9-The Hermit! In learning you teach, and in teaching you will learn!

Owl Tarot

Welcome folks, welcome to yet another Thoth Trump! As some of you (hopefully this one will attract more then one posters), I decided to start weekly threads about some of the thoughts and interpretations, as they come to me the moment I am writing, of the Trump I am currently studying. It is the third time I undergo this process (of weekly Trump study I mean) because in the previous two I gained further insight about the cards so I decided to follow this process yet again, but with a slightly different twist in it! So, anyone willing and available to provide some thoughts and opinions for me to work and contemplate about would be appreciated! I also hope my thoughts as of this post and moment help you!

IX- The Hermit

Trump associated to Virgo- Ruled by Mercury, also exalted in it

20th Path, connecting Chesed to Tiphareth. Hebrew letter: Yod

Book of Thoth said:
This card is attributed to the letter Yod, which means the Hand. Hence, the hand, which is the tool or instrument par excellence, is in the centre of the picture. The letter Yod is the foundation of all the other letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which are merely combinations of it in various ways.

The letter Yod is the first letter of the name Tetragrammaton, and this symbolizes the Father, who is Wisdom; he is the highest form of Mercury, and the Logos, the Creator of all worlds. Accordingly, his representative in physical life is the spermatozoon; this is why the card is called The Hermit.

So, setting off from the very letter of the card is a nice start. Yod is said to represent the Father, Chokmah in the formula of the Tetragrammaton, and it's top most point a reference to Kether, as it is called sometimes the Crown. This is also re-enforced by the the fact his face is not seen, probably a reference to the title "Concealed of the Concealed", the back of his head is white, a reference to "White Head". Yet another point made is that he is the Logos or Mercury, whose Trump is The Magus, connecting Kether to Binah. A really interesting consideration along the same lines here, comes from Liber 777 and in particular table XX, where the complete practical attribution of Egyptian Gods for this card is Heru-pa-Krath.

Esoteric Keys of Alchemy p. 67 said:
the development of the energy of the First Matter within the human organism is actually root, as we have seen, in the assimilative functions of the interstinal tract, governed by the sign of Virgo,attributed to Yod.

This further signifies the Alchemical importance of the letter Yod as the root of the energy within us.

Yod also means hand, and one has to think in what ways we use our hands to indicate it is a particulary creative tool, maybe the most creative, we have from birth.

This information heavily to indicates us the fertilility, the importance and creativity of this card.

Book of Thoth said:
The figure of the Hermit himself recalls the shape of the letter Yod, and the colour of his cloak is the colour of Binah, in whom he gestates. In his hand he holds a Lamp whose centre is the Sun, portrayed in the likeness of the Sigil of the great King of Fire (Yod is the secret Fire). It seems that he is contemplating---in a certain sense, adoring---the Orphic egg (greenish in colour) because it is conterminous with the Universe, while the snake which surrounds it is many-coloured to signify the iridescence of Mercury. For he is not only creative, but is the fluidic essence of Light, which is the life of the Universe.

He gestates in Binah, and the numerical value of Yod, which is 10, also translates to "a hidden place".

The Hermit's lamp contains the Sun within, composing of 8 straight and 8 wavy rays, and 8 refers to Hod, the Sphere of Mercury on the Tree of Life. The same goes with the lamp, as it has 8 sides.

The Orphic Egg is what he is actually adoring, and the Egg itself is greenish, refering us to Venus and the Mother thereoff, while the snake is many coloured, and snakes are also attributed the the Father, so we have another meaning of creative interaction between them.

The light originating from his Lamp and Crowley above states that it is the Life of the Universe, Light as the Life giver if you prefer.

Now I will approach the card via the path and the Sephira it connects, Chesed and Tiphareth.

To set off about Chesed as a Sephira, what I think helps in order to properly conseptualize the particular Sephira is a certain part of Liber 333:

Liber 333 p. 19 said:
That is not which is.
The only Word is Silence.
The only Meaning of that Word is not.
Thoughts are false.
Fatherhood is unity disguised as duality.
Peace implies war.
Power implies war.
Harmony implies war.
Victory implies war.
Glory implies war.
Foundation implies war.
Alas! for the Kingdom wherein all these are at war.

COMMENTARY
In line 5, we come to an important statement, an adumbration of the most daring thesis in this book—Father and Son are not really two, but one; their unity being the Holy Ghost, the semen; the human form is a non-essential accretion of this quintessence.

So far the chapter has followed the Sephiroth from Kether to Chesed, and Chesed is united to the Supernal Triad by virtue of its Phallic nature; for not only is Amoun a Phallic God, and Jupiter the Father of All, but 4 is Daleth, Venus, and Chesed refers to water, from which Venus sprang, and which is the symbol of the Mother in the Tetragrammaton. See Chapter 0, “God the Father and Mother is concealed in generation”.

