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Eight of Swords

The Lord of Diminished Strength

Swords, 8

A naked, blindfolded woman wends her way through a maze of sharp swords. Any of them cut cut her at any time. Her hands are chained to her costume, so that she can't really feel her way forward. Beyond the swords, we see a jagged hedge. The swords are evidently just part of a much wider maze. In the distance, we see some towers (and who can't get lost in a large group of buildings? They may well be a different, more subtle sort of maze). A light at the window in one of the rooms implies that the woman has somehow made her way down from there.

Interestingly, the maze is an outdoor one. The swords and the hedges (possibly a reference to the suit of swords' "cousin" the suit of wands), have created a new set of doors and gates and corridors where there should be nothing but freedom and empty space. Because we carry our ideas within ourselves, we can find ourselves in a maze even while we find ourselves in the most barren and empty of places. Hence the title of the card, "Interference".

So why is the figure wearing some sort of S&M garb? Well, the suit of swords deals with ideas and this card deals with imprisonment by ideas more than by actual locks and bars. This is not a card about going to prison as such. I felt that the image of S&M with its highly stylized take on imprisonment and/or domination might render the idea of an intellectual imprisonment quite well.

Meaning

Crisis, calamity, conflict, domination, imprisonment, unease, bad news, censure, criticism, illness, calumny or slander.

Reversed

A lighter shade of the above. Doubt and unease still bog down the querent.