Two of Swords: the blindfold and the balance

Start with the picture: blindfolded, blades level at the shoulders

Waite describes the Two of Swords in one sentence: a hoodwinked female figure balances two swords upon her shoulders. His list comes next: conformity and the equipoise it suggests, then courage and friendship, then "concord in a state of arms".

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BaZiFlow original Two of Swords with three labels

On the Rider-Waite-Smith card there is more to see than that one sentence. The figure sits on a low stone bench with arms crossed over the chest, each hand steadying the hilt of a sword, the blades slanting up and outward to make a V. Behind her lies a sea with a few rocks breaking the surface, a low strip of land far off, and a crescent moon in the sky. BaZiFlow's original card follows the same plan with blindfold, blades and crescent. Read the three layers together: blades on top, cloth in the middle, sea and moon behind.

What Waite lists: conformity, equipoise, and one reservation

Waite's divinatory meanings come in groups: conformity and the equipoise it suggests; courage and friendship; "concord in a state of arms". A second reading offers tenderness, affection, intimacy. He ends with a proviso: wherever the card seems to promise harmony or other favorable things, take it with reservations, because the Swords suit as a whole does not stand for kindly powers in human affairs.

Conformity and the equipoise which it suggests ... another reading gives tenderness, affection, intimacy.

Blindfold, blades, moon and sea: who is speaking

Three things on this card deserve their own look: the blindfold, the blades, and the moon with the sea. Only the first two appear in Waite's text.

"Blindfold as not seeing everything" and "balance as not having decided yet" are teaching readings, and the next section uses them. They are drawn from the picture and are not in Waite's text.

How to read it: first see what the blindfold hides, in one course choice

The card has a plain shape: a blindfolded figure holds two blades at the same height. Carried to a concrete matter, it breaks into three questions:

1. 1

   Are the blades really level?

   Write both options on the same few items, one pass each. If one side gets more lines than the other, the two weights have not been brought to the same height.

2. 2

   What is behind the blindfold?

   Mark each item as seen and checked by you, or only heard about. The balance is being held while blind, and the blind items decide how far the "equal" can be trusted.

3. 3

   On which day does the cloth come off?

   The card has no such step, it is a teaching extension: give each blind item one action and one date, and look when the day comes instead of holding the blades up any longer.

An example: two elective courses run in the same slot on Wednesday afternoons, you want both, and you have been stuck for a week. Write each course down on the same three items and mark which have been checked:

Reversed, additional meanings and neighbors: imposture, disloyalty, and "dealings with rogues"

Waite's reversed list for the Two of Swords has four words: imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty. They sit directly opposite the upright "conformity, friendship" and speak of something that looks in agreement and is not.

The additional meanings come from other readers and read "gifts for a lady, influential protection for a man in search of help", with "dealings with rogues" reversed. This is wording from around 1910, and its assumptions about gender belong to that time; they do not follow from the picture.