Tarot Card Comparisons: The Thoth Tarot- Key 12- The Hanged Man & The Wild Wood Tarot- Key 12- The Mirror

On both Cards is a curious image, the Thoth Card displays one of Severity, of the Medieval practice of baffling and its implications are very different from the previous paths that connect the Personality and the Higher Self; Severity, because this is the Path of Mem (meaning-Water) that connects  Hod (Splendor) and Geburah (Severity) on the Pillar of Severity. The Wild Wood Tarot shows a Mermaid, as a "Lady of the Lake", again this is water, and yet here the Dark Side is shown as a Mermaid Morgan image.

The Hebrew word-MEM, (Water) is a one of the three Maternals,and implies a Baptism in Maternal Waters, as the other two : The Path of Shin (Art) is a baptism in Fire, and The Path of Aleph-The Fool, is a baptism in Air. Of all these three Baptisms, the Baptism in Water (Consciousness) is the central and pivotal  experience of the entire Qabalistic Tree of Life.

Consciousness, is the Alchemical First Principle, also  called the Thinking Principle  and is refereed to the physical image of Water because it is alike water in wave motion, and fluid flow. (What many call the Unconscious, is a vast Ocean of Collective Consciousness, but unlike the personal consciousness, thus, it is Un.)

is assigned the Hebrew letter Mem (bottom left of card), which means Water. Mem is a Maternal letter meaning the Element Water and the Amniotic Fluid of the Womb. This is of no surprise, since the many of the Gnostics believe that the Homo-Sapiens is an GMO evolution of a marine mammal and Alien species, rather than ape, and that the Noah's Ark and the Flood is a hierarchic presentation of the facts of life. The Sumerians, believed our "angelic" forefathers, Annunaki (Meaning: "Those who from the Sky came") spliced their DNA with marine amphibian, the most intelligent species on the earth at the time.The Dogon of Mali, believe, that we are a genetic manipulation from the Nomo who came from the area of the night sky we call the Sirius star system.

There are many scientists that also believe the marine mammal theory because of the fact we have more in common with marine mammals than apes. Hairless, bigger brain, walking upright, mostly made of water, being developed as a fetus in an ambiotic fluid etc.  I would suggest you research this, as I am about the Tarot here and not seeking to become an anthropologist.

To continue : The Hanged Man- and the Mirror, Key 12, both represent the baptism that is also a death. Death being a transformation from one reality to another, as is birth where the Water Mammal, must become a land-mammal. The symbolism of the Hanged Man is often attributed to Self-Sacrifice, but this is really a very mundane idea. In the last Aeon of Osiris, the Hanged Man represented the supreme formula for adept-ship for the figure that is hung is actually the Spirit/ Soul "drowning"(baptized) in the Astral Fluid, before becoming manifest in form. The Astrals, are where  all the Forces and Forms of the "Above Sephira" meet in order to combine in a manifestation as a physical birth in the material world.Here, the Soul is giving up the unsensual realms of the immortal to become a  sensual and therefore, intimate"mortal reflection".  The Soul/Psyche is our Life, the body is the simulation of that Life and/or the one who is "alive".

To the flesh-o-phobe, this would be the effect  of spiritual purity being sacrifice to fleshy debasement; a very errant thought.

To the Spirit, this is the way of transforming from idea to experience; from Self, to Self-Awareness, from thought to discerning thought. Being in the flesh, requires Spirit to become aware of its thoughts and how they affect the living simply by the reactions of those thoughts in the very living form that "cloaks it". Think ill, be ill, think well be well etc.

 

Idea or visions, in the Aeon of Osiris, were considered more important than the flesh, and the destruction of bodies in the name of idea/visions (Commonly called,"For the Greater Good') seemed a just cause. In the Aeon of Osiris , it could be said that the foundation of thought was the ruling of definition by the few who enforced definition on the many for the purpose of falsely escaping their fear of death. That is also why the Medieval practice of baffling is depicted on most tarot cards. This was a practice imposed on debtors, who were unable to pay their debts.

In this Age of Horus, the idea must "expand and liberate; the living from their own self-imposed limits, allowing the Foundation of Love ("Love thy neighbor as thyself') to become the "common mind" where union rather than monetary divisionism becomes the conscious foundation of all action.

