Six of Swords
Swords
How This Card Is Derived
Papus gives no separate description of this card. It is derived from his system: Swords is Vau (ו), the equilibrating principle, the link between the two, acting in Yetzirah, the formative world; the number 6 is Vau of the second series, the equilibrium restored on new ground. The meaning below is that combination read out — the equilibrating principle, the link between the two taken at its 6th term — not a quotation from him.
Upright
Equilibrium recovered after five, and in the formative world balance is restored by removal: the passage away. The ferry, the shallow water, the swords carried rather than used. Papus's sixth term always repairs the fifth, and here it repairs by changing the ground rather than the terms. Nothing has been resolved — the conflict has been taken somewhere it does not apply.
Reversed
The crossing refused, or made and then reversed — the return to the ground the conflict actually lives on. Or the swords brought along and planted identically on the far shore.
Correspondences
- Suit
- Swords — Vau (ו), Yetzirah, the formative world
- Suit principle
- the equilibrating principle, the link between the two
- Number
- 6 — Vau of the second series
- Numeric role
- the equilibrium restored on new ground
In a Spread
At the commencement, the matter begins in a move away from trouble. In opposition, a departure that solves nothing and looks like a solution. At equilibrium the situation is steady because it is in transit. As the result: passage — balance restored, on new ground and by nobody's concession.