Thoth Tarot - Ten of Swords

This was my daily for today and I had quite a lot of drive-time to contemplate that image hanging before my eyes.

I had the thought that the swords map out a moment in a blacksmith's forge. The top three swords, the outer two, and the bottom four, are like theh hammer, tongs and anvil respectively.

This analogy makes me think that the tenth, destroyed sword represents something undergoing the immensely fraught process of forging. During the process, flaws were either introduced or not eliminated, with the result that during the final test, the sword, the idea? – cracks under extreme, repeated stress. Being a Ten and therefore the culmination of a cycle, process or chain of events, this suggests that something into which has been invested a lot of effort and concentration will fail to prove its worth.

The image invokes the very sound of a sword splintering, an agonizing, jarring sound of inanimate grief. It hurts the eardrums and the deflating sense of failure in the ringing silence after is extremely discouraging.

The astrological association, Sun in Gemini, suggests that too much pressure has been brought to bear upon the subject. Given insufficient time to grow into itself and consolidate, the action, the idea, investment – whatever – has collapsed under pressure.

The whole image, with the swords pointing in and the light of Tiphareth dimmed by the scarlet surrounds, gives the impression of confinement, tension, a clenching of the desire to control. Does this limit the spread of the “ruin”? Is it more or less a confined combustion?

Hopefully more to come . . .

\m/ Kat

Lovely...

And the destruction of the "Balance" a smith tries to build into a weapon. The value of a blade is entirely in the balance which makes it deadly and precise; destroying that balance, you are left with shrapnel and slag. And the Shem angel ruling it is Dambayah ("Fountain of wisdom"), the value we pluck from madness and destruction.

BOT: "When all the Governments have smashed each other, there still remains the peasant. At the end of Candide's misadventures, he could still cultivate his garden...It represents the damping down of the Creative impulse, weakness, corruption, or mirage affecting that principle itself."

So it's a destruction limited by its own aspirations... "reason divorced from reality."

The Book of Thoth, p.188

Yet this card is not entirely without hope. The Solar influence rules; ruin can never be complete, because disaster is a sthenic disease. As soon as things are bad enough, one begins to build up again.

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Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. ~ Nietzsche.

Great summary kat

Beautiful description of a beautiful card.

The exhibition pamphlet adds:

"The background is aflame with explosive destruction."

Cool stuff.

Yes, Kat's forge is very evocative!

I hope it's ok to hijack this thread for my IDS study. (And to be Captain Obvious in it!) Thanks for your patience with me, always learning.

Here goes:

10 of Swords – Ruin

10 = earthly or community
Swords = thoughts

That’s how I come up with “extremism.” Group-think always leads to intolerance and mob mentality, maybe terrorism—ruin indeed. The orange background and chaotic “wings” (or whatever they are) remind me of the Tower and war (or terrorism).

Crowley also says reason taken to the extreme, “divorced from reality.” I add “scientism,” the idea that anything that can’t be explained by observation and reason doesn’t exist. And this card leans toward even leaving out observation!

The sword hilts are in the positions of the sephiroth. The central, sixth, sun, “heart” sword is broken. Reason without heart. But the sun/heart still shines brighter than the menacing orange. Snuffin says the top 5 swords have broken it and the bottom 4 are holding the hilt in place. Maybe that means the higher sephiroth are part of being too ethereal—divorced from reality—and the lower ones, being more related to reality, give support to the heart/higher self. Crowley says “the tenth sword is also in splinters.” I don’t really see that (even with my magnifier!), but it would make sense with “divorced from reality.” The Malkuth “reality” sword is broken.

The hilts on the left and right pillars are paired. Chokmah and Binah—hourglass topped by a math compass. Chesed and Gevurah—equal armed crosses with balls on the ends. Netzach and Hod—four spikes. Snuffin says all these relate to Saturn. I don’t know why there would be so much Saturn in this card, being that it’s Sun in Gemini, so let’s just say they relate to TENs (the same ideas as Saturn)—limitation of time and space, endings and restriction of movement.

The hilt at Kether is the Sun topping the scales of Libra, maybe to show that in Tens, the spiritual is mostly limited to morality and karma, God as judge. Hilt at Yesod looks like a crab—the Moon (Yesod) rules Cancer. The hilt at Malkuth is Gemini, but also a pentacle and a moon crescent. Communication (Gemini) in the real world (pentacle and Malkuth) has become confused and illusory (moon).

Sun in Gemini: I don’t see that this is usually a bad combo, but Crowley says the airy Gemini blows away, “disperses” and “disrupts” the warmth and cheerful, rational rays of the Sun.

Crowley gives us a hexagram for this card (usually reserved for the Courts): 43, Stride, Eliminating Hesitation, Breakthrough, Resoluteness (depending on translation!). It is Lake over Heaven (which Crowley calls the “watery modification of the phallus”). The hexagram seems to be about confusion and hidden fears and dangers and fear of punishment by a king or leader. Crowley turns that around a bit saying it’s good for a leader to clean house of undesirable subordinates. (Back to the judging of Libra?) Interesting layer of meaning, but I don’t know how useable it is.

In a reading: Beware of reason divorced from reality, in yourself or others. Are you being dogmatic? Are you seeing only what you want to see, or only what is “logical” to see? Beware of a charismatic leader, especially a self-proclaimed wise person. Don’t do something just because it’s what everyone else is doing. Be skeptical of what “everybody knows.”

rachelcat said:

10 = earthly or community
Swords = thoughts

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rachelcat - where did you get the "community" association? That, combined with "thoughts" made my mind jump to - "schizophrenia" and multiple personalities. Which, taken to an extreme, could indeed be "Ruin". I refer people to the Rohrig 10 of Swords . . .

\m/ Kat

Wow--that card goes in a whole other direction! Fear of madness--chilling.

I came up with "community" back in the day, years ago when I was trying to reverse-engineer number keywords for RWS decks before I knew anything about an actual tradition!

But I think it works with 10=Malkuth. Sometimes I think of it as "in the world."