by Marcus Katz
Weighing scales: The harmony and balance of all things.
Sword: The action of justice in the world.
In a reading: In the three worlds, Waite gives this card as intellectual equilibrium, the middle path, and ultimately, salvation. In everyday terms, this is making our way to the best of a situation, taking all things into account.
Key words and concepts: The best of all worlds.
Waite: In comparing this card to the pillars of the High Priestess, Waite returns to the idea of election and providence. He uses the former term in its Catholic sense as “chosen,” and the latter in the context of “grace.” He appears to be suggesting that the scales of Justice in the divine realm are beyond human comprehension, and their presence is “as much a mystery as their absence” (PKT, 115). The card is also one of the four virtues, joining the group of the Hermit (as prudence), Strength (as fortitude), and Temperance.
Colman Smith: We have little knowledge of Pamela’s view of Justice, other than a brief note in one of her letters showing her interest in politics, and her magical motto. Her motto was a version of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” so we imagine her sense of justice was very strong—and likely, often disappointed in her life.
Secret significance: The life we live is the only law.
Reading tip: The scales of Justice show that balance will be held above all other considerations. A querent giving up on an issue may yield an undesired result, but it is best for all parties in the situation. If accompanied by the Hermit, the message is that we have to make the best for ourselves; the scales tip to our individual account. In the company of many minor cards, Justice signifies that the scales must be tipped to others. For example:
3 of Cups: In favour of our closest friends
4 of Wands: In favour of other friends
3 of Pentacles: In favour of our employers
10 of Pentacles: In favour of our relatives
10 of Cups: In favour of our close family
The Hanged Man: 12
The Design
Whilst the design here may appear to be commonplace iconography, it is a replacement of the secret symbolism Waite held for this card. In his text, he refers obliquely to this secret meaning when he says, “We may exhaust all published interpretations and find only vanity. 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” (PKT, 116).
This hidden relation is the idea of immanence, the indwelling presence of the divine within all things. Immanence was depicted as a “drowned giant,” a god-man sleeping under the waters of manifestation by the Golden Dawn and Waite in his secret writings. Above him is the Ark, containing the secret tradition of this teaching.
51. The Hanged Man, J. B. Trinick. (c. 1917–1923, courtesy of authors, private collection, reproduced in Abiding in the Sanctuary, 2013.)
While this is intimated—to use one of Waite’s favourite words—in the Waite-Smith version by the halo around the upturned Hanged Man’s head, the full sense of Waite’s intent is not conveyed.
A note on hidden words and symbols: We were recently asked if we believed that the name “JULIE” was hidden in the folds of the Hanged Man’s jerkin. A close examination from high-resolution scans of many versions of this card shows that there is no word embedded in the folds. There are several places in the deck where Pamela’s markings might be taken for a hieroglyph, rune, letter, or even a word, but we think it unlikely that she would have hidden designs in this manner. Furthermore, the copyists re-creating the deck for the second version were in some cases unable to clearly make out the details of her original designs, never mind markings hidden in wood grain or the shadowing of a wand. Consider the hand of the worker in the 3 of Pentacles or the blob on the cup of the Queen of Cups. The original design is merely a suggestion of a shape, not a chisel, hammer, or (for the Queen) an elemental animal. The next version of the card blurred the shape, as that copyist was also unsure what the shape might have been, leaving it unchanged. Hidden symbols would not have survived this process.
Key Symbols
12: This number is the reversal of 21. The World (major arcana 21) is turned upside-down. The World is the manifest universe hiding the divine, so this card is the divine manifesting in the universe.
Gallows and T-shaped wooden structure: with the hanged man himself forming the shape of the Fylfot cross. Waite says it is a combination of a Tau cross and Fylfot cross (PKT, 116). In the Waite-Trinick deck, the figure of the Hanged Man is the drowned giant, underwater and positioned within the Fylfot shape.
The Hanged Man: Waite stresses of the Hanged Man that “he who can understand that the story of his higher nature is embedded in the symbolism will receive intimations concerning a great awakening.” This card is an important key. He is sacrifice and divinity in the world—an interface like the Hierophant. In fact, in Waite’s secret set of correspondences, the Hanged Man and the Hierophant are opposite each other: one as the inner connection to the divine in a mystical experience, and the other as the outer connection found in religion.
Figure hanging upside-down, his right ankle bound and fixed to the structure: Waite speaks of the gallows and cross, the “tree of sacrifice” from which the Hanged Man is suspended and tells us that it is “living wood, with leaves thereon.” That can mean that it has life amidst death. Waite is stressing the theme of the eternal life of the soul that transcends physical death when he says that “the figure as whole, suggests life is in suspension, but life and not death.” We will all die in our physical state, and death cannot be halted in its tracks, but as Waite says, “After the Great Mystery of death there is the glorious Mystery of Resurrection.” It is a “great awakening.”
