The 3 of Swords: Where’s the Blood?
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’m endlessly annoyed by the popular opinion that the 3 of Swords is a card of devastating emotional suffering and heartbreak. C’mon, people, it’s a low-numbered Air card; any pain will most likely be short-and-sharp, more a flesh wound than a disemboweling gash, and more commonly mind-centered than heart-centered. I’ve even seen it described as “malicious gossip” that can be deeply offensive but does not destroy (other than a friendship or two); its effect is one of short-lived trauma that is undeniably hurtful but hardly fatal. (Look to the 9 and 10 of Swords for that potential.) Rogue comedian George Carlin once had a rant about authoritarian efforts to purge “bad words” from public discourse that is relevant in this instance. So you don’t like them? Get over it.
Both the Waite-Smith and the Thoth versions are “dry” cards: there isn’t a drop of blood in sight to suggest an emotional bloodletting. (Contrast that with the Thoth 9 of Swords, which depicts blood dripping from the sword-points, a show of malice that is testimony to its title, “Cruelty.”) The clouds and rain in the RWS version are external and incidental to the main “thrust” (pun intended) of the image. They create the gloomy backdrop for anguish but don’t deliver the telling stroke. The active agency of the three swords has done its damage and has come to rest without shedding a thimbleful of blood; everything beyond that point is anticlimactic and may amount to postmortem hand-wringing. As the Ink Spots’ song lyrics go, “It’s all over but the crying” (but of course there is no messy cleanup to deal with), and sometimes the surgeon just leaves the projectile in place and sews up the wound.
Even though the Golden Dawn/Thoth title for this card is “Sorrow” (Saturn in Libra), I’ve come to see it as the Buddhist’s “sorrow of attachment” (to the physical world, that is); in other words, it conveys an abstract philosophical angst, not a visceral one. In the RWS card the swords transfix the heart in a way that denies it fluidity of expression; it suggests frustrated desires of the Venus/Mars/Saturn variety. In the Thoth card the swords skewer the rose, rendering its previous message of peace and harmony invalid. In its color scheme this card reflects only the dolorous, low-voltage melancholy of Saturn; there is no “hot-button” immediacy to it like that seen in the RWS card (which I suspect triggers the customary “knee-jerk” response to the disheartening scene). From the Buddhist point-of-view, this dismantling of the rose may be desirable as a liberating event, but the RWS agenda seems to be more about “fixing the volatile” than about “loosing the bonds of earth.”
In esoteric number theory, Three is a number of growth, expansion and opportunity that can be difficult to reconcile with the idea of Saturnian restriction. The upshot may be considerable friction as the intellect is dragged protesting across the barren, inhospitable terrain of an unyielding Saturn, like nails scraping on a blackboard. (Edgar Allan Poe knew full well what this kind of cognitive bleakness is all about, although I doubt he appreciated the antipathy of Air and Earth.)
Neither of these cards appears to be constructive; the RWS design suggests mental paralysis (we might even say “analysis paralysis” as we try too hard to discern exactly “where it hurts”), while the Thoth’s surgical attack actively dismembers the organic wholeness symbolized by the rose; in one case there is stymied progress, and in the other there is no visible hint of recovery, but it must be remembered that these cards occur very early in the number sequence and there are many more numerical iterations to be navigated. In fact, the very next card delivers a healing respite, so the danger of overreaction lies in assessing their significance in an interpretive vacuum. It usually takes more than one volley (or a single slap in the face) to start a war, unless it happens to be the last in a long line of similar transgressions or insults (otherwise known as “the last straw”). As with most cards, context is everything.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on March 16, 2024.
