Hermit as a location

Barleywine

Ok. So they (Hermit/HP) are both types of inner wisdom which have been arrived at via a different route. Thankyou.

That seems about right to me. I also wanted to note that Nine is considered the last "perfect" number. After the Hermit things start to get more complex.
 

Thirteen

Sherlock Holmes?

I was taught at the beginning of my journey that the Hermit is a meditater and looks for the gut--inward not outward. So I guess I always say, he is looking BACK not forward. This is not to say he won't GO forward, but only after looking back to see how far he has come.
I'll totally agree that he's looking inward, though that seems a matter of who and what he is in the here and now. Then again, I'll also agree that the Hermit re-examines things. In that way, he very much would be looking back, like an psychoanalysis taking a patient back through their lives to find out how they got to be who and what they are now.

Such re-examining, however, isn't quite the same as looking back nostalgically--which is what I think threw me about your "looking backward." Looking back nostalgically is where you say "I'm going to walk through my old childhood home and revisit memories of my happy childhood..."

Re-examining the past (looking inward) is where you say, "I don't believe my childhood was as carefree as my parents say it was. I'm going to go back through my old house with a powerful flashlight and peer into every corner. I'm going to really try to remember what happened and get at the truth." That (to me) is the Hermit; he is Virgo, a sign of cynicism and doubts...in a good way. A person who questions; a Sherlock Holmes, who revisits the scene and notices what others are missing. Which I suppose means his location is more likely to be a CSI lab or a detective's office ;)
 

Thirteen

Wherever you go...there you are

I've always considered the Hermit to be high minded and somewhat of an idealist (see my reply to Think ...along similar lines) so I was interested in your reply: "...but not because his vision is lofty". Maybe I accord him too much ! I'll have to think on this some more.
Well, on that side of the fence, we do have Waite saying: "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."

But as you see, Waite was clearly having a disagreement with other scholars on this. :D Still, your view of him as high minded puts you in line with Waite. The Hermit isn't, in the RWS card, wandering about investigating. He has attained a pinnacle of "perfect" inner wisdom, and is content to remain right there (where else, after all, would he go? He has all he wants). And the purpose of his lantern isn't to examine, but to be a beacon to others (note that Waite says it is a "star" that shines from the lantern--more on that below). To let them know they can reach their own, isolated mountaintops.

In that sense, ironically enough, the answer to your question about the Hermit as location is anywhere in the world, so long as that is where one can find solitude and perfect understanding of the world.

My view of the Hermit is more line with Crowley who says: "Wander alone; bearing the light and thy staff. And be the light so bright that no man seeth thee. Be not moved by aught without or within: Keep silence in all ways. Illumination from within, secret impulse from within..." In other words, follow the beat of your own drum (but don't bother telling anyone what you're about or why); be independent and true to yourself. And, I guess, "keep on swimming?" :joke: Both Waite and Crowley have the Hermit as Saturn in Aquarius (the Star); Saturn is restricting (which is the solitude aspect, the keeping to yourself) and Aquarius is having a wide and "big picture" understanding of the world and where it's going. The difference is that Waite figures the restriction of Saturn keeps Aquarius in place. Crowley seems to think Aquarius' need to always be going forward is in charge and Saturn keeps the hike solitary and secretive.

So, Crowley would say that the Hermit's location is on the road, probably in a beaten up RV :D
 

Thirteen

I don't consider any of the major arcana any "better" than any other; the wisdom of the High Priestess is of a different order from that of the Hermit - it's more akin to the other Earth "wisdom" card, the Hierophant. Since the Hermit is associated with Mercury-ruled Virgo and the idea of a "hand," it strikes me more as "applied" wisdom than spiritually abstract. The High Priestess and the Hierophant received their wisdom as a privilege of their elevated status, but the Hermit had to climb to get his.
Totally on board with this! Yes, the Hermit is very much a "do-it-yourself" type. Figure it out yourself, and apply it yourself. Perhaps it's not so much that the Hermit *had* to climb for it so much as he rejected the privilege of it being handed to him wanting to climb for it himself and in his own way? ;)
 

Barleywine

Totally on board with this! Yes, the Hermit is very much a "do-it-yourself" type. Figure it out yourself, and apply it yourself. Perhaps it's not so much that the Hermit *had* to climb for it so much as he rejected the privilege of it being handed to him wanting to climb for it himself and in his own way? ;)

Yes, that would square with the "hands-on" industriousness of Virgo.
 