Ivy hangs from the structure: See above regarding the “tree of sacrifice,” death, and resurrection.
Sun shape (nimbus around head): Waite says “it surrounds the head of the seeming martyr.” This is to show the saint-like quality of the halo around the Hanged Man’s head. The key word in the sentence is “seeming,” as it would imply there is no suffering going on here; it only appears to be so on the surface. The spirit shines through this, as Waite goes on to say that “the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering.”
In a reading: You must look deeper into a trying situation and examine what this is teaching you about your reason to be alive. Waite says in the following card, Death, that death in connection with the Hanged Man is to be “understood mystically” and it comes in the form of “change of consciousness which ordinary death is neither the path or the gate.” According to Waite, the Hanged Man shows a renunciation of previous values and atonement, or making amends within or without. We can come to terms with a new way of life, decision, or past event by changing our minds. By making an act of contrition, we can also put right something in our previous behaviours. The card shows that we must live with the consequences of our actions, and that everything is ultimately connected.107
Key words and concepts: Values.
Waite: The contemplation of this card suggests to the viewer that a “great awakening” is possible; one’s higher values (and living them) can merge them with the divine.
Colman Smith: If we believe that Waite had to “spoon-feed” this image (with the High Priestess and the Fool) to Pamela, then there is little in this design of her work.
Secret significance: The light shines through everything.
Reading tip: The Hanged Man shows that we must live up to our highest values. As the wands represent values as will, ambition, or lifestyle, the highest numbered wands card in a reading where the Hanged Man appears indicates what value most needs to be lived.
Death: 13
The Design
Following the previous card of mystical death, Waite suggests this image of Death is one of his “rectified” symbols (P
KT, 120). He takes a swipe at the Golden Dawn’s image without being explicit, saying his version is “more fitly represented” of its subject than that of “the crude notion of a reaping skeleton” (the Golden Dawn’s rendition).
The card image brings together several design components from across the deck, for example the horseman (even if he is a skeleton), the two towers, the rising or setting sun, the Hierophant, the Emperor, the toppled crown from the Tower, and the children. Perhaps in her design Pamela is saying that Death is present throughout the deck.
Key Symbols
Skeleton on horse: Waite describes this as the “reaping skeleton” in his guise as “mysterious horseman.” He travels throughout the realm of humans and brings “change, transformation, and passage from higher to lower.” The natural progression of nature—birth and death, regeneration and decay. Again is the symbolism of life amidst death, for the mysterious horseman, says Waite, carries a “black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life.”
Skeleton’s flag emblazoned with the “mystic rose”: Possibly Pamela drew upon her Shakespearian history plays and used the style of the “Rose of Lancaster” in this image.
Two watchtowers and radiant sun: Waite describes this symbolism so: “Between two pillars on the verge of the horizon there shines the sun of immortality.” To get there you must go through the “whole world of ascent in the spirit” that Waite says lies behind the skeleton. Therefore, you must reach beyond the material world to be reborn in a new life.
Bishop/prelate who wears a mitre headdress and chasuble: One of the figures that Waite says “awaits” the arrival of the “mysterious horseman,” the skeleton figure who “carries no visible weapon, but King and child and Maiden fall before him, while a prelate with clasped hands awaits his death.” This implies the prelate is prepared for death’s arrival.
Young girl kneeling; her head rests on her left shoulder in show of deference: She wears a rose-adorned chaplet on her head, and is similar to the figure in the Strength card, who embodies the liberation and refuge of those who have truly found God. Her response to death is thus a graceful surrender. We look at these postures, the way the characters wear their clothing, and their facial expressions later in this book when concentrating on Pamela’s art.
Other figures in this image: We will look at them in the next section, on seeing them in a reading.
In a reading: We tend to treat this card as transformation and one of the significant change cards in the deck. It is a change unlike the Tower, which is sudden and often external; Death is a change of what is already present. It is like a developing friendship; it goes through several stages slowly and is between the same people. It is a constant rearrangement of the elements already present.
Key words and concepts: Transformation, change, movement into a new phase.
Waite: This card, like the Hanged Man, is a change of consciousness (PKT, 123). It is a mystical death, the death of the present self for a higher consciousness.
Colman Smith: We have little evidence of what Pamela felt about Death, although she would have adopted Catholic views in her conversion to that religion a few years after this work.
Secret significance: There is no more in this world than the change of consciousness.
Reading tip: Death is a card of change, although it is likely slower than the querent wants. We should look to other cards in the spread’s “resource” positions to indicate the best passage through this transformative time. Compare and contrast the individual symbols of any past and future cards if you are reading those positions, as they will indicate details. For example, perhaps the past is the 10 of Pentacles and the future holds the 2 of Wands. We might compare the two symbols of the archway and the tower balcony; they indicate an upwards transformation, getting a higher view, and getting out from underneath a situation.
