The Tarot of Eli, LLC-Major Arcana: Thoth Tarot-ATU 9-The Hermit & Tarot of The Spirit-Key 9-The Hermit

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The finest thing in the world is knowing how to belong to oneself.

-Michel de Montaigne, Of Solitude

The Thoth Hermit card represents the Universal Principle of completion, contemplation, and introspection. The Hermit symbolizes the shower of the wise way, who lights the way the way of wisdom in the experiences of life and is an invaluable inner resource for assisting us and others in our daily lives.

The three headed dog, who is the Greek Cerberus, guardian of the underworld, signifies the part of our nature that things are complete with one head looking behind into the past,one head looking at the Hermit/present and one looking forward into the future. Hence, Cerberus is our constant companion as "Past-Present-Future". Cerberus, represents the dark inner and unknown parts of ourselves that we should explore and incorporate before wholeness of self can be experienced.

The burgundy cloak is the Egyptian symbol of blood that represents the inherent honesty and integrity (virtue) within all of us that is inherited from the Magic of Mother's blood and/or the Blood of our Alien Foremothers. It pays to remember that we inherit the great Wisdom, Integrity, and Virtue of the Divine in our blood, and through introspection and contemplation we can "Remember our Divinity"., as our Archetypes, are those "who from the sky came" (Sumerian-Anunnaki).  

Astrologically, the Hermit is Virgo (the wheat in the background), the sign that represents attention to details, organization, and beauty. The zodiacal attribution to the Hermit card is the sign of Virgo. Virgo is an earthly sign that represents the most receptive feminine form of earth. Virgo is ruled by Mercury and Mercury is exalted in Virgo as well. One might say that the most receptive form of Earth forms a crust over Hades; Mercury, a form of Hades, is also the fiery messenger of Spirit, that has descended into matter, signaling the reintegration by Spiritual aspect that is Masculine (a phallic symbol) into being. This is known as the "Formula of the Princess", the earthly mode of fulfillment of the Great Work. Thus, the fertility generated by this event and that of Virgo itself is shown as the Green Wheat background of the Thoth Card. Wheat is also the plant that is sacred to Artemis, the Greek Goddess.The egg wrapped in the serpent, is called the Orphic egg and symbolizes the ability to give birth too new spiritual and physical forms.

THE HERMIT-ATU 9, is known as the Path of Yod on the Tree of Life, and connects Tiphareth ( 6th Sephiroth called: Beauty) and Chesed ( 4th Sephiroth called: Mercy). In other words, the Path of Yod connects the Christ-Buddha intelligence to the Architect of Manifestation that is Chesed. This is the self-sustaining point of primal beginnings in the Universe. It is the coming of the Light of manifestation through the Microcosm; the manifested Universe in direct contact with the Source of All and/or the Macrocosm.

The Path of Yod, is from the Demiurge out of darkness and is known as the Intelligence of Will. The Hebrew letter Yod, means Hand and according to the text Sepher Yetzirah, Yod is a simple letter that is attributed to sexual love and therefore, also represents the Phallus. (Needless to say, sexual love and hands do go rather well together...as if I could resist that!)

Hence, the letter Yod is also phallic in shape and is considered the Male-Fire which rushes out toward the Female-Water. These meanings seem curious at first, since the sign of Virgo (the Virgin) is attributed to this Path, giving us the understanding that the Hermit is to be ever-virgin, pure and totally innocent.

However, the very word itself, Hermit, comes from a Greek word meaning desert, the place where extreme ascetic monks lived in walled up rooms with one window. Which seems to add to the very mystery and solitariness of the Hermit/Hermes figure standing alone, holding its own source of light. Reminds me of the Christ (Zeus Christos) as the "Light of the World". In ancient Greece, marble statues of Hermes with a solitary phallus, called "Herms", were erected at every cross roads, for he was considered to be the Greek Messenger of the Gods and a symbol for fertility.

