The Hanged Man

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 04 Aug 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Strega	04 Aug 2002
I'm currently meditating on this card... looking at it... reviewing my journal... and painting a slightly similar image. What does the Hanged Man mean to you? And since I only have 2 decks at the moment (had 4 decks since the beginning but lost 2 of them), how does it look like in your deck? :)

jmd	04 Aug 2002
You may be interested to have a look in the Study Groups > Marseilles Decks > XII - Le Pendu. Apart from the discussion, are attached the two versions of the Visconti decks, the Suprafino, and two Marseilles versions of the card. The 'purity' of the Marseilles has a quality I particularly like. In addition to the attachments made in the above mentioned thread, here is 'XII Le Pendu' from what is still my favourite Marseilles: the 1998 Camoin deck.

wavebreaker	04 Aug 2002
To me, the Hanged Man is about letting go, about letting things run their own course for a bit. Sometimes you're in a situation where you want to act, do something to solve the situation. If I get the Hanged Man in a situation like that, to me it means I shouldn't do anything at that point, but that I should be patient and surrender to the situation.

Lori_zzz	04 Aug 2002
I'm new at tarot so I only have one deck. It's an hearbal tarot deck. the hanged man is called suspended person and the person is floating upsidedown in water with kelp tied to his left foot. I wonder if it makes it any diffrent from other hanged man cards?

Yodes	04 Aug 2002
I see the hanged man as accepting your situation. We all have to go through bad times, and more often than not we learn from it. The hanged man like all the cards can be a good card. As i write this i keep thinking of the hermit, but while the hermit is away contemplating, searching his soul and so on, the hanged man has taken a seperate path, he is out in the fray, and for whatever reason he has been put in this position, but instead of being upset, angry, or even frightened, he has realised something. Maybe the hermits light, which i liken to the actions of past, and the ideas, thoughts and actions of those before him are in fact the light of the hanged mans head. I don't know, i just thought of all this while typing away.

Minderwiz	04 Aug 2002
I also take the hanged man as literally suspension - there is nothing to do or that can be done for the moment. Things must take their course. But from the suspension a new viewpoint will arise, it may be enlightenment, spiritual attunement, dedication or readjustment (to name but a few). The point is that either the person or situation is different after the suspension, usually for the better. I have the RWS and Thoth decks for main reading but I like the Robin Wood portrayal of the man holding onto the branch with his legs - he is in control of the suspension and it will end when he is ready. Minderwiz

Starfish	04 Aug 2002
I love reading everyone's take on this particular card. Tarotlady's view of Quote: but that I should be patient and surrender to the situation is wonderful :) I do think of the Hanged Man as being in a limbo/suspended state that (as Minderwiz states) he is in control of and can move forward from that point when he's ready. :TSTRE Starfish

jema	04 Aug 2002
i do agree with most of what you all say here. but there is also this other side to the card. both me and my mother too sometimes have that hanged man/victim mentality as if we sigh deeply and say with a whiney voice: "just look at me know, look at all the things i am doing for you! i am really putting myself out there for you and what do i get as a thank you? nothing i say! nothing! i do all this and i get nothing. woe me and everyone else is an ungrateful little sod!" (or something like it - this usually happens around that time of the month too) i am still trying to really grasp this card in all it's shades. since i got the thoth deck new things comes up to the surface. that of denying myself what is rightfully mine. like a mental "lent" every man and woman is a star - but here we dampen our bright light and perhaps we really shouldn't. i find myself often being stuck here. it is so easy to crawl down into my hole and not take responsability and wait to be saved or just forgotten. just thought i would add the shadow side to all the really good things this card has too. *i am not really this pessimistic, but you all have already mentioned the good and positive stuff*

Strega	04 Aug 2002
Oops! My thread got moved. Sowee. I got a little confused where to post... being new to the forum and all. :D

wetsheep1	04 Aug 2002
The Hanged Man is, for me, a time for waiting, for re-evaluation. It means that I have to wait for some things to come to pass, but prepare myself for them appropriately. It means WAITING. PATIENCE. Not my best attributes I can tell ya. Interesting to note is something I found in a crawl of mine. The position of the man in the illustration is also representative of the alchemical glyph meaning both "sulphur" and "Accomplishment of the Great Work" -- the successful transformation from lead into gold. Go figure. So once again, I can see waiting and study while the transformation takes place behind the scenes. Gawd, I hate waiting. The only positive here is that the man's feet are rooted in heaven by infinity; so there is hope, after all, and all that meditative waiting will come to a good end. :) -- k

Strega	04 Aug 2002
Quote: Originally posted by jmd You may be interested to have a look in the Study Groups > Marseilles Decks > XII - Le Pendu . Apart from the discussion, are attached the two versions of the Visconti decks, the Suprafino, and two Marseilles versions of the card. The 'purity' of the Marseilles has a quality I particularly like. Thanks for the thread links, JMD. :) P.S. My initials (real name) is JMD too. :P

