2 of Swords
The 2 of Swords is the second numeral card of the Swords suit. It is often read as the card of stalemate — a decision put on hold, a tense balance maintained at the cost of not looking at something directly.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-18
Historical fact
Until the Rider-Waite-Smith deck's 1909 iconographic reform, numeral cards like the 2 of Swords were typically plain: two crossed or parallel swords, with no scene around them. Pamela Colman Smith's illustration gave this card a specific narrative scene — a blindfolded woman seated by the sea, holding two crossed swords over her shoulders, under a crescent moon — which became the standard visual reference for the card in nearly every RWS-derived deck since.
Interpretation — Rider-Waite-Smith / Golden Dawn
In Waite's tradition, the 2 of Swords represents a balance of forces held artificially in place — the figure's blindfold suggests a conscious refusal to see the situation clearly. The common reading links the card to indecision, stalemate, an avoided choice, or a defensive truce between parties who would rather not confront each other. Reversed, it commonly indicates that the stalemate breaks, for better or worse.
Interpretation — Thoth (Aleister Crowley)
In the Thoth deck, this card carries the title 'Peace,' associated with the Moon in Libra. Crowley treats this peace as precarious and held in place by an act of will, not as genuine harmony — a balance likely to break once the avoided decision becomes unavoidable.
This section presents one tradition's interpretation, not a verifiable fact.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the 2 of Swords a positive or negative card?
- Neither on its own. It represents a state of tense balance and avoided decision — it can be read as a necessary pause or as stagnation, depending on the context of the reading.
- What does the figure's blindfold mean in this card?
- In the Rider-Waite-Smith reading, the blindfold is usually interpreted as a deliberate refusal to see the situation clearly, artificially sustaining the balance between the two swords.
Sources
- Michael Dummett. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980).
- Arthur Edward Waite. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910).
- Aleister Crowley. The Book of Thoth (1944).
- Stuart R. Kaplan. The Encyclopedia of Tarot (1978).