Llewellyn's Complete Book of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot

by Sasha Graham

  Symbolic

  Esoteric Function: Work

  Hebrew Letter: Lamed

  Astrological Association: Libra

  Waite says, “This card follows the traditional symbolism and carries above all its obvious meanings.” Traditional decks portray Justice unblindfolded, holding a scale in the right hand, a sword in the left. The sword points upward in the direction of truth and can assume all the qualities of the suit of swords: articulation, calculation, and mental activity. The figure is synonymous with traditional statues of Justice except the eyes are revealed rather than blindfolded.

  Libra’s scales of Justice in the left hand connect to the Hebrew letter Lamed. Waite switches the card with the traditional placement of Strength to line up the association of Libra. A jewel in the middle of Justice’s crown marks the third eye, indicating the ability to seek truth with a higher consciousness. The posture gently echoes the Magician and Justice’s left forefinger pointing toward the ground as energy moves toward manifestation.

  Profane

  Our inner thoughts and judgment calls. Moral ethics. Work. Reaping the results of effort you have put forth. Universal karma. Legal systems and lawsuits. Contracts and lawyers. Doing the right thing regardless of immediate consequence. Making the world a better place. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes; however, you bear all responsibility for your actions.

  Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law.

  Reversed: Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.

  Asana

  The Justice card aligns with yoga’s hand to big toe pose, or utthitta hasta pagangusthasana. The yogi stands straight, takes their toe, and extends their leg to the front, side, and back to the front. The yogi creates a perfect intersection of horizontal and vertical lines, a 90-degree right angle with the body. This multiple breath posture creates a statue-like physicality imitating iconic blindfolded Justice, whose figure graces many state and federal buildings.

  The Scales of Justice usually represent dual sides in a court case. Embrace the scale’s symbolic value and enter inside the heart of true balance evoked in hand to toe pose. This echoes the complexity of weighing opposing sides and opinions but also marks the coordinates of the body in the physical world. Mastery of the pose reflects working with opposing forces, masculine/feminine, light/shadow, material/invisible. We are always suspended between the polarities of who we are. Our intersection changes by the moment. Sometimes we stand strong, while other times we can’t find our footing. Our center point, like a butterfly, is in constant motion. But to become aware of the balance and dichotomy of your life is to begin the work of becoming the active observer. Acute observation of the self calms emotional urges to react to others or situations. Active observers give the self room to make the better decisions and allow others the freedom to be who they are. It provides you with the space to gain control over your experience of life. Your interior experience is the one and only thing you have control over. The Justice card and hand to toe pose remind you to make the most of it.

  The Hanged Man

  Use your wits,

  use your eyes.

  Pamela Colman Smith45

  Sacred

  The Hanged Man’s stasis is a visual trick. He is anything but still. He reflects a moment’s pause, a brief interlude, an examination of the world, your situation and everything seen from a new point of view. Looking through the kaleidoscopic eyes of the Hanged Man is like taking a psychedelic drug. The Hanged Man’s internal life pulsates and moves. Trees whisper, walls bleed crimson, crickets scratch your skin with song. A forest breathes in unison with you. Senses come alive as predetermined definitions fade back into human memory. Cookie-cutter definitions fade to black. The world is encountered with newborn eyes, like a vampire spying immortal nightfall for the very first time.

  The Hanged Man is a signpost in the road of your life. He tells you things are about to get interesting. He is the harbinger of mysticism and transcendence. The ego falls away. Truth is revealed. His stasis draws you in. He asks you to look closer. The Hanged Man’s body is immobile, yet his consciousness radiates. Internal life, imagination, and illumination pulsate and glow yellow around his head. His posture indicates a brief interlude. He examines the situation from an entirely new point of view. He is saturated in silence and completely present in the moment.

  It is said traitors were once hung at crossroads as a warning to would-be thieves and vagabonds. The Hanged Man issues forth a warning, yet he is not a harbinger of light or darkness. Each end of the spectrum contains unique gifts. The Hanged Man’s wooded cross evokes choices at the crossroads of our lives. Hecate, goddess of magic and witchcraft, is found at the crossroads, illuminating midnight with her blazing torch. A choice is to be made. Energies convene. New roads emerge. Possibilities develop. Which way will you go?

  The Hanged Man often indicates sacrifice. What are you willing to give up that no longer serves you? How can you literally, like the Hanged Man, rise above the situation? Often, our best option is not to act at all. Human nature and habit find us constantly inserting personal needs and desires into events and situations. It is only natural to assert your point of view, yet

  often if we step back and watch and wait, things will resolve in a unique and unexpected way that exceeds our expectations.