This image of the desert is a compelling one, as it is conceptually a vast expanse of earth, seemingly as vast as the Ocean. Binah, the Great Mother is often called the Great Ocean Mother Mari, and is seen in the image of the dark, deep, endless waters of the Universal Unconsciousness and/or the Great Ocean of the Abyss (Outer Space). Thus, we can envision the desert as a conceptualization of crystallized precipitation out of the Vast Ocean of Binah....which is called 'The Light". It should be noted, that the Higher the card is on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, the more important it is that we let the card suggest such images as they will. So once again I heartily suggest skrying the cards as an aid for deeper understanding.

The same intelligent energy suggested by the FOOL card, is also expressed as the HERMIT, the wise old age of the Child (Daath- which means Knowledge) and the virgin beginning of a new sequence; From Macrocosm to Microcosm. Here the Microcosm is seen as the purity and innocence of the Fool that is transformed from Macrocosm, by its "passing through" the Ocean of Binah. In other words, the purity of idea, transformed into information by the Understanding of Binah, the Mother of Consciousness. When we look at the HERMIT card, we see an Old Man, and nothing of the Child, yet they are one and the same, a concept maybe best understood by meditating on the image of the Serpent Ouroboros that eats its own tail.

THE HERMIT also represents communication between the Higher Self of Tiphareth, and the Spiritual Self of Kether, i.e. The Rauch and the Yechidah as they are known to Qabalists. The Hermit is called the first of the 3 great initiatory cards, LUST, and THE CHARIOT being the other 2. However, the experiences of all three of these initiatory Paths may be gained on the Path of the Priestess (middle pillar), the one that goes straight up from Tiphareth to Kether, crossing the Abyss and its devastating isolation while the initiate experiences Divine reconciliation through isolation.

Of the Hermit, the descriptions are many, but it must be remembered that this Key/ATU-9 Card is primarily about union, representing the first point of awareness of the Higher Self of the Supreme Spiritual Self, a union that is often explained in the most erotic of imagery as it is a copulation of the immortal Anima and immortal Animus Intelligence; an action from which the Microcosm is "born again" in the Macrocosm and/or the "Heavenly Man" intelligence is awakened within.

On the Tree of Life, Tiphareth is the Objective Solar Logos, the center of objective energy produced by the Sephiroth- Chesed (Demiurge) as a direct link of the lower levels of Mind to the Higher. Since Paths are subjective, the Path of Yod, the subjective link of understanding, is on the Hermit, simply because, if we are to understand the Transitional Energy, from Demiurge to Logos, we must Travel the Path of the Hermit, rising above Tiphareth toward Chesed, in order to subjectively view the Logos, center; our "Inner Sun"! In both Hebrew and Greek Metaphysics, Logos means 'Word", depicting vibrational Power. The Greek scholar, Heraclitus, described the Logos as a "spermatic; a Divine Fire which stimulated and maintained order. It is the Universal Shout, whirling vibration of "I Will Be" that has exploded outward into constant manifestations of information as "I AM".

I hope I clearly established the fact that The Path of Yod (Hand) which is THE HERMIT card, is the Path of Spiritual Fire into the Microcosm (Microprosopus). The Yod is the All Father, Chokma and the PATH OF YOD, is the manifestation before the Abyss which is related to the Logos (Word/Sun-Son) that is objectified as Tiphareth on the Tree of Life. To some the Word, is confusing: However, the Word is that vibratory will/ force which continually stimulates manifestation and is often shown as a serpent or Python. Such stimulation also energizes the principles of form (Binah) which it has produced. Thus, Kether, the Crown, the origin of Fiery Spirit, is seen as the One that from itself produced Two which refers to the Electric (Male) and Magnetic (Female) forces of the One Energy (0=2). There is a lot to wrap your brain around here, but that is mostly true of all the symbolism of the Major Arcana.

