Hanged Man - Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's specifications
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 31 Mar 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| Rusty Neon |
31 Mar 2005 |
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In the Ciceros' Golden Dawn Magical Tarot deck, the Hanged Man card shows not only the hanged man, but a second figure (man/robot-like).
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/golden-dawn-magical/
Cicero deck: Hanged Man
The description of the Hanged Man card in the unofficial Golden Dawn manuscript "The Tarot Trumps" by G. H. Soror makes no mention of a second figure.
Wang's deck's Hanged Man only has one figure in the card: the hanged man himself.
What is the basis for the inclusion of the second figure by the Ciceros (whereas the Wang deck doesn't include it)? Is there any Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn written materials that supports the inclusion of the second figure in the Hanged Man card?
I don't have the Cicero deck (at least not yet), so I don't have access to the deck companion book by the Ciceros.
Thanks in advance!
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| Fulgour |
31 Mar 2005 |
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from
Golden Dawn Magical Tarot
by Sandra Tabatha Cicero and Chic Cicero
page 62
Images: A man hanging upside down from
a tree over Water. His legs are crossed and his
hands are bound behind his back.
*
Intuitively, I would say the robot is part of the tree,
but here as a blend of the ancient (Odin, etc.) with
the harshness of modern technology, creating thus
a tree for our own times, a 20th/21st Century Tau.
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| Thirteen |
01 Apr 2005 |
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In the Ciceros' Golden Dawn Magical Tarot deck, the Hanged Man card shows not only the hanged man, but a second figure (man/robot-like).
It's not a robot, though I can see why you'd describe it like that. It's a bearded man in armor and I'd guess that it's meant to be Odin. The Hanged Man is often related to the legend of Odin who hung from the World Tree (note how the armored man stands before a tree) for nine days without food or mead. At the end of those nine days, he saw the runes lying among the roots of the tree. Coming down at last, he scooped up the runes which hold within them all knowledge.
Thus, Odin's sacrifice gave the world knowledge. The rainbow at among the roots of the tree reinforces this as, in Norse legend, it is the rainbow bridge that one crosses to go from earth to Asgard--kingdom of the gods which Odin rules. Thus, our hanged man not only achieves wisdom but connects to the gods during his "hanging time"--By suspending himself, he puts his head in the clouds, crosses over the rainbow.
Note also that the rainbow is upside-down. Clearly the roots of the tree are the sky, the branches are the earth. This relates the tree to the Qabala where you rise up from branches to roots as you ascend from earthly to, yes, divine. Again, the hanged man's time of sacrifice and suspension is a time of connecting to the divine.
This, as we've seen in so many discussions of the hanged man, relates him to all those trails that shamans and other seekers endure to make such connections--like Indian sweat lodges, or fasting out in the desert, etc. The hanged man's face shows no suffering because the sacrifice leads to spiritual inspiration and peace, not pain. Like Odin, there is great discovery that can be brought back with him once he has released himself and returned to earth.
Don't know if that answers the question, but there you go.
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The Hanged Man - Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's specifications thread was originally posted on 31 Mar 2005 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.
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