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The Hanged Man

MAJOR ARCANA · XII

The Hanged Man is card XII of the major arcana. A young man hangs upside down by one foot from a T-shaped tree. He is not suffering: a halo shines around his head and his face is calm. Upright, he stands for pausing, a change of view and letting go; reversed, for fruitless endurance and being stuck.

Name and number

Upright meaning

Keywords: pausing, a new perspective, letting go, acceptance, waiting

After weighing things in the scales of Justice, the next step is to turn the scales themselves upside down. The Hanged Man is someone who has chosen to accept being unable to move.

The upright Hanged Man stands for a time to stop and stay still. A situation that is not going as you wish may show another meaning when seen upside down. It is read that when you let go of old ways and attachments, a new understanding arrives. It can also stand for "sacrifice" in the sense of accepting a short-term loss to give your time to something that matters more.

Reversed meaning

Keywords: fruitless endurance, being stuck, clinging, needless sacrifice

Reversed, stopping is read as not bearing fruit.

Simply enduring, with nothing changing. Putting up with more and more for others until you are worn down. Clinging to what you should let go and becoming unable to move. The upright card's "waiting" has turned into pointless marking time. It is read as a card that asks whether endurance has become an end in itself.

What the picture shows

• The living T-shaped tree: its leaves show that he is still connected to life. The T is the shape of the Greek letter tau.
• The crossed legs: in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, one leg is bent to form the figure "4."
• The halo around his head: not suffering but enlightenment, an insight arriving.
• The calm face: a sign that he has accepted his suspension.
• Hands behind his back: an attitude of not intervening, simply surrendering.

History

The Hanged Man was once the card of a "traitor" being punished.

In Renaissance Italy there was a custom of painting traitors and defaulting debtors on town walls, hanging upside down by one foot, to shame them in public. The Hanged Man of the fifteenth-century Visconti–Sforza deck has the same pose as these "shame paintings," and in Italy the card was also called "the Traitor."

In the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Tarot of Marseille, too, a young man hangs by one foot between two trees.

At the end of the eighteenth century, Court de Gébelin argued that the card had been printed upside down, and that it was really a picture of Prudence standing on one foot. From the nineteenth century on, esoteric writers reread the card as someone who surrenders willingly, someone attaining enlightenment. The Rider–Waite–Smith deck followed this view, adding a halo and a calm face. It is a card whose meaning turned almost upside down, from punishment to insight.

Correspondences

Previous and next cards

• Previous: 11 Justice
• Next: 13 Death
• The major arcana

Lucky colors for The Hanged Man