The Hermit

Notes

1. The portrayal of a desolate peak seems to refer to the Rosicrucian mystical journey. The Welsh alchemist and mystic, Thomas Vaughan cites a “Letter of the Rosy Cross” which “describes, under the allegory of a mountain, a certain profound state of introspection” (Waite: The Secret Tradition in Alchemy, p 285).
   
   In Azoth or Star of the East (p 161), Waite states that "Solitude is essential to such a work and the education of the superior conditions is best effected among the primeval sublemities of Nature, in mountain fastnesses in the divine desolation of the wilderness."
   
   
2. Hexagonal glow in the lantern - The hexagon appears on the magic lantern illustrated by Levi (Transcendental Magic, p 252). In The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry (p 36), Waite shows a similar symbol, a radiant hexagon which he describes as “The Hexagon, encompassed by a solar glory.” The Frontispiece in Waite’s Hermetic Museum shows the hermit following the bright hexagonal light being carried before him by a female spirit.
   
   A further hint may be offered in Waite’s poem: “At the End of Things” from The Collected Poems of Arthur Edward Waite. (The text of the poem can be accessed at http://www.adepti.com thanks to the research of A. Grinder.)
   
   The poem describes a spiritual pilgrim:
   
   And a star I stole for the good of my soul,
   Lest the darkness came down on my sins...
   I carried the star; that star led me...
   Did my star more than the cozening guide?
   The fool, as I think, at the chasm's brink...
   Did, even as I, in the end rejoice.
   
   The card suggests that the Hermit is now holding the star aloft so that others may find it. For example, in Lamps of Western Mysticism (p 307), we find “I put up this Lamp of the Heights as a beacon for others hereafter.”
   
   

Based on original research by (in alphabetical order) A. Grinder and R. O'Neill. To add to this collection of information, please email Robert V. O'Neill.

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