King of Swords

• Father of Understanding

• Lord of the Winds

• Fire of Air

• Kabbalistically: a path connecting Keter and Netzach

• Astrological correspondences: Aries-Libra opposition, Mars in Libra, Mars and Jupiter in Gemini

Gloomy and decisive. Fears always retreat before the King of Swords (sometimes even too far). Intelligence and maturity, sharpness and hostility, experience and authority, fearlessness and readiness to act manifest. Perceptive, calculating, clear thinking, analytical and rationalization abilities are revealed.

Activity and strength, bravery and genuine courage, enterprise and inventiveness, an objective view of the world awaken. A clear shortcoming of this King is a tendency to punish rather than pardon (all other things being equal). This distinguishes him from Justice.

The King of Swords is a strong and energetic person, authoritative, imperious, accustomed to giving orders and seeing them obeyed, implementing his decisions, sometimes excessively cruel and inflexible, yet thinking logically. His distinguishing feature is that he ALWAYS relies more on himself than on others (whatever he might say or do). He is characterized by enormous personal resilience and strength of spirit. Often this person is physically, intellectually, spiritually stronger than most people around him.

He is perfectly aware of the limits of his possibilities, but also the limits of the possibilities of others, so it is not easy for him to rid himself of a certain touch of arrogance and contempt for humanity, so stupid and weak... 'Weak humanity' can irritate him considerably, testing its strength, challenging it, baffling it, or living by standards unattainable for it.

Many people of corresponding disposition can be found among heroes, ascetics, and leaders asserting their power with openly forceful methods. Very often, around the King of Swords, not so much gossip and rumors are created, but rather myths and legends – he truly provides both occasions and plots.

He wraps himself in a cloak of impenetrability and mystery, and this only contributes to 'folk creativity' trying to somehow comprehend his personality and deeds. His goals usually exceed the level of typical human desires, and he considers himself worthy of more, or at least – different from the ordinary lot of his contemporaries.

He is capable of planning a large part of his life and methodically moving towards the set goal. Personality indicator: as a rule, an adult man, usually of air signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius), less often Aries, but other options are possible. This is, after all, primarily an indicator of such a character, and it can manifest in a person of any gender and any Sign.

The King of Swords is the masculine manifestation of the air element, dynamic, creative, and all-pervasive. He carries the thirst for knowledge and the spirit of stormy winds. This is the power of a sharp, fast, flexible, and subtle mind, expressed here both in its creative, versatile, and often unpredictable form, and in the form of cunning and ironic audacity.

Such a mind is an excellent tool for cognition, understanding, analysis, logical reasoning and abstraction, mathematical and purely practical calculation, solving and comprehensively resolving any problems. However, where it dominates all other abilities, its negative sides also appear: sheer intellectualism, coldness of feelings, caustic and cynical criticism, fascination with wordplay.

The sky in this card is covered with sparse cumulus clouds, occurring in cold and windy weather. The weather is unfriendly, like the King of Swords himself: rarely does anyone seek communication with him willingly (and falling in a spread, he hints that it will not be possible to avoid it). The King of Swords usually works with dense matters, so his deeds are generally visible and understandable to the people around him. He accentuates rational consciousness. Here thought is so strong that it not only penetrates the essence of things but also changes them. But its limitations become obvious when trying to comprehend the unknowable solely from a rational point of view (this limitation is known to all who have experienced the brilliance and poverty of scientific psychology, for example).

The King of Swords embodies the traditional symbol of Justice in the Minor Arcana, as if its plenipotentiary representative. He judges situations and those around him, but still, justice in his eyes is what he considers such. Simply when the mind is so sharp and emotions so tightly reined in, the degree of objectivity is still above average. In a mystical sense, through this card passes spiritual warfare and oaths on blood.

In this card, the reflection of the fiery element is already felt. In some decks, the King of Swords rushes across the sky on a warhorse with his cold weapon, turning into a whirlwind on the fly. Reality for him is only half a battlefield, half a game, where he can wield his sword in all its glory. His thought reaches dizzying heights, where no one can keep him company. At worst, at this unattainable height, a harsh and inflexible system of thinking is created, not conducive to development.

The King of Swords sometimes describes a state of almost complete detachment from reality and soaring into the mental plane, which happens to a scientist completely absorbed in their research ('You don't eat, sleep, or bathe for three days... you just read books...what for?' - 'I want to acquire universal wisdom!'). Having grown accustomed to soaring on the wings of intellect in transcendental heights, a person later lands with enormous difficulty.

It is very difficult for him to feel earthly gravity again, his own weight, and the material limitations of existence, and the reaction to the disturbed balance becomes depression, dryness, and irritability, revealing an unconscious longing for the experienced flight and impatience with everything slow, heavy, and mundane. The true reasons for the aloofness and tension of 'know-it-alls' are essentially closest to decompression sickness.