The Hanged Man Tarot Card Meaning

The Hanged Man upright

The Hanged Man says you are in a time of pause. Your usual way of moving forward is no longer enough, and what guided you until now stops guiding you. What comes next no longer goes through asserting your will: it asks you to turn your way of seeing upside down. This card comes after a realization about what you have made of your life, and it brings the peace of acceptance. The words that sum it up are trials and sacrifice.

This pause is fruitful. What is suspended is the agitation of your ego, not your deeper life. You learn to wait, to receive and to stay true to what you believe, while your old supports are no longer enough. Something in you gives up its old orientation so that another can take hold. What looks like stillness prepares a change, and what looks like a loss leads to another state. The Hanged Man's face expresses deep absorption and not suffering: the card shows a life in suspension. It signals that a great inner awakening is possible after a trial.

You put your spiritual life first and look for meaning and wisdom rather than goods and information. You may want to devote yourself to a cause or a project, or to make amends for a fault of your own accord. You may give up material expectations and accept life's trials more. You may sacrifice something lesser for something greater but less concrete, and what matters in this sacrifice is your consent. You feel close to the mystic, the healer, the artist, the poet and the dreamer, and to the paradoxes of life. You can see beneath appearances, and a difficulty becomes an opportunity to gain wisdom and understanding. Insights and hints may come to you through dreams and visions.

You give up yourself for the benefit of others. You stop behaving as an autonomous center of action, you efface yourself and put yourself at the disposal of what acts on you. You have seen that personal ambitions are vain and you have understood the value of a sacrifice that goes as far as forgetting yourself, without expecting any reward. Your concerns remain turned toward the earth: you seek the good of others. Your trusting surrender shows up as a serene carefreeness. Attached to nothing, you give generously what you have understood and learned, as well as your affection and your goodwill. Your influence works quietly, without big speeches or deeds that draw attention. You willingly accept an apparent powerlessness, which lets you act effectively in your own way. A project that matures in reserve and silence, far from the bustle, gains strength.

This card carries a message of independence: you are what you are, even if others think you see everything upside down. You feel deeply connected to life, and the peace that settles in after a hard trial can be part of that. Where others are agitated, you know calm. Many people think they are free while forces they don't understand push them from one thing to the next, and you gain real freedom by understanding those forces. You feel the strength of the inner life in the midst of a great calm. You live life through your inner awareness, where the Empress card lived it through the involvement of the emotions. At this stage, you can keep a deep spiritual awareness only by withdrawing from society.

You turn your way of seeing your situation upside down and free yourself from submission to appearances. You understand that the secrets of life are not on the surface and that you have to be still in order to know. You see yourself as a means by which a greater force acts, and that gives your person importance.

What holds you back

You may feel like a victim, powerless to escape your fate, punished, full of self-pity, confused, lost or stuck without moving forward.
You may feel humiliated, exposed to ridicule or reproach, whether you deserve it or not.
You may get caught up in fantasies and illusions.
These states come mostly when you stay attached to material concerns and avoid what your inner growth asks of you.
When you resist this inner process, you find yourself stuck in spite of yourself and feel like a victim.
You can leave uncertain projects aside or give them up.
You may dream without any grip on material reality, and your ideas can become utopian.
Your ideals may be too high to be realized in practice.

What helps

Pausing and asking yourself what you truly hold on to.
Letting go of your intellect and personal will through prayer and meditation, entrusting yourself to something larger than you.
Taking this period as an opportunity to gain wisdom and understanding.
Consenting to the pause, waiting and receiving, and staying true to what you believe when your supports are no longer enough.
Making surrender an active practice: taking part rather than watching from afar. For many people today, this means releasing emotions that have been kept locked up for years.
Calming your mind through concentration and suspending the chain of your thoughts.
Letting a project mature in reserve and silence.
Giving freely what you have acquired, for the benefit of those who will profit from it.
Staying yourself, even if others think you see everything upside down.
Paying attention to your dreams and intuitions as an indication.

The Hanged Man reversed

You give the impression of being ready to act when you have nothing to do. You may seem better than you are, wanting to look good and be liked while other motives stay hidden. Your aims may be selfish, or you may be taken up with your own agenda and your own point of view. You may also be absorbed in material things. You come across as willing, but you may go back on your word when you ought to give something up. At times you do not accept the very idea of making a sacrifice. The sacrifice can also stay partial, pointless or never made, and projects or ideas remain unrealized.

The reversed card also says you are fighting against a part of yourself. You may deny an essential part of who you are, or refuse to accept reality and struggle constantly against life. By setting your ego against the world, you never fully live what you are going through. You also find it hard to break free of social pressure: you do what others expect or demand of you instead of listening to your inner self. Your way of living then stays secondhand, made of copied models, as when you set your conduct by your parents' orders.

In another register, you may feel trapped, cornered and at the mercy of others, or just freed from a kind of constraint. You are eager to leave, but obligations and small worries still hold you back. You may also feel punished or abandoned for a pointless or unjust cause, or one that has never been explained. Unfair accusations or a situation of constraint are possible.

It may finally be that you are only just waking up to your situation, without yet seeing your options. You may be at an inner turning point, looking for direction and waiting for a sign. You may be more vulnerable than you look: you mean well, but you do not know where to start, or you stay stuck in procrastination.

Your strengths

You feel the need to find a direction and you look for a landmark to get your bearings.

