Upside down, a man hangs from a tree or a wooden beam, one leg crossed over the other. He is not dead, but instead growing and developing like the living wood from which he hangs. His face seems peaceful and entranced, observing and contemplating in silent meditation. His life is for a moment in timeless suspension - he is like a babe in the womb - until he is reborn. His inverted perspective enlightens him and leads to radical new insights. He will never see the world as he did before.

 

The Hanged Man makes the ultimate sacrifice for his rebirth. He has to allow himself to be sensitive and vulnerable, surrendering beliefs, dreams, hope, the world, the Self. His is an archetypical story, which is echoed time and again; in the stories of Jesus, of Buddha, of Odin. The latter hanged himself on the cosmic tree Yggdrasil, piercing himself with his spear and peering downward into the shadowy waters. He knew that the secrets of the world would only reveal themselves to those worthy of such knowledge. In effect, he sacrificed himself to himself. Part of him had to survive in order to be the recipient of this sacrifice, but part of him had to die as well. After nine days and nights, he was at last initiated in the mysteries: "Then I was fertilized and became wise; I truly grew and thrived."

 

In essence, the Hanged Man undergoes a paradigm shift; a fundamental change in the basic assumptions that govern his understanding of the world and/or himself. For a while the accepted theories seemed to work just fine. They were able to explain all the observations. But eventually, more and more anomalies accumulated and a part of him started to surmise that a major revision was in order. But for anyone who is completely invested in the standing paradigm, such a shift is incredibly hard to accept. Indeed, it is sometimes said that in science a paradigm shift can only be completed once the old guard literally dies out. If we would invision a personal paradigm shift taking place in a single individual, we see how he indeed has to sacrifice himself to himself in the process. He has to admit to himself that the dogma on which he based all his past beliefs and actions has always been utterly incomplete. He hangs there for a moment, dumbstruck... and then he lets go, allowing everything to change forever.

 

The thing to remember with this card, is that it is all happening on the inside. Reality didn't transform itself, but we transformed ourselves and therefore changed our perception of the world - the only reality we can ever know. As author Norman Vincent Peale put it, "Change your thoughts and you change the world."

 

Opposite this 12th card of the Major Arcana is the 21st card, the World. One card is about finding your place in the world around you, while the other seems to be about finding a place for that world inside of yourself.