Often, the Hermit is related to the Christ figure, but he is better related to the Hebrew pathfinder Moses who led his people across the Egyptian desert and was assisted by an "Alien"/"god", who manifested a great pillar of light between the people and the Pharaoh and opened the Sea for the Hebrews to pass, and then also closed the Sea upon the Egyptians. In fact, an early Gnostic sect, The Simonion Gnostics, that had taken its name from Simon Magus, first described in the Acts of the Apostles, that the Logos was objectified as Moses. These second century Gnostics taught that the Book of Exodus was an allegory of the soul being led by the Logos (Moses) through the desert of human life into the spiritual promised land. Many of us of the Western culture, know the story of Moses as a Thaumaturge (Arch-magician), whose staff is a wand of enormous power that can strike water from rock and turn into a serpent upon his bidding. The "Magi's wand", turning into a serpent force, is an allegory that refers to the use of Kundalini (Yod) force by the Adept Magician. This serpentine force is a Sacred Fire that is the essence of the Logos transmitted by the phallic wand. To a Tantric, this wand would be called the Divya Linga, Divine Lingam. It is to be noted, to those ignorant of technology, higher tech, looks like magic and/or a miracle.

Other references to Moses and the Sacred Fire, is the told as God interacting with Moses "through a burning bush" which was seen after a loud noise of many trumpets startled the people, which sounds like this was a rocket landing that ignited the brush. Making Moses an intermediary or tool of the Supreme Father and/or Alien Forefathers. Thus, Moses is the Hand of God, which emphasizes the meaning of Yod as hand. In Fact, the hand of the Hermit is open, as opposed to the closed fist- meaning of the Wheel of Fortune (see Key 10), and means ultimate Power while also depicting innocence, as an open hand can give or take without the impediments of thoughts or moral restrictions. We are innocent inheritors of this power, as it is predesigned in our Genetic Modification by the Anu (Annunaki="Those who from the sky came").

The Thoth Hermit card, shows the lone figure cloaked in the Red of Binah, showing that he is rooted in the Great Mother (born of Mother's Magic blood/DNA splicing.) and emphasizing the motion and cosmic activity that is essential to the Yod which is the Intercourse of Chokma and Binah. He flows to She who then conceptualizes energy into form and/or Wisdom (Chokma) is objectified by Understanding (Binah). The concept of the Cosmos encircled by the Fiery Spirit (Yod), is shown by the Orphic egg, wrapped in a serpentine image of the spiral energy and/or female egg and male sperm. Cerberus, the Greek three headed dog who guards the gates of Hell, is tamed by the Hermit and is a willing companion. Hence the Hermit has mastered time. There is an interesting connection here to the Goddess Hell-Aine, and Her 3 Yonis (Vaginas) - Maid-Mother and Crone, but I'll leave further explanation up to the investigative student of magic, as I don't wish to offend the flesh-o-phobes of our dogmatic culture with any further mention of sexual union, which is a sacred ritual that our society has profaned.

The image of the spermatozoon (lower left). Represents the Yod energies in the world even though the staff (Phallus)which transmits the inherited sexual force (Kundalini) is totally hidden on the Thoth Card. Which is not the case of the Japanese ink scroll depiction of Bodhidharma (470-543 CE.), the first patriarch of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism who himself was as a Moses. The Spiritual Fire and wand, of a Magus is depicted in this illustration as a swollen phallus tenting his robe. Such truism, is before the flesh-o-phobia of Division-ism became the popular separation of spirit-mind and body by putting the wand as a decorative hand instrument of a magus. Honesty, would make us show the true image of the "magicians wand" and "its semen that heals the anointed", as it pumps out the magic formula of creation, that is turned into form by the Creatrix and controlled by the Womb. But then that would be "bad", as the body and its powerful and seemingly magic functions are a shameful thing that somehow spirit wishes to leave after 14 billion years trying to make it . Nakedness is now propaganda's pornography, and the purity of men and women are snakes, or eggs or even cups and Wands. Kether started this whole being- thing with "I Will Be", and the human mind (horus), the mind of the Divine Creative is now linked to a Homo Sapiens-Sapiens body giving the Divine Creative Psyche intimacy with its creation, which is what The I AM- has always wanted: However, propaganda has profane the will of the One and has even enforced this desecration. So, with that logic, it’s better to hide in fear, and show the male as a serpent, and the female yoni as a cup. It seems that in the modern lie, “False idols" are always better than the Truth of I AM. Besides, the lie of divisionism has been told for so long, every one ignorantly believes it is a truth. Even Jesus Christ said that "Truth is made manifest", and that means it is not spoken nor in Words, it is created as Form (in-form-action). But the Homo Sapiens-Sapiens of both sexes has been so profaned by the "few who wish to rule the many" that we fail even to manifest the "god within"/Kundalini, as it has fallen asleep, curled up at the base of our spines.