Maan	04 Aug 2002
Quote: Originally posted by jema as if we sigh deeply and say with a whiney voice: "just look at me know, look at all the things i am doing for you! i am really putting myself out there for you and what do i get as a thank you? nothing i say! nothing! i do all this and i get nothing. woe me and everyone else is an ungrateful little sod!" i am still trying to really grasp this card in all it's shades. since i got the thoth deck new things comes up to the surface. that of denying myself what is rightfully mine. like a mental "lent" every man and woman is a star - but here we dampen our bright light and perhaps we really shouldn't. i find myself often being stuck here. it is so easy to crawl down into my hole and not take responsability and wait to be saved or just forgotten. Thank you for posting this Jema. Suddenly a spread i did yesterday made sence to me. I got the hanged man in the me position regarding the question and indeed when i look really deep inside i'm feeling a bit sorry for myself. And i'm afraid to be who i am and actually getting the acknowledgement. But i'm blaming my surroundings. Wauw the tarot is such a good tool for selfdevelopment. It just told me to stop sobbing and go do it!!! Love and light Maan

Starfish	04 Aug 2002
I also want to than Jema for posting. You've given me another aspect of the Hanged Man that I hadn't thought of before but makes TOTAL sense to me. The passive-aggressive whiney "woe-is-me" act that I grew up seeing from a female relative ;) (not to be named) is a greate example of the Hanged Man. more scribbling into my journal/notebook :TSTRE Starfish

amyel	04 Aug 2002
..the Tarot of the Trance depicts the hangman as upside down - but suspended from a vine, with a serpent wrapped around the figure's leg and torso. The figure's fingers appear to be touching the ground. The LWB has this to say about the card: " The H.M is the personification of the devotion to the cosmic order, truth and the unconscious mind. He prepares the conscious mind for a great task: the encounter with death and its integration into life. Through the temporary surrender of the self, he makes it possible for us to enter the realm of shadows and death and experience the world "upside down". The light of the H.M represents devotion, surrender of psychic resistance, patience, and absorbing the shadow. The shadow is panic, an obsession with control, sacrificing the self, confusion and stagnation. Imagine you are walking along a dusty street. Suddenly, you notice your coat is much too heavy. Its pockets are stuffed with useless things. You take the coat off, turn it upside down and shake it. What falls out?" In this light, the HM gives me much to contemplate......and explains why it comes up so much in my readings!

Starfish	04 Aug 2002
I had previously forgotten to mention that I drew the Hanged Man :THANG in my daily spread (in the Energy for the Day spot) this morning. Perfectly timed discussion for me :) :TSTRE Starfish

starr	04 Aug 2002
Another take on this card may also be the giving up of something or thought process for something bigger and better. Letting go of the "victim" for......... Starr

Strega	04 Aug 2002
Such great insights! :) Thank you to all who replied to this thread.

Sorceress_Jade	05 Aug 2002
I've always seen this card as a sort of indecision. Like was mentioned before, a suspension. More than having a choice it's the inability to chose or act or accept. Like a little child crossing their arms and sticking their nose in the air. I used to have a teacher who stuck his pencil in his ear any time anyone acted stupid like that and all these images come to mind when i see this card. As though this hanged man could do nothing better then just go 'duh' and hang himself up there. There's a lot of emotion I understand with this idea tho. The inability to make decisions can be a really painful event. And very hurtful to ones future as well.

Moongold	06 Aug 2002
In the Morgan Greer, the Hanged Man looks like a nonchalant Bondi surfer; in the Old English, and emaciated young man; in the Witches Tarot, a muscular old man who looks as though he is in some discomfort; and in the Mythic Tarot he is Prometheus who stole something from Zeus and suffered the consequences. I am quite affected by the different visual representations in each deck. In the Mythic Tarot the Hanged Man symbolizes the "descent into the darkness of the unconscious" or the dark night of the soul all of which has a or a more serious feel about it. The feeling I get from the other cards is a little different but emotionally I read the card as a time of waiting. The intensity of feeling around that depends on the context. At the moment, the Hanged Man doesn't come up much in my personal readings but he may if I am reading for someone else. I associate the image with a Yoga position where one almost stands on one's head, and it is quite a pleasant feeling. I actually like the card, but the Mythic version has some foreboding about it. Moongold

Sorceress_Jade	06 Aug 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Moongold ... in the Witches Tarot, a muscular old man who looks as though he is in some discomfort... In the Witches Tarot, the Hanged man is Odin. The history of the hanged man actually comes from Norse Mythology, as I understand it at any rate.... if you read Thirteens Tarot Basics http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/basics/hangedman.html she gives a synopsis. This fits with the classical meaning of the card as 'enlightenment' Also, moongold, I like your interpretation of the card, it's something for me to think on. Thanx. :)

wavebreaker	06 Aug 2002
In the Glastonbury Tarot, the Hanged Man isn't a hanged man at all. The card (you can see an image here) shows a scene from the legend of the Fisher King: Percival stumbles upon the castle of the Fisher King, where the Holy Grail is kept. He sees some strange things, including a procession of three maidens carrying a lance dripping blood, a sword and a chalice (this is the scene depicted on the card). However, he doesn't ask any questions. If he had, he would have healed the Fisher King (who is wounded) and he would have found the Holy Grail. In this case, the Fisher King is the Hanged Man, who shows a state of inner piece that enables us to accept even difficult situations, with the patience that comes from knowing that there is a right time for everything, and to try to force a solution to an issue would not be beneficial (quoted from the book that comes with the Glastonbury Tarot). The Fisher King could have told Percival about the Holy Grail and that he could have healed him, but he didn't, because he knew that this wasn't the right time. I quite like this version of the Hanged Man.

