Dodal, linked reproduction
Huit d'Épées
Jean Dodal’s Marseille pack · Lyon, 1701–1715.
Read the BnF catalogue record ↗Who or what is constrained?
An enclosure of blades becomes a different image when someone stands inside it.
Start with the pictures
Eight of Swords
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 239
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Dodal
Huit d'Épées
Four pairs of curved swords make a densely layered oval. A small flower remains visible in the central opening.
Smith
Eight of Swords
A bound and blindfolded figure stands among eight swords on wet ground, with a distant building behind.
Harris
Eight of Swords · 8
Two long downward-pointing swords occupy the centre. Six shorter weapons of differing shapes cross them from either side.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite calls the confinement temporary rather than irretrievable. His explanation therefore qualifies the apparent completeness of the surrounding barrier.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley names Interference and describes efforts repeatedly diverted by accidental obstacles. His account of Jupiter in Gemini retains the possibility of good fortune despite the interrupted action.
What is actually prevented from moving, and what space remains open?
Write one thing you can point to in the image, one interpretation from a named author, and one inference of your own. Keeping the three separate gives you something useful to revisit.
Sources and image credits
The Dodal cards are one early-eighteenth-century Marseille witness. The black-and-white Smith plates come from the 1922 Rider reprint, whose title verso lists first publication in 1910. Colours in later editions can differ.
Foolmade supplies the linked Dodal reproductions. Its surrounding commentary is not the basis for our historical claims. These images are linked externally; the Smith illustration reuses the public-domain source scan with its full page context.
Harris’s paintings are linked on their host’s reference pages. Crowley’s text is the separately identified Thelemagick transcription of The Book of Thoth. Neither a modern reproduction nor a transcription replaces examination of the original artwork or edition.