Cloak
- the mantel of discretion. In some versions the
Hermit holds the cloak partially over the lamp
to protect the truth from profane eyes.
Desolate
Peak - the Rosicrucian mystical journey.
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."
Lighted
Lamp of Truth - to guide those below.
The
Six Pointed Star - within the lamp
represents the Seal of Solomon.
From Waite’s poem: “At the End of Things” from The Collected Poems of Arthur Edward
Waite.
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
we find “I put up this Lamp of the Heights as a beacon for others hereafter.”
Staff
- a patriarchal staff used for
navigation on the narrow path of initiation.
