RWS/Tarot de Marseille: 8 of Swords

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 09 Jun 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Rusty Neon	09 Jun 2004
The card image in the RWS 8 of Swords is well-known. As Waite notes in A Pictorial Key to the Tarot, the card shows a "woman, bound and hoodwinked [i.e., blindfolded], with the swords of the card about her. Yet it is a card of temporary durance [duration] than of irretrievable bondage." Spiritual Tarot (Echols, Mueller, Thomson), p. 159: "Yet the swords do not surround her and the bindings do not restrict her legs". A keyphrase for this card is "restricted thinking". The Arabic number 8 is the infinity symbol turned on its side. Thus, one interpretation for the number 8 can be as a number of finiteness: limitation or restriction. The flower in the centre of the TdM 8 of Swords card is small relative to the other TdM Swords pip cards with centre flowers. There is not much room for the flower in the 8 of Swords to to grow and flourish. The area taken up by the eight symbolic swords is so large that little room is left in the lozenge in the middle of the card for the flower. The flower is restricted in its growth and development by the surrounding swords. If the Swords suit is Air and Thinking, this card may depict restricted thinking, or restrictions on thinking.

The RWS/Tarot de Marseille: 8 of Swords thread was originally posted on 09 Jun 2004 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.