In the early days, the Hermit card was neither called the Hermit, nor the card before the Wheel in the sequence, nor did it have a lantern. It was "the Old Man" or "the Hunchback", invariably just after the Wheel (see the lists at the beginning of my previous post, on Justice). It also showed an old man holding an hourglass, rather than the lantern that came later.
The earliest surviving card is in the Visconti-Sforza deck of Milan in the 1450s. The Old Man is richly attired and with a cane. This particular image, in a luxury deck surely commissioned by Milan's new ruler, Francesco Sforza, may well commemorate the former duke, the isolative Filippo Maria Visconti, who died in 1447. No thanks to him, his illegitimate daughter was now Duchess of Milan, even if her title went unrecognized except by Millan's allies after the "peace of Lodi" in 1453; its other major signatories were Florence and Venice, both republics. Still, Filippo was her children's grandfather.I see a certain resemblance of man and cane on the card to a c. 1465 illustration of the god Saturn in the so-called "Tarot of Mantegna," a set of 50 cards on mythological themes from Ferrara or Venice. Saturn was always represented as an old man, usually with a scythe and shown devouring his children.
Not only was the equivalence Chronos (Time) = Kronos (Saturn) made since antiquity, but the act of eating his progeny was compared to the action of Time, each moment devouring the one before it. The serpent or dragon biting its tail was a traditional symbol of time, both for devouring itself and suggesting a cycle, as for Plato time played itself out in cycles. Its circular shape, without end or beginning, also suggests Eternity, of which time was the "moving image", as Plato described it.
Comparison of some early cards with the Florentine illustrations of Petrarch's "Triumph of Time" show clear associations: each has a winged old man on crutches, sometimes with an hourglass, sometimes a deer, the type of animal that drove the cart he was standing on. (Above is the relevant detail of Jacapo Sellaio, 1480s Florence, plus the Rosenwald image, after 1507, and two minchiate versions, 17th century).
Petrarch's poem Il Trionfi (The Triumphs) had six parts, each a different triumph over what had been victorious in the previous section of the poem. All of them, including this one, correspond to individual tarot trump cards (see my posts here on Love, Chariot, Death, Judgment and World). "Trump" is in fact an Anglicization of the early word for the one suit that triumphed over the rest, the cards of which in the 15th century were called "triumphs" rather than "tarots", "tarocchi", or, after 1870, "major arcana."
The Petrarchan "Time," which in the end will triumph over any Fame a person might have earned, is not, however, the same in meaning as the tarot card. In Petrarch, Time is next to last of the six. After death, all that is left of a person in this world is his fame, or at least his reputation, good or bad. Over time, sooner or later, even that fades from memory. Then what triumphs over time, for Petrarch, is Eternity, which is not subject to decay; in the Judeo-Christian world-view, it is associated with the Last Judgment.
The tarot subject, however, is before Death in the sequence. It can be Time in the sense of a person's allotted time on earth, of which an old man approaching death is a fitting symbol. In these early versions, he has wings or holds an hour-glass to remind us of how limited our time on earth is compared with eternity. Sometimes he had wings, to convey that "time flies" and should be used wisely.
The
deer that draws his cart in the Petrarch illustrations and sometimes
appeared on the card symbolically meant "thirst for God," following the
imagery of the 42nd Psalm (41st in the Roman Catholic Bible), which
medieval illuminators illustrated with a deer bending down to drink from a
pool of water. Similarly, old people often found life a burden and took refuge in contemplation of the divine world and their hope soon to join it.
2. From Time to Hermit
The commentary on the tarot by Piscina, c. 1565, connects the card with long life and time as much as religous hermits. He says:
Then the Old Hunchback comes, charged with troubles and thoughts, and he triumphs over and surpasses Fortune. He represents a prudent counsel, with which you can triumph over any Fortune. (Piscina, Discorso, in Con gli occhi e con l'intelletto: Explaining the Tarot in Sixteenth Century Italy, ed. and trans. by Ross Sinclair Caldwell, Thierry Depaulis, and Marco Ponzi (Lulu: 2019), p. 21.)On the one hand:
in him there is something that is more than human, in as much as he is the triumphator over Fortune, which is earthly and considered to be almost nothing by the prudent.This disdain for the earthly is what characterizes the person whose main concern is to be close to God.
