Small cards, Swords
Five of Swords
Defeat
A contest has cost something, whether or not anyone calls it a victory. Recognise the result and ask what would prevent the same terms from governing the next encounter.
What are you ready to stop trying to win?
Correspondences
- Decan ruler
- Venus in Aquarius
- Suit element
- Air
- Sphere · Hermetic Qabalah
- Geburah
- Ten-degree span
- 0-10 Aquarius
Sources
The numbered cards combine a sphere, a suit element, and a planetary decan. The Ace begins at Kether; Two through Ten follow the numbered spheres. These are symbolic correspondences, not a birth chart.
Book T (1912) · printed p. 190 ↗
The Book of Thoth · Part IV, Five of Swords ↗
Spans use a starting boundary inclusive and an ending boundary exclusive. Older texts may describe the same interval with ordinal degree numbers.
Symbols
In the Book T design
The swords separate and the rose loses its petals again.
Book T (1912) · printed p. 190 ↗Two accounts
Book T: Lord of Defeat.
A contest has ended unfavourably, leaving anxiety and loss. The account associates the aftermath with hostility and broken relationships, alongside quickness of mind that does not by itself repair the situation.
Thoth: Five of Swords.
Book T’s title is shown separately from the Thoth name. The symbol note below describes the 1912 text, whose design can differ from Harris’s painting.