Tarot Card Comparisons: The Thoth Tarot- Key 9- The Hermit & The Witches Tarot- Key 9- The Hermit

THE HERMIT-key 9, is known as the 12th 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 (Mercy). This connection represents 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.

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 Qabalistic text Sepher Yetzirah, Yod is a simple letter that is attributed to sexual love.

The letter Yod is 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.

The very word 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 figure standing alone, in both the Witches Tarot and Thoth Tarot-key 9. In both, he is also holding His own source of light. Reminds me of the Zeus Christos as the "Light of the World".

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 Collective Unconscious. 

The  Witches Tarot-Key 9-The Hermit, card suggests both desolation of the frozen north and lighting the dark abyss,  from his lamp. The dark and frozen scene suggests the Arctic or Antarctica, thus, we can envision the  as a conceptualization of crystallized precipitation out of the Vast Ocean of Binah....which is called "The Crystallized light" and/or organic matter, of which the body is built. 

It should be noted, that the Higher the card is on the 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, also expressed the HERMIT, as  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 by its "passing through" the dark Ocean of Binah via Chokmah. In other words, the purity of idea under "Will to Force", transformed into form by the Understanding of Binah's "Will to Form", 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. This concept maybe best understood by meditating on the image of the Serpent, Oroboros,  that eats it's 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 know to Qabalists.  In Qabalah, the Hermit is called the first of the three great initiatory cards, LUST,  and THE CHARIOT being the other two. However, the experiences of  all three of these initiatory Paths may be gained on the Path of the High Priestess (middle pillar), the one that goes straight up from Tiphareth to Kether, crossing the Abyss and its devastating isolation while the instate experiences Divine reconciliation through isolation.

Of the Hermit, the descriptions are many, but it must be remembered that this Key-9 Card is primarily about union, representing the first point of awareness of the 4th Sephiroth, Chessed-Mercy of the 6th Sephiroth- Tiphareth- Beauty, a union that is often explained in the most erotic of imagery as it is a copulation of the Intelligence of Architecture and the Harmony of Love; an action from which the Microcosm is born.

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 self to the higher self. Since the Qabalistic Paths are subjective Hence, the Path of Yod, is the subjective link of Strength (Lust), Justice, Beauty and Mercy, represented as the Tarot Hermit.  If we are to understand the Transitional Energy, from Demiurge to Logos, our personality must Travel the Path of the Hermit, rising above Tiphareth, shown as the Lantern on both Witches Tarot and Thoth Tarot, toward Chesed, shown as the Staff on both cards, in order to subjectively view the Logos center! In the language of  both Hebrew and Greek Metaphysics, Logos means 'Word", depicting vibration Power. The Greek scholar, Heraclitus , described the Logos as a "spermatic; a Divine Fire which stimulated and maintained order".

This stimulation of all atoms 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 and/or 0 that becomes 8, one twisted into 2, which refers to the Electric (Male) and Magnetic (Female) and the represents the Quantum Physics String Theory, where one "string"  or 8 which is usually shown as laying on its side enters this universe, producing a negative and positive particle. 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. 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 (Word of God) 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) as shown in the art of the Witches Tarot. Moses was a Thaumaturge whose staff was a wand of enormous power that could 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. Other references to Moses and the Sacred Fire, is told as God interacting with Moses through a burning bush. Making Moses an intermediary or tool of the Supreme Father. Thus, Moses is the Hand of God, which emphasizes the meaning of Yod as hand. In Fact, the hand of the Hermit in the Golden Dawn card (not shown), is open, as opposed to the closed fist  meaning of the Wheel of Fortune (see past blog), and means ultimate  Power while also depicting innocence, as an open hand can give or take with out the impediments of thoughts or moral restrictions.

The Thoth -Hermit card, shows the lone figure cloaked in the Red of Binah,, the Blood of the Goddess,  showing that he is rooted in the Great Mother, while also showing the motion and 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 in the Thoth Tarot by the Orphic egg, wrapped in a serpentine image of the spiral energy. 

 The Thoth Tarot card also illustrates Cerberus, the Greek three headed dog who guards the gates of Hell, who is tamed by the Hermit and is a willing companion. One head of Cerberus, faces backwards, looking into the past, while the other two heads, look at the present and future.  There is an interesting connection here to the Goddess Hell-Aine, and Her Three Yoni (wombs- 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 the flesh-o-phobes of our dogmatic culture.

The image of the spermatozoon, on the Thoth Tarot Hermit Card, represents the Yod energies in the world, while the staff which transmits sexual force (Kundalini) is totally hidden. Which is not the case of the Japanese ink scroll depiction  of the hermit, Bodhidharma (470-543 CE.) , the first patriarch of Chinese and Japaneses Buddhism who himself was as a Moses. The Spiritual Fire  and wand, of a Magus is depicted in this illustration as an erect phallus,before the flesh-o-phobia of Division-ism became popular. The truth is that The Divine Creative is Sex, and to divide the Sexual Self from the body by dysfunctional definition, is to divide the Spirit from the Body. Spirit is the Vital Sexual Force of Life!

  I wonder, has it ever occurred to common man, that if you divide the spirit (Will) from the sacred- body, that it only leads to enslavement? (Illustration from the Book: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EROTIC WISDOM by Rufus C. Camphausen.)

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 14.7 billion years to build living form, in the Malkuth World of Physical Mater, as a Divine Image called Hu (Chinese for God ) Man (Hindu word-Manas: meaning mind) i.e. YOU; will help you emotionally and mentally establish Spirit body Union and the axiom "Above all things know thyself" ,as a Spirit who is only Whole, on all 10 planes of the multi-verse. A lot of Divine work went into the making of You----and a lot of man-made history has been devoted to the Pavlovian process of demeaning yourself image so that you could be ruled by those who can't rule themselves and need a faux authority to feel secure. Something to ponder, as your self value flounders around in debt-slavery, trying to make "ends meet".

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