← Encyclopedia of Tarot · lesson 94/121
The Eights
The Eights are the eighth card of each suit of the Minor Arcana. After the Sevens' test comes movement: the Eights are cards of effort, focus and change of pace. Things speed up, or work is put in, or someone walks away from what no longer feeds them — and sometimes, in the hardest suit, the movement stops and a person feels trapped while they wait for the next move.
What the number means
Most readers see the Eights as the suit's energy in motion, heading toward the completion of the Nines and Tens:
- The Eight of Wands is speed: eight staves flying through open sky, news and events arriving fast.
- The Eight of Cups is leaving: a figure walking away by moonlight from eight stacked cups, in search of something deeper.
- The Eight of Swords is feeling caught: a bound, blindfolded woman among swords, with a way out she cannot yet see.
- The Eight of Pentacles is diligent work: an apprentice carving pentacle after pentacle, skill built by practice.
The Eight of Swords shows the number's other face — movement blocked, often by the mind itself. Even there, the picture leaves the way open; most readers take it as a situation that feels more confining than it is.
In the Golden Dawn
The Golden Dawn placed the Eights in Hod, Splendour (sometimes Glory), the eighth sephirah of the Tree of Life, the sphere of Mercury. Book T says the Eights "generally show solitary success (i.e., success in the matter for the time being, but not leading to much result apart from the thing itself)" — a limited, local result.
With the Eights the decans move on to the mutable signs: each Eight takes the first ten degrees of the mutable sign of its element.
| Card | Golden Dawn title | Decan |
|---|---|---|
| Eight of Wands | Lord of Swiftness | Mercury in Sagittarius |
| Eight of Cups | Lord of Abandoned Success | Saturn in Pisces |
| Eight of Swords | Lord of Shortened Force | Jupiter in Gemini |
| Eight of Pentacles | Lord of Prudence | Sun in Virgo |
Crowley's Thoth deck calls them Swiftness, Indolence, Interference and Prudence.
The Major Arcana of the same number
The Eights are the one number where the matching trump depends on the deck. In the Rider–Waite–Smith deck and its followers, VIII is Strength — the lesson on the numbers pairs the Eights with it. In Marseille-pattern decks, VIII is Justice and Strength is XI; Waite swapped the two to fit the Golden Dawn's astrological scheme, and the Thoth deck keeps Adjustment (its Justice) at VIII. Readers who add the digits of larger numbers also link the Eights with XVII, The Star. All of this is a modern numerological link rather than part of the Golden Dawn system, so it is worth knowing which deck the reader is using.
Several Eights in one spread
The traditions gave each count its own meaning:
- Waite: four Eights mean "reverse", three "marriage", two "new knowledge". Reversed, four mean "error", three "a spectacle", two "misfortune".
- The Golden Dawn's Book T: four Eights are "much news", three "much journeying".
The lists differ, though the Golden Dawn's version fits the modern sense of the number well. In broad terms, several Eights tend to describe a busy, fast-moving period — work, travel, messages, changes of direction — with the Eight of Swords, if present, a reminder not to feel more stuck than one is.
In a reading here
When a spread is interpreted here, two, three or four numbered cards of the same rank are picked out as a pattern and given Waite's meaning for that number and count. A pair is noted only in a spread of seven cards or fewer, where it is rarer and says more.