Troubled Waters, Part II
A Look at The Hanged Man of the Tarot
This article corresponds with TABI’s Tarot World Podcast on The Hanged Man. You can hear my account of a year with The Hanged Man and listen to my discussion with Victoria and Gwen about this complex card.
In Part I of Troubled Waters, I wrote about what it was like to spend a year with The Hanged Man. In the second part, I want to focus less on my personal experiences and more on the symbolic and academic aspects of the card. We’ll look at the Golden Dawn’s take on The Hanged Man along with astrological, Qabalistic, and associated mythologies.
Before we dive into the correspondences, I want to point out The Hanged Man’s most important designation: The Elemental Trump of Water. The Elemental Trumps are the Major Arcana cards with only an element as their astrological assignment. In this small subsection of the tarot, The Hanged Man finds himself amongst only three other cards: The Fool (Air), Judgement (Fire), and The World (Earth).
In the Golden Dawn’s arrangement of the 78 cards in a tarot deck, The Hanged or Drowned Man occupies the 69th position. Interestingly, this number, turned on its side, resembles the symbol of Pisces, the Fish, a mutable water sign representing the movement of water. It is also believed that, in older cards, The Hanged or Drowning Man could be viewed lying horizontally rather than vertically, symbolizing Noah’s Ark, with the flood below and a connection to God above.1 The esoteric title assigned to this card is “The Spirit of the Mighty Waters,” where the word “mighty” implies these are waters of power rather than calmness.
The divinatory meaning assigned to this card is pretty straightforward: “Enforced sacrifice. Punishment, loss. Fatal and not voluntary. Suffering generally.” In The Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn, Zalewski gives hope to this foreboding definition by adding, “Suffering, but with the end process showing a stronger individual.”2
On the Tree of Life, The Hanged Man resides on Path 23 between Hod (8) and Geburah (5) and is both the first and last path on the Pillar of Severity. Last in the order emanation from above and first on our return to enlightenment. Overlaid on this Path, The Hanged Man’s head rests in Hod, the sphere of Mercury/intelligence, and his feet are stationed above in Geburah, the sphere of Mars/destruction, suggesting some breaking down of mental processes or intellectual ideas.
The Hebrew letter assigned to this path is Mem, which means “water” and is the second of the three Hebrew Maternal letters representing the primordial elements: Air, Water, and Fire. Zalewski points out, “Hierogliphically, Mem indicates rough water, sea, or waves, while Mem Final indicates calm water, silence, and peace.” 3
Consciousness is symbolized by water due to the similarities in their qualities. The 23rd Path is called “Stable Intelligence because it has the virtue of consistency among all numerations.” This means that this Intelligence or Consciousness is found in all parts of the Tree of Life in the same way water is found in all life.
This card is often referred to as the card of the “Dying God” and depicts a man suspended upside down by one foot. The legends of the Dying God— whether Christ, Odin, or Osiris— tell stories of death and resurrection. The rituals of baptism or rebirthing, an underlying meaning of The Hanged Man, symbolize the Dying God through submersion into the water (death) followed by emergence(rebirth). For this reason, Heqet, the frog-headed Egyptian goddess overseeing birth and death transitions, is also associated with The Hanged Man, highlighting the amphibious connection to water. To this point, the imagery of this card could also be interpreted as a fetus in the womb, suspended by the umbilical cord. This concept of death and resurrection also plays out through the cycle of the four Elemental Trumps of the tarot, where each element can be seen as a form of baptism.
Other associations with this card include the gods of the “Mighty Waters,” Neptune and Poseidon; all water plants, especially the Lotus; the stones Beryl and Aquamarine; and the perfumes Onycha and Myrrh.
The Golden Dawn’s Color Scale associations for Path 23 are visible in both the RWS and Thoth Cards for The Hanged Man and are evidently colors connected to water and the sea: Deep Blue, Sea Green, Deep Olive Green, and White Flecked Purple (like Mother of Pearl). In the Rider-Waite card, Pamela Colman Smith’s use of red for the legs and yellow around the head may refer to the downward planetary influences of Geburah (Mars = Red) on Hod (Mercury = Yellow) directly below on The Tree of Life.
Summary of The Hanged Man’s Correspondences
ASTROLOGY
The Element of Water
Neptune
TREE OF LIFE
Path 23, Mem
Yetziratic Text: Stable Intelligence
GOLDEN DAWN
Card No. 69
Esoteric Title: The Spirit of the Mighty Waters
Divinatory Meaning: Enforced sacrifice. Punishment, loss. Fatal and not voluntary. Suffering generally.
COLORS
Element (Water): Blue
World of Fire: Deep Blue
World of Water: Sea Green
World of Air: Deep Olive Green
World of Earth: White, Flecked Purple (like Mother of Pearl)
The RSW card uses Yellow and Red to reflect the planets Mercury and Mars mapped to the Spheres below and above Path 23 on the Tree of Life.
PLANTS
Lotus
All water plants
STONES
Aquamarine
Beryl
PERFUMES
Myrrh
Onycha
DEITIES
Poseidon
Neptune
Heqet
MISC. ASSOCIATIONS
Baptism
Sacrifice
Resurrection
Noah’s Ark
Transitions of Birth and Death
Zalewski, Chris, and Pat Zalewski. 2019. The Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn: Divination, Meditation and High Magical Teachings. Aeon Books. https://spirit.aeonbooks.co.uk/product/the-magical-tarot-of-the-golden-dawn/93279.
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