Remarks on the Hanged Man of the Tarot

Remarks on the Hanged Man of the Tarot Introduction The twelfth trump of the Tarot is commonly recognised as the “Hanged Man.” In general, the iconography of this card depicts a man suspended upside down by one foot. This foot is attached to a wooden gallows or gibbet, usually depicted in the form of the Hebrew tau (‫)ת‬, although Arthur Edward Waite altered this to construct a “Tau cross” in the form of the Greek letter tau (Τ). The free leg of the man is bent forming a cross with his bound leg. The arms of the man are generally bound behind his back and in some instances have two bags attached to them. The earliest recognised mention of the Tarot occurs with the Sermones De Ludo Cum Aliis (c. mid to late 1400’s),1 wherein the twelfth trump is identified as L’Impiccato (The 1 Known as the Steele Manuscript as published by Robert Steele, 1900. 1 Hanged Man). This is the same in the Visconti-Sforza deck (c.1450), the earliest example of a Tarot deck generally acknowledged.2 In the late 15th or early 16th century the Tarot of Marseilles evolved, remaining the model for most Tarot decks today.3 During this period the Hanged Man is said to have represented the punishment of traitors, with the card commonly known as Il Traditore (The Traitor). As Gertrude Moakley remarks, it was the ‘special punishment of the recreant or perjured knight…to be hung up by the heels and beaten. If the culprit was dead, his body was hung in this manner, and if he had escaped he was painted thus.’4 Moakley further observes the depiction of the Hanged Man with two bags of money attached to his armpits, as later described by Eliphas Levi, and as found in the Charles VI Tarot (mid. 1400’s). Moakley notes this tradition in respect to the “shame-paintings” directed at those who did not pay their debts. Here she recalls a commonly accepted link between Il Traditore and Judas, with his thirty pieces of silver.5 Furthermore, Moakley observes the image, in French and German folklore, of ‘Judas in the moon, hanging from an elder tree by his hair or his feet.’6 This image suggests a connection between the moon and the “thirty pieces of silver.” Silver is the commonly accepted colour or metal analogous with the moon. The “thirty pieces of silver” could well suggest the lunar cycle. Interestingly then the sacrifice of the Hanged Man is regarded as a sacrifice to the lunar realm or the realm of the element Water. This connection is made explicit with the Tarot of both S. L. MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley. The suicide of Judas, as the Hanged Man, cannot be separated from the sacrifice of Christ, these being interconnected aspects of one symbolism. In fact Islamic tradition commonly regards it to have been Judas rather than Christ who died on the cross.7 This is explicit in both Mandeville’s Travels and the Gospel of Barnabas, wherein Christ is actually replaced on the Cross by Judas.8 It is not hard to recognise the image of the Hanged Man with two bags hanging from his arms as a representation of the “scales.” On this point, the Hanged Man, at this period, corresponds astrologically to the Zodiacal house of Libra,9 the sign of “balance.” 2 See Kaplan, The Encyclopedia of Tarot Vol.2, 1986, Ch.II-V. Kaplan, The Encyclopedia of Tarot Vol.2, 1986, p.154. As Kaplan observes, “The most popular deck in current use, the Rider-Waite Tarot, is an occult pack with involved symbolism, yet it draws its Major Acana imagery mainly from the Tarot of Marseilles.” 4 Moakley, The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo, 1966, p.95; see sources ibid. p.96; also see Decker, Depaulis & Dummett, A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot, 1996, pp.45-6, particularly n.13. 5 Moakley, The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo, 1966, p.95. 6 Moakley, The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo, 1996, p.96, citing Taylor, ‘The gallows of Judas Iscariot’: Washington University Studies, Humanistic Series IX (1922) p.135-156. 7 This tradition is derived from Surah 4 ‘Women’, wherein it is said of Christ on the Cross that “he was made to resemble another” (see 4:155-158). 8 See Gospel of Barnabas, chs.215-216. 9 See Sadhu, The Tarot: A Contemporary Course of the Quintessence of Hermetic Occultism, 1962, p.277. 