Five of Swords
Symbolism
There are three figures in this picture; one fighter standing victorious and two more who have surrendered their swords.
The victor holds three swords with a smug look on his face, showing his pride in feeling better than the others. There are two other swords on the floor suggesting that he has won more fights than just these two.
The other two characters only show their back suggesting shame and loss. The cloudy, windy sky adds to the whole environment feeling feisty and dramatic.
The swords represent our mind and the way we mentally like to to win and control our inner and outer world. This is a card where the ego takes hold of the mind and uses it as a weapon.
Keywords
Upright: Competition, fighting, win/lose, better/worse duality, insecurity, victim and abuser mentality, inner critic, self-righteous, arrogance, bully, humiliation, manipulator, pig-wrestling, gaslighting.
Reversed: Blindly competing, extreme judgment, rage, fear of shame and loss, despair, failure, self-doubt, over-defensive, unresolved conflict, know-it-all, passive-aggressive, doormat, pushover.
Upright meaning
This Five depicts conflict with clear cut winning and losing. This is the battle that begins in our minds when we choose to judge, to fight to be right and to strive to be better than others. This card shows the competitive mind that is stuck in the dogma of needing to be right and that winning is good and losing is bad. This judgement we project to the outer world will also be our strong inner critic.
There is shame and pride in this card and none of the characters really win. The larger figure who has won the fight has a smug arrogant look on his face and looks down on the other ‘losers’. His strong attachment to being better separates him from those around him. He is willing to tread on other’s toes in order to succeed and he can be manipulative and vengeful. He thinks he is superior to others and yet the disconnection from his heart means he lacks self-love. His heart doesn’t want to fight at all.
There is also the victim mentality of the card seen with the two ‘losing’ figures. One bows his head in shame and low self-esteem and the other walks away looking disheartened. The win/ lose mentality is in both the victor and the victims. This is what they share in common as well as suffering from low self-esteem. The guy who is winning the fights feels the need to fight because inside he feels he has something to prove to hide his lack of worth.
The lesson here is about seeing the black and white judgements of our minds and how desperate we are to be right and not wrong. It is important to be wrong sometimes and our success does not have to mean someone else’s failure. “All truths are but half true”, says Hermetic philosophy. We can stand up and fight for our truth without fighting against someone else’s.
If we go into a mental battle with someone who is arrogant and stubborn, we are often ‘wrestling with pigs’. Everyone ends up dirty in this battle but only the pigs are enjoying themselves!
Reversed meaning
The shadow Five can be read in different ways. Firstly we can see a denial of the fight. “I am not self-righteous, bossy, manipulative or over-competitive!” These judgements have a ‘bad’ feeling surrounding them and we don’t want to be bad so we will easily deny these qualities inside us.
We will deny being a know-it-all, and defend our need to be right. I know I have been guilty of this and here is the irony of the big-head who is so clever, he doesn’t even know himself!. Trauma from the past can cause this if we have been punished for being wrong or maybe just rewarded for being right. Maybe we have simply copied one of our parent’s attitude. Whatever are the causes of this shadow Five, they are calling to be seen.
Denial can bring out passive-aggressivity which is a subtle way of fighting and one that can easily be denied. It can also result in extreme anger and conflict due to unexpressed resentments. We can be over-defensive and easily triggered with this reversal and it is time to look within to see where the triggers come from.
The trauma that is often behind this card creates a fear of fighting and an allergy to competition. We may be pushovers or doormats and we need to stand up for our rights and our needs. We may just look to keep the peace and to avoid conflict. This peace is impossible if we hold onto an unprocessed resentment. We can fight for our truth without fighting against another’s. Even contradictory truths can be reconciled.
There is a positive spin on this reversal, where we are actually learning the lessons this card is bringing up. We are learning to drop the need to be right and the fear of being wrong. We no longer need to defend our mistakes. We can walk away from a fight with our swords held high and not feel weak because of it. We can see that the argument is going nowhere and surrender the need to fight. Here, our minds grasp the duality of belief and see the futility of the fight.