  Waite describes the figure as “the seeming martyr.” Waite’s description reminds us not to take the image at face value. This is no martyr, no traitor hung at a crossroads; he is something else altogether. Waite gives his reader three points to consider. “(1) that the tree of sacrifice is living wood, with leaves thereon.” The falling leaves are a manifestation of the Tree of Life. Just as leaves grow and fall, indicating manifestation in the suit of wands, the Hanged Man’s tree is alive with energy. Waite is also referencing Noah’s ark. “(2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering.” The figure gazes at an inverted world, like a yogi on his head, entranced by what he sees. But what does he see? What do you see? “(3) that the figure, as a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death.” Waite describes a figure who is betwixt and between, a figure between worlds. Cross-cultural spiritual dogma suggests a three-fold world. The lower world is the place of death and regeneration, the middle world is the place of life and the material world, while the upper world contains celestial beings and freedom. If the Hanged Man is not part of the worlds of life and death, he must be located in the upper world, the place of the spiritual awakening.

  Waite reflects on the rampant misunderstandings of the true secret of this card. He coyly states, “I will say very simply on my own part that it expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the Universe.” He tempts further with “he who can understand that the story of his higher nature is imbedded in this symbolism will receive intimations concerning a great awakening.” Waite says the person who has experienced spiritual awakening will know that in “the sacred Mystery of Death there is a glorious Mystery of Resurrection.” Nothing ends. Energy never dies; it merely transforms. He also speaks of the death and resurrection implicit in occult initiation, where the initiate’s former self “dies” and “resurrects” with occult and experiential knowledge.

  Waite dangles a giant occult secret like a carrot in front of his readers. His secret is immanence. The Hanged Man peers into the essence of immanence. Immanence is the appearance of the sacred and divine in each and every manifest molecule, part, piece, and shadow of the world. Life becomes rich, infused with meaning, when peering into immanence with Hanged Man eyes. Every stone, animal, and person is infused with possibility. A breezy rainy day, a boring afternoon, or a tedious morning commute is infused with sacred energy. The sacred essence of life filters out of every molecule, sound, and smell. Life is transformed.

  Symbolic

  Esot
eric Function: No function

  Hebrew Letter: Mem

  Element: Water

  Waite describes the wood on the card as the “Tau cross.” A Tau cross is a Christian symbol of the Old Testament. The cross bears a vertical and horizontal line looking like the letter T. He describes a “nimbus about the head.” Christian iconography uses the nimbus, a glowing sphere around the head, to reflect supernatural creatures, saints, and holy figures. Forty spokes spring from the nimbus around the Hanged Man’s head. Numerical Kabbalah assigns the number forty to the Hebrew letter Mem, which is given to the Hanged Man. The Hanged Man is the twelfth card of the major arcana. Twelve is the inversion of number twenty-one, the World card. The Hanged Man’s physical posture is a direct inversion of the World card’s posture. Each figure bears a crossed leg. The Hanged Man and the World are intimately connected, as the Hanged Man foreshadows the eventual fruition and cultivation of the World’s wisdom, insight, and transformation. The Hanged Man offers a brief flash of truth that will bear fruit in the coming cards.

  The line from his crossed foot to his knee, from knee to elbow, and from right elbow to left is a graphic depiction of energetic movement shooting between the left and right pillars of the Tree of Life. The Hanged Man’s image is true to earlier renderings in historical decks. The Visconti-Sforza’s Hanged Man has his hands crossed at back, crossed legs, open eyes, and a relaxed face. The Hanged Man’s tunic is blue, matching the Hebrew letter Mem’s association with the element of water, further offering ideas of suspension and depth of knowledge and insight.

  Profane

  Pause and stillness. Coming to rest. Reevaluation. Sacrifice toward a greater goal. Creativity. Understanding. The solitary path of the individual. Unique point of view. The halfway point. The visionary. Things are about to get interesting. If a yes-no question, the answer is to ask again later.

  Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy.

  Reversed: Selfishness, the crowd, body politic.

  Asana

  The Hanged Man aligns itself with all yogic inversions, especially supported head stand, or sirsasana. Inverting the body allows us to find balance and strength while flipping our world on its head. Examine the nature of the universe, your location on the planet. There is no right-side up or upside down. All points of view are relative, yet we become so ingrained in our habits and points of view that it can take a supported headstand or the Hanged Man to literally turn our world upside down so we can view the world through a fresh pair of eyes.

  Death

  Banish fear, brace your courage, place your ideals high up with the sun, away from the dirt and squalor and ugliness around you, and let that power that makes dirt and squalor and ugliness around you enter your work—energy—courage—life—love.

  Pamela Colman Smith46

  Sacred

  The Hanged Man is witness to the divine spark inherent in all things. Death, marching on his horse, is the divine nature in the material world as the essential and unequivocal force of change. Death is traditionally the most feared card in tarot. The public takes the Death card at face value, thinking it portends actual death. Like all great stories—from myth to fairy tales, from biblical texts to sacred poetry—the tarot draws ultimate power from metaphorical value. One who believes the Death card signals literal death fails to see what the occultist sees. Death makes life possible. Death is the nature of energetic change, generation, and evolution. For anything to live, something else must die. Every flower occupies space in the dirt. Every blade of grass needs nutrients from the soil. Death is the evening sun setting, the fiery transformation of autumn’s golden leaves, the thundering silence of a long winter night. Death is what gives structure to the human mind and narrative storytelling with the finality of an ending. Death is the exhaling breath of the universe rising up to meet the inhaling breath of birth.