 Simply stated,  the self in manifestation is more important than the ideas of self, no matter how utopian the ideas are. However, the caveat here is that, you must at first love yourself....as you can't give to another what you don't have, thus requiring that above all things you must know yourself!

The Aeon of Horus, is the age where the hu (god) man (mind) realizes it is the child of god and becomes the Christ/Buddha consciousness on Earth, thus, uniting the Above and the Below. That union is seen in the Hanged Man, whose foot is connected to the Ankh (symbolized in the West as the Rosy Cross) which is a combination of  Goddess- God--Womb and Phallus, and is known as a symbol for eternal universe in a sigil of Mankind. The ancients knew that if it was made manifest, it was a truth, because Creation made it.  Ideas are not a truth, unless they can become "made manifest" by the Power of Creation and/or the ability to do work, In a more personal note; you exist because you're supposed to! The judgment of you has already been made by The Divine Creative, who obviously approve your manifestation!  In other words,the obviousness of your presence proves you are worthy of  being! This kind of thinking doesn't bode well for those who wish to "rule you", so dividing you from your "good" by a religion made of flesh hating rules, will assure your enslavement. The Hanged Man illustrates that being born into the World is a form of baptism, a process of redemption, not a trial to prove your worth!

The Hanged Man presents a special meaning to the adept, the legs are crossed so the right leg forms a right angle to the left leg, and the arms are stretched out at an angle of 60 degrees, so as to form an equilateral triangle. The symbol thus presented is that of the Triangle surmounted by the Cross which represents the descent of light( conscious energy) into darkness (unconscious) in order to redeem it! Love must become aware of itself "as being"! The process of redemption continues in the symbology of the green disks terminating at the head and limbs, representing the influence of Venus which is the planetary symbol of Grace and beauty. You may note, that the Central Sephiroth on the Tree of Life, is called  both Beauty and the Christ Conscious/The Son. The Hang Man represents the redeeming value of baptizing idea in flesh, so that it may Live and "Know itself"!

Often because of its curious imagery, this card has only been understood and publicly revealed in the past few decades.  Key 12 has a complex meaning and is related to Kether (1-Crown) as a motion. This is the Path of Water ( the letter Mem is one of the three Maternals), and in some respects represents  the Path of baptism into Maternal Water; each experienced Maternal Path is a baptism;

The Water baptism is the central, and pivotal experience of the entire Tree of Life as Water means Consciousness (1st Principle of Alchemy).  Even though not wet, this subtle substance is symbolized by Water because it has some of water's qualities, particularly as energy wave movement. Spirit is a Spiral Flow of Life, that causes the "breath of a body" and is a Soul when experienced in an individual "Microwave" that is self-aware. Too make a long evolution short, it is the Life that makes bodies alive.  Therefore, to get our identity straight, we must understand that I AM the Life, and the body is the Alive- Me, and not a body seeking a life! 

The lowest expression of the alchemical First Principle, is first found, by the upward traveling initiate, as the Astral Fluid that is drawn down the Path of the Universe into Yesod, the Foundation Sephiroth.

This Thinking Principle, the Astral Fluid, is found  as the Stable Intelligence, by virtue of consistency,  in all Sephiroth and Paths as it underlies everything that is. 

The Hanged Man, head first, is pointing downward. Hence, the Spirit/Psysche is "drowned" in the Maternal Waters where upon, perceiving itself as a Soul, as an intrinsic and inseparably part of the One Consciousness.

Carl Jung, who coined the phrase, Universal Collective Unconscious , describe this Water of Mem as a "...boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad.".

To him the First Principle of the Alchemists was also described as Water, as he states, "It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension: where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living begins; where I am individually this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me.....the collective conscious is anything but an encapsulated personal system; it is sheer objectivity, as wide as the world and open to all the world." 

I would highly recommend that the initiate reads the works of Carl Jung, on the Universal Collective Unconscious, thus gaining a modern understanding of the ancient wisdom. To put it another way, in the state of  consciousness we are "always  the subject that has an  object", a reality that is totally turned around in the Universal Collective Unconscious where, we are "the object of every subject", as stated by Carl Jung.

