Dodal
Le Pendu · XII
An inverted, clothed figure hangs between two pruned trunks joined by a crossbar. One leg crosses behind the other. The arms bend behind the body; the head hangs just above the ground.
Suspension and its disputed meaning
All three figures hang by one leg. Their hands, surroundings and expressions differ. The shared posture does not settle what any author thinks the suspension accomplishes.
Start with the pictures
Le Pendu · XII
Jean Dodal · Lyon, 1701–1715
Open the source image ↗
The Hanged Man · XII
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 117
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Smith
The Hanged Man · XII
A figure hangs by one ankle from a leafy wooden frame. The free leg bends across the other, and rays surround the head.
Harris
The Hanged Man · XII
An inverted figure hangs beneath an ankh-shaped form against a grid. The arms extend diagonally toward circular disks, with another disk at the bent foot. A coiled serpent fills the dark space below the head.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite stresses suspension within life and a face of entrancement rather than suffering. He connects the image to awakening and resurrection while rejecting several simple labels, including ordinary martyrdom.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley links the figure to Water and initiatory baptism.
What is visibly suspended, and what would you need to know before calling that suspension a sacrifice?
Write one thing you can point to in the image, one interpretation from a named author, and one inference of your own. Keeping the three separate gives you something useful to revisit.
Read the contemporary essay
The Triptych essay makes self-sacrifice its central contrast. Return to Waite’s exact passage to test that contrast. A symbolic reading does not require seeking pain, danger or a near-death experience.
Sources and image credits
The Dodal cards are one early-eighteenth-century Marseille witness. The black-and-white Smith plates come from the 1922 Rider reprint, whose title verso lists first publication in 1910. Colours in later editions can differ.
The images shown here are reproduced from public-domain sources, with their original borders and page context.
- Jean Dodal · source record and rights statement ↗
- Pamela Colman Smith · source record and rights statement ↗
Harris’s paintings are linked on their host’s reference pages. Crowley’s text is the separately identified Thelemagick transcription of The Book of Thoth. Neither a modern reproduction nor a transcription replaces examination of the original artwork or edition.