High Priestess and Hermit

Parzival

What is the essential difference between High Priestess and Hermit as to coming to knowledge of inner, intangible truths? Or is there an essential difference?
 

Abrac

Hmm...good question. On the Tree of Life they originate in the same place- 6, but lead to different places.
 

The crowned one

I feel it depends who you believe she is/represents. Is she Isis? Or perhaps a Viscounti? Mind you, a heretic being burned on the stake is not good advertising for a family such as theirs' ;) Pope Joan?

In some ways she, The High Priestess, represents the first feminist (Paul Hudson). The big difference in my mind is she was not a teacher she was only a leader and born into Gnosticism and the occult, it was her right, not earned. She is proud by station and birth, then educated from there.

The hermit might teach the lucky deserving few but mostly he searches, he earned his knowledge, and unlike the Priestess was not proud. He searched for every little gain in wisdom and understanding, rather then being taught. I have no thought as to who a archetypal hermit might represent in tarot.

So I guess the difference to me was one is taught the other discovered.
 

HoneyBea

I think the difference between them is this:

The HP is essentially about encouraging one to reach into those inner depths of knowledge and let our intuition come to the fore, in other words we need to be in touch with our spirituality in order to manifest those things for our greater good in the world. She represents here the need to turn inwards and release our logical mind and engage our inner senses. What Waite may have been getting at with this card is that we need to know that the real power lies within our depths and only by withdrawing from the conscious can we reveal these hidden secrets.

Now the Hermit appears to me to be about being able to take the experiences from life in order to understand himself better and to further his own growth.

Waite says the Hermit is a card of attainment rather than a card of quest. What I think he means by this is that the Hermit is able to take the lessons he learns both physical and spiritual to gain an awareness that helps him to reflect on how he lives his life and what meaning he can give to it and this depends on how well he is able to integrate both these aspects of him self.

Waite also says of this card " His beacon intimates that 'where I am, you also may be" This could well suggest that having gained an inner awareness you will have an understanding of where you are and how you got there and that you can only get there by having that inner awareness. What he may be talking about here is that gaining spiritual wisdom takes effort as well as experience and so it is not so easy to achieve it.

The Hermits main message then to us is that it takes time to unveil wisdom that can be gained through understanding and acceptance. His ability to reflect on this is an asset to him.

The High Priestess message is that it is from within that we can start to give meaning to our outer world. So instead of using one's logic to give meaning she encourages one to use their higher self.

Just my thoughts onthese two cards.

~HoneyBea~
 

memries

The High Priestess uses intuition and inner knowings. Not to say she has not studied it all. Mysteries of life.

The Hermit secludes himself to learn, maybe. Not to say he does not study the spiritual but it is possible.

In my opinion C. Jung became the Hermit archetype to study the mysteries in his own way and arrived at being The High Priestess archetype.

I can study C.Jung as a hermit but if I don't get it I am not going to become the High Priestess.