In even more metaphysical words, our subjective Self, the I AM, becomes, through self reflection, the objective Self, Me, when immersed in the Maternal Waters of the Collective Unconscious, on the Path of Mem. THE HANGED MAN; where the invisible becomes visible.

The initiate knows that we must move constantly upward on the Paths of the Tree of Life, for only through the hindsight gained by going to a higher Sephiroth, can we experience an understanding of the qualities of the lower Sephiroth.

To reiterate: The Path of Mem, leads to Geburah (Severity) which is directly above Tiphareth (Beauty); Geburah is the Fiery or Active part of the Higher Self and is shown as Red in color; the color of Mars. This further illustrates the point that Geburah is the fiery energy on the Pillar of Water below Binah. In the Thoth Tarot card of the HANGED MAN, the Womb of Binah is where the hanging figure's foot is held; from the oval of the Egyptian Ankh, which is the cross like symbol ( also called the Tau cross) of both Divine Androgyny and Infinity.

To the one who has inwardly traveled the Paths of Psyche to this point, it is to be noted that the Path of Mem, the HANGED MAN, must be approached very differently than the lower paths.

Here, the mediator becomes the object of one's own meditation.

The individual becomes the "other" which was previously the object of pursuit; the "other" now becomes the initiate.Thus it can be said, that the personality meditates in pursuit of the Higher Self, who then becomes or envelopes the Personality of the pursuer creating a Higher Sensual Self....A self often stated as having "Magick Abilities" and who is more intimate with creation and therefore, more able to correct misdirection instantly.

The key 12 of Tarot,  represents a state of consciousness that recognizes a need for a pattern break; where we recognize that we need to change our mental posture, a kind of reverse thinking, in order to get out of a mental rut that is "Baffling" us.

Therefore, as stated previously, the Thoth card shows a man hanging in the medieval practice of "baffling" which is an old practice used to punish debtors. This card may be seen as a kind of crucifixion of the self-conscious personality to get rid of egoistic patterns that are no longer constructive.The repetitive patterns of rutted thought are represented by the background of squares within squares.

We are reminded that our "hang-ups" are preventing our growth but can also teach us where we need to free ourselves from undue self imposed limitations. The reversed cross holding the foot of the man is known as the Egyptian Ankh which is  a symbol of universal life force (Union of Female and Male force) and is an inheritance constantly accessible to us for creative making (a magi term for manifesting). We bind our selves by thinking and doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is a form of insanity that rejects our divine inheritance of transformation and bleeds us dry of our energy; energy that is constantly being used to repress our own motion! Therefore, in this state of blindness, we feel bound, or nailed in place and can see no way out. The solution is in surrendering to our inner-self, knowing that we weren't created to be anything other that a Divine being and that in us all is a Great Nature that creates, sees error and corrects it. Faith in oneself is not that hard to do, because we are good enough for The Divine Creative to create us as It's Image--we ought to be good enough for ourselves!

When viewing the legs of the hanged man you see the number 4, the Four above the Three, i.e.the imaginative qualities of key-3 Empress subordinate to the rational qualities of Key 4 The Emperor; the ultimate sacrifice of desire to rational principle.

Behind The Thoth Hanged Man are the Emerald Tablets (summing up of all of nature).

"The creator and destroyer who operates all change" is represented by the coiled serpent/rope that the left foot hangs from. The lower serpent represents the effect of the Divine Work. Crowley called this, " Through his Work a Child is begotten, as shown by the Serpent stirring in the Darkness of the Abyss below him." It may behoove us to remember that serpents are the way to represent the motion of spiraling forces that enliven all things, i.e. Microwaves.

Dr. Paul Foster Case, founder of B.O.T.A. wrote in his instructional missive, Thirty-Two Paths Of Wisdom about the path of Mem:

 

The Astral Fluid (vitriol of the magician) is the Watery flow of electromagnetic energy that underlies every thing and moves in waves (cycles), that are stimulated by active Psyche, showing its similarity to  physical water. Think of a thought as a stone thrown into a placid pool of water, and you can then visualize the waves from the center of impact that spread outward towards the shore of the now disturbed pool.This is similar to the Psyche as a thought is "thrown" into it by the personality. The more power used to "throw" the thought, (Emotion is the thrower) the greater the waves in the Pool of Psyche. The Greater the disturbance, gets the full concentration towards construction and "made manifest" by the Universal Collective Unconscious.

