Seven of Swords, the Rider-Waite-Smith card drawn by Pamela Colman Smith (1909)
Pamela Colman Smith, Rider-Waite-Smith deck (1909). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Minor Arcana · Swords · Air

Seven of Swords

UprightDesign, attempt, wish, hope, confidence; also quarrelling, a plan that may fail, annoyance. The design is uncertain in its import, because the significations are widely at variance with each other.
ReversedGood advice, counsel, instruction, slander, babbling.

Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it. These are what two traditions wrote, not predictions.

Draw & reflect Open in the card viewer

In Waite's words: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)

A man in the act of carrying away five swords rapidly; the two others of the card remain stuck in the ground. A camp is close at hand.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), public domain.

In the Golden Dawn's Book T (1912)

Lord of Unstable Effort

TWO Angelic Radiating Hands as before, each holding three swords. A third hand holds up a single sword in the centre. The points of all the swords "just touch" each other, the central sword not altogether dividing them.

The Rose of the previous symbols of this suit is held up by the same hand which holds the central sword: as if the victory were at its disposal. Symbols of Moon and Aquarius.

Partial success. Yielding when victory is within grasp, as if the last reserves of strength were used up. Inclination to lose when on the point of gaining, through not continuing the effort. Love of abundance, fascinated by display, given to compliments, affronts and insolences, and to spy upon others. Inclined to betray confidences, not always intentionally. Rather vacillatory and unreliable.

Netzach of ו (Journey by land: in character untrustworthy).

Herein rule the Great Angels הההאל and מעכאל.

Correspondences

Decan: Moon in Aquarius (the 3rd decanate of its sign).

Sephirah: Netzach in Yetzirah (the Formative World).

Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's). The correspondences are this site's compilation from Book T. Open it in the Golden Dawn deck.

Images: Pamela Colman Smith (1878–1951), public domain. Texts: Waite (1911) and Book T (1912), public domain. Selection and arrangement CC-BY-SA-4.0 (PlayfulProcess). Data: github.com/PlayfulProcess/recursive-tarot.