Sorceress_Jade	06 Aug 2002
You know, upon first glance, the artwork on these cards seems nothing fantastic and i would automatically have passed the deck up. However the thought that has gone into it is... not so much considerable, but ... well thought. Someone put a lot of effort into this and I do like it. That's an interesting deck.

carolliketarot	07 Aug 2002
Great insight. Just adding one more thought. My deck is Robin Wood, showing a man hanging upside down. He wears a red trousers and white shirt. He is expression is calm and at ease. It is also a card of martyr. However, he does this willingly. The red trousers stands for unsettling emotions he feelings during the sacrifice. However with the upside down position, he is able to look at it from a total different perspective. With some patience, eventually we will see the goodness in it and regain the inner calm, just as the white shirt for purity and the peaceful expression on his face. Love and Light Carol

Moongold	07 Aug 2002
Thanks Jade, I haven't looked into the background of the Witches Tarot as much as my other decks and the book seemed like another language at first. After reading your post I picked up Cannon Reid's book again and I think I can handle it now. It looks very interesting. The Witches Tarot was the first one I purchased and I am fond of it for that reason. It spoke to me, in a sense, in the shop, and I always get very interesting and gentle readings from it. Some of the cards are beautiful. Moongold

catboxer	10 Aug 2002
The Hanged Man seems like one of the more enigmatic cards to most of us modern tarotists. It's very unlike trumps such as Justice or the Devil, whose meaning is fairly obvious, because the symbolism employed by those pictures is universally known. The Hanged Man would be less enigmatic if everyone was as familiar with the symbolic content of the picture as they are with, say, the meaning of a woman holding a sword and a pair of balance scales. Michael Dummett, in "A Wicked Pack of Cards," addresses this topic so pertinently and directly that it's probably better to quote him than paraphrase him. Dummett says: (note) "This card has been the subject of wild speculations by the occultists; but it would have been immediately intelligible to any citizen of Renaissance Rome, Florence, or Milan. Except in the Sicilian pack, the figure is always shown hung upside-down from a gallows by the foot. The bodies of executed traitors were sometimes subjected to this indignity. More usually, paintings were made of those deemed traitors to the State, showing them thus hung upside-down; this was a universally understood means of branding them traitors. The card is actually called "the Traitor" in some of the early sources." (pps. 45-46) Of course, I agree with most of the people who post here that the meanings of the cards have changed over time, and that today's interpretations are much more elastic than those that prevailed in the past. But I still feel it is necessary to know what the originators of tarot had in mind when they first designed the trumps, in order to be able to arrive at interpretations that are plausibile. I've always looked at "il Traditore" as possibly representing the aescetic impulse, because a person who sacrifices life's pleasures and overrides his most basic instincts is, in a manner of speaking, betraying life. But the betrayal is for a higher purpose. This card always makes me think of people like St. Anthony, and the scary pictures I've seen of his temptation in the desert. The Hanged Man can be seen as someone who has taken himself out of the stream of life. He short circuits desire and distraction by hanging himself up. He does this so as to be able to see more clearly. Attachment: The Temptation of St. Anthony by Martin Schongauer (Note)This book has three authors: Ron Decker, Thierry DePaulis, and Dummett, but the style of this passage is Dummett's. One of the notes for this passage names its sources: "Massive documentation of this practice is provided by the study by Gherardo Ortalli, "La peinture infamante du XIIIe au XVIe siecle," Paris, 1994, a revised edition of the original Italian version...Ortalli expresses the view that the Hanged Man in the tarot pack represents a traitor so depicted in such a shame painting. The first person, to our knowledge, to have proposed this interpretation of the card was Gertrude Moakley in her pioneering book of 1966, p. 95..."

Red Emma	10 Aug 2002
For me the hanged man has always said, "Okay take a moment here and look at this situation in a new way, from a different angle." Since no one else said this, I'm not sure what to think. However, that perception has always worked for me. Goddess Bless.

Diana	11 Aug 2002
edited

WolfSpirit	12 Aug 2002
Red Emma: thanks for sharing this, I never heard of this before but it makes a lot of sense. I'll try to look at it this way. I like it a lot, it will be easier for me than being patient. ;)

Sorceress_Jade	12 Aug 2002
You do have a good point emma, that ones going in my journal to contemplate later.

mazzadazaba	21 Aug 2002
on my tarot deck the hanged man seems almost like a jester - he has his hands on his hips and a smile on his face as if he had been reluctant to take this new, upside down view but now that he has he's seen something that gives him a greater understanding of the universe. just thought i'd add that....

The The Hanged Man thread was originally posted on 04 Aug 2002 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.