When one is on the Twenty-Third Path, one is "drowned" in these waters and perceives himself/herself as an intrinsic and inseparable part of the One Collective Consciousness. To be Key 12- The Hanged Man, we must become lost in our- Greater Self; the unconscious no sooner touches us than we are it-we become unconscious of ourself conscious and Know Our Self!. The Hindu mystics called this the state of Samadhi, a condition where the physical processes are literally suspended ( Hung up side down) in trance, while the consciousness affects a union with the Divine.

In practicing Tarot, it is important to know that the Path of The Hanged Man is only the first entry into a sequence of states of union with the Divine Inheritance. Therefore the idea presented is that we must move constantly upward on the Tree of Life.

Easily summarized, the reverse figure on the Thoth card represents the suspension of personal  consciousness (called ego by some, personal ego, by others) while a greater reality imposes a complete reversal of perspective (the "other side of the mirror"...mirror being another symbolism of water). This "human spirit suspended by a single thread", seems to be a sacrificed, but this is a willing suspension, a sacrificial baptism that is also a crucifixion. Thus it is also the card representing the Dying God.

Through out our histories, the Dying God is represented in mythology. Osiris, Prometheus, Odin, Christ, and even the Greek Goddess Artemis  was known as the "Hanged One"---none of these depict the final death as this is essentially an intellectual experience.

This Tarot card association represents the High Androgynous Self. The Moon represents the Feminine-magnetic- sub-conscious and the Hanged Man represents the Masculine-electric- reasoning conscious; their perfect union producing the Super-conscious.

To the Greeks, the sub-conscious was known as

and the masculine reasoning conscious as

; together they were know as the

The Psychic abilities-gathered from Meditating/skrying on The Moon and The Hanged Man aligned with their corresponding flora, and minerals: Clairvoyance- the art of "clear-seeing" which is the ability to see beyond the veils imposed by the physical eyes or time-space. Oneiromancy- the ability to see through dreams---such as an Oracle and/or Oracular -sight.

The Hanged Man symbolizes the savior-god- man or Hanged God of many religions; Odin( hung on a giant Ash tree called Yggdrasil) Jesus on a cross, and Prometheus hung on a mountain.

The Moon symbolizes-Mensis (Latin), Mona (Mona Lisa is old English for The Moon), month, money, menopause, Menstruation, manna, menat ( amulet) and much more. Showing us that the Moon is about Womb and the regeneration of form. That is why the Violet-reds are primary colors for all living things are "of Mother's blood". The third eye, then is a kind of "Womb-with-a view"!

 

The Wild Wood Tarot- key 12-The Mirror, also depicts a water scenario. Here, the Dark Woman of Knowledge, is shown as a serpentine feminine image, holding the crystal ball, the orb of seeing, in her left hand, and the right hand holds a mirror curled against her breast. Depicted here is the ancient initiator into hidden knowledge, the Divine Feminine, who reveals insights and knowledge to those on a spiritual journey.

The Lady of the lake, who was the holder and guardian of the enchanted sword-Excalibur, of Arthurian legends.

Morgan, who takes Arthur on his journey into Limbo and healing on the Isle of Avalon. Both of these archetypes represent the unconscious journey of the Soul/Psyche, into deeper awareness and wisdom. Hence, the image of a moored boat with a sleeping body on board. Here, the soul awaits the journey to the island.

This journey of the soul is not an act of will, for it is a journey of much searching, and questing. Also, it is a precondition that a some kind of wounding must take place. For, it is through the pain and experience of wounding that wisdom comes. Here, one learns to surrender to the spirit, that allows the soul to travel across the emotional sea to the other-world of the Astral.

The Dark Lady holds the mirror that aids our inner reflections and the orb of seeing that illuminates the shadows of our inner life.

In the language of birds, the Heron stands as  both a keeper of the mysteries, and guardian of the other-world.

The Cauldron, represents the vessel of hidden knowledge and inspiration, the Universal Collective Unconscious.

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