XII — The Hanged Man (Le Pendu)

A young man hangs upside down, suspended by his right ankle from a beam laid across two bare tree-trunks. But look at his face: it is calm, serene, even luminous. This is the first key to the card in Jodorowsky's reading — the Hanged Man is not being punished. He has chosen this position. Where the profane eye sees torture, the initiate sees voluntary suspension, a mystical pause outside of ordinary time.