EP:9 - THE HERMIT

The Tarot Readers

Hosts David Peace and Jake Keane conduct a deep dive into The Hermit tarot card, exploring its traditional symbolism of introspection and wisdom while tracing its historical evolution

Key takeaways

• David Peace and Jake Keane trace The Hermit's origins from 14th-century Italian Taroki trump cards representing 'old man time' to its current depiction as a hooded sage holding a lantern with a star.
• The hosts advocate modernizing readings by reframing solitude as a necessary digital detox rather than just painful isolation, helping clients step away from doom-scrolling to focus inward.

Main topics

• The Hermit card symbolism and traditional meanings
• Historical evolution of tarot imagery across decks

Notable quotes

"There is no such thing as a bad tarot card, no matter how much Hollywood wants to say with it."

Conclusion

Listeners gain a nuanced understanding of The Hermit as a tool for sel

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:17) Hey everyone, welcome back to the Tower Readers Podcast. My name is David Peace and I'm joined by Jake Keane. Jake, how are you doing? Speaker 2 (0:23) All things well, kind of. A little bit ill, but I'll try not to cough as much this episode. Speaker 1 (0:29) People like the coughing. It's part of the charm of the podcast now. Speaker 2 (0:33) Yeah, yeah. It makes me look like I'll work through the pain. Speaker 1 (0:37) Yeah, yeah. Dedicated as we get through it. But if Speaker 2 (0:41) you're Speaker 1 (0:41) watching this and you're new to it, we're going through each... tarot card one at a time giving you the history and the traditional meanings and or meanings and then also just some advice on the tarot and sharing or love of this art form so if that interests you please subscribe please like share all that sort of youtubey stuff that we need to get going Speaker 2 (0:58) yeah it really helps like actually genuinely yeah Speaker 1 (1:03) it's surprising i've actually started liking and subscribing to other youtube channels the more i've done youtube myself Yeah. So Speaker 2 (1:10) what I'm excited about kind of this episode is the Hermit is, well, that's what we decided to use as our logo. Yeah. Speaker 1 (1:19) Hermit. We finally reached ourselves. Speaker 2 (1:24) Yeah, well, we wanted it. Well, I know when I was making it, like kind of making the vector art and stuff for it, that the intention was. the hermit kind of represents, you know, an accumulation of wisdom. So I thought that's probably a decent card to go for. It was either that or the high priestess. Speaker 1 (1:42) Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were going back and forth, but I think we look more like hermits with the beards and that's true. It's a lot. And considering I work from home and I've become incredibly antisocial, I think it really works for me. It's quite apt. Speaker 2 (1:58) Yeah, all the best negative traits of the Hermit definitely are reflected within us. But do you want to start us off by going over what the kind of traditional meaning of the Hermit is? Sure, yeah. Speaker 1 (2:10) Depending on the context, the Hermit... Speaker 1 (2:14) So the card, when pulled in the upright position, it's gone very fancy straight into it. The Hermit indicates a period of soul searching, self-reflection and spiritual enlightenment. It is a reminder to unplug from the world's distractions and focus on your inner growth. The core themes are solitude, inner guidance, reflection and stepping away from the daily grind. If it's reversed, then it goes into that. It's about painful isolation, loneliness, paranoia. or being cut off from society. Speaker 2 (2:45) Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting card because, I mean, much like some of the other ones that we've covered, there is very much a say what you see kind of feel into it. I mean, you see the name Hermit. You might not necessarily know what the imagery means, but you see the name Hermit and you kind of get... what the point of it could be. Obviously, there's a lot, there's still a lot to explore within those meanings and how it can relate to the person sat opposite you that you're reading. But the hermit is like an old faithful. You know, this isn't one that you necessarily need to do too much homework on, although I still will advise you to open up your notebooks and take some notes whilst we're talking, because there's going to be little sentences, you know, single little words that we say that help solidify the full meaning in your head. Um, I don't know necessarily where you want to start with this. Yeah, Speaker 1 (3:38) because I find it like the official meaning is kind of interesting because I have drifted away from it more than I thought I did until I re-looked at it. And that's Speaker 2 (3:47) the Speaker 1 (3:47) way. But just for the audio listeners, it is sort of the Rider Waite style. Carrot is a hooded figure, white-eared, holding a lantern with a star that's glowing in it on a grey background. And he's also... holding a yellow staff there was like snow and rock a rock up at his feet as he started standing there and some people say it kind of looks like he's standing on one leg but i think it's just people get tired of drawing feet uh but but like standing with the feet together in that sort of way so it's quite stationary not moving um from that sort of perspective and then the it's like we're only talking before we started this that the like the traditional sort of tower of the marseille that you'd buy is quite similar i have it here as well so again it is a figure the hood is down but same white beard holding a lantern and a more of a traditional wooden stick um on it and something we've discussed quite a lot is the backgrounds are different in the right of way that there's more detail but this one is just very plain as well so it actually is like a more in line with the older versions of the hermit and then a lot of the other characters with it But do you have anything outside of traditional meanings that you bring to this character? Speaker 2 (4:56) Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, so when you look at the hermit, when you kind of like look at the story, the fool's journey, a lot of people do see the hermit as representing the kind of the final stages of the fool almost. He's went out on his journey and it's like he's coming back to spend some time with the knowledge that he's acquired. And although I say coming back, it's more of an inward kind of. coming back it's like it's like um you know centering yourself it's returning to kind of dwell upon the wisdom that you've received because in the imagery itself i think he's meant to be standing atop a mountain um you know that's why there isn't much in the background it's because he's like above the stars almost he's like yeah he's he's kind of