But Chesed, in the lower sense, is conjoined to Microprosopus. It is the true link between the greater and lesser countenances, whereas Daath is the false. Compare the doctrine of the higher and lower Manas in Theosophy.

The rest of the chapter therefor points out the duality, and therefore the imperfection, of all the lower Sephiroth in their essence.

It is particulary interesting, because this passage signifies the connection of Chesed to Chokmah via it's Phallic nature (I am not mentioning this in a racistic manner, mind you), which I believe is important to conceptualize in order to properly understand the fertile nature of this card.

Chesed is called the perserver, it is anabolic, constructive and perserving. This is why he is connected to the Demiurge Gods as seen in the above quotation from Liber 333. The Yetziratic text also helps by signifying that Chesed "contains all the Holy Powers, and from it emanate all the spiritual virtues in their most exalted essences".

A symbol of Chesed is presented to us as the almost pyramid-like triangle right on top of the card. Pyramids are symbols of Chesed, and from it emanate 2 rays of white light independent from the Lamp's Light. I think the points made about Chesed can clear that out.

Now that we have said some things about Chesed, moving on to Tiphareth. The Lamp and the Sun are obvious symbols of Tiphareth, which is sometimes referred to as Kether in a lower level. Sun Gods are healing Gods, and sunlight plays a pretty important part in metabolism. The Life-Giver concept we refered to is here again in the form of the Sun, which the Hermit carries in his hand. Virgo is the sign of harvest, so the connection is obvious. As Crowley states it,

Book of Thoth said:
The highest symbolism of this card is, therefore, Fertility in its most exalted sense, and this is reflected in the attribution of the card to the sign of Virgo, which is another aspect of the same quality. Virgo is an earthy sign, and is referred especially to Corn, so that the background of the card is a field of wheat

The ending part from BoT is:

Book of Thoth said:
This card recalls the Legend of Persephone, and herein is a dogma. Concealed within Mercury is a light which pervades all parts of the Universe equally; one of his titles is Psychopompos, the guide of the soul through the lower regions. These symbols are indicated by his Serpent Wand, which is actually growing out of the Abyss, and is the spermatozoon developed as a poison, and manifesting the foetus. Following him is Cerberus, the three-headed Hound of Hell whom he has tamed. In this Trump is shewn the entire mystery of Life in its most secret workings. Yod Phallus Spermatozoon Hand Logos Virgin. There is perfect Identity, not merely Equivalence, of the Extremes, the Manifestation, and the Method.

The Legend of Persephone is pretty relevant not to mention here. In a nutshell, she was the daughter of Goddess Demeter, the Goddess of crops and harvest. She got abducted by Hades, the ruler of the Underworld, and when Demeter found out what happened, she withdrew from her role as a Goddess and that resulted in the crops no longer growing.

Mercury or Hermes played the role of the Psychopompos and was the guide of Persephone to the surface and her mother. This also resulted in the land being fertile again, which is why it is a good idea to consider working with 10 of Disks to further expand upon the matter.

Cerberus was considered the guard of the Underworld, who the Hermit tammed. In Liber Jugorum, Crowley goes on to ascribe three human attributes to each head, namely speech, action and thought. So the Hermit has the control of those three and is using them as he wishes.

His Wand (Yod symbol) is the spermatozoon, which I think is a Homunculus. Homunculus derived from the idea that embryos are preformed within the sperm as far as I am aware of. One more possible reference to the secret seed of Life that this card represents.

To our humorous sexual images, you may know how full this card is! The Serpent is "playing" with the egg and our Hermit is followed by a long sperm wand (that's what she said!) while adoring the manifested Universe, which he also is the carrier of the "secret seed" I think!

Another long one, more than the previous one, but it was another good exercise in itself for me, and I hope it both helps you and motivates you to give me some food for thought! That's some of the things I could say about this card as I view it today, I could go on by I think it will be boring and I hope you liked it!
 

Michael Sternbach

Not long ago, I asked myself: What has The Hermit in his mountain cabin really got to do with this sexual symbolism, in particular, with fertility? The Book of Thoth gave me an answer, when it talks about the Trump's divinatory meaning:

Illumination from within; secret impulse from within. Practical plans derived accordingly.

The secret inner impulse, that's the sperm cell - which comes to fruition in practical plans and their subsequent results, respectively. And yes, this sounds like a Virgo type of energy.