If you want to do something well, do it twice. But since this cannot always be done by everybody, one should follow the advice and opinion of old and mature men, who, for the length of their years, most of the time will have an experience with that thing.There is a famous painting by Titian from this period, the "Allegory of Time Governed by Prudence." Beneath the figures is written, in Latin, "From the experience of the past, the present acts prudently, lest it spoil future action." Correspondingly, the past is an old man looking back, the future a young man looking forward, and the present a middle-aged man looking neither forward nor back. This again connects Time with the prudence of long experience.
An anonymous Discourse, of the same time period as Piscina's, offers the following:
The Hunchback, who is none other than Time, demonstrates that all these things are vain and transitory. Therefore loving and desiring them so intensely, thinking of nothing else, is the greatest foolishness, because in a short time Old Age comes together with all its miseries, then people begin to understand the deceptions of the murderous World. (Discorso, in Caldwell, Depaulis, and Ponzi, con gli occhi e con l'intelletto, Explaining the Tarot in Sixteenth Century Italy, p. 61.)
This one emphasizes that age teaches the vanity of worldly things, as the life of a simple monk, and even more a hermit, serves as a living example.
The Noblet of 1650s Paris (far left below) makes the change in emphasis explicit; now he is called "L'Eremite", the Hermit. Moreover, he holds his lamp up near his eyes, where it would blind him and so make it difficult to see what is ahead (I owe this point to Christine Leveille). He may be illuminating the path for others, or making himself visible as the leader. In Marseille of around 1700, there is even a little sun peeking out from his robe (third from left below, Chosson, of either 1672, the date on the pack's 2 of Coins or around 1736, when Chosson is first documented as a card maker). Since it is not obvious, the point may be that
the Sage is not known by a light recognizable by all, but only by those
who are in a position to see it. With his lamp and inner light, he is a source of illumination, at least to those on our side of his cape: it hangs from his arm in a way that the light on the other side from us would not illuminate the way for anyone on that side.
How did he happen to have such a huge cape? One possibility: at the Egyptian temple of Dendera, on the banks of the Nile, there is a similar portrayal, this one of a priest (second from left below). It is one of several parallels in the Noblet imagery to figures in that temple (see my blog at http://egyptinthetarot.blogspot.com/2017/09/3-egypt-in-pre-de-gebelin-tarot.html).
From Chosson to the Conver card of 1760 (far left above), also in Marseille, there is another change. the spelling goes from "l'Ermite" to "l'Hermite," which while acceptable in French is not the usual 18th century spelling.(In contrast, English by the mid-17th century had chosen the spelling with an "h", as opposed to without it; both been customary until then.) This change seems deliberate. Possibly it is to suggest the "Hermetic," that is, a follower of Hermes Trismegistus. That would suggest, based on the Corpus Hermeticum, someone passing down divine teachings, by means of discourse originating from the mind of God (Nous) and accompanied by visionary experiences. Something of the same might be suggested by what appears to be a three-tiered pack on the Old Man's back, one each for the three parts of the world Trismegistus is declared majestic in by the Emerald Tablet: by alchemy for the elemental world, astrology for the celestial world, and theurgy. for the divine world.
