Queen of Tarot

The ancient wisdom of the cards

Eight of Swords Tarot Card Meaning and Art Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Designation

Eight of Swords

About the Deck

Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Pivotal and canonical, this deck defined a new pattern that would be followed up to the present. I made a digitally retouched and painted version of this deck, which I call the "Vivid Waite Smith Tarot Deck". The cards from that deck, as well as a modern English translation of the romantic English descriptions by Arthur Edward Waite (as appear on the Waite Smith Tarot deck) appear in a cross-referenced format in my book, "A Concise Guide to the Tarot: In Vivid Color"

Provenance

Designed by A.E. Waite and Illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. England, 1911.

Tags

swords-8, eight-of-swords, eight, swords

Description

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.

Meaning of Eight of Swords from the Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Upright

Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny; also sickness.

Reversed

Disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery; what is unforeseen; fatality.

According to Many Schools of Thought

Papus's Divinatory Meanings

Enemy only partially successful.

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

Upright

For a woman, scandal spread in her respect.

Reversed

Departure of a relative.

Mme. Le Normand's Divinatory Meanings

Social position. Constant love. Unimportant position. Bad companions.

S. L. MacGregor Mathers's Divinatory Meanings

Upright

Sickness, Calumny, Criticism, Blame

Reversed

Treachery in the Past, Event, Accident, Remarkable Incident.

P.R.S. Foli's Divinatory Meanings

Upright

Coming illness

Reversed

an engagement cancelled or a rejected proposal, dissipation.

Mme. Le Marchand's Divinatory Meanings

the goal which you strive to reach is very near; an event may happen at any moment which will lead you to it at once.