RWS 9 Swords V Thoth 9 Swords

Really well said, Aeon.

Think about cruel words - if the person speaking them is someone whose opinion you don't respect, does it hurt as much as when the person is someone you care about?

If the words are said in a situation where you know not to take it personally, are you stabbed by them, or can you let them go, knowing the speaker had something going on and they weren't directed at you (your pregnant wife screams 'bastard' at you during a contraction...not the same as when she does it during an emotionally painful fight).

If the words are said with full intention to be cruel, but are about something you're entirely comfortable with - someone calls you a bitch and your first thought is 'hell, yea! and proud of it', it doesn't feel cruel, so is it still cruel? Or just a misfire?

What makes something cruel or not is how we take it - what we think of it. Swords are, it seems, always about our own reactions...what meaning our thoughts and beliefs apply to an situation.

Some people see cruelty in every disagreement and confrontation. Others are wired to let it all roll off their backs. Undeniably, the first one lives in a much crueler world because that is how they perceive it.

balenciaga said:

- it is like self-torture, which in the end is cruel. Why would we need anyone else to do it for us when we are so good at doing it to ourselves?

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Yeh i think this also spot on balenciaga in everyone of us there is also self- torture.

I'm wondering if the well dignified meanings of the 9 of Swords are the key to this card. Obedience, Faithfulness, Patience, and Unselfishness all seem to point beyond the wants of the self. Nearly all the negative meanings revolve around the self and it's constant obsession with me, me, me.

Maybe the advice this card offers is "get over yourself", see beyond your petty neuroses and childish fears and set yourself free.

The Nine of Swords is called Cruelty. Here the original disruption inherent in Swords is raised to its highest power. The card is ruled by Mars in Gemini; it is agony of mind. The Ruach consumes itself in this card; thought has gone through every possible stage, and the conclusion is despair. This card has been very adequately drawn by Thomson in "The City of Dreadful Night". It is always a cathedral---a cathedral of the damned. There is the acrimonious taint of analysis; activity is inherent in the mind, yet there is always the instinctive consciousness that nothing can lead anywhere.

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The above is from the Book of Thoth.

Here is The City of the Dreadful Night

O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark!
O battling in black floods without an ark!
O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!
My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,
With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:
Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light!

My heart is sick with anguish for your bale;
Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail
And perish in your perishing unblest.
And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope
Of all our universe, with desperate hope
To find some solace for your wild unrest.

And now at last authentic word I bring,
Witnessed by every dead and living thing;
Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:
There is no God; no Fiend with names divine
Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,
It is to satiate no Being's gall.

It was the dark delusion of a dream,
That living Person conscious and supreme,
Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;
Whom we must curse because the life he gave
Could not be buried in the quiet grave,
Could not be killed by poison or the knife.

This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,
We fall asleep and never wake again;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh
In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.

James "B.V." Thomson

By 'Ruach' is he referring to 'spirit'?

caridwen said:

By 'Ruach' is he referring to 'spirit'?

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Ruach here means the Formative world of the Qabalah - the Intellectual mind consumes itself.
I think this is very apt when you consider the astrology of this card. Mars in Gemini. The Airy twins are at war with each other. Your own mind becomes your own worst enemy.

Aeon418 said:

Ruach here means the Formative world of the Qabalah - the Intellectual mind consumes itself.

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Could you please source your reference? Where does this come from?

I think this is very apt when you consider the astrology of this card. Mars in Gemini. The Airy twins are at war with each other. Your own mind becomes your own worst enemy.

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From what I've read, Mars in Gemini is where energy is chanelled into mental pursuits. There is some tendency to restlessness and irritability - you react badly to criticism. However, there is also a tendency to sarcasm, anger, irritability on behalf of the native. Maybe, just maybe, there is cruelty all round both internal and external. The Mars in Gemini influence not only gives rise to an overworked psyche but a sharp tongue as well?

le fey said:

Really well said, Aeon.

Think about cruel words - if the person speaking them is someone whose opinion you don't respect, does it hurt as much as when the person is someone you care about?

If the words are said in a situation where you know not to take it personally, are you stabbed by them, or can you let them go, knowing the speaker had something going on and they weren't directed at you (your pregnant wife screams 'bastard' at you during a contraction...not the same as when she does it during an emotionally painful fight).

If the words are said with full intention to be cruel, but are about something you're entirely comfortable with - someone calls you a bitch and your first thought is 'hell, yea! and proud of it', it doesn't feel cruel, so is it still cruel? Or just a misfire?

What makes something cruel or not is how we take it - what we think of it. Swords are, it seems, always about our own reactions...what meaning our thoughts and beliefs apply to an situation.

Some people see cruelty in every disagreement and confrontation. Others are wired to let it all roll off their backs. Undeniably, the first one lives in a much crueler world because that is how they perceive it.

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I disagree. I think it's untrue that we are only affected by what we allow ourselves to be effected by. Words hurt. The pen is mightier than the sword.

I think your point is intention. A wife who calls her husband a bastard during a contraction is not intending to hurt him. A wife who calls her fatherless husband a bastard during an argument knows exactly how to hurt him and exactly what his weakness is.

If someone intends to hurt you that is different to being oversensitive to a comment.

I think this card also refers to depression. Many depressives suffer from an overworked mind. They go over and over obsessively the worst parts of their day, their lives, themselves. They are the worst person alive and don't deserve to live. That is depression and it's quite true that you can drive yourself mad.

caridwen said:

Could you please source your reference? Where does this come from?

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Source? It's basic qabalah. The Ruach is one of the four parts of the soul.

Chiah - The Life Force - Yod - Fire
Neshamah - The Soul - Heh - Water
Ruach - The Intellect - Vau - Air
Nephesh - The Animal Soul - Heh final - Earth

I know that the term Ruach is used differently sometimes, but in the Crowley quote above it's being used in this sense.

Definitely - negative self talk is very debilitating, and sometimes we're far more cruel to ourselves than anyone else would ever dream of being.

My comments were pointing out various examples, not suggesting they need all be at play at once:

- the level of cruelty percieved depends on how much weight we give that particular person's opinion.

- the level of cruelty percieved depends on our understanding of that person's intention

- the level of cruelty percieved depends on whether or not the words attack a sore spot of ours or not.

- the level of words percieved depends on our own personality, health, mood, etc.

Almost all of these hurt us due to our own mentality. Words DO hurt, but only so far as we percieve the hurt and decode it as something hurtful. I'm not suggesting that it's 'only' in our heads - I'm saying that is the element that translates words (mental symbols) into pain (emotion). That's why this card is is the swords realm and not the cups.

caridwen said:

A wife who calls her fatherless husband a bastard during an argument knows exactly how to hurt him and exactly what his weakness is.

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What if the husband doesn't care about not knowing his father? In that case the insult, despite it's intention, has no power to hurt. There has to be a connection, otherwise nothing will happen.

It's like a battery. You have to connect the positive and negative ends to make the current flow.