The Dark Side of Led Zeppelin's Legacy

The association of the devil with music has been long established but never more so than with the advent of Rock & Roll also known as “The Devil’s Music”. Of all of the groups who presented themselves as having mythic or occult connections, none compare with the notoriety of Led Zeppelin.
Each member of Led Zeppelin was represented on the sleeve by a sigil, a rune-like symbol, a clear reflection of Page’s occult interests, and also of Robert Plant, even if the latter’s were less obsessive: the singer’s fondness for the Viking oracle method of runes had been solidified on the group’s trip to Iceland.
These were not archetypal symbols. But devised by each individual in the band. Both John Paul Jones and John Bonham took their sigils from Rudoph Koch’s The Book of Signs. Jones’s image was appropriately of an individual who possessed both confidence and competence. Bonham’s three interlocking rings represented the man, woman and child – of his marriage, presumably; twisted upside down, much to the delight of the rest of the band, Bonham’s image became the logo of Ballantine beer, his Midlands local brew. Robert Plant devised his own symbolic image, a feather within a circle, an icon that spoke very much of Native Americans but which the singer claimed was sourced from the ancient Mu civilization.
But what of Jimmy Page’s rune? The sigil that became known as Zoso, by which Led Zeppelin IV was sometimes termed before Jimmy himself adopted it as a kind of sobriquet? (He even named his own photographic autobiography, published much later, Zoso.) As might be expected from the ever precise and measured Jimmy Page, the origins of Zoso were considerably more arcane.
The occult elements of the sleeve were only followed through on the central gatefold image. A painting that was a re-working of the Hermit, the ninth card of the major arcana in the Rider Waite tarot pack, which represents Prudence. The staff the Hermit bears is a symbol of his authority. In its archetypal sense the Hermit, a reclusive, solitary figure, shines the light of a lamp on matters, and desires to give solitary time for thought to himself, whilst simultaneously not permitting others to stand in his way.