3 2 Moreover, Libra is a Water sign, again demonstrating a connection between the symbolism of Water and the Hanged Man. In the following survey we will trace the development of the Hanged Man from Court de Géblin’s identification of this card with the Cardinal Virtue, Prudence, through some of the key esoteric currents associated with the Tarot. By way of a conclusion we will reassess de Géblin’s vision of the Hanged Man. Court de Gébelin: Prudence The Tarot is commonly regarded as developing esoteric associations with the advent of Antoine Court de Gébelin’s le Monde Primitif (1781),10 although it is a fact that the pre-de Gébelin depictions of the Hanged Man contained much of the iconography that is later interpreted esoterically. De Gébelin saw the Tarot as being the ancient Egyptian “Book of Thoth.” He associated the Tarot with the “Hebrew-Egyptian” alphabet and proposed the Tarot to have been disseminated across Europe by “gypsies,” this name, he suggested, being a vulgar rendering of the word “Egyptians. De Gébelin made one significant amendment to the iconography of the cards. In an intriguing move he inverted the image of the Hanged Man to create what he entitled “Prudence.” In this he thought to have restored the four Cardinal Virtues: Temperance (trump 14), Justice (trump 8), Fortitude (trump 11) and Prudence (trump 12). A “Tarot” representation of Prudence can in fact be found in the earlier Mantegna Tarot (c.1470), although here De Gébelin concluded that a ‘presumptuous cartier, not understanding the beauty of the allegory contained under this card, took upon himself to correct it, and disfigured it entirely.’11 De Gébelin’s Prudence is thus depicted as an upright man with his right leg suspended, examining where it may be safely placed. Nevertheless, de Gébelin conceded the wooden gibbet framing the card while however inverting the two “pillars” of this framework. The left foot of the man remains bound to a stake, now nailed into the ground, although de Gébelin offers no immediate explanation for this in the context of this being Prudence. Popularising the theories of de Gébelin, Etteilla (d.1791) took the idea of Prudence and replaced the man of the twelfth trump with a woman, following the fact that the Cardinal Virtues are traditionally depicted as female. Etteilla removed the surrounding gibbet. He also removed the bindings on the right foot, replacing this with a serpent, and added a caduceus held by the woman. At this point the twelfth trump ceases to be recognisable in 10 Michael Dummet remarks, “The process by which the Tarot pack acquired its cartomantic and occult associations can be precisely traced. The entire occultist Tarot tradition stems from the work of Antoine Court de Gébelin.” (The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City, 1980, p.102). Included in de Gébelin’s book is an essay titled, Recherches sur les Tarots, attributed to a mysterious Monsieur le C. de M. This essay refers to the twelfth trump in its traditional form, as the Hanged Man. On the question of originality and precedence in this area see Decker et al, A Wicked Pack of Cards, 1996, Ch.3. 11 Court de Gébelin, le Monde Primitif, 1781, p.372: ‘C’est l’ouvrage d’un malheureux Cartier présomptueux qui ne comprenant pas la beauté de l’allégorie renfermée sous ce tableau, a pris sur lui de le corriger, & par-là même de le défigurer entierement.’ 3 terms of the iconography of the Hanged Man. Eliphas Levi expressed the opinion, widely held today, that the transformation of the twelfth trump into Prudence was the result of a “misconstrued” understanding by de Gébelin and Etteilla.12 Levi: The Great Work The next major development in the Tarot came with Eliphas Levi (c.1810-1875) who suggested and developed the occult relationship between the Tarot, Kabbalah and Alchemy. In the concordantly numbered chapter twelve of his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855),13 Levi suggests the relationship of the Hanged Man, the Hebrew tau and the alchemical “Great Work.” ‘The Great Work,’ as Levi remarks, ‘is before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future’.14 He observes of the twelfth trump: It represents a man with his hands bound behind him, having two bags of money attached to the armpits, and suspended by one foot from a gibbet formed by the trunks of two trees, each with the stumps lopped branches, and by a crosspiece, thus completing the figure of the HEBREW TAU. The legs of the victim are crossed, while his head and elbows form a triangle. Now, the triangle surmounted by a cross signifies in alchemy the end and perfection of the Great Work, a meaning which is identical with that of the