surveying everything internally as well as externally because you know the imagery external internal kind of relationship that there is with the cards what's interesting about that version of the hermit is um so so a lot of in the tarot de marseille obviously it is very similar but if you go further back to the more um the original kind of Well, the very origins of tarot, those Taroki trump cards from Italy, like 14th, 15th century, a lot of the earlier versions of the hermit weren't the hermit. They were kind of just representative of. old guy it was just old man you know the a lot of the names for it were literally tempo like time and uh i can't remember the the italian but the hunchback was a name um uh and old man time uh it was kind of like a father time so originally hundreds and hundreds of years ago it wasn't a lantern that he was holding it was actually an hourglass which was more representative of the the physical lifespan of a person rather than this kind of like wizened old you know knowledgeable character who's taken in everything that he's seen so sometimes when i'm given a reading i will use that as a i don't know if we ever gave a term for it but sometimes when you're buffering and trying to try to figure out the land and you will just go over maybe a little bit of history about the cards or maybe there's just a random line that stays in your head because you use it to to get yourself through those initial jar and moments of okay that's the card that was pulled how do i apply that to this reading and very often i'll kind of go into the history of cards and especially Speaker 1 (7:23) if i Speaker 2 (7:23) especially if i think it's interesting you know the original representation of this is this French occultists changed it to mean this. Then it came to, you know, English occultists who changed it to mean some other things. But I mean, you can still look at it overall as the same character. It's still a kind of father time, wizened old, almost wizard-like dude. Just someone who's quite knowledgeable, quite wise. I mean, personally, when I do pull the hermit... If there is nothing in the reading that necessarily points towards this kind of need for self-reflection on inner wisdom, I mean, that's very rare because a lot of questions or a lot of moods that are kind of encountered, it does revolve around, oh, the answer's within you. So that's always there. Speaker 1 (8:13) Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:13) that's always there. But sometimes it just doesn't feel right. Or maybe perhaps... I've already drawn a card that has that message. So, you know, whether that is like the High Priestess or something that is more about like learning a piece of knowledge or giving a piece of knowledge or whatever it is, if it feels too similar within the spread, then sometimes the hame does come to mean that much more, a kind of solitude. but that doesn't necessarily to revolve around wisdom. One of the things that we spoke about is modernizing the readings that we give. Speaker 1 (8:49) So Speaker 2 (8:50) sometimes when I pull the hammer, I will say to someone, using an almost kind of neo-Barnham statement, a kind of this will apply to anyone approach and say, I get the impression, you know, sometimes you pat your jeans pocket because you think your phones went off and it hasn't. And it's like this weird fear of missing out. And sometimes you do find yourself doom scrolling a little bit too much. this isn't saying step away from everything but maybe take a little bit of a break maybe reduce the time that you're spending on all of that you know that that external noise focus on what's in here for a little bit and and that kind of moves it away from that like oh i've gathered this knowledge how do i survey it all and it's more about like uh taking time for yourself where whatever the meaning of that taking time for yourself is it's not a negative to have that you know that kind of him like attitude yeah Speaker 1 (9:45) for sure because i i i see a lot of that and that's great i love the modernizing thing as well for me this is one i've stolen like quite a lot from a lot of people which you do with all of them but i really see it with this one and it's kind of like i've taken two completely opposite meanings and kind of like melded them together to be like what i want it to be so when i always get the hermit it always is a card that people feel uncomfortable with when it comes up because of the negative connotations of like especially in the future if like a A woman gets it as their future. They're like, oh my God, there are questions about love. And I'm like, will I find the love of my life? And your future is the Hermes. It's like, oh God, I need to get myself out of this. So the way I always look at this is saying that for some people, when they have a problem, they get all their friends around them and try to workshop that problem out together. The Hermit is different. The Hermit is someone who needs to step away and make sure that they understand the problem within their own mind first. And then they will go forward to other people. They don't want other opinions budding until they understand themselves. But then with the lantern, that is then that once you have the solution and you've gone through it yourself, you will be the light that will guide others through similar sort of struggles with that, which I think is a key way of doing it. And then I also point to you have like these goals that you want in your life and the lantern has a star on it. And that's like your goal that you want to get to. But a lot of times in life, if we can't see how to get to the end goal. we don't take the first step and you can see he's quite stationary he's not moving in this one and what the hermers are reminding of is that the lantern will show you what your next step is and then when you take that step it'll show you what your next step is and then you will take that step and before you know it you'll get your end goal so just because the whole path isn't clear doesn't mean you shouldn't take the first step a bit like going back to the fool with the leap of faith that it is that the sort of lantern will only highlight a little bit in front of you and you take that one um which is a meaning I've found on another YouTube video, which I really liked about that sort of, it's just illuminating a little bit because a lot of people do get caught up and it's a great one when people are like, Joe, I want to be the CEO of my company or whatever it is. And it's like, you know that like, you don't know exactly how to get there, but you know, maybe like, oh, if I do this management course, that's the first step. then if i do this that's then once you've done that that might show you then what your next step is so take the first step and that'll help you guide it so that's a lot of the way that i