Finally, in France the card changed its position in the sequence. Originally it was after the Wheel card, when one has been the victim of Fortune and one's own blindness; it suggests that then one is ready to seek what has escaped one's notice before. I am reminded of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival after he has suffered disgrace at the hands of Kundrie at Arthur's court; she laughs at how he was so simple-minded that he squandered his good fortune at being in the presence of the Grail and failed his mission there. The result, as Wolfram recounts, is that he turns from his former mentor, an accomplished knight, to an old hermit in the forest, living on roots. Earlier, Parzival would probably have not paid such a figure any mind. But it is from this hermit, who turns out to be a relative, that he learns the secrets of the Grail and what he should have done at the Grail Castle. More generally, it is when the Wheel turns away from the apex of life and towards death that the Hermit, in his simplicity, becomes a figure worth noticing. In France the Hermit was moved to before the Wheel, the position formerly occupied by Strength. Numerologically, the point would then be that the Hermit, at number 9, is at or nearest the end of a cycle, depending on one's system. In Arabic numerals, it is the last of the one-digit numbers. In Greek and Hebrew numbers, it is the next to last of the sequence of purely one-digit numbers (eleven in these systems is the letter for ten followed by the letter for one). In Roman numerals, X begins a new series, and VIIII (as it was written in the 15th century) the last of the preceding one. In all of these systems, it is at a place suitable for an old man.
3. De Gebelin and after
For Court de Gebelin in 1781 Paris, the card was reminiscent of Diogenes, the Greek sage famous for carrying a lantern in the middle of the day, seeking "a man," usually interpreted as meaning "an honest man" (Karlin, Rhapsodies of the Bizarre, p. 23, original French ed., p. 372) Despite the Greek reference, he calls the card "this Egyptian depiction." Since Diogenes was of the time of Alexander the Great, as he would have known, by "Egyptian" Gebelin would apparently have had in mind Egypt after its conquest by Alexander.
Eliphas Levi, as a follower of Hermetic philosophy, was quick to pick up on the association between "Hermite" and "Hermes." In volume 1, chapter 9, of his first book of occultism, Levi said:
The initiate is he who possesses the lamp of Trismegistus, the mantle of Apollonius, and the staff of the patriarchs. Trismegistus's lamp is reason enlightened by science, Apollonius's mantle is full and whole self-possession, which isolates the sage from the instinctive currents, and the staff of the patriarchs is the assistance of the occult and perpetual forces of nature. (Transcendental Magic, trans. Waite, in archive.org, pp. 86-87)By "initiate" he means one in possession of the secrets, not the candidate for initiation, whose task is to learn from the initiate. By "science" he means the occult wisdom. By "forces of nature" I think he means the "magnetic" forces he talks about in many places in the book. Levi does not mention the tarot Hermit explicitly, but it is clear that he is referring to it.
This emphasis on the Hermit as an initiate suggests his role as leading
the seekers of light out of the darkness of the world. This was an
ancient goal of initiations, most famously that of Eleusis, from which
one was said to emerge with no more fear of death. There were also the
Mysteries of Dionysus, in which the initiate, the bacchant or bacchante,
entered into in ecstatic union with their god. There appear to have
been initiations on precisely this theme in which the candidate either
had his or her eyes covered (as at left from a Roman sarcophagus), or the initiation was conducted at night or
underground. In the latter case it would make sense for the initiation leader to hold a lantern by which the candidate could see what was depicted on the walls.he is called the Hermit or the Monk, but his true name is Prudence, thus completing the four cardinal virtues which seemed imperfect to Court de Gebelin and Etteilla. (p. 367 of Waite trans.)
Levi's follower Paul Christian developed the theme of the the tarot sequence as initiation in his book Histoire de la Magie (translated as History and Practice of Magic, in archive.org) which recounted an initiation trough underground passageways beneath the Great Pyramid at Giza, in which the candidate would encounter frightening trials and then receive instruction at each of 22 frescoes on the walls. The initiation masters themselves would carry torches, as shown in a dramatic illustration in that section of the book.
For the instruction accompanying the fresco of the Hermit, Christian used Levi's remarks in volume 2. The figure represents Prudence "gained by experience in the labors of life" (trans. p. 103). The lantern is "the light of the mind, which should illuminate the past, the present, and the future." For its part the cloak that "half-conceals it [the lantern] signifies discretion." It is not that pearls must not be thrown before swine, as we might expect of Hermetic secrets, but rather that "Circumspection [i.e. wariness] allows him to avoid reefs or pitfalls and to be forewarned of treachery." In other words, it is secrecy that from those who do not need to know one's plans, to avoid such pitfalls as treachery. Finally, the staff "symbolizes the support given by prudence to the man who dos not reveal his purpose." He does not say what that support might be; it is merely further emphasis on the importance of secrecy.
