The living tree of the Hanged Man
The Hanged Man hangs from a T-shaped tree in leaf. Waite calls it a Tau cross and stresses that the tree of sacrifice is living wood.
In the tradition
Tau is the Greek letter T and its Hebrew cousin tav, which Ezekiel says was marked on the foreheads of the righteous. Early Christians read the T as a cross before the cross had its upper arm.
Italian cards of the 15th century showed a man hung upside down by one foot, the way traitors were shamed in paintings on city walls. Waite’s figure has a halo and a calm face, and the leaves make the gallows living wood.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Various, The Bible (King James Version 1611; the Latin Vulgate, 4th century). The source of much of the Temple, Eden and Revelation imagery in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
Updated October 9, 2026.
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