The Princess of Swords represents the earthy part of Air, the fixation of the volatile. She brings about the materialization of Idea. She represents the influence of Heaven upon Earth. She partakes of the characteristics of Minerva and Artemis, and there is some suggestion of the Valkyrie. She represents to some extent the anger of the Gods, and she appears helmed, with serpent-haired Medusa for her crest. She stands in front of a barren altar as if to avenge its profanation, and she stabs downward with her sword. The heaven and the clouds, which are her home, seem angry.

The character of the Princess is stern and revengeful. Her logic is destructive. She is firm and aggressive, with great practical wisdom and subtlety in material things. She shews great cleverness and dexterity in the management of practical affairs, especially where they are of a controversial nature. She is very adroit in the settlement of controversies.

If ill-dignified, all these qualities are dispersed; she becomes incoherent, and all her gifts tend to combine to form a species of low cunning whose object is unworthy of the means.

In the Yi King, the earthy part of Air is represented by the 18th hexagram, Ku. This means “troubles”; it is, for all practical and material matters. The most unhappy symbol in the book. All the fine qualities of Air are weighed down, suppressed, suffocated.

People thus characterized are slow mentally, the prey of constant anxiety, crushed by every kind of responsibility, but especially in family affairs. One of both of the parents will usually be found in the aetiology.

It is hard to understand line 6, which “shows us one who does not serve either king or feudal lord, but in a lofty spirit prefers to follow his own bent”. The explanation is that a Princess as such, being “the throne of Spirit”, may always have the option of throwing everything overboard, “blowing everything sky high”. Such action would account for the characteristics above given for the card when well dignified. Such people are exceedingly rare; and, naturally enough, they appear often as “Children of misfortune”. Nevertheless, they have chosen aright, and in due season gain their reward.

This card, pertaining to Chokmah in the suit of Fire, represents the Will in its most exalted form. It is an ideal Will, independent of any given object.

“For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.” AL. 1. 44.

The background of this card shows the power of the planet Mars in his own sign Aries, the first of the Signs. It there represents Energy initiating a Current of Force.

The pictorial representation is two Dorjes crossed. The Dorje is the Tibetan symbol of the thunderbolt, the emblem of celestial Power, but more in its destructive than its creative form.

More, that is, in its earlier rather than its later form. For destruction may be regarded as the first step in the creative process. The virgin ovum must be broken in order to fertilize it. Fear and repulsion are therefore the primary reaction to the assault. Then, with understanding of the complete plan, willing surrender rejoices to co-operate.

Six flames issue from the centre. This indicates the influence of the Sun, who is exalted in Aries. This is the creative Will.

Mars in Aries is the attribution of the Geomantic Figure Puer. The meaning of these figures is to be studied in the Handbook of that science: “The Equinox” Vol. I, No.2. Remember that the Geomantic Intelligences (see Liber 777 Cols. XLIX and CLXXVIII) are all primarily Gnomes.

This card represents the element of Water in its most secret and original form. It is the feminine complement of the Ace of Wands, and is derived from the Yoni and the Moon exactly as that is from the Lingam and the Sun. The third in the Hierarchy. This accordingly represents the essential form of the Holy Grail. Upon the dark sea of Binah, the Great Mother, are Lotuses, two in one, which fill the cup with the Life-fluid, symbolically represented either as Water, as Blood, or as Wine, according to the selected purpose of the symbolism. This being a primordial card, the liquid is shown as water; it can be transformed into Wine or Blood as may be required.

Above the Cup, descending upon it, is the Dove of the Holy Ghost, thus consecrating the element.

At the base of the Cup is the Moon, for it is the virtue of this card to conceive and to produce the second form of its Nature.

Treat time and all conditions of Event as Servants
of thy Will, appointed to present the Universe to thee in the form of thy Plan.
And: blessing and worship to the prophet of the lovely Star.
The matter of the question itself, synthesis, the end of the matter, may mean delay, opposition, obstinacy, inertia, patience, perseverance, persistent stubbornness in difficulty. The crystallization of the whole matter involved.
The first and most obvious characteristic of this card is that it comes at the end of all, and is, therefore, the complement of the Fool. It is attributed to the letter Tau. The two cards together accordingly spell the word Ath, which means Essence. All reality is consequently compromised in the series of which these two letters from the beginning and the end. This beginning was Nothing; the end must therefore be also Nothing, but Nothing in its complete expansion, as previously explained. The number 4, rather than the number 2, was chosen as the basis of this expansion, partly no doubt for convenience, to enlarge the “universe of discourse”; partly to emphasize the idea of limitation.

