Book T no. 40 · Six of Swords · decan: Mercury in Aquarius
Lord of Earned Success
Six of Swords · Lord of Earned Success
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it.
Book T (1912)
TWO hands, as before, each holding two swords which cross in the centre. Rose re-established thereon. Mercury and Aquarius above and below, supported on the points of two short daggers or swords.
Success after anxiety and trouble; self-esteem, beauty, conceit, but sometimes modesty therewith; dominance, patience, labour, etc.
Tiphareth of ו (Labour, work, journey by water).
Ruled by the Great Angels רהעאל and ייוהל.
Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's).
In Book T's table
No. 40 of Book T's 78 titles · Six of Swords · decan: Mercury in Aquarius
Correspondences
Waite, Pictorial Key (1911)
A. E. Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn, in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London, 1911) · public domain · he describes the Rider-Waite-Smith picture of this card, not Book T's
A ferryman carrying passengers in his punt to the further shore. The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, it may be noted that the work is not beyond his strength. Divinatory Meanings : Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient. Reversed : Declaration, confession, publicity; one account says that it is a proposal of love.
Picture sets
Book T deck, SVG. PlayfulProcess (line art traced from the composite). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, composite. Composite by PlayfulProcess: AI-painted elements (gemini-2.5-flash-image: hand from a cloud, sword, rose, sky) placed by script in the layout Book T describes, so every count is exact. CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, iconography. PlayfulProcess: glyphs drawn for this deck, composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_iconography.py) from the card's own metadata, placed as Book T (1912) places them. CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, full imagery. PlayfulProcess: parts drawn for this deck (tarot/book-t/parts, tarot/book-t/glyphs), composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_full_imagery.py) from a spec per card that follows Book T (1912). CC-BY-SA-4.0.
Book T deck, linocut. PlayfulProcess: a linocut printing of the full imagery, composed by script (scripts/build_book_t_linocut.py) from the same spec per card, which follows Book T (1912). CC-BY-SA-4.0.