Nine of Spades: a bitter disappointment that passes

Meaning

Nines are disappointment in Richmond's tables, and the Nine of Spades is the bitterest of them, though he adds a turn: “A bitter disappointment, but one that will soon pass”. The rest of the entry speaks of loss, trouble and failure, and several lines of illness, which we leave out.

We read the card as endings that clear the ground. The tradition sees its people as passing through large changes and learning from loss, often deep, resilient and compassionate as a result; it finds their peace in accepting what is finished. The modern reading of the Nines as universal giving is a later softening.

In the spreads

The Nine of Spades sits in the Venus row, Uranus column, after the Nine of Clubs, its Moon card. Its path runs through the Two of Hearts, a semi-fixed card, and the King of Hearts into the Mars row, and its Pluto card is the Eight of Clubs, one of the three that never move.

It gives to the King of Hearts, which is also its Venus card, and receives from the Six of Spades. Its three birthdays, 5 January, 3 February and 1 March, fall under Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.

Life path and karma cards

Read from the Life Spread: the card before the Nine of Spades, then the ten after it, the order running on from the crown line back to the top right. The names of the places are Camp's, used descriptively.

Birthdays and ruling cards

The ruling card is the card of the life path in the place of the Sun sign's ruling planet; Leo takes the birth card itself and Scorpio two cards.

For every sign, as the tradition's modern rulers give them: Aries (Mars): King of Diamonds; Taurus (Venus): King of Hearts; Gemini (Mercury): Two of Hearts; Cancer (the Moon): Nine of Clubs; Leo (the Sun): Nine of Spades; Virgo (Mercury): Two of Hearts; Libra (Venus): King of Hearts; Scorpio (Mars and Pluto): King of Diamonds and Eight of Clubs; Sagittarius (Jupiter): Six of Hearts; Capricorn (Saturn): Four of Clubs; Aquarius (Uranus): Two of Diamonds; Pisces (Neptune): Jack of Spades.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Suit in Richmond (1893, p. 28)

The emblem of winter and the fourth quarter: the spade, “an instrument of labor”, and the acorn that “becomes a new tree in time”; quoted with its item on mortality left out sourced

The suit's season and planets in Richmond (pp. 27 to 28, 41)

Winter; Uranus, ruling “from a point of labor”, and Saturn, whose reading we leave out. Facts about his book, not about anyone born under the card sourced

Number in Richmond (pp. 42 to 45)

Nines: a disappointing obstacle in the centre of the path (p. 45) sourced

Richmond's table for the card (p. 170)

“A bitter disappointment, but one that will soon pass”, with loss and trouble; quoted with its lines on illness left out sourced

Our keyword line (2026)

Endings that clear the ground. our construction

Our theme for the suit

Work, Will, Routine, Inner Strength our construction

A suit element or a single planet

None in Richmond or any founding text; the sets other sites give disagree, and ours was dropped in October 2026 disputed

How the schools read it

Olney H. Richmond (1893)

An emblem of solar value 48 and spirit value 35, read through its suit, labour, and its number, disappointment: one meaning under each of the seven planets, most of them events (p. 170).

Randall and Campbell, Lein, Camp (1947 onward)

Read the birth card as character rather than events. Camp's line adds the life path, the karma cards and the yearly spreads used on this page, and gives the card a nickname, which we do not use.

EsoTerrier

Read here as endings that clear the ground, and the peace of accepting what is finished.

Claims about it

• The cards, and the Spades above all, foretell illness, accidents and losses.

  disputed

  What the record shows: The tradition does read such events into the cards. Richmond's event lines are quoted here as history, and our readings leave them out.

• The Sevens are spiritual tests, the Sixes fate and return, the Nines universal giving.

  disputed

  What the record shows: Richmond reads the Sevens as obstacles, the Sixes as monotony and settlement and the Nines as disappointment (1893, pp. 42 to 45). The modern readings are the tradition's later development.

• Each suit has an element and a ruling planet.

  disputed

  What the record shows: No founding text gives the suits elements, and the sources that do disagree with each other. Richmond gives each suit a season and two planets (pp. 27 to 28, 41), which we report as his. We dropped the attributes in October 2026.

• Each card has a traditional nickname.

  disputed

  What the record shows: The nicknames are Camp's coinages, or Randall and Campbell's, not Richmond's; taken as a set they mark a text as derived from his. We use none of them.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• King of Hearts its first karma card, the card it gives to
• Six of Spades its second karma card, the card that gives to it
• Nine of Clubs its Moon card, the card before it in the Life Spread
• Two of Hearts its Mercury card, the card after it in the Life Spread
• Natal Chart where the Sun sign that picks the ruling card is worked out