AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve written frequently in the past about the fact that the insurmountable obstacles to an agreeable outcome shown in the Waite-Smith 8 of Swords can be circumvented by the compromised woman – whose feet are unbound – “feeling her way” along the watercourse to escape off the lower-right corner of the card. (When it appears in a reading I call it the “Follow your heart, not your head” card.) The situation is not quite so clear-cut in the Thoth version, which in the Golden Dawn system is attributed to the first decan of Gemini and to Jupiter in that sign.

In The Thoth Companion, Michael Snuffin observes that in this card two vertical longswords are set against six shorter, mismatched horizontal swords, thus imposing a barrier to rational thought – already disturbed by the disparity in the short swords – that illustrates the “Interference” of the title. (According to the author, these diminutive blades are in fact different kinds of daggers and not full-fledged swords, and they can be interpreted as expressing the Golden Dawn’s definition of “shortened force” because, in my own opinion, they can have difficulty finding the target unless it is “up close and personal.”) He also notes that Jupiter is ill-at-ease in Gemini because its characteristic expansiveness is constrained by the intellectual meddling of the sign. (Snuffin is very weak in astrology – I will be doing a critique of the book that highlights this failing – stating that Jupiter, the ruler of Sagittarius, is in its fall in Gemini when it is actually in its detriment, a more fundamental deficiency; it is exalted in Cancer and in its fall in Capricorn.)

In thinking about my solution to the Waite-Smith scenario while looking at the black-and-white image of the Thoth card in my Kindle edition of the book, I was struck by an epiphany: the space between the two vertical swords (one that isn’t as pronounced in the full-color rendering) suggests a gateway or portal by which the card can be entered and thus conquered by exercising some nimble “mental gymnastics” in crossing the field midway between the hilts and points of the daggers instead of trying to do an “end run” on them. My thinking is that the dagger is a “stabbing” and not a “slashing” weapon, so if the edges are sharpened it is only to assist in penetrating the flesh and then ripping open the wound. The edge is therefore its most vulnerable feature, and traversing it will avoid the coercive leverage of the hilts and the discriminating power of the points that can conspire to pick a counter-argument to pieces. Granted that this approach is one of avoidance and not of “assailing the ramparts,” sometimes discretion is the better part of valor; I would rather “finesse” the 8 of Swords than go at it point-on.

To me, the relation of this card to Mercury in the sephira Hod on the Tree of Life’s “Pillar of Severity” has always meant unrelieved anxiety (like Crowley’s 7 of Swords, it is “off the middle pillar and very low down on the Tree,” which upsets its composure). This alignment resists being placated by any form of emotional conciliation; the restless energy of Air left that behind with Venus in Netzach on the Pillar of Mercy and won’t reacquire it until it arrives at the Moon in Yesod on the Pillar of Mildness. Gemini is volatile, and in the suit of Swords it is easily destabilized. Its ruler, Mercury situated in Hod, represents an unsettled, transitional state that is challenged to find mental equilibrium. As such, it suggests the kind of compensatory adaptation essential to learning how to ride a bicycle: the bike first wobbles in one direction, an imbalance that must be counteracted by throwing our weight to the other side. Until a precise, intuitive feel for “how much is enough” can be achieved, any further teetering must be offset by again heaving in the opposite direction, risking an over-correction that can result in skinned elbows and knees. My “midpoint fix” for this dilemma might well be to junk the two-wheeler and buy a tricycle instead; that third wheel will guarantee stability.