AUTHOR’S NOTE: Anyone who grew up in the 1950s with a tiny black-and-white CRT (cathode ray tube) television and a “rabbit-ear” antenna knows what video “snow” is: the grainy, flickering gray haze that all but obscured the transmitted images due to poor reception. Although the main culprits were distance from the transmitter and occasional electrical storms, the strangest things could interfere with the VHF (Very High Frequency) signal, and it wasn’t until the UHF (Ultra High Frequency) “ribbon” antennae became available that the situation improved.

In the Thoth tarot the 8 of Swords is titled “Interference.” The image suggests disorienting static coming from a variety of sources (the six mismatched blade styles) while the two vertical swords interdict any kind of coherence in trying to make sense of the array. Crowley’s main theme is thwarting of the Will by accidental interference that results in lack of persistence in both intellectual and adversarial matters.

The famous image in the Waite-Smith card shows a woman who is stymied at (almost) every turn: she is blindfolded and her arms are bound; although the eight swords seem to block her from returning the way she came, she can still advance hesitantly on unbound feet. Her problem is that she has no grasp of how to do this because she has no visual input to guide her perception of the landscape ahead. (In short, she “doesn’t know which end is up.”) The characteristic interference arises from her confounded mental state, so she must “feel” her way forward with her feet, a slow, tentative process that is not agreeable to the normally swift-and-sure Swords.

Crowley offers encouragement by noting that the 8 of Swords is ruled by Jupiter in Gemini, bringing a measure of good fortune to bear on the inherent weakness implied by the definition, However, he provides no further clarification and neglects to note that astrological Jupiter is in its detriment in the sign of Gemini, making its action “pinched” and less effective than in any other sign. I would not count on it saving the day. I believe that the arbitrary nature of Mercury is in the ascendance in the Eights due to their association with the eighth sephira on the Qabalistic Tree of Life (which Crowley describes as unbalanced), and here nervous Mercury rules Gemini in the tense suit of Swords. All of the Eights express a certain anxiety, and in this card it is raised to a fever pitch. Not a comfortable influence to have appear in any reading.

The following 2018 post expanded on my impression of the Eights as signifying uneasiness, where I observed that, in the 8 of Swords, “anxiety springs from not knowing how to proceed.”

The Eights and Anxiety