I agree with Michael.
Direct interaction with the images is a prerequisite for reading & understanding tarot (intuitively or not, I would say). It's surprising how many people forget that! Beyond this interraction, there are many ways of deepening our knowledge of the cards & our intuitive ability. Kabbalah is only one. My own interest is in myth, and I worked a fair amount on the mythic dimension of the cards (of course, myth and Kabbalah are not mutually exclusive). Some people are interested in the astrological correspondences. I am less so, because I really don't see the connection. A lifetime spent with tarot leaves us all plenty of avenues to explore in our own way and time.
As for swords: here's another view from the Kabbalistic. Pamela Colman Smith set her tarot in the late the Middle Ages - from the costumes, I'd say the cusp of the 14th-15th centuries (the middle of the Hundred Year War). There was at that time rigid codification of imagery - including, of course, the imagery of swords. From memory of my art history classes:
- Swords held upwards represented a salute before battle or combat; a rallying gesture (at any point of the battle); or - outside battles or combat, a sign that the sword was about to "fall" - ie in judgement, like Justice or the two royals. It is distinguishable from the salute or the rally because the figures who are holding up the sword are seated. A quick note: the figure of Justice, of course, predates Kabbalastic tradition by some centuries (at least, Kabbalistic tradition in the Greek world) - she is Themis, the goddess of Justice, a classical goddess (i.e. before Hellenistic times). She was taken up by the Romans, and by their inheritors in Europe.
- Swords held with their points to the ground signify homage: traditionally a sign used by knights to pay homage to their liege.
- Swords lying on the ground are a sign of defeat.
- Swords lying next to a prone person simply means the person is dead. There are many carvings in our cathedrals showing exactly the same figure as you see in the IV of Swords with a sword by his side. They are tombstones made above the grave of a knight. Knights were traditionally buried with their swords lain by their side or on top of them.
Of course that does not mean Pamela Colman Smith did not integrate her own esoteric interests: although in the case of the IV of Swords, I don't call chakra knowledge esoteric - it is an exoteric part of vedic medicine, which anyone familiar with India - or even interested - would have known - India being, in 1909, part of the British Empire.
Finally, I think Pamela, as an artist, used her inspiration & imagination far more than she is given credit for by the esoteric detectives. Many - probably most - of her images are there because they are evocative and stimulate the unconscious. That's my view of the 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10 of Swords. Her deck was meant above all as a reading deck, not a study or meditation deck: that's why she added scenes and people on the minors, and that's why it was, from the start, commercialised. One thing her deck does is stimulate the viewer's (readers and querents) imagination - especially their visual imagination. I think it a shame to draw away from that with speculative & rather rigid attributions of astrology and Kabbalah, but each to his own, after all. Kabbalah, when practised the way it was meant to be (iee not dogmatically), also stimulates the imagination.
