The Tarot of Eli, LLC-Minor Arcana: Thoth Tarot- 7 of Swords-Futility & The Golden Tarot- 7 of Swords

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Above all things, know thyself!

#7. Living from that will, supported by its unfailing wisdom and understanding, mine is the victorious life.

The Thoth 7 of Swords card represents the sabotaging mind where you know what you want symbolized by the central sword and then go about defining the reasons why you can't obtain it, as shown by the 6 swords surrounding the central one. This is the "yes-but" mind that often keeps us from making our dreams work.

Astrologically the 7 of Swords is Moon and Sun in Aquarius, the circle with a dot in the center on the hilt is a symbol of the Sun, the above Crescent is the Moon and the wavy lines at the bottom are Aquarius. Each of the 6 swords of procrastination bear a planetary sign on the hilt for the six ways we sabotage ourselves:

1. The yes-but aspect of Saturn is telling us there is too much red-tape or it's too complicated.

2. Another Sword has on the handle the symbol of Mercury which is about the negative communication of “I can't... I wish I'd a ...If only..." all negative reasons why "it won't work".

3. Another sword handle bares the planetary sign of Jupiter; the planet that symbolizes flexibility and expansion. The negative self-talk of Jupiter is “it’s too limiting and constricted" or” I am not lucky" or "I am not talented enough".

4. Another sword sports the planetary sign of Mars. Positively Mars is a sign of dynamic energy, vitality, and assertion but the negative side of Mars is " I don't have the energy to...I am burnt out...it's dull and boring etc."

5. Another sword handle is adorned with the sign of Venus; the planet of Love. The Venusian negatives would be," I really don't care...It doesn't mean anything to me anyway..."

6. Then there is the final sword whose handle supports the double loops which represent the Sun and the Moon the negatives of which are consciously and subconsciously implying that you are sabotage yourself out of doing what it is that you want to do. In other words, you are caught in wanna-be-ism which is a vicious cycle of mental inferiority.

Netzach is the 7th Sephiroth, Victory, and governs Love, feelings and instincts. It is the Group Mind Sephiroth, influencing Nature and the Arts. As quoted from the Texts of the Golden Dawn:

"The beams of Chesed and Geburah meet in Netzach and thence in Netzach arises a green, pure, brilliant, liquid, and gleaming like an emerald. And the Sphere of its operations is that of Nogah or External Splendor, producing zeal, love, harmony, and it ruleth the Sphere of Action of the Planet Venus and the nature of the Vegetable World. And Jehovah Tzabaoth is a God of Hosts and of Armies, of Triumph and of Victory, ruling the universe in Justice and Eternity. And its Archangel Hanial, is the Prince of Love and Harmony, and the Name of the Order of Angels is Elohim, or Gods who are also called the Order of Principalities."

This quote makes Netzach seem invincible; However, the Thoth 7 of Swords, is called Futility or Lord of Unstable Effort. Here, the Moon is in Aquarius which indicates sociability, and religious inclinations but there is the fact that the Moon is less fluid and less changeable here than in other positions. Therefore, the balanced flow of Aquarius is interrupted making the balance precarious and easily upset.

This is Netzach in Yetzirah, influencing the Astral-Formative World of the Mind. Netzach, is that green Sephiroth on the lower illustrated Tree of Life. This green color is not only because of Venus being the Nature of the vegetable world but also because the metal attributed to Venus is copper. Copper is noted for its internal corruption called a "Patina", which is a green discoloration that appears on copper overtime. Also, attributed to Venus, the planet of Netzach, are Love, feelings and instinct, the Group Mind, Nature, and the Arts, which all radiate from this Sephiroth. Netzach is also the lower form of the fiery Yod of Chokmah that is reflected from Geburah through Tiphareth. This is the formula for Yod Heh Vau Heh, Malkuth being the final Heh, because of the "fall" which is really a condensing or "downsizing" of self that is necessary to create sensual intimacy.

The symbols for Netzach, that are used in Western Magic and Tarot are:

1. The Medieval Girdle.

2. The Rose.

#. The oil lamp.

Netzach is the first Sephiroth of the astral-Formative triangle and is the first energy intelligence to make up the personality of the individual. You may remember that I stated that the Personality is made up of the Four Alchemical Elements, each of which are represented by the lower Sephira, in the familiar sequence of Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Netzach is Fire (Will), Hod is Water (Emotion), Yesod is Air (Mind) and Malkuth is Earth (Body).

In Netzach, normal waking consciousness of the student, must deal with the Astral Triangle of Thought forms and the ambivalent component parts of the Personality, after all, we are not of the Personality for it is a creation of Our Soul for the purpose of "autopiloting"! Personalities are software programs that are created to operate hardware, as an "automatic pilot" as Souls are not interested in culture and daily mundane activities . The Personality is supplanted in the brain to manipulate the physical body properly, in the name of the Soul (I Am) while the Soul-Psyche is occupied with a particular situation. However, if your personality was made for you out of the illusions, delusions, and ambitions of "Patriarchal Authority", you have a "membrane" of words blocking your Psyche/Soul's communication and don't know the individual code that went into making the software your body is operating from; therefore you haven't a clue who is operating the body and thereby fix on any faux outside authority, causing self-doubt and thereby giving any perceived outside authority power over the body! Unless you exorcise the lesser ego built for you by indoctrination and dogma, it is futile indeed, to think you have any control over your life. Yet again the axiom of Qaballah: "Above all things, know thyself!" rings true!

