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Correspondences between The Enneagram and the Tarot – Enneagram No 4 and The Hanged Man
Identifier
029561
Type of Spiritual Experience
None
Background
The Tarot Major Arcana – covers what are called the greater secrets, or trump cards and consist of 22 cards without suits. Clearly there are thus more Tarot cards than there are Enneagram Personalities and in this respect the Tarot is far more sophisticated, though rarely understood.
Some Tarot cards show roles or stages in evolution, the rest are cards that have a symbolic meaning related to what you need to know or go through. All these relate to advanced stages of the spiritual path . As we saw in the description of the Enneagram, there is a link here with the Sephirot and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet which only has 22 letters.
Roles - : The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress and Emperor, The Hierophant, The Hermit, The Hanged Man [mystic or saint], The Fool.
Need to know - : The Chariot, Strength, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, Temperance, The Tower, The Star, The Moon and the Sun, Judgement and The World
Events - : The Devil [the dive to your subconscious] The Lovers [chemical wedding] and Death [annihilation]. The Star, The Moon, and The Sun have a dual role here.
Number 4 in the Enneagram is the Hanged Man. Compare the Enneagram diagram with the symbol for the Hanged Man and you can see that even the picture was based on it.
Up to a point, the Hanged Man is the salvation for the Emperor, he or she brings a spiritual dimension to someone whose abilities may otherwise be used for mundane and monetary gain. They may even be the ones that cause the symbolic 'death' of the Emperor.
As the Crowley card indicates, below, they are the key [ankh] to the spiritual world, they are the route to the Sun , the Moon and the Stars. Through revelation they may rain little gifts of spiritual wisdom and inspiration on those below. But it is far better if the Emperor in his redemptive state realises he has a saintly artistic creative soul on his left hand, within very easy reach and helps that person to distribute his gifts. The Saint won't want anything for it, he'll be happy to see that it helps someone, that his wisdom is being recognised, that his paintings are being appreciated, his music is heard, his poems are read and his inventions carried through to some final product.
And if he or she is lucky he will find on his left hand a wise old Hermit - a sort of Merlin, - who will take him under his wing and refine his ideas, shelter him from derision, and turn what may look like utter nonsense into a working theory. In one of those strange quirks of Personality the key to heaven is the very one you might least expect - the meekest, the quietest, the simplest of folk, the child, the loopy artist and melancholic poet. A sort of Piglet or Pooh bear, perhaps even a Cat in a Hat, and occasionally a Harry Potter or Neo. And the energy is always feminine even though the person may be a man or a child. "The meek shall inherit the earth"
[But only if it's alright with everyone else].
A description of the experience