Most everyone who looks at the ejaculating phallus will feel shame and think it nasty or ugly, while looking at a dead statuary of a golden snake and cup, is beautiful and so creative or when a man and woman are invoking fertile power through intercourse as "she is being victimized". How sick we are, we think dead things made as false idols, are more beautiful than the Divinely created living image of the Creator and Creatrix.... something we can't create unless we use the "magic wand" of the lingam that ejaculates the gluten of life and the water womb that as a sea of amniotic fluid that nurtures and grows these wonders of life. I wonder, has it ever occurred to common man, that if you divide the spirit (Will) from the sacred- body, and the god from its image and creative magic from its instruments, that it only leads to enslavement?

As Crowley states in his BOOK OF THOTH, "In this Trump is shown the entire mystery of Life in its most secret workings. Yod=Phallus= Spermatozoon=Hand=Logos=Virgin."

Finding out why the Divine Couple of the Universe worked for over 13.8 billion years to build below, in the Malkuth World of Physical Mater, a Divine Image called Hu (Chinese for God) Man (Hindi word-Manas: meaning mind) i.e. YOU who are HORUS, will help establish Spirit body Union and the axiom "Above all things know thyself!". A lot of Divine work went into the making of you, even from Alien Scientist----and a lot of man-made history has been devoted to the Pavlovian process of demeaning yourself so that you could be ruled by those who can't rule themselves. Something to ponder, as your self-value flounders around in debt-slavery, trying to make "ends meet".

So for a brief reminder:

The Thoth Card, THE HERMIT, is the Path of Yod on the Tree of Life, the shape of which the figure is posed on the card. As I’ve prolifically stated the Yod force enervates to keep the world in order, a stimulus that could be described as a fertilization. Thus, the world is shown as barren but with potential, as the Hermit begins his "vibratory Walk' upon it.

Yod is linked with Kether [The Crown] the Highest Point of the Logos, i.e. the Primary energy from which manifestation derives and/or The One Energy that cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed, and is always shown as a phallus since it is the Cosmic Phallic Force.

The lantern in the hand of the Thoth Hermit represents Tiphareth (Beauty) our Soul, and makes a metaphysical statement about the nature of Light. Most of us know that everything is made of Stars and of the Light of Stars. Light, being composed of subatomic particles (Photons) is the principle of manifestation, or energy-material on which all Creation is built. The Hermit's lantern represents “His own Sun" or the Core Sun that all Solar Souls come from. The Fertilizing Light, that makes the barren Space-womb fruitful.

The Hermit represents a glyph on the nature of primal manifestation beneath the Abyss. He is a representation of the relationship between Light and the Sacred Fire symbolized by Yod.

To those who are on a mundane journey where a better credit score is the ultimate quest, this card has mundane meanings in a reading, but as a meditation device, skrying this card will aid in understanding the God Trinity of THE HERMIT -YOD, THE EMPEROR-HEH, AND THE HIEROPHANT-VAU., There is a clue to a deeper understanding in the placement of the letters, Yod, Heh, Vau, on the Tree of Life. The letters work together as a trinity from Chesed (Mercy) to Tiphareth (Beauty) to Chokmah (Wisdom) and back to Chesed. Many rewards come to those who research and study. We are wealthy children of light-living in an amnesia of impoverished definitions.

As a short explanation: if this card is drawn, it usually means that knowledge is needed in the querent’s life and having the need to listen closely to the master within. Contemplation, introspection by means of meditation is a method of achieving such a goal of inner wisdom. However, solitary, is a word draped in illusion for none of us walk alone. As we walk, so do our demons and angels walk with us. We become solitary only when they all cooperate and let the master within be their will. We must know ourselves as this master and not the product of our demons or angels.

