9:   The Hermit

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BOTA (Builders of the Adytum)

Universal Waite

1.   Solitude; meditation. 2.   Introspection; self-analysis; serious, deliberate contemplation before making a major decision.   "Holding back" or "reserving judgment." 3.   Caution and patience.

COMMENTS:

When this card appears in a reading, it may be telling you, "You already know the answer.   It is within you.   Seek it there."

The Hermit is "retreating from distractions so that he can determine his own truth."

"Now is the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock."   Think of Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond.

"We aren't going to move forward just yet."

In some older Tarot decks, this card was "Time."

It has been said that the Hermit represents seeking god through personal experience, while the Hierophant seeks god through tradition (and established religious structure).   The Hierophant says, "I figure somebody else has already found god. All I need to do is read that guy's book." The Hermit says, "I want to meet god face-to-face. I want to go to the source."

Many hero myths have the hero traveling alone through some sort of wasteland, and he arrives on the other side a wiser person.   This shows up in the Biblical account of the apostle Paul, who went off by himself to receive the full revelation of the gospel (Gal. 1:12-18).   He didn't try to learn about Christianity from people who were already Christians; he went directly to God (at that point in history, there was no New Testament, because Paul hadn't written it yet!).

In the BOTA version of this card (above), the Hermit's headgear is in the shape of the Hebrew letter yod ( י ), which is the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.   If the Fool is considered to be the first card in the Major Arcana sequence, then this would be the tenth card.

Eliphas Levi assigned Hebrew letters to the Tarot cards in his 1856 book Transcendental Magic.

The illustration may have been inspired by the legend of Diogenes, who (according to legend) went abroad in daylight carrying a lamp "looking for an honest man."

Note the differences between The Fool and The Hermit.   The Fool is about to step off a cliff, and doesn't seem to care; he's looking up, not studying his path, his arms akimbo.   The Hermit seems very somber, and he's shining his light down on the path before him, carefully examining it before he takes another step (and he's carefully balancing on his staff).   It may be a little while before he makes the next move in his life.

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Here's what Arthur Edward Waite says about this card (in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot): The variation from the conventional models in this card is only that the lamp is not enveloped partially in the mantle of its bearer, who blends the idea of the Ancient of Days with the Light of the World It is a star which shines in the lantern. I have said that this is a card of attainment, and to extend this conception the figure is seen holding up his beacon on an eminence. Therefore the Hermit is not, as Court de Gebelin explained, a wise man in search of truth and justice; nor is he, as a later explanation proposes, an especial example of experience. His beacon intimates that "where I am, you also may be." It is further a card which is understood quite incorrectly when it is connected with the idea of occult isolation, as the protection of personal magnetism against admixture. This is one of the frivolous renderings which we owe to Eliphas Levi. It has been adopted by the French Order of Martinism and some of us have heard a great deal of the Silent and Unknown Philosophy enveloped by his mantle from the knowledge of the profane. In true Martinism, the significance of the term Philosophe inconnu was of another order. It did not refer to the intended concealment of the Instituted Mysteries, much less of their substitutes, but--like the card itself--to the truth that the Divine Mysteries secure their own protection from those who are unprepared.