Classic meanings: Prudence, circumspection, also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption.

A special insight for love: I think only when you are truly alone can you see you never were.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: The variation from the conventional models in this card is only that the lamp is not enveloped partially in the mantle of its bearer, who blends the idea of the Ancient of Days with the Light of the World. It is a star which shines in the lantern. I have said that this is a card of attainment, and to extend this conception the figure is seen holding up his beacon on an eminence. Therefore the Hermit is not, as Court de Gebelin explained, a wise man in search of truth and justice, nor is he, as a later explanation proposes, an especial example of experience. His beacon intimates that “where I am, you also may be.“

It is further a card which is understood quite incorrectly when it is connected with the idea of occult isolation, as the protection of personal magnetism against admixture. This is one of the frivolous renderings which we owe to Eliphas Lévi. It has been adopted by the French Order of Martinism and some of us have heard a great deal of the Silent and Unknown Philosophy enveloped by his mantle from the knowledge of the profane. In true Martinism, the significance of the term Philosophe inconnu was of another order. 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.

Classic meanings: Fairy favors, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation, some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested.

The signifficance for love is explained by specific arcanum: When he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.

Classic meanings: Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient.

In this tarot spread the card has complementary explanation: You know exactly what it takes. It’s about loyalty and kindness and unconditional love, and you are more than capable of all that.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: A ferryman carrying passengers in his punt to the further shore. The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, it may be noted that the work is not beyond his strength.

Classic meanings: Assured success, recompense, voyage, route, emigration, flight, change of place.

Additional omen for love: He had somehow become your world and you wouldn’t want to live without him. I think this is it.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: As this final message of the Major Trumps is unchanged—and indeed unchangeable—in respect of its design, it has been partly described already regarding its deeper sense. It represents also the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret which is within it, the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God (Nature). It is further the state of the soul in the consciousness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-knowing spirit. But these meanings are without prejudice to that which I have said concerning it on the material side. It has more than one message on the macrocosmic side and is, for example, the state of the restored world when the law of manifestation shall have been carried to the highest degree of natural perfection. But it is perhaps more especially a story of the past, referring to that day when all was declared to be good, when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God (Nature) shouted for joy. One of the worst explanations concerning it is that the figure symbolizes the Magus when he has reached the highest degree of initiation, another account says that it represents the absolute, which is ridiculous. The figure has been said to stand for Truth, which is, however, more properly allocated to the seventeenth card. Lastly, it has been called the Crown of the Magi.

Classic meanings: Skill, bravery, capacity, defense, address, enmity, wrath, war, destruction, opposition, resistance, ruin. There is therefore a sense in which the card signifies death, but it carries this meaning only in its proximity to other cards of fatality.

Concerning love, this card is clarified by: He was just another cowboy looking for someone to shine his boots and she’d fallen for it. What a fool.

Original description of the card by the author – Arthur Edward Waite: He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a proto-typical hero of romantic chivalry. He might almost be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.