letter TAU, the last of the sacred alphabet.15 Levi’s chapter is designated by the Hebrew lamed (‫)ל‬, the twelfth Hebrew letter. Lamed is symbolically associated with the “ox-goad.” This suggests an interesting interplay of symbolisms, for the ox is commonly associated with the idea of sacrifice and water.16 According to the symbolism of the Hebrew alphabet the ox is associated with the letter aleph (‫)א‬. In terms of Levi’s correspondence, the ox is therefore associated with the first trump, the Magician. In the Zohar the ox is explicitly associated with the power of sorcery or magic, the power of the “other side;”17 this same symbolism is expressed through “water.”18 12 Levi, 1995, p.144 Republished as Transcendental Magic Its Doctine and Ritual, tr. Arthur Edward Waite. 14 Levi, 1995, p.141 15 Levi, 1995, p.144 16 See for example Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1996: ‘ox’, p.730. 17 See, as a more obscure example, Zohar II, 64b-65a. 18 See Tishby, 1989, Vol.II, p.507, n.302. 13 4 Mathers: The Spirit of the Mighty Waters Around 1887, S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918)19 produced Book “T”, a manuscript on the Tarot intended for internal use within the Golden Dawn.20 The brief view of the 22 Trumps afforded here reveals some interesting differences with Mathers’ “publicly” published The Tarot, A Short Treatise on Reading Cards (1888).21 In The Tarot, Mathers “adopts” Levi’s allocation of the Hebrew alphabet to the trumps. As he remarks in his Introduction: ‘The 22 trumps are the hieroglyphic symbols of the occult meanings of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They are numbered from 0 to 21 inclusive.’22 This last point and particularly the positioning of the Fool card (trump 0) are of immense importance in the way the Hebrew alphabet is corresponded to the 22 trumps. Traditionally the Fool is positioned preceding the World card (trump 21). Mathers follows this schema in The Tarot, thus aligning the Hanged Man with the letter lamed. However, in Book “T”, intended only for the initiated, Mathers places the Fool at the start of his list of trumps, beginning the Hebrew alphabet here. In this the Hanged Man becomes the thirteenth trump in succession and as such it corresponds, in the Hebrew alphabet, with the letter mem (‫)מ‬. The letter mem symbolises “water,” as Mathers observes in The Kabbalah Unveiled.23 Mathers presents the “Key” of the Hanged Man card as “The Spirit of the Mighty Waters.”24 The Shifting Order of the Tarot This shift in the ordering of the cards leads to the correspondence of the letter aleph with the Fool card. The Fool is trump zero. Oswald Wirth (1860-1943), in his Introduction to the Study of the Tarot (1931), explicitly connects the Hanged Man and the Fool. He remarks, ‘11 is the outcome of 1 in the active series, just as 12 leads to 0 in the passive series, it seems good to refer to cards 11 (Strength) and 12 (the Hanged Man) when seeking to explain numbers 1 (the Juggler)25 and 0 (the Fool).’26 19 Note that in jumping from Levi to Mathers certain developments in the evolution of the Tarot are ignored, such as J. A. Vaillant’s 1857 attempt to prove a Chinese origin of the Tarot (Histoire Vraie des Vrais Bohémiens). The reader is reminded that this paper is not a study of the Tarot per se but of the Hanged Man and as such we are following changes that bear relevance on this card in particular. 20 Book “T” was first published in Aliester Crowley’s journal The Equinox, 1912, and later published as Book 8 in volume four of Israel Regardie’s, The Golden Dawn, 1995. 21 Mathers appears to have been working from the Marseilles deck. 22 Mathers, 1993, p.10 23 See Mathers, 1991, Plate I, p.3 24 The question of the placement of the Fool forms the major distinction between the French (Levi) and English (Mathers) schools of Tarot; as such it is interesting to note that Levi’s chapter on the Great Work, in which he discusses the Hanged Man, is not only designated by the Hebrew lamed but also the Latin M; see Levi, 1995, p.141. 25 Levi’s “Magician”. 