The letter Tau means the Sign of the Cross, that is, of extension; and this extension is symbolized as four-fold because of the convenience of constructing the revolving symbol of Tetragrammaton. In the case of number 2, the only issue is the return to unity or to the negative. No continuous process can be conveniently symbolized; but the number 4 lends itself, not only to this rigid extension, the hard facts of nature but also to the transcendence of space and time by a continuously self-compensating change.
The letter Tau is attributed to Saturn, the outermost and slowest of the seven sacred planets; because of these dull, heavy qualities, the element of earth was thrust upon the symbol. The original three elements, Fire, Air, Water, sufficed for primitive thought; Earth and Spirit represent a later accretion. Neither is to be found in the original twenty-two Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah. The world of Assiah, the material world, does not appear except as a pendant to the Tree of Life.

In the same way, the element of Spirit is attributed to the letter Shin, as an additional ornament, somewhat in the same way as Kether is said to be symbolized by the topmost point of the Yod of Tetragrammaton. It is constantly necessary to distinguish between the symbols of philosophical theory and those more elaborate symbols based upon them which are necessary for practical work.

Saturn and Earth have certain qualities in common-heaviness, coldness, dryness, immobility, dullness, and the like. Yet Saturn appears in Binah in respect of its blackness in the Queen’s scale, which is the scale of Observed Nature; but always, as soon as the end of a process is reached, it returns automatically to the beginning.

In Chemistry, it is the heaviest elements that are unable in terrestrial conditions to support the strain and stress of their internal structure; consequently, they radiate particles of the most tenuous character and the highest activity. In an essay written in Cefalù, Sicily, on the second law of Thermo-dynamics, it was suggested that at the absolute zero of the air thermometer, an element heavier than uranium might exist, of such a nature that it was capable of reconstituting the entire series of elements. It was a chemical interpretation of the equation, 0=2.

It becomes then reasonable to argue from analogy that since the end must beget the beginning, the symbolism will follow; hence, blackness is also attributed to the sun, according to a certain long-hidden tradition. One of the shocks for candidates in the “Mysteries” was the revelation “Osiris is a black god”.

Saturn, therefore, is masculine; he is the old god, (the god of fertility) the sun in the south; but equally the Great Sea, the Great Mother; and the letter Tau upon the Tree of Life appears as an emanation from the moon of Yesod, the foundation of the Tree and representative of the reproductive process and of the equilibrium between change and stability, or rather their identification. The influence of the path descends upon the earth, Malkuth, the daughter. Here again, appears the doctrine of “setting the daughter upon the throne of the Mother”. In the card itself, there is consequently a glyph of the completion of the Great Work in its highest sense, exactly as the Atu of the Fool symbolizes its beginning. The Fool is the negative issuing into manifestation; the Universe is that manifestation, its purpose accomplished, ready to return. The twenty cards that lie between these two exhibits the Great Work and its agents in various stages. The image of the Universe in this sense is accordingly that of a maiden, the final letter of Tetragrammaton.

In the present card she is represented as a dancing figure. In her hands she manipulates the radiant spiral force, the active and passive, each possessing its dual polarity. her dancing partner is shown as Heru-Ra-Ha of Atu XIX.

“The Sun, Strength & Sight, Light; these are for the servants of the Star & the Snake.”

This final form of the image of the Magical Formula of the God combines and transforms so many symbols that description is difficult, and would be nugatory. The proper method of study of this card-indeed of all, but of this especially-is long-continued meditation. The Universe, so states the theme, is the Celebration of the Great Work accomplished. In the corners of the card are the four Kerubim showing the established Universe; and about her is an ellipse composed of seventy- two circles for the quinaries of the Zodiac, the Shemhamphorasch.

In the center of the lower part of the card is represented the skeleton plan of the building of the house of Matter. It shows the ninety-two known chemical elements, arranged according to their rank in the hierarchy. (The design is due to the genius of the late J. W. N. Sullivan: see The Bases of Modern Science.)

In the center, a wheel of Light initiates the form of the Tree of Life, showing the ten principal bodies of the solar system. But this Tree is not visible except to those of wholly pure heart.

1. The primum mobile, represented by Pluto. (Compare the doctrine of the alpha particles of radium.)
2. The sphere of the Zodiac or fixed stars, represented by Neptune.
3. Saturn. The Abyss. This is represented by Herschel, the planet of disintegration and explosion.
4. Jupiter
5. Mars.
6. The Sun.
7. Venus.
8. Mercury.
9. The Moon.
10. The Earth. (The Four Elements).

All these symbols swim and dance in a complex but continuous ambiance of loops and whorls. The general color of the traditional card is subfusc; it represents the confusion and darkness of the material world. But the New Aeon has brought the fullness of Light; in the Minutum Mundum, Earth is no longer black, or of mixed colors, but is pure bright green. Similarly, the indigo of Saturn is derived from the blue velvet of the midnight sky, and the maiden of the dance represents the issue from this, yet through this, to the Eternal. This card is to-day as bright and glowing as any in the Pack.