The Hanged Man as suicide?

[TPJFin]

(I tried to do search on this, but didn't find quite the thing, so I started a new thread.)

Does anyone else see the Hanged Man as a suicide? An intentional sacrifice. Has he intentionally allowed things to evolve into the point where he will be hanged? Is he somewhat suicidal, wanting the emotional release? Ends the struggle with self by hanging.

Let me give you an example; a while ago I did a reading where I asked about the circumstances that surrounded the death of my friend. The card I got was the Hanged Man and instantly I started to think it was a suicide. Perhaps it looks like something else, but actually is self-induced?

Does anyone else see this card as the suicide card, or does everyone think it's just sacrificing, being a martyr?

 

[DrDave]

The hanged man is Odin who hung like that for 9 days.
All his runes fell to the floor and in those Runes was all knowledge.
It is witnessing behaviour that makes no sense cause normally the person would not do something like this

He saw the world upside down .a different perspective, and then carried on with his life.

It is a gate card because there is a different perspective,some wisdom to be learned,some enlightenment as the prize.
Answers that eluded him become clear,solutions to problems are to be found

He finds these answers by going infinitely inside himself,he hangs suspended between the Mundane world and the Spiritual world
To learn here he must give up preconceived ideas and see things differently


But usually it does not bode suicide,even though suicide makes no sense to those left behind and it is not the solution I am alluding to.

DrDave

 

[Herzog]

Unless after hanging upside down and seeing the world from another point of view, he decided he didn't like what he saw; that the insight he gained wasn't enough to prevent him from taking his own life. Or perhaps the insight he gained was the deciding factor

 

[Thirteen]

Very old topic

There've been a lot of threads on this topic (suicide) and they always include some talk of the Hanged Man. Seeing him as a suicide is not new--many people do, both literally as someone hanging themselves, and figuratively as someone who "suicides" their old self, who sacrifices their life or persona in order to move on. Type "suicide" into the search for this forum--and check the threads on it. Even if the title doesn't include "hanged man," that card will get mentioned in almost every thread on suicide.

Try this one, for example: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=128379&highlight=Suicide

 

[Thirteen]

The Traitor

Just to add, one of the old titles of this card was "The Traitor" because they used to hang traitors by one foot. The idea being that a Traitor sees thing in a very different way from the rest of the world.

It's interesting that people ignore the image (a man hanging by a foot) for the title: "Hanged Man" which brings to mind a person hanging by the throat which, technically, is completely inaccurate given the card's image and history.

I wonder if this card would have been ever been viewed as relating to suicide if it had always been labeled "The Traitor" or "Sacrifice" rather than "Hanged Man," thus keeping people's view of the image as a man hanging by a foot, not by the neck.