26 Wirth, 1981, p.34 5 Book “T” further transposes the position of the Strength card (traditionally trump 11) and the Justice card (traditionally trump 8).27 Of course, as Dummett amply demonstrates, the composition of the Tarot was anything but fixed.28 Nevertheless, there is a degree of consistency in the numbering of the twenty-two trumps. With Levi the numbering and order of the cards is undoubtedly of occult significance. Furthermore, according to Levi’s association of the Tarot with Kabbalah, each card may be considered as partaking of both the preceding and subsequent card, as each Hebrew letter and each sefirah of the Sefrothic Tree partakes of both the preceding and subsequent letter and sefirah respectively. Mathers’ transposition of these cards may not be original, however it is significant in understanding the Hanged Man as informed by the preceding trump. In this context the placement of Justice as the eleventh trump, and the image of the scales she holds, explicitly expresses the idea of balance, as earlier suggested as having a connection with the Hanged Man. In the Visconti-Sforza tarocchi the eleventh trump is Il Gobbo (Time) who in modern tarot packs becomes the Hermit.29 It is interesting to note that the hourglass held by old man Time contains the same symbolism of balance as the scales of Justice. David Allen Hulse asserts that this transposition is made in accordance with the Kabbalistic attribution of the Tarot taking into account the Hebrew letters and their Zodiacal concordances. He writes: ‘The Qabalistic attribution for Strength is the Hebrew letter Teth, which is assigned to the Zodiacal sign Leo. The red lion in this key [the Strength card] is the obvious Zodiacal symbol for Leo…’.30 Teth is the ninth Hebrew letter, however, with the allocation of aleph to the Fool card, teth is aligned with the eighth trump. Hulse sees the reason for the transposition of the Strength to the eighth trump in the correspondence between the lion of the Strength card, the Zodiacal sign Leo, and the letter teth. With the allocation of the aleph to the Fool the eleventh trump is aligned with the lamed. Lamed, as noted, corresponds to the Zodiacal Libra. This is recognisable in the Justice card through the image of the scales. Certainly this transposition suits the reading of the Hanged Man in terms of the idea of balance. Still, we should ask how, if at all, does the Strength card inform the Hanged Man prior to this transposition? The answer can again be found in the image of the lion, which is a symbol of justice and as such carries with it the same sense of judgment and balance as the scales. Furthermore, the red lion is an alchemical symbol of Sulphur, which is related to the alchemical reading of the Hanged Man. Further investigation reveals this transposition as involving much more than an attempt to rectify a mistaken order. The respective symbolisms of both Strength and Justice equally inform the Hanged Man. Again, the relationships between the eighth trump, the ninth Hebrew letter, and the respective symbolisms of the numbers eight and nine, the idea of balance, and the role of the Hanged Man are intricately woven. It must also be remarked 27 In The Tarot Mathers leaves Justice as the eighth trump and Strength as the eleventh trump. Dummett, 1980. 29 See Moakley, 1966, p.94 30 Hulse, Bk.2, 1994, p.378 28 6 that the Death card inevitably follows the Hanged Man. The sacrifice of the Hanged Man is obvious in the manner in which it informs Death and visa versa. The transposition of the Strength and Justice cards should not be seen in terms of a question of which order is “correct” but rather regarded in a similar manner to the kabbalistic temura, allowing for complex permutations that are “meta-human” in origin. Similarly, the numerous correspondences, both within the Tarot and from mythological symbolisms, demonstrate the complex web of symbolic homologues that arises from the fact that, ‘in the chain of being, everything is magically contained in everything’.31 Of course the danger in considering symbols in this manner is to fall prey to a kind of “dismissal by correspondence” wherein one might say that the Hanged Man is simply the Fool, no more no less, or the relationship between the Hanged Man and Justice is simply the same as that between the Hanged Man and Strength. This form of reductionist thinking completely denies the infinite expansion and interplay of symbolism. In the end, the trick, so to speak, is to recognise the essential Unity expressed through these correspondences while at the same time keeping sight of the particular and specific meanings of each homologue.32 Waite: The Mystery of Death and Resurrection In The Key to the Tarot (1910), Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942) follows Mathers in the transposition of Strength and Justice. Yet Waite leaves the Fool in its traditional position, preceding the World card. As