Book T no. 51 · Eight of Swords · decan: Jupiter in Gemini
Lord of Shortened Force
Eight of Swords · Lord of Shortened Force
Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it.
Book T (1912)
FOUR White Radiant Angelic Hands issuing from clouds, each holding two swords, points upwards; all the points touch near the top of the card. Hands issue, two at each bottom angle of the card. The pose of the other sword symbols is re-established in the centre. Above and below are the Decan symbols Jupiter and Gemini.
Too much force applied to small things: too much attention to detail at the expense of the principal and more important points. Patience in detail of study; great care in some things, counterbalanced by equal disorder in others. Impulsive; equally fond of giving or receiving money or presents; generous, clever, acute, selfish and without strong feeling of affection. Admires wisdom, yet applies it to small and unworthy objects.
Hod of ו (Narrow, restricted, petty, a prison).
Therein rule the Angels ומבאל and יההאל.
Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's).
If ill dignified
Book T (1912): its words for the card when it falls ill dignified, set apart from its text
When ill dignified, these qualities produce malice, pettiness, and domineering characteristics.
In Book T's table
No. 51 of Book T's 78 titles · Eight of Swords · decan: Jupiter in Gemini
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 woman, bound and hoodwinked, with the swords of the card about her. Yet it is rather a card of temporary durance than of irretrievable bondage. Divinatory Meanings : Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny; also sickness. Reversed : Disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery; what is unforeseen; fatality.
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.