Dodal
Le Pape · V
A crowned figure raises a hand and holds a tall cross-topped staff. Two smaller figures face the seated person from below. Uprights rise behind the throne; the attendants’ heads and shoulders fill the foreground.
Who receives the teaching?
Start at the foot of the central figure. Two attendants become a different arrangement of a standing figure, a child and surrounding creatures. The audience helps explain what has changed.
Start with the pictures
Le Pape · V
Jean Dodal · Lyon, 1701–1715
Open the source image ↗
The Hierophant · V
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 89
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Smith
The Hierophant · V
A crowned figure raises one hand between two pillars, with a triple-cross staff in the other. Two attendants kneel below, near crossed keys.
Harris
The Hierophant · V
A central robed figure holds a staff topped by three interlocking circles. A small child appears within a star at the chest; a standing figure with a cup occupies the foreground. Animal heads surround the central arrangement.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite associates the figure with institutional religion and its outward teaching. He distinguishes this office from the withdrawn power of the High Priestess and from inspiration itself.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley makes the central child part of his new Aeon.
How does the relationship between teacher and audience change when you describe their actual positions?
Write one thing you can point to in the image, one interpretation from a named author, and one inference of your own. Keeping the three separate gives you something useful to revisit.
Read the contemporary essay
Gabriel explores institutional power and its presentation. Claims about a mask or false beard are interpretations to test, rather than details established by the reproduction alone.
Sources and image credits
The Dodal cards are one early-eighteenth-century Marseille witness. The black-and-white Smith plates come from the 1922 Rider reprint, whose title verso lists first publication in 1910. Colours in later editions can differ.
The images shown here are reproduced from public-domain sources, with their original borders and page context.
- Jean Dodal · source record and rights statement ↗
- Pamela Colman Smith · source record and rights statement ↗
Harris’s paintings are linked on their host’s reference pages. Crowley’s text is the separately identified Thelemagick transcription of The Book of Thoth. Neither a modern reproduction nor a transcription replaces examination of the original artwork or edition.