09. Nine of Swords
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Number: 9
Card Title: Nine of Swords
Esoteric Title: Lord of Despair and Cruelty
Numerical Keywords: 9: Fruition, Cycles, Results
Numerical Attributions: Moon, Violet, World, West
Intelligence: Purifying Intelligence
Element: Air (hot, wet)
Elemental Keywords: Mind, Ideas, Cutting
Elemental Attributions: East, Spring, Sunrise
Astrological Attribution: Mars in Gemini
Dates & Timing: June 1 to June 10
Qabalistic World: Yesod of Yetzirah
Translation of World: The Foundation of Formation
Suit Color: Swords- Yellow
Keywords: Loss, Suffering, Doubt Pain, Questioning Choices, Burden, Pity
Ill-Dignified:shine after a Storm, Hope, Release
Interpretation: Problems worsening. Fear that the situation will deteriorate and never change for the better. Intense fear and anxiety. Worrying about other peoples problems or things that you can’t change.
Reversed Interpretation: Sunshine after a storm. Release of tension and worry after a long ordeal. Light at the end of the tunnel. Things beginning to get better. Snapping out of depression & anxiety. Hope for tomorrow. “Tomorrow is a new day” (Anne of Green Gables)
Rider-Waite Imagery
The suit of swords is related to the element of air. It concerns matters of thoughts, ideas and the mind.
"Ah, but you are alone. Who knows what you have spoken to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all your life seems to shrink, the walls of your bower closing in about you, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?" Wormtounge – Two Towers
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)
One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation. Divinatory Meanings: Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair. Reversed: Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame.
4 Some Additional Meanings of the Lesser Arcana
Nine.–An ecclesiastic, a priest; generally, a card of bad omen. Reversed: Good ground for suspicion against a doubtful person.
The Recurrence of Cards in Dealing
In the Natural Position: 4 Nines = a good friend; 3 Nines = success; 2 Nines = receipt.
Reversed: 4 Nines = usury; 3 Nines imprudence; 2 Nines = a small profit.
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.
NINE. Certain duration of the hatred.
The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]
Meanings of the Cards
55. Nine of Swords.–An Ecclesiastic, a Priest, Conscience. Probity, Good Faith, Integrity; R. Wise distrust, Suspicion, Fear, Doubt, Shady character.
Additional Remarks
The following additional remarks may be serviceable to the to the inexperienced Cartomancer. They are chiefly taken from Etteilla.
55. Nine of Swords.–R. The card following will show whom or what to distrust, &c..
Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa
Gemini II
A man in whose hand is a Pipe, and another being bowed down, digging the earth: and they signifie infamous and dishonest agility, as that of Jesters and Juglers [jugglers]; it also signifies labours and painful searchings:
Picatrix the Goal of the Wise by Ghayat Al-akim
Book "T" The Tarot
LII. The Lord of Despair and Cruelty
Nine of Swords
FOUR Hands, as in the preceding figure, hold eight swords nearly upright, but with the points falling away from each other. A fifth hand holds a ninth sword upright in the centre, as if it had struck them asunder. No rose at all is shewn, as if it were not merely cut asunder, but utterly destroyed. Above and below are the Decan symbols Mars and Gemini.
Despair, cruelty, pitilessness, malice, suffering, want, loss, misery. Burden, oppression, labour, subtlety and craft, dishonesty, lying and slander.
Yet also obedience, faithfulness, patience, unselfishness, etc. According to dignity.
Yesod of HB:V (Illness, suffering, malice, cruelty, pain).
Therein do HB:a’aNVAL and HB:MChYAL bear rule.
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 Nines Added responsibilities.
- 3 Nines Much correspondence.