When Falconnier and Wegener designed Egyptian-looking cards based on Christian's descriptions (far left above), they gave prominence to the cape, which clearly obscures the light for those on the other side of the Hermit. Oswald Wirth's design, which first appeared in 1889, does the same but less geometrically. The serpent that is at his feet comes from the meaning of the Hebrew ninth Hebrew letter, meaning "snake"; the letter is shown at the bottom right of the card.
Papus, 1889, expands on Levi. The cape indicates "protection"; the lamp is "wisdom", and "The stick indicates that the Sage is always armed to fight against Injustice or Error" (Tarot of the Bohemians, trans. Morton, p. 143). He compares the card with that of the Lover:
The beardless young man in the former (6th) has chosen the right path. Experience won in the labour of life has rendered him a prudent old man, . . . The arrow shot by the genius in the sixth arcanum has become his support, and the effulgent aureole which surrounded the genius is now imprisoned in the lamp which guides the Initiate.
We do not know what power the "arrow" now a staff might hold, nor what the "effulgent aureole" might be. But under "significations" (p. 144) we see, after "humanity performing the functions of God the Holy Spirit, and "Prudence," we see "the astral fluid."
If on his path he meets the serpent of selfish desires, he does not try to imitate the winged woman of the Apocalypse who puts her foot on the reptile's head — an allusion to the mysticism which is ambitious to conquer all animality. The wise man prefers to cast a spell over the animal so that it twines itself round his stick as round the stick of Esculapius. It is in fact a question of vital currents which the miracle-maker picks up with a view to practising the medicine of the Initiated. (Tarot of the Magicians, 1985 trans., p. 97, in archive.org)
Esculapius is the Greek god of medicine, whose emblem was a single serpent coiled around a staff, as opposed to Mercury's two serpents, erroneously adopted by the pharmacies of modern times.
Wirth's snake perhaps derives from the "Tarot of Mantegna's" image (shown at the top of this post), not the first of its type, of a serpent biting its tail at the top of the staff of the old man representing Saturn, or Cronos. There it symbolizes how one moment of time, i.e. Chronos, devours the one before, in other words time devouring itself.
About the cape, Wirth observes that it partially shields the Hermit from the lantern's full light: "He is afraid of dazzling his eyes which are too weak to bear the brilliant light of his lantern" (Ibid.).
Before Wirth, Papus had already assigned the Hermit to Yesod on the Tree of life, but without comment (Tarot of the Bohemians, p. 144). Wirth develops this point with reference to its meaning of "foundation" (Tarot of the Magicians, 1985 trans., p. 98)
One may see in him the mysterious artisan of the invisible scaffolding without which no vital construction could be made. In Jesod the immaterial foundation of objective beings, the strong creative energies, are synthesized when they are applied to a definite realization. Before taking form everything pre-exists as an abstract concept, as an intention, as a drawn-up plan and as a living picture, animated by a dynamism which brings about its reality.
Arcana 9 is related to mystery of real but occult generation in which only the spirit and the soul participate. The Hermit is the master who works on the drawing board, where he draws up the exact plan of the intended construction.
He is the "Secret Master" of Freemasonry, who works with "disinterested love" to become "the actual maker of the future." Anyone who suspects Freemasonry to be a secret conspiracy controlling world events will take note: "Everything that is bound to take bodily shape is worked out in secret in the dark womb where the secret work of mysterious conspirators is pursued." From the ideals propounded in the rest of the book, we can assume that the events of the next decade, which burst upon the world shortly after, were not the work of these "conspirators." The United Nations' "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" would be more their speed.
On the other hand, the Saturnine aspect of the Hermit gives the card negative associations. Among the "interpretations." Wirth gives these (Ibid., p. 100):
The character of Saturn, serious, taciturn, sullen, distrustful. Timorous nature, meticulous, heavy. Sadness, misanthropy, scepticism, discouragement, avarice, poverty.
