9 of Swords: Cruelty

I pulled this card in a reading today and I'm completely lost as to how to interpret it. The card confuses the heck out of me. I'm just learning the deck, so after jotting down a few of my own ideas in my notebook, I looked up the meaning in the LWB. There was the literal meaning, cruelty, and then the "well-dignified" meaning, faithfulness.

Now, normally, a card right-side up is the "positive" meaning, and the other way around for reversals (I turned the card right-side up.) Which meaning should I go by? And how in the world did they get "faithful" from such a bloody image?

Here's a site where each card has input

Along with the picture of every card, people have written in their impressions.

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/2110/

In terms of the meanings given, I sometimes find a headspin because the Thoth sometimes pulls from old meanings listed by Arthur Waite and older definitions written by Etteilla or writers trying to put some meaning to the minor cards.

If I find anything better addressing your question, online or otherwise, I'll post...but meantime I thought you might also find comfort in knowing you aren't the first one stumped by this meaning. Maybe some of the discussion might also give some additional meanings...

Mari H.

I found two online sites

My own idea is the nine of swords upright is more about the loss of faith and the mental nightmare if someone found out a belief was untrue and had horrible consequences or someone they loved was unfaithful or disloyal to them. I think that's a standard meaning if pulling the card alone and trying to get the main meaning.

But these two sites below suggest different meanings related to the well-dignified or positive meaning. I believe the 'well-dignified' meaning comes from also checking out surrounding cards in a layout--but I'm not familiar with all of Crowley or Lady Frieda Harris' suggestions for card meanings.

NINE OF SWORDS: CRUELTY
Agony of mind. Despair. Hopelessness. Worry. Suffering. Loss. Illness. Malice. Pain. Burden. Oppression. Subtlety and craft. Lying. Shame. Indicates indecision in an important matter. The loss of self-esteem, bad dreams. May also show ill-health or loss through death. If particularly well-dignified this card may show obedience, faithfulness, patience and unselfishness.

Ill-dignified: Indicates uncertainty, mistrust, doubt. There is a definite need for faith and time to heal before progress towards a solution.

http://www.owlsdottir.com/divination/tarot/suit_of_swords.html


Nine of Swords

Upright: Deception, disappointment, failure, cruelty, unreasoning passions, violence, scandal; all of which can be combated by resignation, passive obedience, faith and calculated inaction. This is the card of the martyr; it brings strength and new life out of suffering.
Reversed: Malice, misery, slander, complete isolation from help and comfort.

http://www.angelfire.com/de2/newconcepts/wicca/tarotminor2.html

Thank you for your question---I just realized if I added the well-dignified meanings, I can gain more balance from my Crowley-style decks. Especially if there is more bright cards around the initial reading layout and the nine of swords comes out.

Interesting question magdelena, and interesting answers, Mari.

It occurs to me that sometimes particular grief and anguish can result from our unreasoning faithfulness to others.

(1) "Faithfulness" is a well-dignified card interpretation for the 9 of Swords drawn from the Golden Dawn's _Book T_. It doesn't appear anywhere in Crowley's _Book of Thoth_ about the 9 of Swords. In fact, throughout the Book of Thoth, the 9 of Swords card has negative interpretations consistent with the card keyword, Cruelty.

(2) Crowley here is using, and had Harris illustrate, the basic negative interpretation of the card per the Golden Dawn - Cruelty.

The best interpretation that Crowley gives about the 9 of Swords is this stoic interpretation, which by the way is still consistent with the picture of the Thoth deck's 9 of Swords:

"There is, however, a way of dealing with this card: the way of passive resistance, resignation, the acceptance of martyrdom."

(3) Although Etteilla meanings are sometimes the source of the Golden Dawn's divinatory meanings, it's not so in the case of the 9 of Swords unless you stretch some of the Etteilla meanings for the 9 of Swords (i.e., piety and devotion). Otherwise, I'm not sure where the Golden Dawn got the card interpretation "faithfulness" for the 9 of Swords, except by taking a Light meaning from the ordinary GD Shadow meaning of this card.
http://www.villarevak.org/td/td_6.html

Thanks, guys. Your input helped a lot. The loss of faith makes sense.

Re: I found two online sites

Mari_Hoshizaki said:

My own idea is the nine of swords upright is more about the loss of faith and the mental nightmare if someone found out a belief was untrue and had horrible consequences or someone they loved was unfaithful or disloyal to them. I think that's a standard meaning if pulling the card alone and trying to get the main meaning.

NINE OF SWORDS: CRUELTY
Agony of mind. Despair. Hopelessness. Worry. Suffering. Loss. Illness. Malice. Pain. Burden. Oppression. Subtlety and craft. Lying. Shame. Indicates indecision in an important matter. The loss of self-esteem, bad dreams. May also show ill-health or loss through death. If particularly well-dignified this card may show obedience, faithfulness, patience and unselfishness.
.

Click to expand...

Think of what we can do to ourselves WITH OUR THINKING...

Despair
Hopelessness
Worry
Suffering
Shame
Self criticism
Self doubt


That is what I look for when I use Thoth cards and pull the 9 swords..... then I look for how I can believe in me, how I can support myself, how i can THINK in a delightful, rather than a despairing way........

How I can literally CHANGE MY MIND.......

In _The Pictorial Key to the Tarot_, when writing of the 9 of Swords, Waite is right on, in my view, when he emphasizes what goes on in the mind. Speaking of the despairing woman depicted in the RWS 9 of Swords: "She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers."

As others have said, I see the Swords as being all about Mind.
Maybe the appearance of the seemingly negative 9 Swords is an indication of what to notice rather than an indication of how things are or will be? Maybe we should be more conscious of certain mental patterns/habits which tend toward negative thinking and this card is a flag to let us know to pay attention, to change them?

I like the Light & Shadow interpretation for the 9 Swords:
"... The apprehensions and worries of the darkest moments before the dawn. Nightmares, though terrifying, warn us that something is amiss, and the monsters they conain do us no real harm but instead evaporate with the dawn. These dark worries then show the soul wrestling with important questions ... "

U.k

The nine of swords pain and fear caused by guilt or by painful experience in the past.