The fool has arrived at card 9, the hermit. The previous card, strength, opened the second line of cards on the his journey through the tarot. Strength signified the need to look inwards, in order to progress.
So far, the fool has lived in the world of consciousness. He’s met the high priestess but she guarded the entrance to the temple In order to pass beyond the veil and enter the world of unconscious thought and intuition, the fool needs some guidance, and he’s hoping the hermit may be able to help.
Renaissance tarot packs called this card time or old man. This has been linked to the ancient Greek god Chronos, known to the Romans as Saturn, who was also seen as father time. He often appeared with an hourglass representing the passage of time from birth to death.
The Rothschild tarot shows a winged man on crutches, where the wings might refer to the flight of time.
Shakespeare popularised the idea of the seven ages of man in As You Like It. The concept of ages was promoted by Aristotle but it was Solon, a legal man in ancient Greece, who described life as having 10 periods of 7 years.
The hermit card represents the end of these ages.
Portrayed as elderly but with age comes wisdom.
The hourglass changed to a lantern and once the tarot arrived in France in the 16th century, the card lost its relationship with time.
Despite the resemblance to a monk in the Catelin Geofroy tarot of 1557, and the Vandenborre tarot of 1762, from the 16th century onwards, the card was called the hermit.
The Marseilles-style tarots leaned towards the hermit as a solitary person, someone seeking spiritual wisdom and practice.
The French occultists in the 18th century claimed this card represented the virtue of prudence, alongside strength, justice and temperance. Prudence symbolised the ability to make the right choices.
The hermit’s lantern not only showed the way, it was also seen as an inner light, enabling the exploration of past, present and future, as well as lighting up a spiritual path.
Choosing to live alone, he is the seeker of secrets.
His world is one of mysteries.
All that is seen and unseen.
In the Waite/Coleman Smith tarot, the hermit no longer sought wisdom only for himself. His role was to show other people the way.
Depending on surrounding cards or situation, the hermit now signifies a teacher or initiator. The fool has been persuaded of the need for some self-reflection and time out from day-to-day reality.
The hermit represents this time.
He will show the fool directions towards what he needs to know.
The hermit archetype is familiar to the fool.
All communities have someone who has adopted the hermit role and the fool has been guilty of making fun of the old man who lived in a cave and shunned social interaction.
The hermit card reminds him this, but the fool is also aware of his own difference. It drove him to leave home because he needed more than the town had to offer.
Even though he couldn’t have articulated this at the time, the fool knew he didn’t fit in like the other young people.
The scene reminds him of stories. His favourite ones were always those with wizards or alchemists. He likes the idea of getting to know the hermit.
The fool is also beginning to feel connections between the previous archetypes, and wonders if the magician and hermit know each other. But the hermit appears to represent a different kind of magical energy. The magician was all about action whereas in this card he is still and silent.
The hermit he meets appears to be stood on a mountain, making him clearly visible. The light from his lantern comes from an eight-pointed star.
There are different interpretations, but the one with most resonance is a double representation of the four elements.
hermit from Morgan Greer tarotThe eight points show them mirrored between heaven and earth. As well as constituting the suits of the tarot’s minor arcana, the elements signify knowledge. The hermit knows the right path and the star is lighting the way for others to follow.
He carries a stick. In some packs this has notches or sprouting leaves. In the Waite/Coleman Smith pack the staff is smooth.
Sticks or staffs were used for counting, each notch representing whole numbers like ten or a hundred. It was a way to keep track but this hermit has no need for such devices. The knowledge he’s gained is internal.
The mountain top is covered in snow. He has chosen a higher place to search for higher answers.
Unlike the hierophant in card five, who represented communal social structures like the church, the hermit believes experience of the divine or sacred can be achieved through individual experience and isolation, similar to the mystic yogi and other holy men or ascetics.
He represents personal transformation, both by example and as a guide for other seekers of wisdom.
The fool is realising he consists of different selves. The conscious level has shaped much of his life but the tarot archetypes, from the magician onwards, have hinted at inner layers. There’s a different world behind the temple veil, guarded by the high priestess.
The empress showed him the miracle of life, how the natural world reproduces itself in continual cycles, while the emperor and chariot represented the risks of ignoring what can’t be seen on the outside.
What lessons does the hermit have for the fool, who is just beginning to understand the world of his unconscious self?
There are many paths to discovery.
Dream analysis was integral to Sigmund Freud‘s work on the development of psychoanalysis, an empirical method for inner awareness. He called dreams the royal road to the unconscious and believed analysing dreams could aid the understanding of unconscious minds. Jung believed in a collective unconscious which held memories of past generations. These could emerge during sleep.
Whatever the hypothesis, dreams are mysterious, in particular when they seem prophetic or the dead come back to talk. Dreams can also become nightmares but what do they mean?
No one knows for sure. Theories range from the brain using down time in sleep for sorting through experiences to ways of tapping into alternative energies or dimensions.
The hermit tells the fool to be more aware of his dreams. To note them as soon as he wakes up. To explore and practice lucid dreaming.
Dreams are individual. Whatever is going on in our brains, all or at least some of the images and experiences can contain messages.
The fool needs to find the right path to support his understanding. There are hundreds to choose from and the hermit knows them all. He can’t say which is right for the fool, but his advice is to open some doors and invite exploration.
He reminds the fool of the strength card which contained reassurance. The fool has all the inner resources he needs for the journey but finding the best place to begin might take time.
Maybe he’ll be more comfortable joining a group of like-minded travellers.
Most of the established religions have mystical elements, while systems like the Kabbalah offer structure. He could seek initiation into an esoteric sect like the Rosicrucians or modern Gnostics or he might decide he likes traditional witchcraft or wicca.
Any of these can be useful starting points.
Alternatively, he can choose to learn alone.
This is the essence of the hermit card. It’s an invitation to withdraw from the outer world. To enter the mind. To avoid external stimuli in a quest for silence and thought.
Places such as Gutenberg, Sacred Texts and Internet Archive offer a wealth of out-of-print/out of copyright books on esoterica and spirituality, should they be needed. It has never been easier to search out texts which might be helpful.
Isolation can feel lonely at first, but meditation and mindfulness have gifts of their own, so long as the fool sustains his efforts to practice and listen.
Self-awareness is an essential lesson. The fool can’t learn from the next card, the wheel of fortune, unless he has taken this inner step. It will be hard but also revealing.
Join us for the next part of the walk through the tarot which invites us to think about fate, circumstance, and the principles of karma, as the wheel of life continues to turn.
images my own, or copyright free from wikipedia commons and https://pixabay.com/