Hope that this makes sense to anybody else... (shrugs)
 

Zephyros

For me the Hermit has always held a special sort of attribution. On the one hand, both Yod and Virgo are symbols of latent energy, of seeds and beginnings. However, Yod in Virgo encapsulates the Hermit and his special situation, if we equate Virgo to a womb (rather than a virgin). For the infinitely contracted point of Yod, the womb is the universe in which it swims, Hadit inside Nuit. The Hermit is alone because nothing else has yet been created, and so there are infinite possibilities.
 

Aeon418

Liber 418 said:
The man of earth is the adherent. The lover giveth his life unto the work among men. The hermit goeth solitary, and giveth only of his light unto men.

He 'goeth solitary'? This may be represented on the card by the triangle at the top and the slanted beam of light. The triangle is the 'solitary' one pointed focus of the Master. He is fixed in his Will in the City of the Pyramids. The slanted beam indicates a direction of travel. By virtue of who he is the Hermit has become The Way. We cannot see his face because he is NEMO.

His lamp is his light that is cast down through the Abyss to guide others in The Way. This Lamp is The Hanged Man - the Lamp of the Abyss.
Atu Mnemonic - Mem:
In Mother-Deeps of Ocean the God-Man
Hangs, Lamp of the Abyss Aeonian.
It will be noted that the Hanged Man hangs from an inverted Ankh. The Ankh is the Sandal strap which signifies the power To Go.
 

Owl Tarot

He 'goeth solitary'? This may be represented on the card by the triangle at the top and the slanted beam of light. The triangle is the 'solitary' one pointed focus of the Master. He is fixed in his Will in the City of the Pyramids. The slanted beam indicates a direction of travel. By virtue of who he is the Hermit has become The Way. We cannot see his face because he is NEMO.

His lamp is his light that is cast down through the Abyss to guide others in The Way. This Lamp is The Hanged Man - the Lamp of the Abyss.
Atu Mnemonic - Mem:

It will be noted that the Hanged Man hangs from an inverted Ankh. The Ankh is the Sandal strap which signifies the power To Go.

Pretty nice points. I think seeing it from that angle helps realize the differenct between Tiphareth as the Son and Tiphareth as the King and the "Redeemer", in Christian terms could be Christ not-manifest (The Magus) and Christ manifest (the Lamp with the Sun in it). Along the same line go the Parables about the crops and the seeds, possibly sheding more light upon this card.

I tend to see the upmost point of the triangle as the topmost point of Yod, a possible reference to Kether/Hadit. I also think the quotation in my OP from Liber 333 sheds some light to the nature of Chesed as Unity and aids to realize why the so high references of this card connect Chesed to Tiphareth. A nice little connection I found about NEMO as No-Man is that it's numerical value in connection to this card is "To make them know".

Another interesting way of looking at this card is by examining it alongside The Magus. Their Paths are parallel on the Tree, and their letters add up to 22, which among other meanings translates to Unity, Wheat, By Yod, meanings I find very insightful. Beth means House, and homes generally consist of 4 walls, another reference to the constructive nature of the Logos both as The Magus and as The Hermit.
 

Owl Tarot

For me the Hermit has always held a special sort of attribution. On the one hand, both Yod and Virgo are symbols of latent energy, of seeds and beginnings. However, Yod in Virgo encapsulates the Hermit and his special situation, if we equate Virgo to a womb (rather than a virgin). For the infinitely contracted point of Yod, the womb is the universe in which it swims, Hadit inside Nuit. The Hermit is alone because nothing else has yet been created, and so there are infinite possibilities.

Nice viewpoint of him, as what he did pre-manifestation! In this sense, I think the Christian Parables about the crops and the seeds are helpful to think about the matter from this viewpoint of the Hermit. Another way of seeing this card post-manifestasion, if you think of the Hermit as the Logos or an aspect of Hadit (since in his Magus form he connects Hadit, Kether to Babalon, Binah), is to think about him as the one adoring manifestasion, waiting to see how his "work" will pan out while planting the secret seed of Life. This is also pretty harmonious if you view the Lamp as the Hanged Man, God the Son, Horus, H.G.A. or what you may wish to call the energy of Tiphareth in this aspect.

Not long ago, I asked myself: What has The Hermit in his mountain cabin really got to do with this sexual symbolism, in particular, with fertility? The Book of Thoth gave me an answer, when it talks about the Trump's divinatory meaning:



The secret inner impulse, that's the sperm cell - which comes to fruition in practical plans and their subsequent results, respectively. And yes, this sounds like a Virgo type of energy.

Hope that this makes sense to anybody else... (shrugs)

This makes sense, especially if you think of Mercury, whose different aspects are The Magus and The Hermit, as The Will of God, the creative and organising principle of force into form which connects him harmoniously to both Chesed and Kether (Tiphareth is his image) especially when the part I quoted from Liber 333 about Chesed is taken into account.