The most important part of initiation is to observe the layers of lies, that your ego/ personality is constructed from, removing layer after layer of words that make the false you, until the real you shines true. This "Garbage in" is called man-made persona and the "Garbage out" is the dysfunctional action of "seeking yourself" in the eyes of your peers, or of some outside authority. You are already divinely approved---you exist, and your Software for operating the Hardware, was already created by the Higher Self, out of its library of living experience which many call "the Soul". In other words, you are the only Author, and therefore, your only A-uthority is the Soul!

Often, Mystery schools, such as The Golden Dawn, use a set of Tattva exercises as a type of "controlled day dream" (guided meditations), intended to bring the student into direct contact with the subtle Elemental realms immediately underlying the material sphere of sensation. Tarot also brings those Elemental realms into sensual manifestation for my students, all of which is necessary to prepare the student for more advanced techniques of skrying with Tarot Cards and thereby producing a bridge between the Cosmic Mind and the personal Mind. It should be understood, that the astral realm beginning with Yesod and including Netzach and Hod, is a fluidic, non-solid realm where everything begins in illusion/dream. It is the place, where our Formative consciousness can experiment with image, such as children role-playing, in order to comprehend in a later stage of growth the actual manifestation of being "that".

If done with controlled will, this is a boon to any creative endeavor on Earth; if taken as rote, or a law laid down by some divine deity, all hell will break loose in the physical realm, as the experiment is unwatched and left with its errors and your "form creating mind" (imagination) is controlled by the few who wish to rule the many! Since you are the creator of your own thought, I AM, than you must realize that "thought" isn't the real you at all! You are the thinker, not the thought. If you believe every thought you think is "yourself", than a happy life as you, is futile indeed. Thought is merely a theory, unproven and needing to be made into information by Understanding and Wisdom. You then experience the "thinking" as information, which must be proven by experience and/or in-form-action so that you can discern whether this thinking is a true knowledge or a falsehood. You are not what you think you are. Above all things know thyself!

The Astral plane of Mind, is not a Master of your personality nor is anything that you contact in it! It is a collective of racial dreams. Therefore, the Astral is your malleable substance to create with, not be created by! Many " Medium-Channels" just channel astral persona's, and live in an illusion of devotional thought, not allowing them to see that they are their own "holy' delusions. Truth being that the energy you feel in your body, is the Real You, as you are the Energy of The Divine Creative, and/or "Sun/Son of God". This makes the 6th Sephiroth, The Son/Sun, the True Soul Presence that is "You". You are a Solar Being, who has 7 light bodies surrounding a physical one. The physical makes the necessary sensual body that we need to experience information and thereby produce knowledge.

Let me explain what few wish you to know: A god is a dominant Consciousness on its Plane of Dominion ( a plane is a trinity of 3 points-in-time that make a triangle). Every one of the 10 Sephiroth, is considered to be a demigod, therefore you are composed of the united cooperation of these energy intelligences we call Sephiroth, which contribute to the make up the One Collective Self, when united as "One" become the Divine Hermaphrodite that is Adam Khadmon (The Divine Hermaphrodite and/or the "Heavenly Human" as shown above) , The Soul completes the Will of the One by manifesting a "Self-Image", i.e., the Top Mammal Predator, the Human body, that is created to be ruler of its domain! So, you, are a Great Group of 10 demigods,/creative intelligences, who should be working as One Group Psyche of your individual Tree of Life...A One Living Divine Creative! The fact that we think we "are not" creative authors of our "life", is because we’ve been mentally separated from the reality of our divinity by the divide and conquer efforts of the Patriarchy. Besides, if you think it, it can't be a "are not"! To think it is to begin the process of creation and one must eventually prove it as a "life movement"; a movement that is either forward or backward! What was done by the manipulation of our imagination, the beginning of all creation, (auto-suggestion and pleasure /pain training) by "The few who wish to rule the many" and the dogma of “divide and conquer” using disinformation as "worded truth" has divided our trinity of Spirit-Mind-Body, and/or our put a membrane of words between then so that we can't manifest our"whole self-plane"!