It did not refer to the intended concealment of the Instituted Mysteries, much less of their substitutes, but--like the card itself--to the truth that the Divine Mysteries secure their own protection from those who are unprepared.Likewise he ridicules the idea that the adept's "personal magnetism" (this must be Levi, who doesn't speak of "personal" but rather "solitary magnetism" and "magnetism between two or more people," in Waite's translation) needs to be protected by a cloak. What remains in the card is
that which blends the idea of the Ancient of Days with the Light of the World. . . . His beacon indicates that "Where I am, there you may be."
In other words, his light shines to guide the initiate to the enlightened state that the Hermit already possesses within himself.
Paul Foster Case introduces his rather complex discussion of the Hermit by pointing to the slow formation over the ages of stalactites and stalagmites in a cave.
The stalactite which extends itself downward from the roof of the cave is the active agent. The upward growth of the stalagmite from the floor of the cave, is a response to the steady downpour of drops of a limestone solution from the stalactite. The stalactite may be taken as a symbol of the ONE IDENTITY, ever moving itself nearer to union with the ascending personality symbolized by the stalagmite. When at last they reach the stage of Growth where they make contact, their united form is a pillar, approximately the shape of the letter I, which is the English Latin and Greek equivalent for Yod. (Tarot Fundamentals, 1936, lesson 21, pp. 3-4, in archive.org)
He stands alone because he identifies with all there is. The darkness represents "the latency of the fiery activity of the One Force." The ice at his feet is the source of the water seen flowing in some of the previous cards. It is perhaps in that sense that he says, in Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, p. 114. that "The Hermit and the Fool are two aspects of that which is the Foundation (9) of all manifestation. The Hermit is the Ancient One, above all things, yet supporting all." That is an allusion to his "Tressleboard" but surelylso to Yesod, the 9th sefirah, Foundation.
His garment is gray because it combines white and black, signifying "the union and
equilibration of all pairs of opposites" (lesson 22, p. 4). The staff is of organic origin, and "refers to the fiery activity of the serpent power," meaning the Kundalini energy ascending from our lower energy centers upward. He notes that some versions of the card actually show the serpent, "but this is an unnecessary addition" (lesson 22, p. 5). The metal and glass of the lantern are inorganic, symbolizing that "the basic principles on which our understanding of cosmic law are founded are discoverable in the physical, chemical, and electrical activities of the mineral kingdom" (Ibid.)
What is being developed, perhaps paradoxically, is not so much consciousness as subconsciousness, he says (Lesson 22, p. 6):
What is symbolized by Key 9 is something at work in man at the subconscious level. This is true, in spite of all the symbolism suggesting height. Our contact with the ONE IDENTITY is an interior contact, made in the darkness of the subconsciousness. Subconsciousness is our instrument for communion with superconsciousness.
To make this connection, our subconscious must be refined (Lesson 22, p. 8):
our power to take conscious command of certain processes which go on in the Virgo region of the human body enables us to set a pattern for subconsciousness, a pattern whereby the human body is transformed into a finer, regenerated vehicle for the ONE SELF.
This process is something that he describes in connection with the Strength card, which in the Golden Dawn's system is the card just before the Hermit. The "Virgo region" is that of the intestines (Lesson 21, p. 4), which in turn influences the "Libra region," that of the kidneys and adrenals (Lesson 22, p. 9). The way to initiate such changes is for the "head knowledge" of the "vision of reality always present to the all-seeing eye of Universal Mind" - the domain of the Emperor - to be impressed upon subconsciousness by the power of suggestion (lesson 22, p. 8).
