The Hermit (tarot card)

The Hermit (IX) is the ninth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination.

The Hermit (IX) from the Rider–Waite tarot deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith

Description

The Rider–Waite version of the card shows an old man, standing on a mountain peak, carrying a staff in one hand and a lit lantern containing a six-pointed star in the other. In the background is a mountain range.

According to Eden Gray, his lantern is the Lamp of Truth, used to guide the unknowing, his patriarch's staff helps him navigate narrow paths as he seeks enlightenment and his cloak is a form of discretion.

Interpretation

According to A.E. Waite's 1910 book Pictorial Key to the Tarot, the Hermit card carries several divinatory associations:

9. THE HERMIT. Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption. Reversed: Concealment, disguise, policy fear, unreasoned caution.

Examples

• 
  Pierpont Morgan Bergamo (15th century)
• 
  Charles VI (or Gringonneur) (15th century)
• 
  Jean Dodal Marseilles (1701-1715)
• 
  Vandenborre (1780)
• 
  Court de Gébelin (1781)
• 
  Renault (1820-1830)
• 
  Piedmontese (1865)
• 
  Oswald Wirth (1889)
• 
  Grand Etteilla (1890)
• 
  Lequart Marseilles (1890)
• 
  Papus (1909)
• 
  Tarot ReVisioned (2003)

In other media

• A version of Pamela Colman Smith's Hermit designed by Barrington Colby is depicted on the inner jacket sleeve of Led Zeppelin IV.
• In the X/1999 tarot version made by CLAMP, The Hermit is Satsuki Yatouji.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders uses tarot cards to name character's Stands. Joseph Joestar has the Stand Hermit Purple, with abilities inspired by thoughtography.
• The Persona series includes various characters represented by tarot cards. In Persona 5 The Hermit card belongs to Futaba Sakura, a member of the main cast.
• The Binding of Isaac utilizes tarot cards as pickups that can be used to gain/activate in-game abilities, the Hermit warping the player to the current floor’s shop.
• In The House of the Dead, each of its bosses in the mainline series are named after the Major Arcana Tarot Cards (excluding The Devil.) The third boss of its first installment (Type 6803) was named after The Hermit card.