The Astral plane of Mind, is the beginning of theory formation, a fluid light residing in the unconscious influenced by the subconscious before it is crystalized on earth. Hence, everything in thought is malleable and not written in stone. By giving us "nightmare" stories of how bad our natural body is, and how unintelligent our mind is, and that the Spirit must be sought, the rulers of definition have divided our imagination (good/bad) against our masterful Trinity. Therefore, you forgot the human body is a god of its domain and you are the Daemon Force (God-Man in Greek) that keeps it breathing. Your Primary Identity is that of Spirit, and by seeking it , you keep pushing it away from you: you are the Spirit! The Ego/Personality is the least powerful self-reflection; one you the psyche should have created but were not allowed to by "those who rule definition" and/or Rulers. Before you even have solidified a physical intelligence you were made to reject the body as bad and dirty when naked, causing a division amongst your Spirit-Mind-Body before you even reached 7 years old. Therefore, we all must return consciously to the Astral-dream plane of our unconscious and clean up our software thus allowing the Above Intelligence (Greater Self), The I AM, to operate the Below intelligence (Lesser Self), ME, for the purpose of expanding and liberating life from entropy’s/evil's stifling hold!

By now you may be aware that when we are dealing with Netzach, we are dealing with understanding a particularly difficult State of Energy Conscious. Netzach is where both the Macrocosm (Great) and Microcosm (Small) meet. Therefore, in Netzach, we are dealing with the understanding of the entire race patterns of human kind, animal instinctual and patterns of our own individual persona. But if that isn't enough, we must understand that this Spirit-Mind-Body paradigm is in itself an illusion! For a persona/personality is a "mask" of word sponsored thought, place over the invisible I AM, so we can pretend we are it as a ME. That is how "thought" is intimately experienced. It is a purposeful faux identity so that we can "play act" it out to see if it is Futile or a Viable progressive self-awareness! It is often heard but rarely applied, that to think the same thoughts over and over, and expecting different results in the "now", is Futile if not totally insane. Therefore, on the Thoth Deck 7 of Swords, Crowley/Harris have precariously balanced the 6 planetary swords, one against the other, aimed against the Larger Sun Sword. Implying unstable effort, vacillation and untrustworthy character.

What is surprising is that Netzach in the suit of Swords, does not represent as much catastrophe as in other suits, as the 7th Sephiroth of Venus means Victory over the material world by coming to an understanding of futility. There is, however, a wish to compromise, a halting tolerance and a certain vacillation. When overdone, this need for compromise can bring disaster for as history has proven, and as any student of WW2 knows, rarely does a policy of appeasement produce peace. Therefore, the 6 Swords chipping away at the One Strong Sword, suggests a contest between the many feeble and the one strong. Here, The Strong One strives in vain against the pusillanimity of the many.

The The Golden Tarot-7 of Swords, illustrates 7 swords being sneaky and dishonest, doing something they know they shouldn't do, as they are pointing downward while one Sword is pointing upward towards higher thought. The one central Sword represents the "truth of Self" while the downward 7 are all the reasons not to be true to yourself. This is also an futile attempt to blame others for your own dysfunction. We cannot escape ourselves, by transferring our emotional reactions to others . There is nothing more futile to self-improvement than the"blame game" of "you made me...", as that is a futile attempt to escape your own shadowy self.

When the 7 of Swords Tarot card is thrown during a reading:

•  The querent may be experiencing thoughts of futility. A sense of resignation produced by wanting something but believing they can't have it and/or "giving up" before they even start.
• There is a possibility of breaking through this futile cloud, of lies, in 7 weeks or 7 Months. 
• This card suggests that because of guilt feelings or resentment, the querent is creating problems for themselves. 
• There is a certain craftiness displayed, schemes and actions by the ego are brought to bear, that solve nothing. 
• There is an opportunity to regroup and review, if one forgoes the schemes and seeks advice from others. 
• There is suggested that there is just too much noise in the brain for focused action, as many feeble thoughts of vacillation out shout the One strong will to act.
• Instead of the Power of I AM, we are caught in the self-denial of I ain’t... Often we run "mind loops" that constantly repeat our past as today's reason for not progressing or going forward with our life. These mind loops are the "nag within" syndrome that fear of discomfort often generates in our subconscious to avoid presumed pain.

When the 7 of Swords card is thrown, the querent will:

•  Have the opportunity in the next 7 weeks or 7 months to break out of self-imposed defeatism and move towards creating what one really wants. 
•  Know it’s time to "damn the torpedoes and go full steam ahead". 
• Know and declare what you want, for that is the truth. The falsehood is the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. 
• Remember that the 7's are associated with the Charioteer, which is the originator of motion and change. So this card is not nagging at your weakness but advising you that choosing your wants moves you forward into a satisfying life motion and that you have the inherent power to do so. 
• Have the capability to release sabotaging thought processes that where developed in a past that may go back to 7 years or when you were 7 years old. 
• Focus on what you truly want; focus your heart, creative mind and passion on it, and your programed self-defeat won't be able to impede you; it’s just becomes white noise in the back wash of your powerful wake on the ocean of possibilities.

If ill defined by the Surrounding Cards in the layout:

• Deceitfulness. 
• Intrigues. 
• Insincerity.

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For information about Western Hermetic Thoth Tarot readings, or master tarot classes, log onto my website-elitarotstrickingly.com and clich on the Tarot Pricing Tag. Thank you for your interest.