Tarot card meanings · Swords
What does Ten of Swords mean in tarot?
In A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), the Ten of Swords upright means “affliction, tears, sadness, desolation”, and reversed “success, favour, but none of these are permanent; also power and authority”.
Upright
Affliction, tears, sadness, desolation.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Reversed
Success, favour, but none of these are permanent; also power and authority.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
What does the picture show?
A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card.Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Part 3
Where does the Ten of Swords fall in a reading?
Ten 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.