The Golden Dawn used the paths between sefiroth as labeled by Athenaeus Kircher as the basis for their application of the Kabbalah to the card. There the Hermit, corresponding, if the Fool is Aleph, to the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Yod (which Case puts as the Hermit's cap). Yod is the path between Chesed, i.e. Loving-Kindness, and Tifereth, i.e. Beauty. I cannot find where Case discusses this path in his introductory writings, but in the Book of Tokens he imagines the letter Yod saying (p. 101):
I am the link between CHESED and TIPHARETH, / Combining the Waters of substance with the Air of Life. / I measure and bound the Ruach / Which hath its place In the path of Mediating Influence, / Because I am the Intelligence of Will / Which carrieth the Water of Mercy Into the sphere of Beauty.
I suppose these properties apply to the Hermit, but so would many other paths. Case does not mention either mercy or beauty in his chapter on the card. Looking online, I find the following, which seems like an attempt to paraphrase Case (https://cosmicnavigator.com/learn/the-22-paths-of-the-tree-of-life/path-9/):
This path unifies MERCY with BEAUTY, a journey for those who live to serve and purify others. It connects the pillar of expansion with the central pillar of moderation. It stores up the radiant Light of God, which must be cherished until all the rest of us wise up and follow along. This path demands dedication and cleansing. It calls you to find your center, avoid excess and function as a wise guide. Another name for this road is “The Heart of Compassion,” requiring you to find your inner wealth and share it with others. Pay attention to small details, order and tidiness. Learn and teach humility.
This does paraphrase Case, except that for not mentioning that most of us have not cleansed our unconscious sufficiently to be the "wise guide" Case and the other occultists are talking about. I suppose "inner wealth" correlates to "beauty" (although the intestines are not my idea of beauty) and "share it with others" to "mercy," but both are a stretch.
In Tarot: A Key . . ., Case relates the Hermit to the reproductive organs, which in the body of Adam Qadmon are assigned to that number (p. 116):
For all sages agree that though Intelligence of Will seems to be the outcome of personal effort and aspiration, it is really the final stage of a work initiated and carried on by the Life-power itself. That work, they say, is one in which the Heavenly Man reproduces himself in the image of the earthly.
The reproductive organs of Adam Qadmon are not only associated with the number 9, but with the sefirah Yesod (see the diagram reproduced at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Kadmon, from Christian Ginsburg, The Kabbalah - its Doctrines, Development & Literature).
4. Jungian Perspectives
Sallie Nichols recasts several of the occultists' favorite themes into psychological terms. She starts by quoting a passage from Jung (Jung and Tarot, 1980, p. 165: he personifies."the archetype of the spirit, the preexistent meaning hidden in the chaos of life." This quote deserves a closer look. It occurs in the context of Jung's examination of the dream of a theology student unknown to him in which the key figures are "an old man dressed entirely in black," who is the white magician. and "another old man exactly like the first, except that he was dressed in white," who is the black magician (Collected Works, vol. 9i, paragraph 71, online in Academia). The archetype encompasses both figures, Jung says:
The two magicians are, indeed, two aspects of the wise old man, the superior master and teacher, the archetype of the spirit, who symbolizes the pre-existent meaning hidden in the chaos of life. (Ibid.)In the dream, each is part of the process. The white magician picks up the bones of a corpse, which turn into a black horse that runs off into the desert. This is the "descent into darkness," Jung says (Ibid., para. 74). The black magician catches the horse and somehow also finds the "lost keys of Paradise" (Ibid., para. 71) but does not know what to do with them, and needs the advice of the white Magician. The dream ends.
That the tarot figure is a Magus is already implied by Levi when he says the staff is his support in natural forces. That he contains both darkness and light is implied by Wirth's analysis of the positive and negative aspects of the card, as well as the sharp contrast of light and dark in Case's version.
For Jung an example is Nietzsche's Zarathustra, who comes into his imagination just as he was thinking God was dead. Instead of philosophy, a poetic figure bubbles forth, one who cannot be taken at face value but rather as a challenge to one's assumptions. Jung adds:
Modern man, in experiencing this archetype, comes to know that most ancient form of thinking as an autonomous activity, whose object he is. Hermes Trismegistus of the Thoth of Hermetic literature, Orpheus, the Poimandres (shepherd of men) and his near relation to Poimen of Hermes, are other formulations of the same experience. If the name "Lucifer" were not prejudicial, it would be a very suitable one for this archetype. But I have been content to call it the archetype of the wise old man, or of meaning. Like all archetypes it has a positive and a negative aspect, though I don't want to go into it here. (Ibid., paragraph 79)He refers us to his essay on "the phenomenology of spirit" (in the same volume).
