ATDTDA (7): 186-188 decoding

[Dave Monroe]

--- Peter Petto <ppetto at apk.net> wrote:

> Hanged Man - (Tarot) letting go, reversal,
> suspension, sacrifice -  The Hanged Man is one of
> the most mysterious cards in the tarot deck. It is
> simple, but complex. It attracts, but also
> disturbs. It contradicts itself in countless ways.
> The Hanged Man is unsettling because it symbolizes
> the action of paradox in our lives. A paradox is
> something that appears contradictory, and yet is
> true. The Hanged Man presents to us certain
> truths, but they are hidden in their opposites.
> (from www.learntarot.com)

"All his hopeful cards are reversed, most unhappily of
all the Hanged Man, who is supposed to be upside down
to begin with, telling of his secret hopes and fears."
(GR, Pt. IV, p. 738)

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/extra/slothrop.html

Page 306

306.19 hanging by the foot
Note how Slothrop, as he hangs upside down by one
foot, momentarily turns into a version of the Tarot
card The Hanged Man, which also turns up in his Tarot
reading on p. 738.

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_295-314#Page_306

Occult correspondences

There are 12 episodes in this last part -- a number
freighted with many important correspondences. For
Christians, 12 is the number of Apostles gathered
around Christ. 12 were the Labors of Hercules, an
archetypical hero. 12 are the signs of the Zodiac. Key
12 of the Tarot is the Hanged Man, a card that
symbolizes, among other things, Crowley's "baptism
which is also death . . . the descent of the light
into the darkness in order to redeem it." It has
connotations of self-surrender, sacrifice,
Christ-power, and the completion of the Great Work --
transmuting base matter into gold; which itself is
symbolic for the transformation of base intelligences
into the pure ecstasy of awareness.

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_granalysis.html

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