The Symbolism of the Hermit [in the Tarot]
Introduction
The Hermit is the ninth card in the Tarot pack.
Usually the figure is an old man representing both the concept of wisdom,
but also the possibility of many past reincarnations
- an old soul, an ancient philosopher, wise in metaphysics.
He carries a lantern.
The card often shows the surroundings as bleak,
dark, stormy and inhospitable
- a world in which ‘ignorance’ prevails.
The lantern sheds light on the spiritual, it is a source of illumination,
but winds may be buffeting him
trying to extinguish the messages he brings
and he has to protect the light with his cloak.
The cowl the Hermit wears symbolically protects him and isolates him,
to a certain extent, from the bleakness of the situation
and the biting winds of derision and scorn.
And other symbols may be used - the hourglass, the wheel,
the staff and the tower, to add richness to the overall meaning.
Most Hermits, because they have to employ their intellect
to explain and disseminate the wisdom, cannot ‘fly’ ecstatically,
and are occasionally shown with tied wings
denoting their inability to have only those forms of spiritual experience
that are directly useful.
In the older Tarot cards this is occasionally symbolised by lameness
- the use of the intellect has in effect ‘hobbled’ the hermit,
and the arrows of his sharp wit and understanding
may block the very links that connect his mortal and immortal soul
[the hourglass], but not completely.
William Blake - from the Complete Poems
Whilst Virtue is our walking staff And truth a lantern to our path
We can abide life’s pelting storm
That makes our limbs quake, if our hearts be warm
Blow boisterous Wind, stern Winter frown
Innocence is a Winter’s gown
So clad, we’ll abide life’s pelting storm
That makes our limbs quake, if our hearts be warm
Hunchback and Saint and Fool
Hermits are often shown
bowed with the responsibility of the task given them.
This is why the early Tarot pack used the image of the hunchback
- a man bowed with the overwhelming burden
placed on him [and his tied wings].
The Minchiate al Leone Tarot deck, for example
uses the concept of the Hunchback rather than the Hermit.
At one time the Hunchback card was labelled number XI
whereas in more modern decks it became number 9.
It is still depressingly low down the path of ascension.
W. B. Yeats - Selected Poetry - from The Phases of the Moon
Robartes
A rat or water hen splashed, or an otter slid into the stream,
We are on the bridge; that shadow is the tower
And the light proves that he is reading still,
And now he seeks in book or manuscript
What he shall never find.
Aherne
Why should not you Who know it all, ring at his door, and speak ...
Were not our beds far off, I'd ring the bell
He would never know me after all these years
But take me for some drunken countryman;
I'd stand and mutter there, until he caught
'Hunchback and Saint and Fool' and that they came
Under the three last crescents of the moon
In other words, the positioning in the pack
hides the fact that the three spiritually most important
[usually male] roles are these three
- Hunchback, Saint and Fool.
The Hermit may not be spiritually as high in the pack as the Fool,
who is so spiritual he is almost permanently flying,
[and loved by dogs and small children]
but is, on the whole, a liability to himself
and anyone who has to look after him as he is ‘not on this planet’!
or the Hanged Man - the Saint carrying his own doctrine
and the revelations he has been given,
showering the riches of his insights on everyone,
but also needing some looking after,
organising and interpreting to bring the message to a wider audience.
But the Hermit is no less important as he is the interpreter.
Organised and wise,
he does not have his head figuratively in the clouds,
and is destined to take the message the Fool and the Saint may give him
and ‘travel the world’ [literally or figuratively] to spread the ideas.
Tao Teh Ching - Lao Tzu
The sage squares without cutting, carves without disfiguring,
straightens without straining, enlightens without dazzling.
A great tailor does little cutting.
The Sacrifice
But the Hermit’s is the worst of all worlds,
because in order to put a coherent message forward
- bring illumination in the darkness,
he has to give up some of his spirituality,
in order to make the message accessible to others.
There is an odd kind of supreme courage attached to this role,
which few seem to understand.
It is true sacrifice of Herculean proportions.
W. B. Yeats - Anima Hominis
Only when we are saint or sage and renounce Experience itself,
can we in the language of the Christian Caballa,
leave the sudden lightning and the path of the serpent
and become the bowman who aims his arrow at the centre of the Sun.
The solitary nature of the hermit
The hermit is by nature [and definition] a solitary self contained individual.
Hermits are often intellectually extremely bright,
which means they find the company of those less bright to be quite tiring.
Carl Gustav Jung
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one,
but from being unable to communicate
the things that seem important to oneself,
or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”
The hermit also has no need or desire to socialize;
what marks out the hermit is the desire for peace and solitude.
Carl Gustav Jung - To Gustav Schmaltz - 30 May 1957
I ... feel not only the weight of my years and the tiredness this brings,
but even more strongly, the need to live in harmony
with the inner demands of my old age.
Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living.
Talking is often torment for me, and I need many days of silence
to recover from the futility of words.
I have got my marching orders ...
What you think of as a few days of spiritual communion
would be unendurable for me ... rest is silence!
This realization comes clearer every day,
as the need to communicate dwindles.
They need to be unassuming, lacking in ego, quiet, reserved,
occasionally a little taciturn.
They are not unkind or lacking in patience,
in fact patience tends to be one key characteristic they all have,
but they do not achieve their ends
through bombastic display or self publicity.
This is symbolised on the tarot card by the cloak
which hides their true nature.
Occasionally the lantern too is hidden under the cloak
- they ‘hide their light under a bushel’.
But it is often their names that last in history for ever
- not the Saint’s or the Fool’s - because they were the ones
who brought the illumination to others.
The Light
In some Tarot cards [not all]
the light is shown in the shape of The Star of David.
Although this star is now a generally recognized symbol
of Jewish identity and Judaism,
its symbolism is much older and it is used in mystic systems
such as the Kabbalah and in Sufism.
Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles.
In effect, it shows the meeting of two cones of energy
and is equivalent in symbolism to the chalice or cup and the hourglass.
And this is why some hermits carry a lamp with a star,
and some carry an hourglass.
The only difference between the two is the degree of penetration.
In some systems the star symbol also signifies the mystical marriage
- union of one’s Mortal and Immortal soul
- The Higher spirit and the Personality.
In Summary
In effect, Hermits are agents of change and often hugely dramatic change.
But, the hermit also symbolises according to Cirlot
“tradition, study, reserve, as well as patient and profound work”.
Furthermore, whereas the Hierophant
uses only his intellect to deduce his findings,
the Hermit receives spiritual help, very targeted help.
But the Hermit gets much rougher treatment than the Hierophant,
who is the conventional and accepted face of religion.
They have to endure chastity and loneliness.
They cannot ‘fly’ so the comfort of guides and visible support
is denied because of their need to use their logical and rational abilities.
W. B. Yeats - from Selected Poetry from Fergus and the Druid
Fergus:
This whole day have I followed in the rocks
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape
First as a raven on whose ancient wings
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed A weasel
moving on from stone to stone
And now at last you wear a human shape
A thin grey man half lost in the gathering light
Druid: What would you Fergus?
Fergus: Be no more a king
But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours
Druid: Look on my thin grey hair and hollow cheeks
And on these hands that may not lift the sword
This body trembling like a wind blown reed ...
Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams
Unloose the chord, and they will wrap you round.