The Hermit
The Hermit is card 9 of the Major Arcana, the seeker who walks alone. Readers traditionally take it as introspection, solitude and the search for answers that only come from within.
- Major Arcana
- Card 9
- Golden Dawn
- Virgo
- Upright
- introspection, solitude, inner guidance
- Reversed
- isolation, loneliness, withdrawal
Upright
Stepping away from the crowd is what this card is about. Readers take it as a time for reflection, study or quiet, when the useful work happens inside. It also carries the idea of guidance: the Hermit's lantern lights the next step, not the whole road.
Reversed
Solitude that has gone on too long is the usual reading reversed: isolation, loneliness or a retreat that has become a way to avoid people. Some readers take it as a sign to come back and share what you have learned.
In love and at work
A need for space is a common love reading, or a partner who shows care quietly. For work, the card is linked with research, writing, specialist knowledge and any task that goes better without interruptions.
In the picture
An old man in a gray hooded cloak stands on a snowy peak, holding up a lantern with a six-pointed star inside and leaning on a long staff. There is nobody else in the picture. The Golden Dawn assigned the card to Virgo.
In a Caelumia profile
When The Hermit comes up upright in a Caelumia reading, it counts toward these themes for that day, alongside the rest of the profile: Solitude, Seeking, Intuition.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Book T: The Tarot (1890s, published by Israel Regardie in The Golden Dawn (1937 to 1940)). The source of the planetary, zodiac and elemental attributions of the cards.
Updated September 28, 2026.
See it in your own profile
Caelumia reads your whole birth chart and your numbers together, and shows where they agree. Your profile is free to start, and your first results appear while you answer.