Eight of Swords

Here again the RWS card gives the reader a choice of which character to identify with. But none of the writers I have seen on the tarot have made any significant comment on what appears to be the eight men who tied this poor woman up before setting off to take care of other business. Consequently, the suggested interpretations tend to cluster around censure, restriction, restraint, temporary durance, or domination. Clearly she seems to be some sort of victim here, and could not have tied herself up like this. Levi comments, “Woman enchains you by your desires; master your desires and you will enchain her” (Vol. 1, p. 4). Restraint, in fact, is one of the most central or core meanings of this card, but this really centers around self-restraint, or self-control in the face of seductions, diversions, or distractions. In particular, given that the Eights typically concern mental organization, structure, systemization, intelligence, and predictability, and that the Swords concern the tools of the mental world and the utility of thought, these distractions would pull us away from our higher mental pursuits. More than a little interestingly, the Yijing counterpart, Gua 44, Dissipation or Coming to Meet, also depicts a seductive woman as a primary threat to our more cerebral pursuits. It should not be forgotten that this woman is a metaphor for anything which might leave our clearest and tidiest thoughts in shambles and maybe ourselves in pitiful ruin. I submit that the subject of this card can also be the ones who have tied this metaphor up, for their own protection, exercising self-restraint, to get on with other pursuits. The mind, which is well-represented by the Eight of Swords, is able to dwell in a world entirely of its own imagining. There are no theoretical limits to conjecture or theory itself, or to our flights of fantasy, but various forms of self-limitation are available. The mind won’t get all the possibilities surrounded. The card is sometimes called ’shortened force’ perhaps because cutbacks are to be made here before unlimited permutation, attenuation, extenuation, entropy, and randomization turn the whole mental system into incoherent and useless white noise. We need to leave or put some things out of the mind if the mind is to hold itself together. Just as vampires must be invited into our homes, we learn to do this with the thoughts and information that we allow into our heads, and show our uninvited guests the door. Pieces of information arrive with equal weight and we must assign them value or they don’t get sorted for relevance or priority. This is the point of looking for core meanings. These are reference points, standards, and measures of value and relevance. Without them we are mentally promiscuous, dissipated, scattered, not knowing when or where to stop. There is much talk and ado about nothing, as nothing is true, everything is permitted, and anything goes. The high noise-to-signal ratio leaves us with little more than apophenia and pareidolia with which to make meaning from nonsense. People will then believe anything they read or anything they are told. We are also inclined to get lost in our maps, having long ago left and lost the real terrain to which they were made to refer. These become tautological realities, true in their own right, by their own definition, with no need to refer to anything else. We see a lot of this in occult studies, particularly with the over-elaboration of structural elements. Ideas are not all of equal value, and most are ghafla, mindless distractions. Too much attention is paid to fussy detail at the expense of the principal and more important points. We always have many options, but the best ones, by definition, are limited. Not all available ideas are equal in value. Selection works in a mind’s evolution as well as it works in nature. We learn to rule our thoughts and learn critical thinking skills. Sometimes we need to be told we can’t do or think all the things we want to do or think, at least not yet. We budget our attention to enrich our minds with higher quality stuff and more effective cognitive tools. Constraints are not just good things in systems theory. We bind ourselves to our better purposes, like Odysseus passing the Sirens, staying focused, resisting distraction. Meanwhile, the crew of his ship has their ears stuffed with wax. We wait for the right time and occasion to allow our thoughts and opportunities to ripen. We draw lines and hold them. We use Occam’s razor, or our eight razor sharp swords, to slice away the superfluous. Restraint is not imprisonment. Editing is not an insult. Criticism is not a bad attitude. Simple systems and algorithms can give a complex mind what it needs. All of this having been said, however, there is still great wisdom in making or saving some extra room in the mind, for wild ideas to run around and play in.