The Sword

One of the four principal Magical symbols of the Fellowship, the others being the Mirror, the Orb, and the Beacon respectively.

The Sword is traditionally attributed to Air. It can also be represented as a feather, or leaf. The feather image is suggestive in that a feather floats on air (hence the attribution) but also could be seen as representative of a quill pen, at one time the principal tool for the dissemination of ideas. For the Sword generally refers to the realm of the Mind; thoughts, ideas, logic, the reasoning process.

It can also signify the conscious, directed Will of the practitioner (be careful not to confuse Will with Ego; "I want" is not the same as "It is Willed", which is a function of the Will of the Higher Self. Read Crowley - properly!).

Knight of Swords from the "Mythic Tarot" by Tricia Newell, Liz Greene & Juliet Sharman-Burke - the preferred and recommended Tarot pack of the Fellowship

The Fellowship enhances this broad attribution by identifying the Sword specifically with the twin qualities (a reminder here of an image of the Tarot Knight of Swords, which in some packs is depicted as two knights riding a single steed) of Openness and Honesty, and hence it has become one of the most potent Fellowship tools.

The Sword first appeared (in a Magical sense) in the Fellowship's work at about the same time that notions of the "Spiritual Warrior" began to surface (about 1988/89), although at that time very little of the concept was understood or comprehended correctly.
When the Fellowship's interest in the ideas of Knighthood, Honour, Integrity and so forth began to work themselves toward centre-stage (about 1993/94), so inevitably did the Sword as symbol assume an even greater significance, emphasising as it does the almost medieval quality of such notions.