10. Ten of Swords
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Number: 10
Card Title: Ten of Swords
Esoteric Title: Lord of Ruin
Numerical Keywords: 10: Sensations, Completion, Consequences
Numerical Attributions: Elements, black citrine olive russet, Soul, Evil
Intelligence: Resplendent Intelligence
Element: Air (hot, wet)
Elemental Keywords: Mind, Ideas, Cutting
Elemental Attributions: East, Spring, Sunrise
Astrological Attribution: Sun in Gemini
Dates & Timing: June 11 to June 20
Qabalistic World: Malkuth of Yetzirah
Translation of World: The Kingdom of Formation
Suit Color: Swords- Yellow
Keywords: Overkill, Overdoing, Too much force, Its over.Utter defeat, Ruin, Pain, Envy, Loss, tears, illness, karmic results, diseases of brain and central nervous system, betrayal, sadness, failures, divorce, bankruptcy, layoff.
Ill-Dignified: Overthrow of Evil Forces, Time to Rebuild, Recovery, Inner Strength
Interpretation: Situation has failed miserably. Need to completely start over. Better than 9 of swords because period of wait and anxiety is over. Decision to give up on a losing cause is close at hand. Changing action can lessen impact. Reason divorced from reality. Energy of swords is a disruptive force. End of Illusion. Utterly crushed and defeated by is situation. Totally start over.
Reversed Interpretation: Courage to Rise again. Have survived the worst. And now need to get back on your feet. The disaster is over and won’t be repeated again. Gifts of strength and survival instinct from living though a disaster. Over throw of evil forces. Better health. Turn to higher powers for spiritual help. Dissolution of illusion.
Rider-Waite Imagery
The suit of swords is about thoughts, ideas, plans and anything intellectual. The number 10 is completion, endings that make ways for new beginnings. Shown on this card is a man face down with 10 swords stuck in his back. The swords are stuck into his back along the spine. The sky is black (ignorance, delusion) at the top of the card but there are gray (intrusion of the divine) clouds and the sky near the horizon is yellow (healing and redemption). There are purple (brings opposites together) mountains (limitations of mind) in the distance. The man is lying on the brown (practicality) earth at the edge of a still lake (emotions).
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)
A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card. Divinatory Meanings: Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. It is not especially a card of violent death. Reversed: Advantage, profit, success, favour, but none of these are permanent; also power and authority.
4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
Ten.–Followed by Ace and King, imprisonment; for girl or wife, treason on the part of friends. Reversed: Victory and consequent fortune for a soldier in war.
The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing
In the Natural Position: 4 Tens = condemnation; 3 Tens = new condition; 2 Tens = change.
Reversed: 4 Tens = event, happening; 3 Tens disappointment; 2 Tens = expectation justified.
The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]
Signification of the Four Series of Minor Arcana in the Divining Tarot
SWORDS. Transformation. Hatred. War.
TEN. Uncertainty in the enmity.
The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]
Meanings of the Cards
54. Ten of Swords.–Tears, Affliction, Grief, Sorrow; R. Passing Success, Momentary Advantage.
Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Gemini III
A man seeking for Arms, and a fool holding in the right hand a Bird, and in his left a pipe, and they are the significations of forgetfulness, wrath, boldness, jeasts [jests], scurrilities, and unprofitable words:
Picatrix the Goal of the Wise by Ghayat Al-akim
Book "T" The Tarot
LIII. The Lord of Ruin
Ten of Swords
FOUR hands holding eight swords, as in the preceding symbol; the points falling away from each other. Two hands hold two swords crossed in the centre, as though their junction had disunited the others. No rose, flower or bud, is shewn. Above and below are Sun and Gemini, representing the Decan.
Almost a worse symbol than the Nine of Swords. Undisciplined, warring force, complete disruption and failure. Ruin of all plans and projects. Disdain, insolence and impertinence, yet mirth and jollity therewith. A marplot, loving to overthrow the happiness of others; a repeater of things; given to much unprofitable speech, and of many words. Yet clever, eloquent, etc., according to dignity.
Malkuth of HB:V (Ruin, death, defeat, disruption).
Herein the Angels HB:DMBYH and HB:MNQAL reign.
Often the General signification of the Majority of a particular suit and of the particular signification of the either 3 of 4 cards of a sort in a reading:
- A Majority of Swords Trouble, sadness, sickness, death.
- 4 Tens Anxiety, responsibility.
- 3 Tens Buying and selling (commerce).