Thirteen

Make your own kind of music?

Yes, that would square with the "hands-on" industriousness of Virgo.
Well, the Hierophant's privledged info comes with certain requirements that a Virgo wouldn't agree to at all. He must funnel that spiritual wisdom to the earthly masses and to acolytes. And he has to follow the strictures of his church. Putting it another way, his whole reason for elevation is so that he can "lead the choir" as it were. He can't direct them to each sing as they like--he has to keep himself and them to musical forms that allow a choir to sing together. Nor can he wander off to sing his own individual song. His spiritual wisdom comes with that price tag: lead the choir.

And while the HPS doesn't have to do this (she can keep the songs she knows secret, or give certain sheet music to worthy individuals), she still has to act as a kind of guardian of the library, the gatekeeper who sits before the veil. She, likewise, can't wander off, letting anyone who likes take what sheet music they like. She has to make sure the right music goes to the right singer.

The Hermit, on the other hand and as Crowley has it, is charged with keeping silent, alone and unseen. Isolation helps him discover the music, but he also has to keep it to himself. There's an element here of "other people just aren't gonna get it, so why bother?" And "Everyone has to 'sing their own special song' so don't bother." Maybe, like the light he's carrying around which can only shine in that lantern, he has to keep the music in his head? Share it, and its like opening the lantern to the elements...the light will go out?
 

page of ghosts

In the deck I created, The Cult of Weimar Tarot, I used an image of Gustav Nagel for The Hermit. He was a real person living in Berlin in the 1920s.

Gustaf Nagel, often called The Barefoot Prophet, The First Hippie, lived for a time as an honest to goodness Hermit.
He was a preacher of sorts rejecting the artificiality of modern life and encouraging people to return to the rhythms of nature.
He developed a considerable following and may be in some way responsible for several back to nature movements that developed around the Weimar time.
The banner he holds reads, "Ich komme zu euch in Frieden." (I come to you in Peace.)

Many people are surprised to see him in a deck devoted to 1920s Berlin because he looks like a hippie from 1960s Berkeley.


Click HERE to see Gustav Nagel as the Hermit


I chose him as the Hermit because he went his own way, against the rising tide of modernism and spent a life seeking wisdom that comes from solitude and asceticism, eschewing worldly pleasures.

He was an anomaly in 1920s Berlin, that's for sure. That to me is the true spirit of the Hermit.

Oh, Gustaf! A little off topic to this thread but I saw a documentary about some very rebellious young people around 1900 in Austria/Germany/that area of Europe that went out to this lake and built some sort of a bath house and led very alternative lifestyles there. Gustaf was the brother of one of these people and he used to just disappear into the forest for long stretches of time, I even think he gained some followers over time who came to visit and wanted to learn about his hippie lifestyle. He grew very old, maybe even outlived all the others from the bath house era and I remember he refused to enroll in the army for one of the wars. A very interesting character, that Gustaf, and I think he makes a good hermit with his wandering ways and interesting philosophies.

Actually trying to contribute to this thread I think of the hermit as kind of an inner state/process but i do see him retreating to somewhere he can contemplate or study in peace. Somewhere he is not disturbed. I think you all have touched up on some good ideas. I imagine a quiet corner of a library, a good old hermit cave, camping out in the forest, having climbed a mountain and looking out over the landscape all alone, and for a more mundane every day image i think of hiding in your room until you're ready to come out, haha. At least I do some pondering when I hole up like that. I don't know if some uncharted territory in general can be a good match for the hermit or if that is better for another card. The Llewellyn classic tarot hermit is still in the process of climbing his mountain, which I think is interesting since it makes him more active. I still really like the RWS hermit who is standing on the mountain more.
 

EvaSegovia

To my mind, the Hermit is not "showing the way" for anyone other than himself. Where he lives matters only to him. He is not the "Keeper of Secrets". He is not the " "Sharer of Secrets". He is the "Knower of Secrets", and he will go or live anywhere he can learn to "Know" more about himself.