Meaning
Smith's Hermit is an old man in a grey cloak standing alone on a snowy height, holding up a lantern with a six-pointed star inside it and leaning on a staff. Waite insists that it is a card of attainment, not of retreat: the lantern is a beacon, and its message is that where he is, others may also come. He rejects Lévi's reading of the card as occult isolation and the wise man's withdrawal from the world.
The Golden Dawn gave the card Yod, the smallest letter, glossed as hand, and the sign Virgo, and titled it the Magus of the Voice of Power, the Prophet of the Eternal. On the order's tree the Hermit is path 20.
We read the card as the inward turn that has something to show for itself: time alone, care, and a light that others can steer by. Waite's fortune-telling list for it runs from prudence to treason and roguery; it is quoted below as his, and we read no warning into it.
In the birth cards
The Hermit is the root of Greer's ninth constellation, with the Moon, 18. It is the Soul card of everyone whose total is 18 and both cards for a total of exactly 9, together 11.1 percent of the days from 1900 to 2030; the single 9 alone covers 5.8 percent. The chain 18-9 is the last of Greer's night-time chains, which reach every card of their constellation and so have no Hidden Factor; a single 9 leaves the Moon unreached.
Our own old page took a date that adds up to 9 as its example and stopped at the Hermit. By Greer's method the same date gives the Hermit as both Personality and Soul card and the Moon as its Hidden Factor.
As a natal-chart card the Hermit is the Sun-sign card of Virgo. As a year card it comes 12 times in the 201 years from 1900 to 2100 for a 15 June birthday.
History and names
In the Marseille decks the card is L'Hermite, numbered VIIII, an old man with a lantern and a staff. On the sheet of trumps of about 1500 shown in Figure 2 of the Tarot page he holds up an hourglass where Smith's figure has a lantern, and his number is XI: the trumps had not yet settled into one order.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Golden Dawn title (Book T)
- “The Magus of the Voice of Power, the Prophet of the Eternal” sourced
- Waite's fortune-telling list (1911), upright
- “Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption”, quoted as history; Waite called such meanings artificial and arbitrary sourced
- Greer's name for the constellation
- Introspection and Personal Integrity (1987, 2021) sourced
- Our line for the birth-card chain
- 9: Looking inward, living true; 18-9: Through the depths to wisdom our construction
- Sun-sign card
- For the Sun in Virgo; also the Moon card and the Rising card for Virgo sourced
How the schools read it
- Game decks (15th to 18th century)
- L'Hermite, numbered VIIII: an old man with a lantern and staff. On a sheet of about 1500 he holds an hourglass instead.
- Golden Dawn, Book T
- Yod, the hand, a simple letter, and the sign Virgo; path 20. Book T titles it the Magus of the Voice of Power, the Prophet of the Eternal.
- Waite and Smith (1909 to 1911)
- A card of attainment, not of seclusion: the lantern is held up for others, with the message that where he is, they also may be. He rejects Lévi's reading of it as occult isolation.
- Mary K. Greer (1984 to 2021)
- The root of the constellation of 9, with the Moon: the Soul card of every total of 18, and both cards for a single 9.
- EsoTerrier
- Read here as the inward turn that has something to show for itself: time alone, care, and a light that others can steer by.
Claims about it
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Yod and Virgo are the Hermit's ancient correspondences.
disputedWhat the record shows: They are the Golden Dawn's, from about 1888.
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The Hermit warns of betrayal.
falseWhat the record shows: Treason and roguery are in Waite's fortune-telling list, which he called arbitrary. We quote it as history.
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The Hermit is the turning point of the Fool's Journey through the trumps.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: The Fool's Journey is Eden Gray's reading of 1970, a modern lens. The trumps were not designed as one story.
