𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒪𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒾𝓃𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐻𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒𝒹 𝑀𝒶𝓃 𝒾𝓃 𝒯𝒶𝓇𝑜𝓉 // 𝒫𝒾𝓉𝓉𝓊𝓇𝒶 𝐼𝓃𝒻𝒶𝓂𝒶𝓃𝓉𝑒 🪷
Last night I was doing readings, and found myself contemplating 'The Hanged Man' card as it was positioned prominently in a spread. Wildly coincidental given we are having a New Moon in Pisces at the moment, the Hanged Man's associated sign.
I was specifically thinking about how the lesser known aspect of The Hanged Man is its connection with shame, public ridicule & condemnation, something a bit harsher than the way most interpret it today. Many modern definitions seem to overlook this more 'on the nose' aspect, reframing this intense card to into meaning 'seeing things from a different perspective' & 'voluntary sacrifice'. These do fit the bill, they are not wrong & they can be accurate contextually, but it also somewhat neglects + key element rooted in the origins of the cards.
This sense that we are missing something or skirting around the intent of the original concept behind it is not just something we see with the Hanged Man, although that's what I felt compelled to write on today. The entire Tarot (astrology too, really all occult practices) is at times watered down and 'softened' when it comes to how our modern culture typically interprets things.
This is for a few reasons- one being that softening the definitions helps with giving readings to anxious querents that are much more palatable. Another reason being that the age of the internet & fast information makes for swiftly spread, easy to grasp, yet somewhat incomplete interpretations.
One thing about tarot, astrology, and all things esoteric is that while there are indeed complex, rich 'deeper meanings' behind everything, often times the face value depiction is incredibly revealing. The poor man is being hung... sometimes, it is what it is.. 🙃
A significant passage of time has passed so naturally, definitions have evolved, grown and shifted, however tracing our way back to the roots is typically where the good stuff is.
let's get into the history! 🪷
The Hanged Man is originally connected to late Medieval Italian 'shame paintings' known as 'Pittura Infamante'. In English, 'defaming portrait' or 'Infamous painting'.
Tarot cards in their earliest depictions originate in Northern Italy in the early Renaissance period (estimated around the year 1440 specifically). Thus, we know almost certainly that the Hanged Man card was created with these paintings & this cultural context in mind. Of course, Tarot was originally a playing cards game & not used for divination until the late 1700s.
Shame paintings were a late Medieval Italian cultural phenomenon where traitors who left town/disappeared & couldn't be physically executed would instead be punished and disgraced through a detailed, recognisable depiction of them being hung. These paintings would typically be displayed on public buildings for all to see & were usually accompanied by a caption describing the crime. The goal was to strip away their social status and dignity in a society where that level of shunning was one of the greatest forms of punishment.
This practice wasn't just about the inflicting punishing, physical pain part of the depiction. It was also the simple but powerful symbolic statement of depicting someone in such an 'undignified', humiliating position. Upside down = wrong, you are no longer one of us, just someone we laugh at, ridicule and/or look at with overt disgust.
Originally, the Hanged Man tarot card was often known as 'Il Traditore', or 'the Traitor' in English. Off the bat, very much an accusatory tone, implying he is in an agonising position that's been vengefully imposed upon him rather than that he's simply chosen to hang for a bit for some good old soul searching.
With time & a few centuries passing, the Hanged Man became known as 'Le Pendu', (the Hanged Man) or 'L'Appesso', (the Hanging Man'). So as you can see, even in that name change the meaning does start to feel noticeably more abstract and spiritual. The nature of why exactly he is hanging becomes less defined and more up to interpretation.
The man is still hung, but there is a difference between 'he is being hung by others with the intent of social humiliation' and 'bro is just chilling there, he put himself there.. yeah you know, he's just hanging for love of the game'.
By the time Tarot became more solidly established as a divinatory tool rather than a card game, the Hanged Man's definition had very much been reimagined & rehashed into the 'spiritual seeker' definition we more prominently utilise today. So, it is not a dogmatic thing of 'modern interpretation = wrong and bad, older one = good'. It's more about integrating the two and the enrichment of understanding we can gain from that. These definitions are not necessarily opposite, just different elements of the same overarching themes.
Some of these themes to the Hanged Man throughout history include:
🪷 Surrender • sacrifice • to be outcasted (whether in good reason or not) • to feel ungrounded and/or 'undignified' • to literally be socially condemned or punished • empowerment/pleasure in submission to external circumstances • the body being restricted while the soul roams free • humiliation • martyrdom • enlightenment through pain and/or stillness • to be aware of your wrongdoings + the consequences and understand your fate (overlapping the 'traitor' theme and the enlightenment theme) • to be condemned for something when you were in actuality the 'enlightened' one (now we're moving into the Jesus Christ-esque themes). • a need to relax though external circumstances are troubling • feeling stuck •
It's a perfect example of how wonderfully complex Tarot cards are. Each card holds a world of its own and could have an entire book written on just the one. The Hanged Man in a reading can lend itself to any of these interpretations & more depending on the overall message.
Whichever aspect of The Hanged Man you feel inclined to pull from at any given time (the spiritual seeker, the shunned traitor, the misunderstood outcast, etc) the overall themes do stay in tact. It becomes something that prompts us as readers to question and probe further into what each card is telling us rather than coming into a reading expecting a cookie cutter definition of such a beautifully complex card to reveal all.
As renowned Tarot scholar and author Dr. Yoav Ben-Dove wonderfully put it in reference to his 'open reading' method:
‘First, a Tarot card does not have a fixed meaning which can be learned in advance. Rather, the meaning emerges from what we can see in the card during the reading.'
When the Hanged Man appears in a reading, ask yourself:
Why is it he hanging there? Is this someone being hung in a witch hunt, or is it someone who hung themselves as a willful retreat from society? How do they feel about being hung? Do they feel content, distressed, humiliated, blissful? Is this an avoidable position, or are they truly stuck there? What new perspective is this Hanged Man gaining in their state of suspension/isolation/shunning?
The answers will be different nearly every time depending on the spread & the context, and that's part of the magic!
I hope this was informative and thought provoking for those who read it :) I'd love to delve deep into more of the cards in this way, it truly elevates the intensity and depth to a reading when you understand the history & core themes coming through!
- Lavender Angel Tarot 🤍🪷
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