In Nichols' case, the negative side is the sham wisdom-teacher, or the guru who adjusts himself to meet the needs of his disciples' projections, the victim of his own inflations. For his part, Jung reminds us that the archetype is also that of spirit, and there are evil spirits as well as good ones. The evil ones are those that do evil but in a way that challenges the hero--i.e. the ego--to get out of its spiritless condition. An old man steals a cow so that a boy get the blame and has to flee. Or he gives orders that would be heartless to follow, later rewarding the hero for his disobedience. In the end he is the good old man, giving moral instruction to the listener of the tale.
This is perhaps why the Hermit historically came after the Wheel of Fortune: it is the downturn of Fortune that leads one to go beyond our previous mode of thinking - or else be doomed to repeat the cycle yet again.
What Jung adds is a connection to "the preexistent meaning hidden in the chaos of life." But what is this "preexistent meaning"? From his examples, he seems to be drawing on the ancient idea of Providence directing our lives according its own plan, for our enlightenment in spite of ourselves. "Meaning" then would be that preexistent plan. In Jungian terms, it is something within us leading us toward the divine despite the limited awareness of our conscious choices.
Modern sensibility understandably balks at such an idea. Jung's disciple Marie-Louise von Franz has another way of putting the point, in terms of the animus, an inner male figure in a woman's unconscious, which exists on a series of levels, progressively more mature:
Finally, in his fourth manifestation, the animus is the incarnation of meaning. On this highest level he becomes, (like the anima) a mediator of the religious experience whereby life acquires new meaning. On this highest level he becomes (like the anima) a mediator of the religious experience whereby life acquires new meaning. (M.-L. von Franz, "The Process of Individuation" in Carl Jung ed., Man and his Symbols (London 1964), p. 194, in archive.org.)She gives as an example of an animus-figure on this level Mahatma Gandhi, comparable to the anima-figure of Sophia. His life and ideas resonate internally with the woman attracted to him, opening her up to a kind of meaning she did not experience before. Of course men can be inspired by him, too, and have the same experience. But from von Franz's perspective, the experience is different for men, less engaging of the unconscious.
What is meaning? Somehow, it is a product of interactions among the pre-existent, a person's individuality, and a larger whole. Take the meanings of words, or at least the simplest form of the meaning of words: The meaning of the word "brown" is a certain color that appears variously in the world. But is there such a thing? "Brown" is a product of our retinas and brains; what is "in the world" is merely a combination of wave patterns emitted or reflected off surfaces. Even that is due to the nature of our measuring devices, selecting what they can measure. Meaning in this case is somehow the interaction of us, as a plurality of individuals, with the world, shining the light of consciousness (the white magician's gift) onto something that is "the same" in different circumstances and otherwise remains in darkness (which the black magician brings to the light).
Jung talks about the psychological equivalent of religious experience in his "Psychological Interpretation of the Trinity." It has three stages of consciousness. The first, corresponding to the Father, is the uncritical acceptance of habitual thinking from a tradition. The second, the Son, is that of the winning of autonomy through reason and reflection. The third, the Holy Spirit, is the return of the Father from the standpoint of the Son: that is, again one receives passively. Jung says (Collected Works, Vol. 11, paragraphs 272-275, pp. 183-184):
Psychologically speaking, "inspiration" comes from an unconscious function. For the naive-minded minded person the agent of inspiration appears as an "intelligence" correlated with, or even superior to, consciousness, for it often happens that an idea drops in one like a saving deus ex machina.This much lets us know that we are in the same area as von Franz's "religious experience," just not in relation to a specific person or image. But at this stage it is not simply a matter of taking these experiences at face value, but of engaging with the new perspective from the standpoint of a developed, autonomous ego-consciousness.
