Tarot card meanings · Swords
What does Ace of Swords mean in tarot?
In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Ace of Swords upright means “Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred”, and reversed “The same, but the results are disastrous”.
Upright
Triumph, the excessive degree in everything, conquest, triumph of force. It is a card of great force, in love as well as in hatred.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Reversed
The same, but the results are disastrous.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
What does the picture show?
A hand issues from a cloud, grasping a sword, the point of which is encircled by a crown.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Where does the Ace of Swords fall in a reading?
Ace of Swords belongs to the suit of Swords. On this site you draw three cards, which take three of the places in the ten-card method Waite describes: “This covers him”, “This crosses him”, “This is before him”. The same card reads differently in each place, and the I Ching cast beside it may agree or disagree.
Ask one question. Draw three cards, and cast an I Ching hexagram beside them to see where East and West agree. Free.
Draw three cardsWaite's words are quoted as printed, and left out where they speak of money, law, illness or disaster. The pictures are the 1909 deck drawn by Pamela Colman Smith. For entertainment and self-reflection.