Tarot #12. The Hanged Man🙃
Path #12 in the journey of the Tarot Major Arcana. The Hanged Man!
The Hanged Man suspends himself willingly between worlds, surrendering action to gain vision. Wisdom from trials, steady circumspection sharpening into instinctive discernment. Sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy ~ they all come as natural as breathing to the Hanging. Hung from the tree of sacrifice, this man sees the world inverted and discovers a deeper truth that the upright cannot possibly perceive. Reversed: Selfishness, the crowd, body politic. The absolute refusal to surrender.
UPRIGHT: Wisdom, Sacrifice, Circumspection, Prophecy
REVERSED: Selfishness, The crowd, Body politic, Resistance
This guy is more than a little off. But that gives him invaluable perspective. The Hanged Man sees the world from a new angle, discerning fresh insights and perhaps even True Sight into the fundamental cosmic machineries around him. Sometimes. Other times, The Hanged Man may just be waiting on an idea, participating in his own inscrutable if yet vital creative process. A figure of Weird Divinity; an artful eccentric with an electrifying methodology. In the end, this guy is rather imperturbable and self-righteous; he’s likely to answer your question with a better question of his own (or a limerick aimed at your most un-apparent vulnerability). As far as the imposition of serious authority, it is best not to try, for he has already hung himself out to dry.
On the journey, the hero must risk looking weird to discover a truth, or is forced into a wayward path of rigorous struggle that forces him to see an ongoing underground reality…
Bottom Line: When you get Hung, don’t be afraid of looking strange to prove your point.
Tree of Life Path: Geburah to Hod -- Severity ⟷ Logos. Able to reason beyond the average man by way of his seeing past the ordinary, from a momentarily ascended {or descended} point of view.
A. E. Waite quote: “The gallows from which he is suspended forms a Tau cross, while the figure--from the position of the legs--forms a fylfot cross. There is a nimbus about the head of the seeming martyr. It should be noted (1) that the tree of sacrifice is living wood, with leaves thereon; (2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering; (3) that the figure, as a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death. It is a card of profound significance, but all the significance is veiled.”
