Tarot cards are an extremely popular mystical oracle. It is one of the few oracles that most people feel comfortable to attempt on their own. You do not find many people attempting to read palms or to contact the dead, but you do see a large amount of people purchasing tarot cards, determined to master them. There has long been a debate about the necessity of psychic ability, whether hidden or not, in reading tarot cards. I, myself, pondered this very question, and in trying to find the answer, learned a little bit more about the tarot cards.

 I bought my first tarot deck when I went through what I like to call a “mystical” phase in college. I had watched dozens of witch movies and thought that tarot had everything to do with witchcraft and spells. I was wrong. Tarot has been around for centuries, even though no one quite knows where it came from. There is evidence that it was in Egypt for a time, as well as in medieval England.

What can the old man of the tarot teach us? While many cards in the tarot, especially the trump cards, have undergone serious redesign over the centuries, The Hermit card remains almost exactly the same as it did 500 years ago. Almost all Hermit cards show a very old man in a long, monk-like robe, holding a wooden staff and a lantern. The lantern is just about the only part of the card that has gotten a redesign over the years, as the inside of the lantern now usually shows a glowing star or some kind of shape inside the lantern that is giving off light. With the original Hermit cards, the lantern was usually empty.