Eight of Wands definitions

Rider-Waite: 8 of Wands

The card represents motion through the immovable - a flight of wands through an open country; but they draw to the term of their course. That which they signify is at hand; it may be even on the threshold.

Activity in undertakings, the path of such activity, swiftness as that of an express messenger; great haste, great hope, speed towards an end which promises assured felicity; generally, that which is on the move; also the arrows of love.

Additional meanings: Domestic disputes for a married person.

Reversed Card meanings

Arrows of jealousy, internal dispute, stingings of conscience, quarrels; and domestic disputes for persons who are married.

Book of Thoth - Swiftness - Eight of Wands

In the Eight of Wands, fire is no longer conjoined with the ideas of combustion and destruction. It represents energy in its most exalted and tenuous sense; this suggests such forms thereof as the electric current; one might almost say pure light in the material sense of that word.

Crowley saw this card as representing high energy physics.

More information

Golden Dawn - Lord of Swiftness

Short-lived perfection; an uncovering of hidden motives or aspects of the affair at hand; secrecy with a tendency toward stubbornness; plots. Rapid thought and action.

Mathers: 8 of Wands

Understanding, Observation, Direction.

Reversed Card meanings

Quarrels, Intestine, disputes, Discord.

Etteilla: Eight of Wands

Countryside, Field, Plain, Agriculture, Cultivation, Plowing, Landed Property, Real Estate, Solid, Farm, Garden, Orchard, Meadow, Woods, Grove, Foliage, Pleasure, Divertissement, Amusement, Pastime, Relaxation, Festivities, Peace, Calm, Tranquility, Innocence, Country Living. Forest, Small Valley, Mountain, War Camp.

Reversed Card meanings

Domestic Dispute, Examination, Reasoning, Discord. Regrets, Remorse, Repent, Internal Trouble, Indecision, Uncertainty, Inconceivable, Incomprehensible, Doubt, Scruple, Troubled Conscience.

Thierens: Eight of Wands

TRADITION

Examination, interior disputes, misunderstanding, regrets, interior agitation, scruples, doubt, repentance, etc. But on the other hand it is brought into connection with everything that has to do with country life, the fields, gardens, woods, etc. Also: pleasure, amusement, enjoyment, recreation. Quite apart from all this: an express messenger, the arrows of love or the arrows of jealousy. "Great haste, great hope, speed towards an end, which promises assured felicity." (W.)

THEORY

The card represents Air on the Eighth house and the influence of Scorpio will make the mind acute and sharp, so as to investigate and to examine the most hidden riddles, while in this house the mind comes to the sensation or consciousness of pleasure and pain, thirst and drinking. (The chalice will begin its suit later on the Ninth house.) It is the house of hidden and 'forbidden' knowledge or rather experience. The 'arrows of love' actually mean passion, and the 'arrows of jealousy,' the common counterpart of the same. The sensation of sex is born in this house and indicated by this card. As to swift or speedy messages, this may sometimes happen, because the Scorpion is sometimes very sudden in its movements. What the card should have to do with country life is less evident. We should say rather that it must stand in relation with the sea, fishermen and sailors. The mind in this house is very critical and sharp-witted, sometimes subject to doubt and misgivings, superstition and jealousy. It is in search of truth and enjoyment. Artistic abilities will run along the line of poetry, music and sculpture. It has always to do with the hidden side of things, the interior, or the inner life.

CONCLUSION

Examination, interrogation, internal or inner conceptions, knowledge and disputes; misgivings, doubt and sometimes misunderstandings; quick response, reaction, and answer to unspoken words or meanings. The sensation of pleasure and pain, but at the same time the knowledge and the occasion to avoid both or to get the one and avoid the other. Life at or on the sea; sailors and fishermen. Searchers for the hidden side of things, students of occultism. Poetry, music and sculpture. Secret message; hidden meaning; sex questions. Private interview or rendez-vous. Bad weather.