Eight of Wands
Name: Swiftness the Eight of Wands
Number: 8
Astrology: Mercury in Sagittarius
Qabalah: Hod of Yod
Chris Gabriel November 2, 2024
The Eight of Wands is chaos. It represents frenetic, spontaneous, and erratic movement as well as the struggle to focus and direct that energy. It is the card of sudden excitement and fast journeys.
In Rider, we have eight wands in the midst of flight. This the most visually exciting card in the deck, preceding the sort of dynamic action visuals that have come to define comic books. We don’t see who launched them, nor where they are going, just their dynamic movement.
In Thoth, we see a geometric figure in the colors of the rainbow, on a gray backing. Atop the figure are eight jagged, electric arrows that emerge from its center and form the Star of Chaos. Above them is a rainbow, and the symbols for Mercury and Sagittarius. This is a detrimental place for the particular Mercury, as Sagittarius is ruled by the grand expansive Jupiter. This is a symbol of mumbled, fast and confusing communication.
In Marseille, we have eight wands crosshatched, with two flowers above and below. This is the most concentrated of the three cards, with the eight wands properly placed. As an eight is Hod, the Mind, and as Wands it is the King. The Mind of the King is Swift.
The Rider card calls to mind a thought Shopenahauer had concerning Spinoza’s idea that a stone flying through the air, if conscious, would believe it was acting on its own free will. Schopenhauer says the stone would be right to think this. Unconscious excitement moves us wildly through life, and it is only through focus and concentration that we can grasp the arch of this will. This is our experience of this card.
When we pull this card, we are reminded that we are like the arrow, not the bow. Moving through the air, directed by the energy of the past and by the windy circumstances of the present, we are not aware of our target, but we will hit it.
Though materially, this is a hail of arrows, not a single one. Thus, it is “throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks”. Jupiterian Sagittarius wants to say that which is unspeakable and beyond reason, Mercury wants something legible and direct, and so they compromise, throwing out innumerable confusing words, but occasionally striking gold.
The arrangement of the arrows in the Thoth card has come to be known as the Star of Chaos, and widely adopted symbol of Chaos Magick, a system that indeed follows the “throw things at the wall and see what sticks” approach to the esoteric tradition. It brazenly pillages schools of occult philosophy for the “good bits” to form a deeply individualistic approach to the universe.
This card represents spontaneous journeys and flights of fancy. This flight of fancy precedes the difficult “longhaul” of the Nine of Wands. It concerns split-second, unthinking decisions that launch our arrow into the great unknown. Expect excitement and confusion when this card appears in a reading.