  Death’s metaphor comes in many forms. We experience the loss of a loved one. We say goodbye to the old year as a shiny new one beckons. An idea, person, or behavior fades from consciousness. To be fully alive, one must discard the past so as not to be muddled by it. Death is releasing old, unneeded habits. Letting go offers the ability to anchor inside the present moment. Doing so allows you to act in accordance with your true nature and the nature of the universe.

  Entropy, loss, and renewal echo inside Death’s image. Waite says, “The veil or mask of life is perpetuated in change, transformation and passage from higher to lower.” A veil or mask is the skin concealing the nature of divinity. Divinity reveals itself as the transformation of all things in the material world. We receive glimpses of the skin of reality being pulled back when

  we experience the loss of a loved one or unexpected tragedy. Tragic moments remind us life’s journey is short; actions and words count. Love matters. Our experience of life is a gift. We should take nothing for granted. Extreme beauty, natural landscapes, and deep feelings of love will reveal what lies before our eyes at all times. The trick is to walk through daily life secure in this knowledge when it’s not staring you in the face.

  Waite boasts his rectified tarot contains a better demonstration of Death’s activation using an “apocalyptic vision” rather than the traditional “reaping skeleton” tarot image. “Behind it (the skeleton) lies the whole world of ascent in the spirit.” The Hanged Man’s eyes spy the divine nature of the world and sacred nature of immanence. Death’s horsebound figure, like a horse pulling a cart, brings this vision into the world behind him. The skeleton is an ancient symbol of death. Pull back or poke your very own skin to remember the bones underneath. The material world tricks some into thinking that we are different, but at our core we are all the same. Our skeletons match, regardless of the color of the skin covering us. Even gender dissolves as the body decomposes, leaving nothing but bones.

  A pair of white towers stand in the distance. The towers echo the two outer pillars of the Tree of Life. The rising sun reflects the middle pillar. The glowing orb reflects the ascension of the spirit. It is a visual representation on working up the Tree of Life, aka the Journey of Return. It is the awakening of the occult soul. The soul’s awakening is the point of resurrection. Only through awakening can the soul move upward to greet the essence of what made them.

  A small black cave is drawn into the cliffs above the sailboat. Jesus was said to have been placed inside a cave after his crucifixion. His body lay inside the cavern for three days. On the third day—note the symbolic use of the number three—his resurrection occurred and he rose from the dead. It is the same path for the occultist. Enter into darkness and rise as the light. Confusion to clarity, regeneration to fruition, just as winter gives forth to spring.

  Waite points out that actual death “may be one form of his progress.” The end of life is only a singular form of death. For both Waite and the occultist, death comes in many forms. Initiation is symbolic death. The initiate dies so he can be reborn through his ordeal or experience. Waite explains “mystical death” as a “change in the form of consciousness.” Mystical death requires no coffin. It is the evolution or “passage into a state” that leads to a spiritual state of being. Mystical death is “an exotic and almost unknown entrance” into a new state of being while you are alive. The layman doesn’t understand because he is used to taking metaphors literally.

  Symbolic

  Esoteric Function: Movement

  Hebrew Letter: Nun

  Astrological Association: Scorpio

  Waite points to the horseman’s black banner to tell us it is “emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life.” It is a Rosicrucian symbol. The four figures before Death reflect the court cards, the family, the tetragrammaton, and the elements:

  Pope

  Father

  Yod
<
br />   Fire

  Woman

  Mother

  Heh

  Water

  King

  Son

  Vau

  Air

  Child

  Daughter

  Heh

  Earth

  The child is the only figure on the card who does not back down or look away from the specter of death. The king’s crown is tossed aside in a symbol reflecting a new order. Fallen kings are a standard symbol of Death’s march and are found in ancient renderings of the Death card. A woman bearing a striking resemblance to the female Strength card turns her face away from Death. A pope-type figure wearing a cross upon his garments makes a mysterious gesture. Is he praying for mercy and redemption or does he welcome Death’s menacing figure?

  Skulls and crossbones decorate the horse’s harness. Astrological Scorpio is assigned to the Death card, and the entire illustration is symbolic of regenerative Scorpio. A red feather connects Death to the Fool and the Sun child. Each card is a distinct stage of evolution marking the beginning, middle, and end of the occultist’s journey. Death and the Sun child each ride upon the back of a white horse. The distant ship is a symbol of energy proceeding on as usual, unaware of what it does not see, like the layman. The background towers and sun reflect the ascent up the Tree of Life. The associated Hebrew letter Nun means snake or eel. The image of a snake winding up the Tree of Life is synonymous with the soul’s movement toward the supernal triad.

  Profane

  The end. Finale. Finished. Done. Terminus. Moving to a higher level. Transformation and evolution. Putting a situation to rest. Making way for the new. If a yes-no question, the answer is no, the situation must come to an end.