Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo

The suit of swords is related to the element of air. It concerns matters of thoughts, ideas and the mind.

A woman stands bound & blindfolded. She is surrounded by 8 swords stuck point down in the ground. There are three on the left side of the card and five on the right side of the card. The ground is brown and there are pools of water. Her feet are partially on the ground and partially in water. The woman has black hair that is windswept and almost reaches her shoulders. She has a blindfold and has fabric wrapped four times around her body. She is wearing a red dress and a brown undergarment with a round neck. The dress has long sleeves and goes down to the tops of her shoes. The bottom of the skirt is draped and slightly windblown to the right. Her shoes are brown. Behind the woman is a pool of water. There is a mountain in the distance on the left side on the card. In the background on the right is a tall hill with a castle on it. The hill is gray and the roofs are red.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

A woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her. Yet it is rather a card of temporary durance than of irretrievable bondage. Divinatory Meanings: Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny; also sickness. Reversed: Disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery; what is unforeseen; fatality.

4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana

Eight.–For a woman, scandal spread in her respect. Reversed: Departure of a relative.

The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing

In the Natural Position: 4 Eights = reverse; 3 Eights = marriage 2 Eights = new knowledge.
Reversed: 4 Eights = error; 3 Eights a spectacle; 2 Eights = misfortune.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Signification of the Four Series of Minor Arcana in the Divining Tarot

EIGHT. Partial opposition to this success. The enemy only partially triumphs.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Meanings of the Cards

56. Eight of Swords.–Sickness, Calumny, Criticism, Blame; R. Treachery in the Past, Event, Accident, Remarkable Incident.

Additional Remarks

The following additional remarks may be serviceable to the to the inexperienced Cartomancer. They are chiefly taken from Etteilla.

56. Eight of Swords.–R. Shows Treachery or Deceit in the past, and will be explained by the neighboring cards.

Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa

Gemini I

A man in whose hand is a rod, and he is, as it were, serving another; it granteth wisdom, and the knowledge of numbers and arts in which there is no profit:

Picatrix the Goal of the Wise by Ghayat Al-akim

Book "T" The Tarot

LI. The Lord of Shortened Force:
Eight of Swords

FOUR White Radiant Angelic Hands issuing from clouds, each holding two swords, points upwards; all the points touch near the top of the card. Hands issue, two at each bottom angle of the card. The pose of the other sword symbols is re-established in the centre. Above and below are the Decan symbols Jupiter and Gemini.

Too much force applied to small things: too much attention to detail at the expense of the principal and more important points. When ill dignified, these qualities produce malice, pettiness, and domineering characteristics. Patience in detail of study; great care in some things, counterbalanced by equal disorder in others. Impulsive; equally fond of giving or receiving money or presents; generous, clever, acute, selfish and without strong feeling of affection. Admires wisdom, yet applies it to small and unworthy objects.

Hod of HB:V (Narrow, restricted, petty, a prison).

Therein rule the Angels HB:VMBAL and HB:YHHAL.

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 Eights Much news.
• 3 Eights Much journeying.