Small cards, Swords
Seven of Swords
Futility
Effort may be scattered across approaches that undermine each other. Choose what to stop as carefully as what to continue, and judge the plan by its remaining capacity to work.
What would change if you committed to one workable approach?
Correspondences
- Decan ruler
- Moon in Aquarius
- Suit element
- Air
- Sphere · Hermetic Qabalah
- Netzach
- Ten-degree span
- 20-30 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. 191 ↗
The Book of Thoth · Part IV, Seven 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
Six sword points meet the seventh; the rose is held beside the central blade.
Book T (1912) · printed p. 191 ↗Two accounts
Book T: Lord of Unstable Effort.
Progress remains partial because effort gives way near the point of success. The account emphasizes wavering resolve and the exhaustion of resources needed to finish.
Thoth: Seven 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.