such he allocates the Hebrew lamed to the Hanged Man. However, as Hulse suggests, Waite’s placement of the Fool appears to accord with a desire to maintain the secrecy of Mathers’ ordering, which Hulse feels, Waite confidentially subscribes to. In his ‘Conclusion as to the Greater Keys’, Waite remarks, ‘I have not attempted to rectify the position of the cards in their relation to one another; the Zero therefore appears after No.20, but I have taken care not to number the World or Universe otherwise than 21.’33 Hulse further argues for Waite’s espousal of Mathers’ ordering albeit hidden in deceptive statements that, as Hulse observes, are typical of Waite in that they tend to vilify what ‘in reality is the secret’.34 Hulse remarks that Waite reveals the correspondence between the Hanged Man and the letter mem through a series of obscure clues intertwined into the iconography of the card. Foremost here is the shape of the letter mem suggested in the shape of the Hanged Man’s “skirt.”35 Waite’s depiction of the Hanged Man brought a significant change to the iconography of the twelfth trump inasmuch as he replaced the traditional form of the gibbet with the image of a Greek tau. Waite’s preference for the Greek tau over the Hebrew tau suggests 31 Scholem,1996, p.122 On the “network of homologous symbols” see Snodgrass, 1985, p.5. I have written in detail on the nature of symbolism in my paper, ‘Understanding “Symbol”’: Sacred Web 6, 2000. 33 Waite, 1993, p.161 34 Hulse, Bk.2, 1994, p.355 35 See Hulse, Bk.2, 1994, p.386. 32 7 a Christian colouring of the symbolism.36 This is not to deny the use of the Greek tau, which is valid within the context of a Christian reading of the symbol. In both Hebrew and Greek the tau is symbolically associated with the “sign of the cross”. Hence, with both the traditional gibbet and the “Tau cross” the Hanged Man is assimilated to the universal symbol of the cross. René Guénon has observed the symbol of the cross as the expression of the realisation of Universal Man, where the cross ‘very clearly represents the manner of achievement of this realisation by the perfect communion of all the states of the being, harmoniously and conformably ranked, in integral expansion, in the double sense of “amplitude” and “exaltation”.’37 This recalls Levi’s association of the Hanged Man, the Great Work, and the “creation of man by himself”. For his own part, Waite questions the reading of the Hanged Man as ‘a card of martyrdom, a card of prudence, a card of the Great Work, a card of duty’, remarking that these interpretations express only “vanity”. He is willing only to say that this card, ‘expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the Universe’ and that it holds intimations of the “sacred Mystery of Death” and the “glorious Mystery of Resurrection”.38 Crowley: The Drowned God The next significant change in the iconography of the Hanged Man came with Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). In 1909, with 777, and again in 1944, with The Book of Thoth: The Egyptian Tarot, Crowley sets up correspondences between various occult traditions such as Kabbalah, Alchemy, Astrology, and Egyptian and Chinese esotericism. In this he explicitly presents the Tarot as a symbolic structure upon which one can correspond all disciplines of the “occult sciences”. Crowley identifies the Hanged Man with the “drowned man”. Interestingly, this identification may also be found implied in the mid-fifteenth century Cary-Yale/Scapini tarocchi deck depiction of the Hanged Man which portarys the figure of the Hanged Man with an anchor tied to his right foot.39 Crowley describes a man suspended by his left foot from an inverted Ankh. The Ankh, as he explains, is ‘another way of figuring the formula of the Rose and Cross’40. Around the left foot is a serpent. Crowley specifies that the ‘legs are crossed so that the right leg forms a right angle with the left leg, and the arms are stretched out at an angle of 60º, so as to form an equilateral triangle’. This formation again gives the symbol of the triangle surmounted by the cross, which, as Crowely remarks, ‘represents the descent of light into dark in order to redeem it.’ This image is again reinforced by the inverted Ankh. As a point of fact, the card that Frieda Harris (artist executant of Crowley’s pack) depicts presents the 36 A movement from the Hebrew of the Old Testament to the Greek of the New Testament. Guénon, 1975, p.10 38 Waite, 1993, p.116, 119 39 See Kaplan vol.II, 1986, p.37 40 Crowley, 1974, p.96; ibid the following quotes. 