Ryder Waite 10 Swords

Some people avoid the Tarot because of the negative cards.  Even seasoned readers dread having them turn up. And when my students accidentally leave cards behind at my house, it’s usually one of those dreaded cards.

But here’s the thing: These negative cards have wisdom we can use,  just as the negative experiences in life are often our best teachers.  

Before you get too upset when these cards turn up, remember that it’s all in your mind. It’s not real!

All Tarot cards involve your subjective not objective reality. So the negative cards are negative usually because you are seeing things through a negative lens, when you could instead take a breath and get some perspective.

In the Minor Arcana, there are thirteen negative cards of 48, and half of the negatives are in the suit of  Swords.  Swords are a picture of the mind, the intelligent, worrying, overthinking mind.

We all know that the mind is a wonderful thing, until it starts distorting, or we start over-thinking our way into confusion and fear. Once that happens, we can spin off into negativity. When these cards come up, I usually look around at the other cards I’ve thrown in the spread or I throw a few more to understand what happens next.  People usually learn from struggle and pain, so it helps to see how this situation will help in the long run.

Thoth 10 Swords “Cruelty”

If you lay out the Thoth Swords from Ace to ten, you can see how a person’s thinking can lead from very positive to extremely negative if they allow a traumatic experience to poison their outlook:

1.Ace of Swords:  The Ace is always positive. It’s the root or seed of the element. It represents the very best of the element, which in this case is swords or the mind.   We sometimes refer to the Ace of Swords as Diamond Intelligence.   It also  means “Yes!”

2.Two of Swords:  Next comes the two of swords– which has the energy of peace —  two crossed swords showing a mind in balance.

3. Three of Swords – Sorrow: Then comes trouble in the form of a loss  – something everyone experiences at least once in their lives.. The three of swords is called Sorrow – a painful loss that pierces our heart. The swords are bent and they break a flower’s petals from its center and pierce a heart. Grief has happened.  Because it’s only a three and still close to the ideal of the Ace, the three of swords is a healthy sorrow. You’ve got a healthy reason to be in this condition.

4. Four of Swords – Truce: Fours are balanced and organized, and so this card represents a meeting of minds.

5. Five of Swords- Defeat: Five is a more discordant number.  It throws things off balance.  So when a person meets some adversity, they might overreact if they haven’t dealt with earlier “sorrows” in a healthy way.   If you haven’t learned  to make meaning out of loss, for example, as Viktor Frankl describes in Man’s Search for Meaning, your mind may start to see the world through a cracked lens. The Five of Swords is called Defeat,  as if the next blow in your life convinces you that you are a loser.

6. Six of Swords: Science: Get through your first big defeat, and you graduate to the perfect symmetry of the six.  Sixes are always positive.  You have traveled halfway from the beginning of a journey of Ace through ten.  The six means clarity, the joining of  many ideas together to form a clear view. So this card is called Science.

7. Seven of Swords – Futility: Here is where negativity can grow dark.  From the defeat of the five, you are now in a place where adversity feels like your situation is futile.  You need strength and hope.  So while the situation may be futile, it may be simply that a different perspective or path is needed.

8. Eight of Swords- Interference: The eight comes when you feel blocked. It may not be true, but if you believe it and give into it, then you are blocked.

9. Nine of Swords–Cruelty: But remember,  it’s all in your mind. Keep on that negative spiral and the mental pain is worse. Your pain feels like a mind chipped and damaged, swords dripping with blood. Crowley likens this energy to the cutting of an umbilical chord, and indeed, you feel like you’ve been cut loose from your home.

10. Ten of Swords –Ruin: Masterfully rendered by the artist Frieda Harris, the Thoth swords become more chipped, bent, and distorted, just as the mind itself gets distorted the we don’t or can’t take time to heal from losses. Asone bad event in life, leads us to get a negative mindset.  This negativity peaks with the ten of swords, aptly called Ruin. All feels lost in one sense.  But if you look closely and think beyond this event, you will see the light opening up in the middle of the image. New beginnings, even rebirth, comes from the ruin.

So when you pull these negative cards, rather than assume that something terrible is going to happen in your life, realize that the terrible thing can be turned around with wisdom and perspective.

Take a look at the energy of the positive cards in that suit – Two of Swords — Peace, Six of Swords — Science, together with the remaining positive cards in the other suits, for lessons in finding meaning, love, friendship to heal and thrive.

This is how cognitive therapy works — becoming aware of our thoughts and then reframing those thoughts to a more positive mindset. It’s true that bad stuff happens to everyone. However  some people actually thrive from difficult experiences while others go into crash mode. Pulling negative cards makes you aware of the negativity, feel what you need to feel about it, and integrate it into your psyche.