The Swords are air. They are intellect, logic, reason; 'mentality'. Since the Enlightenment, so-called, these are the faculties that have been raised above all others as the way upwards and onwards. Science, the great religion of modern times, is sword stuff. Measuring is the sacred act; if something can't be measured on a funny device, it doesn't exist. Mentality is raised to the heavens, while the other faculties that Tarot and Jung alike present as aspects of our being - intuition, feeling, sensation - are relegated to the scrapheap of primitivism and animal nature.
You see, we are reflective, self-aware creatures. Our superiority, our distinctiveness, our personal and collective identities, all depend on our subservience to the Sword. To reason, our higher faculty. A serious rummage around the deeper, hidden layers of who we are reveals this all to be complete nonsense.
It is to his great credit that Jung, when portraying the four faculties which he considered went to make up the complete human being, did not arrange them in a hierarchy. 'Thinking' is not proposed as superior to the other functions of feeling, intuition, and sensation. He does not commit the heinous crime that much modern culture does, which sets out to cut off the human being from its 'totality', for us to identify with our mind, our reason, at the expense of all else. It is actually a thought control device, which effectively alienates folk from their own sacredness, their way towards and connection with the divine. The 'scientific mind', the 'scientific world view', is a mind-f**k. Nothing but darkness will result.
There have been times during my own life when the cultural devotion to the sharp cutting blade of reason has done me in. Not all Buddhism is like this; but much of the way that it has migrated to the west has been characterised by a certain devotion to reason, to logic, to the brain sword. Unlike Christianity, which seems a bit based on blind faith and therefore a bit stupid, much modern Buddhism prides itself on its rational soundness, its conceptual efficacy. This was indeed one element which I initially found appealing, but which returned to haunt me in later years.
When I became a chairman of a Buddhist centre in west London, I would attend meetings of chairfolk from across the globe. These gatherings were populated by people with thinking faculty uppermost; people who would be at home with the cut-and-thrust of political debate, maybe, in interview on Newsnight. This is not, in general, the way that my mind works. I need to go away, allow something to digest for a week or a year, before coming up with a personal view. Time after time, the swordspeople would come up with an idea, a plan. I would sense there was something not quite right about it, but couldn't put my finger on it. As a result, I kept mum, only to find out much later that my doubts were indeed justified.
Buddhism in the modern west tends to appeal to thinking types, at home with concepts, at sea in feeling and instinct. So it was with great relief that I began to discover a few basics of Kabbala. Here, mentality is put in its place. It does indeed have its place, but alongside the other aspects of our being. Kabbala recognises, in particular, the vitality of feeling and of instinct. In this respect at least, I find it to be a kindred spirit. You cannot think your way to enlightenment, however much you may wish to. On this, Kabbala and Pale Green Vortex are in accord.
To return to Tarot. It is in the Eight and the Nine of Swords that the perils and tortures of identifying with mentality really come home to roost. Too much thinking, trying to work it all out. Trying to understand with logic and reason alone what cannot be comprehended in this way at all. The result: insanity......"The tendency for analysing and considering everything, digging out a counter-argument for any argument there is....." "Empty thoughts and shallow sentences....." "The Prisons of the Mind....." "Only blessed stupidity can be self-secure enough to believe that thought is the only truth...." "Agony of Mind....." These are a few notes and comments on the Eight and Nine of Swords that I have rapidly compiled from a number of my sources. The 'much-maligned on Pale Green Vortex' Waite-Smith Tarot does a pretty good job of redeeming itself by communicating something of the mental trials evinced by the Swords. But there is even better......
The Eight of Swords from the Royo Dark Tarot I find a marvellous evocation of the pain and torture that we can inflict upon ourselves through overmuch misplaced sword activity, and where this can lead. A young woman in self-inflicted mental torture. Harsh judgement of our own thoughts and behaviour, no self-love, no self-humour. See where it can lead. Depend upon mentality to the exclusion of the other aspects of our being, and this is how we may end up. The self-wrought chains and manacles, the self-inflicted metal sunk deep into the head. This is a painting of deep compassion, I feel.
And I have said enough......
Images: Nine of Swords from the Waite-Smith Tarot
Eight of Swords from Royo Dark Tarot.