37 8 arms angled at 90º. Whether this is done with Crowley’s blessing and represents a deliberately ambiguous symbolism we can not be certain. The triangle formed by the Hanged Man’s arms–generally depicted with its apex facing down in accordance with the symbolism of the Great Work–is, with Crowley’s card, pictured apex upwards (Δ). We may be sure that this is not confusion on the part of the artist for to the right of the title we find depicted a triangle apex down as the symbol associated with this card. The triangle (∇) is symbolic of the element Water; moreover, Crowely also attributes the Hebrew letter mem to this card instead of lamed. The shift from lamed to mem and the reversal of the triangle may be explained, to a degree, in Crowley’s comments of the card. He writes of the “Procession of the Aeons” according to which the former Aeon was that of Osiris, the element of Air, but under the current Aeon, that of Horus (Fire), the element of Water, so much as it is “below the Abyss,” is to be considered as “hostile”. As such, ‘in this card the only question is of the “redemption” of the submerged element, and therefore everything is reversed.’ This reversal explains, to a degree, the inversion of the triangle. Likewise the “Procession of the Aeons” may be seen to inform the “procession” of lamed to mem. The abundance of occult symbolism in Crowley’s card calls for greater study. However, to remain consistent with the current theme we will only note the inclusion of a coiled Serpent ‘stirring in the Darkness of the Abyss’41 below the head of the man, and with this a serpent coiled around the Hanged Man’s left ankle thus attaching him to the Ankh. This recalls the serpent at the feet of Etteilla’s Prudence, however it should not be thought of as a mere borrowing, Crowley being too deliberate for this. Crowley remarks that the Serpent shows “a Child” begotten by “his Work”, which is to say, by the Great Work. The Serpent Among its complex symbolism the Serpent is commonly recognised as expressing “Nature” in its effective and regenerative mode, ‘creator and destroyer, who operates all change.’42 The two serpents at the extremities of the Hanged Man’s body suggest the one Serpent in the manner of the Ouroboros. The cyclic nature of the Ouroboros recalls Levi’s comments on the Hanged Man. This cyclic nature reveals the concept of rejuvenation in the “Child” or original state. Concerning this idea, both Hermes, in the Greek tradition, and Metatron, in the Judaic tradition, are said to undergo the constant process of aging and then rejuvenating as a child.43 Both Hermes, who has as his Egyptian counterpart, Thoth,44 and Metatron, who is the transmogrified Enoch, and who is expressed in the terrestrial domain 41 Crowley, 1974, p.98 This quote refers to the Serpent coiled around the Hanged Man’s left ankle (Crowely, 1974, p.98). On “Nature” see Burckhardt, 1974, Ch.8. On the symbolism of the Serpent see Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1996: ‘serpent’, p.844; Avalon (Woodroffe), 1992. 43 In this respect Metatron is known as na’ar (boy or lad), see Tishby, 1991, Vol.II, p.626-29. 44 The regenerate form of the Child is suggested through Thoth in his guise as a dog-headed ape, where the ape is seen as the pregenerative human. 42 9 by Melchizedek, are associated with the bringing of knowledge.45 In this context they are analogous to Othin in the Scandinavian tradition, who is a well known mythological example of the Hanged Man. Isaiah Tishby observes that ‘Metatron is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’, and further remarks, ‘He is symbolised by Moses’ rod, which is transformed from rod to snake, and from snake back to rod.’46 Both of these images recall the caduceus of Hermes. This offers another interesting connection for, according to alchemical symbolism, the “crucified serpent” or the “serpent-rod” represents “fixed Mercury”.47 Also recall that, according to both the Gnostics and St. John, the serpent represented Christ, again offering the image of the crucified serpent.48 It is important to note that by Crowley’s time, and as early as Levi, study of the Tarot purely in terms of historical evolution is insufficient for any real understanding of the meaning inherent within. As Crowley observes, ‘The origin of the Tarot is quite irrelevant, even if it were certain. It must stand or fall as a system on its own merits.’49 The Inverted 4 and “Calcination” The