. . .
It is clear that these changes are not everyday occurrences, but are very fateful transformations indeed. Usually they have a numinous character, and can take the form of conversions, illuminations, emotional shocks, blows of fate, religious or mystical experiences, or their equivalent.
. . .
The numinous character of these experiences is proved by the fact they are overwhelming - an admission that goes against not only our pride, but against our deep-rooted fear that consciousness may perhaps lose its ascendancy, for pride is often only a reaction covering up a secret fear.
This third stage, as we have seen, means articulating one's ego-consciousness with a superordinate totality, of which one cannot say that it is "I," but which is best visualised as a more comprehensive being, though one should of course keep oneself conscious all the time of the anthropomorphism of such a conception. (Ibid., para. 276, p. 185)Having received a solid grounding in habits formed from traditional beliefs (the Emperor/Father), and having achieved a relative autonomy as a rational being in control of his impulses (the Chariot/Son), he now encounters that which is beyond reason and somehow infuses life with meaning.
While it is the black horse--like the black magician--that brings Beauty (the keys of the kingdom, the anima/animus) to the attention of Plato's Charioteer (see my discussion of the Chariot card), it is the charioteer -- the white magician, consciousness -- that recognizes its divinity, is humbled by it, and finds meaning in it.
Jung's equivalent is what he calls "active imagination" with a figure deriving from a dream, vision, or fantasy that seems to have come unbidden by consciousness, in which one's ego-consciousness engages in dialogue with this figure, which becomes a link to a deeper understanding of oneself. It goes without saying that such dialogue must be conducted in a state of isolation, except perhaps in some cases in the presence of a non-interfering therapist. An example from Jung's own experiences is the extended dialogue recorded in his Red Book between himself, the "I," and the imaginal figure of an old man called first Elijah and then Philemon. He also drew, for his own self-exploration, what he imagined Philomen looked like; it is rather like the version of the Hermit card that gives him wings, while his serpent companion connects him to Wirth's version. These experiences are from 1920 and before, long before he developed a theoretical understanding of them.
Contact with these figures emerging from the unconscious serve to transform both the conscious and unconscious life. Von Franz observes, in the continuation of my previous quote from her:
The animus in his most developed form sometimes connects the woman's mind with the spiritual evolution of her age, and can thereby make her even more receptive than a man to new creative ideas. It is for this reason that in earlier times women were used by many nations as diviners and seers. The creative boldness of their positive animus at times expresses thoughts and ideas that stimulate men to new enterprises. (Von Franz, pp. 194-195).
Can it also go the other way, with consciousness monitoring, and "giving suggestions" to immature unconscious attitudes? The problem, Jung says, is that "Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating, never leaving the psychic process to grow in peace." (Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 16, para. 20). However, consciousness does have an obvious role in developing the unconscious to higher levels of functioning. It is in the bringing to consciousness of unconscious attitudes that things develop, including that of an insightful but non-interfering analyst.
On another subject, when Levi allegorized the cloak as serving "full and whole self-possession, which isolates the sage from the instinctive currents" (see above), there is a Jungian way to make that point. Nichols observes that people resist being in car-pools and using mass transit in part because "it is their only chance to be alone." When the mind is not engaged in attending to the car's surroundings, it is free to wander as it will, in a kind of reverie. In this process the will or ego is not the only player; it is then the experience of "the alone with the alone," as in a Sufi phrase popularized by Henri Corbin.
Another theme among Jungians, in particular James Hillman, is the unity between the puer, Latin for boy, or puer aeternis, eternal boy, a man who doesn't grow up psychologically, and senex, old man (see his Puer Papers). This corresponds to Case's idea that "The Hermit and the Fool are two aspects of that which is the Foundation (9) of all manifestation" (see above). Of the Hermit, Case goes on to say (still p. 114),
He precedes everything, and, when considered in that aspect, is forever young (the Fool); yet He will continue when all else has passed away, and He is the term of all our hopes.
The beginning and the end have things in common.
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