The Tarot of The Spirit-Key 9-The Hermit, is holding up the creative hand (yod) which is defined as the "hand of god", and as your hand as it is the hand that magically creates, preserves and transforms the world.The eternal movement of the Divine Circle of Creation consists of 3 points (a plane), creation, preservation and transformation. The Hermit is the 9th Key, which is 3x3. The number 9 represents the magic 3/trinity constantly expanding which is an incredible power. Hence, 3 is considered a magical number used for magical incantation. 3x3 =9, making 9 a magical number that always returns to itself (Ouroboros) as 9 x1=9, 9 x2=18, 1+8=9, 9 x 3 =27, 2+7=9, 9 x 4=36, 3+6=9 etc.

The wisdom of the Hermit is the knowledge that like 9, we shall always return to our Self, in an eternal cycle of I AM. Here the "Me" shall always return to the "I AM", who then transforms another "me" out of the personalities new additional Self-information.

The Hermit is the light in the darkness-the inner light. Although he is the guide, he walks a solitary path. The red waistband on the Tarot of The Spirit-Hermit, is in the symbol of the Hebrew letter Yod, symbolizing the guiding principle, that we create the world with our own hand. He holds the staff of power in one hand, and holds up the other hand that has a hole in the center. This implies his channeling ability of all that is. For all the power that was or ever will be is here now. The 10 lights of emanation-representing the 10 Sephiroth of the Tree of Life are shown above his head. Behind his is the Ain Soph Aur, the realm of the ring pass not, of the limitless light and radiant darkness (limitless light can't be seen as it has no measure.)

The black shadow that is behind him, is actually a representation of the Crone of the Trinity Mother- the Great Dark Mother of Form, that has been cast in obscurity and is now standing behind the patriarch/ male archetype of God. Hence, the crescent moon symbol. Looming in dark silence, she is the Source of all light/power/energy. Behind the 2 are the wings of the Holy Spirit , the 3rd aspect of the Holy Trinity. These all embracing wings represent truth and higher understanding.

The meanings that are applicable to the Thoth Hermit are therefore, applicable to the Tarot of The Spirit -Key 9-The Hermit.This is a great card for skrying, as it represents the Inner Wisdom of inheritance, that we so much need to KNOW OURSELVES!

When the Hermit Card is thrown during a reading:

• It is about the principle of introspection, completion and space.

• This is representative of the deeper marriage of the Divine within ourselves, and is often a message that more knowledge is needed.

• This is definitely a "above all things, know thyself' message. The Hermit represents the inward search to find personal truth, where despair, isolation, as well as, accomplishments and gains, must be accepted.

• Also, Personal Integrity, the I AM Me, which is always be true to you.

• it implies that knowledge is needed, meditation and prayer are to be used to hear the inner self.

• A deep desire to follow that which is meaningful and/or heartfelt to you.

• Time to gather enough data and information in order to sort things out.

• Introspection which may require you to withdraw from others or the usual environment in order to gain the perspectives needed.

• A stage in life where Wisdom is sought.

• A search for wisdom and truth.
• Counsel and sound judgment.
• Knowledge
• A solitary soul
• Meditation
• A time of re-evaluation and soul searching
• Discretionary caution.
• Inner wisdom often called enlightenment.
• Spiritual inspiration pointing the way on life's journey.

• Contemplation, introspection and space.
• Needing more knowledge that can only be attained by listening closely to the inner self.
• The Divine Marriage within.
• Completing karma through service.
• A stage in life where wisdom it sought through introspection and isolation.
• Using your work in the world and uniting it with the Spiritual realms to attain the Highest state of Mind.
• Being yourself by pursuing the "above all things, know thyself" , deep inner philosophy.

If ill defined by surrounding cards:

• Stubbornness to the point of foolishness.
• A closed mind,
• Bad advice.
• Isolation.
• Only looking at the surface value.

Thank you for your interest, comments and supportive donations. May you live long and prosper. And for all you patrons out there; Thank you and many blessings.