in, ‘this is how the devil gets you, this is satan’s work…’ 

This was a vestige of my upbringing, wherein my parents demonized basically every other spiritual practice. Divination was heavily frowned upon, as was astrology and anything to do with the occult – they did not know I dabbled in tarot, they would have surely lost their minds. And somehow, I myself had managed to compartmentalize the spiritual in my tarot practice for years. Who did I think was speaking to me through the cards? 

I tried to quell my anxieties and bring myself back to presently learning what Camille had to teach. After a few hours, in which we learned about the basic tenets of Reiki, its words and hand placements, I received my first attunement from Camille. She told us that we would feel it integrate most intensely during the first 21 days. I logged off and took a long rest.

I couldn’t sleep. I was wracked with inexplicable guilt, feeling like I had done something immoral and worthy of condemnation. It felt like I had wilfully invited demonic possession. I imagined my body being overtaken by evil spirits that caused me to foam at the mouth, that could only be set right once again by a priest and his thurible... 

This is the moment I remember things changing for me. Even through those hellish anxiety-ridden nights, I still wanted to read our Reiki class manuals. And then this line appeared in the opening paragraph - ‘Reiki is a healing technique that’s over 5,000 years old that originated with the Ling-Chi, the Chinese Taoists and was rediscovered by Mikao Usui in the late 1800s’. 

靈氣 (ling qi): I knew those words. I hadn’t seen it till now, but the Japanese kanji 霊気 (reiki)is derived from the traditional mandarin alphabet. My understanding of the source language shifted my relationship to the attunement experience entirely. I realized in that moment that I had been re-connected to an ancestral practice. I became aware that heretofore, Christianity had been enacted as a colonizing force in my life. Because its believers insisted it was the only valid truth, it had severed precious ties to my ancestral knowledge. I was having epiphanies all over the place - spirituality, an expansive multitudinous spirituality, was my birthright. Fear left me, and I was filled with the deep joy that comes with intertwined endings and beginnings.

White supremacy is baked into the way religion is used as a tool to break, subdue and shame. It is in the way we deem some cultures and practices as ‘evil’ and ‘fake’, while paying utmost reverence to other human figures like the Pope. When we validate and venerate one religion but not the other, that’s where the damage is wrought. 

My paternal grandmother had a talent for numerology, she told us she used to talk to 觀音媽(GuanYinMa) in her dreams, and she used to have altars in her house. I wish I had listened closer when she told us these things – but I know I’m finding my own way back every time I stay with my questions. 

This is what Hierophant lessons are. The Hierophant challenges us to translate our own experiences with spirituality, religion, mysticism, and with the practices we don’t fully understand but feel drawn to. It also gives us wisdom and clarity on the religious structures that no longer serve us. It can be an initiation to spirit in its purest form, because we are no longer blindly trusting others’ interpretations to be the only truth. We create our own relationship to spirit, on our own terms. 

When we lean into the part of us that is desiring to listen to messages from our higher selves, we create a powerful space for transformative healing, for expansiveness, for more light and gentleness. We break the binary.

What are some of the stories you learned about religion? Did they help you or hurt you (or both)? What is your relationship to spirituality – and who is it serving?