connection that Crowely makes between the “drowned god” and the Hanged Man is found in Rosicrucian tradition. The Codex Rosce Crucis recognises this in the opening verses of the Bible: “The spirit of GOD was suspended above the waters.” (Gen.1:2).50 As the “drowned god” is sacrificed to Water, the Hanged Man is suspended in Air. This reference is found amongst the meanings associated with the image of the “inverted 4”.51 The other attributes of this symbol are the element Water, the Hyle, Azoth—described by Levi as “the final principle of the Great Work”52—and Alchemy itself. In A Manual of Occultism, Sepharial remarks that the limbs of the Hanged Man of the Tarot form an inverted 4.53 Likewise the limbs of the woman of the World card form an upright 4. Moreover, the iconography of the World card, from the Marseilles deck onwards, usually includes the Tetramorphs at the four corners of the card, reinforcing this association. The Codex Germanicus Monacensis contains a depiction of the Hanged Man on the gibbet that is said to depict the alchemical process of “calcination”. Chevalier and Gheerbrant’s, Dictionary of Symbols, observes calcination as being the return to Primordial Chaos,54 the “waters” of Genesis. The Great Work is the process of calcination. Allowing for the complexities of alchemy it can nevertheless be said that there are two essential 45 Concerning Metatron (Yahoel) as Abraham’s spiritual teacher, see Scholem, 1995, p.69. For the original tradition see The Apocalypse of Abraham 15.4. 46 See Tishby, 1991, Vol.II, p.626-29. 47 See Klossowski de Rola, 1992, plate 16. 48 St. John sees the “bronze serpent” (Num.21: 4) as a symbol of the crucified Christ (Jn.3:14). 49 Crowley, 1974, p.10 50 Codex Rosae Crucis, D.O.M.A. text, plate 3 51 Codex Rosae Crucis, D.O.M.A. text, plate 3 52 Levi, 1995, p.19 53 Sepharial, 1972, p.227 54 Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1996: ‘alchemy’, p.13 10 stages to the Great Work: the process of “dissolution” or “sublimation” and the reciprocal process of “coagulation”.55 This is a cyclic process clearly expressed by Nicolas Valois: ‘Solvite corpora et coagulate spiritum’, the universal alchemical formula solve et coagula. Once again this recalls Levi’s assertion that the Hanged Man expresses a cyclic symbolism. This cyclic process is depicted by the terms solve and coagula pictured on the up-pointing and down-pointing arms respectively of Levi’s infamous Sabbatic Goat.56 This informs the Devil of the Tarot. This card commonly shows the downward arm as associated with a male figure (coagula) and the upward arm with a female figure (solve). It can well be suggested that the male figure corresponds to the Hanged Man, which is moreover the downward action of the Great Work, and that the female figure corresponds to the World, the reciprocal upward action of the Great Work. The Devil is the fifteenth trump, the number fifteen being made up of six and nine. In Masonic symbolism the number nine expresses “downward” movement and the number six “upward” movement. As Jules Boucher remarks, ‘The written shape of the number nine stands for a downward and therefore material germination, while by contrast the figure six represents an upward, and therefore spiritual germination. Both numbers form the start of a spiral.’57 He continues to note the association of the number nine with the human gestation period: ‘On the human level, nine is, in fact, the number of months needed for the foetus to attain birth size, although completely formed by the seventh month.’ This “downward germination” suggests the inverted portrayal of the Hanged Man. It need almost go without saying that the normal birthing child emerges head-first, that is to say, inverted. The Inversion of Man The inversion of the Hanged Man recalls Plato’s remarks on the inversion of man as a terrestrial creature. Plato has said, “Man is a heavenly plant; and what this means is that man is like an inverted tree, of which the roots tend heavenward and branches downwards to earth.”58 Ananda Coomaraswamy has examined the symbolism of the “inverted tree” in depth.59 In considering the two Inverted Trees in Dante’s Purgatorio, Cantos xxii-xxv, and the erect “Tree of which Eve ate”, Coomaraswamy remarks, ‘the gist of the whole matter for us is that the Trees, which seem to be different aspects of the only Tree, are inverted only below that point at which rectification and regeneration of man takes place.’60 This association of inversion with “regeneration” recalls both the process of the Great Work and Waite’s reading of the Hanged Man as intimating the “glorious Mystery of Resurrection”. 