Another way of using the design principles Waite and Pamela followed with this card is to take the four figures as four ways of responding to change and transformation available to the querent when this card is in the reading:
King: Attempt resistance and be immediately overcome [Emperor]
Child: Go straight without fear and embrace the change as a gift [Sun]
Bishop: Pray and negotiate with the change in some way [Hierophant]
Maiden: Gracefully accept and allow the change to happen [Strength]
You could ask the client which way serves them best in any situation, or it may even be indicated by the presence of one of the figures in the reading itself as indicated by the cards listed above.
Temperance: 14
The Design
It is in this particular card we get to see a clear distinction between Waite and Pamela’s work, and how the two come together as one. Waite describes this image as “a winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead and on his breast the square and triangle of the septenary” (PKT, 124). He goes on to say that whilst the figure is neither male nor female, “it has one foot upon the earth and one upon waters.” We believe this is the description Pamela worked from in her design, so the overall interpretation of the text was her own.
There is an incredible synchronicity at work here. Pamela would have drawn upon her knowledge of Temperance/Prudence as a virtue, and artistic representations of a winged figure pouring water into wine—thus tempering it. This is clear in her image; the figure pours from left hand to right. However, she would have also been reminded of the theme of contentment in the play Amber Heart, in which she sketched Ellen Terry as Ellaline amidst the rushes. There we also see the riverside iris plant, in both Pamela’s sketch and the photographs of Ellen Terry in the role.
The iris is not only a plant symbol, but the name of a goddess who is depicted as a winged figure bearing jugs from which she watered the clouds. Her role is as a messenger of the gods and as a bridge, for she is also goddess of the rainbow.
When Pamela drew Temperance as Iris, she was not only making use of her experience seeing Ellen Terry in the Amber Heart—a play about finding contentment—but also using the iris as a symbol of the goddess pictured in the card—a goddess, not Waite’s angel.
There is yet a further synchronicity and a great secret to this image, of which Waite and Smith would have both been aware. The rainbow is seen in the Kabbalah of the Golden Dawn as a symbol of the three lower paths on the Tree of Life. It is spelt out by the Hebrew letters that correspond to those paths: Q, Sh, and Th, spelling QShTh (keshet), Hebrew for “rainbow.” Temperance is the card corresponding to the central path of the Tree of Life arising out of those three lower paths—it is the arrow that is shot from the bow. Not only that, the zodiacal attribution to this card is of Sagittarius—the archer! If you look again at the card, you will see how Pamela hid the symbol of Sagittarius into the design of the image.
So it appears that whilst Waite provided a brief description and some kabbalistic backdrop to the design, it was Smith who wove it together, probably intuitively, using themes from the theatre, the effect of Ellen Terry, and classical art knowledge. The image also draws from Éliphas Lévi, whose illustration of hermetic magic in The History of Magic (1860) was used for the Golden Dawn tarot design of Temperance—one of two versions. In that image, a crowned female figure pours forth water from a jug in her right hand, and holds a reversed torch in her left. In front of her is a bowl from which steam rises, on either side of which is a lion and another creature, possibly a dog. The two creatures are attached to the woman by a rope to her belt. Lévi says this is a reproduction from an “ancient manuscript.”108
That the card then mirrors perfectly a whole scheme of correspondences, even down to the fact that the symbol of Sagittarius reflects the paths on the Tree of Life, is evidence of the inner secret of the Waite-Smith tarot; the images were born from union to create the keys to union.
Key Symbols
Fem
ale figure with wings (Iris) holds two goblets and is pouring fluid from one to the other: Waite says of this figure “a winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead, and on his breast the square and triangle of septenary. I speak of him in the masculine sense, but the figure is neither male nor female. The figure is in the process of pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice.” Waite says it has “one foot upon the earth and one upon the waters,” an action he explains as “illustrat[ing] the nature of the essences.” The figure straddles two worlds, where it “harmonises the psychic and material natures.” The process of Temperance depicted in the card is possible; when we have absorbed this into our consciousness we will better understand the meaning of life.
The path: Waite describes it as a “direct path” that goes up to “certain heights on the verge of the horizon, and above there is a great light, through which a crown is seen vaguely”; it is on the Tree of Life between Yesod and Tiphareth. This is important because it is “some part of the Secret of Eternal life” and it is accessible to “man in his incarnation.” Again, this is the higher state of consciousness or awareness Waite says is possible to attain in life. It is indeed the ascent of the spirit in life. In psychological terms, these represent the imagination/ego and the pure self-awareness. The figure of Temperance stands in between these aspects, constantly channelling information between what we are aware of and how we reflect and filter it into our identities. Temperance is the messenger between what is perceived and how it is perceived. It is the great filter.
Radiating crown shape: This is Kether, seen beyond Tiphareth, to which the path of Temperance leads. It is the divine union that follows the integration of the self.