What holds you back

You are mostly concerned with yourself and your point of view, and your aim may be selfish.
You promise, then break your word when it calls for a sacrifice.
You can put on an air of superiority when you are attached to nothing solid.
You can be unanchored, bored and apathetic, with no idea where to go.
You resist what your situation asks of you, and you then feel stuck and victimized.
You conform to what is expected of you instead of listening to your inner self.
You put off what you have to do because you doubt how to begin.

What helps

Looking at the other cards in the spread for more guidance when you feel very vulnerable. Letting go of the intellect and personal will through prayer, meditation and surrender to something greater than yourself, which brings you out of suffering when you are resisting your inner growth. Accepting reality and who you are, even if others think you are going the wrong way. Accepting to wait and to receive when your old supports are no longer enough.

What the card shows

What the image shows

A man hangs by one foot from a wooden crossbeam, head down. His arms are tied behind his back. His free leg passes behind the other and forms a cross. His face is calm, sometimes radiant, and nothing suggests the suffering of torture. In some versions, a halo surrounds his head.

The gallows

In some versions it is shaped like a T, a cross called the Tau cross, and the tree is alive, with leaves. In others, it is made of two trees whose branches have been cut off, joined by a crossbeam. The T is the lower half of the ankh, the Egyptian cross of life, which makes this tree a tree of life. It also recalls the world tree from which Odin hung himself: it starts in the unconscious, passes through the physical world and reaches the superconscious. Tav is the letter of the World card. 12 is 21 reversed, and if you turn the Hanged Man upside down, you get almost the figure of the dancer in the World. The Hanged Man keeps his arms behind his back and withdraws from society, while the dancer opens her arms: he lives the same awareness, but without acting outwardly. The twelve scars of the cut branches point to the twelve signs of the zodiac.

The colors and details

The card is linked to the letter Mem, which means "waters," and so to the element Water. The blue jacket points to water, like the High Priestess's robe. The red legs, which form a 4, point to the Emperor and to the active use of force: even in stillness, there is intense activity of the mind. The white rope, tied to the middle of the crossbeam, shows that the suspension rests on concentration. The yellow crossbeam stands for thought fixed into doctrine, to which the Hanged Man clings with his whole being. In the tunic, red means activity and white means purity of soul and imagination. The green discs at the ends of the limbs and the head stand for grace and hope. A serpent coils around the left foot: it stands for what makes things change.

The numbers

12 is 4 times 3: the 4 of earth and the conscious world, the 3 of water and the unconscious. In multiplication, the two numbers dissolve to form something greater than their sum. 1 plus 2 make 3: the Empress feels life through emotional involvement, the Hanged Man feels it through inner awareness. The figure appears to be the same as the one in the Magician.

What the card means

The card comes after Justice: it is the peace that follows the moment when you see what you have made of your life. The inversion of the body shows a reversal of attitude and experience. Habits of willing, ordinary intelligence and attachments move to the background, and what seemed secondary becomes important. The card shows a halt in personal will and in the agitation of the ego, so that a higher orientation can appear. You no longer try to conquer, you consent; you learn to wait and to receive. This consent takes faith and goes through a time of trial and patience. Surrendering is something you do, not a passive waiting. The Hanged Man's calm comes from having surrendered to the rhythm of life. For many people today, this surrender means releasing emotions kept locked away for years. The card also stands for independence: being who you are, even if others think you take everything backward. It means the feeling of being deeply connected to life, and a peace that arrives after a difficult ordeal. It speaks of life in suspension, not of death. It announces that a great awakening is possible and that after death comes resurrection. The image of sacrifice is understood in the sense of "making sacred": what matters is the consent. In the old Italian decks, the figure showed the punishment by shame reserved for traitors. This sense of shame and helplessness appears when you stay stuck in material concerns and avoid the next step. The deeper meaning is surrender to an opposite point of view, a reversal of consciousness in which spiritual life comes first. You then see beneath appearances, and adversity becomes an opportunity to gain wisdom and understanding. The free foot and the bound foot also show life blocked when an inner conflict becomes too hard: you want to move forward on one side and the other side refuses. The Hanged Man also represents the person who gives up the self for the sake of others. The Magician asserts his will and intelligence; the Hanged Man steps back and makes himself available to what acts on him. His head turned toward the earth shows a devotion directed to the good of others, without expecting reward. He seems motionless, but his thoughts, aspirations and feelings act at a distance. In meditation practice, the card also evokes the suspension of mental agitation, when you stop chaining ideas together. In spreads, it is associated with wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice and intuition.

Your strengths

Independence of mind: you stay yourself, even when others do not understand you. The ability to see beneath appearances and to draw understanding from your trials.

What holds you back

You feel like a victim, powerless, without a way out, punished or humiliated.
You are confused or stuck, not knowing where you are going, and you feel sorry for yourself.
You resist the process of inner growth and stay stuck.
You cannot free yourself from social pressure and you do what others expect of you, without living things directly.
You fight a part of yourself that you refuse, or you do not accept reality.
You put your intellect and your will forward, when the card asks you to let them go.

What helps

Take the time to stop and review what you really care about.
Let go of intellect and will through prayer and meditation.
Accept trials and the time of waiting without fighting.
Make surrender an act: get in touch with your emotions and let them out.
Turn your pain into understanding, and see each trial as an opportunity to learn.
Pay attention to your dreams and intuitions.