55 See De Rola, 1992, p.17 Levi, 1995, p.228 57 Boucher, 1953, p.227, cited in Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1996: ‘nine’, p.704 58 Cited at second hand by Coomaraswamy, 1977(a), p.395. 59 See Coomaraswamy, 1977(a), ‘The Inverted Tree’; also Guénon, 1995, Ch.53 “The World Tree”. 60 Coomaraswamy, 1977(a), p.395 56 11 The World Card The twelfth trump is regarded as finding its complementary card in the twenty-first trump, the World card. This is immediately understandable in terms of the reflective nature of the numbers 12 and 21. It has been suggested that the iconography of these two cards demonstrates a graphic symmetry.61 Certainly in the Marseilles deck and with the iconography of Waite and Crowley there exists a strong argument for this symmetry. As such we can say that the Hanged Man graphically figures a cross surmounting a triangle with its apex down, within a square frame. The World figures a triangle, apex up, surmounting a cross, within a circular frame, or more precisely, within a vesica piscis. A further connection can be established between the Hanged Man and the World through the correspondence of the World with the Hebrew letter tau, the twenty-second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aligned to the twenty-first trump with respect to the place of the Fool. The image of the triangle, apex up, surmounting a cross is the alchemical symbol of Sulphur, the “fixed principle”. The alchemical union of Sulphur and Mercury, the “volatile principle”, appears to correspond to the relationship between The World and the Hanged Man. It might also be noted that Mercury corresponds to the elements Water and Air recalling the association of these with the Hanged Man mentioned above.62 The Lord of Balance The association of the Hanged Man with the figure of Hermes (Thoth) and the idea of balance, and the pairing of the Hanged Man and the World suggests a further association: the pairing of Thoth and Maat. The goddess Maat expresses the ideas of “truth”, “measure”, “level” and “justice”.63 Maat is associated with “measure” and “the world”.64 Maat’s association with the idea of “level” brings to mind the Masonic symbolism of the level and the plum-line: ‘the level teaches equality and the plum-rule justice’.65 If the World, through correspondence with Maat, represents the “level” then the Hanged Man would correspond to the plum-line. In fact, given the iconography of the twelfth trump it is not hard to see how this is may be so. De Gébelin’s Prudence Reconsidered The above comments on the pairing of Thoth and Maat–the Hanged Man and the World– give us pause to reconsider de Gébelin’s allocation of Prudence to the twelfth trump. Among Roman iconography the Virtue Prudence is depicted as a woman holding a ruler and pointing at a world globe.66 This image certainly recalls Maat. It could be suggested that de Gébelin’s transformation of the twelfth trump evolved from more than a simple 61 See for example Gettings, 1973. See Poisson, Théorie et symboles des Alchimistes, Paris, 1891, cited in Klossowski de Rola, 1992, p.19 63 Budge, 1969, Vol.1, pp.416-21 64 The two principal hieroglyphs representing Maat are the feather–assocaited with measure–and the pedestal (of the throne)–associated with the earth or the world. 65 Jones, 1950, p.442. See ibid. pp.441-43 66 Lempriere, 1906, ‘Virtus’, p.645 62 12 desire to complete the Four Cardinal Virtues; that he was, at least, aware of a relationship, through the virtue Prudence, linking the World and the Hanged Man of the Tarot. Originally written Bendigo, circa 2000; re-written 2006. * Reading List and References Albertus, Frater, Alchemist’s Handbook, Weiser, New York, 1974 Albertus, Frater, Praxis Spagyrica Philosophica & From “One” to “Ten”, Weiser, Maine, 1998 Burckhardt T., Alchemy, Penguin, Baltimore, 1974 Budge E.A.W., The Gods of the Egyptians 2Vols., Dover, New York, 1969 Budge E.A.W., An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary 2Vols., Dover, New York, 1978 Budge E.A.W., The Book of the Dead ‘The Hieroglyphic Transcript and English Translation of the Papyrus of Ani’, Gramercy Books, New Jersey, 1995 Bruno G., Cause, Principle and Unity And Essays on Magic, Cambridge University Press Cambridge, 1998 Chevalier J. & Gheerbrant A., Dictionary of Symbols (tr.) 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