Lesson 11 - Spreads Part 2

This lesson will focus on 2 spreads - The Celtic Cross and The 4 Aces.

The final lesson will cover some basic rules and guidelines about giving readings. You will also find that most Tarot books will have sections on Cartomancy (the art of reading the cards) to help guide you.

Spread 1. The Celtic Cross - 10 cards

This is one of the oldest and most popular traditional Tarot spreads - it's certainly the most popular of our membership readings!

It is ideal as a first spread in a reading, as it gives a general overview of the major influences and events in the querant's life, as well as the more mundane, day to day issues.

You can gather from the cards the major influence in the querant's reading; e.g. a predominace of Wands and Pentacles would show they are mainly concerned with work and finance, or if you find many Swords, especially in the positions that relate to the querant's frame of mind, you will see that they could be quite stressed and worried.

You can use just the Major Arcana or the whole deck. When I was learning, I focused on using just the Major Arcana, and as my confidence grew I started to work with the whole deck. Feel free to choose your own approach.

Your research will show there are variances in the titles of the card positions, but below is the Celtic Cross format I like to work with.

The cards should be laid out as illustrated below:

 

card 5 card 3 card 1 card 4 card 6

card 10 card 9 card 8 card 7

 

Card 2 should cross Card 1 (to make a cross like this + ) but this is very difficult to illustrate on a simple html webpage, so we've left it out!

 

The card positions relate to the following:-

Card 1 - your current circumstances

Card 2 - what is blocking you or holding you back

Card 3 - your conscious thoughts

Card 4 - your subconscious thoughts

Card 5 - influences from your immediate past

Card 6 - your immediate future (closely linked with the outcome card)

Card 7 - how you see yourself

Card 8 - how others see you

Card 9 - your hopes and fears

Card - 10 outcome (closely linked with the immediate future card)

 

Take your cards and shuffle them well, pick out 10 cards in the way you have chosen to select cards. Then place them in the Celtic Cross spread and have a go at reading it and see how you get on.

Spread 2. The 4 Aces - 12 cards

This is a great spread. I really enjoy using it, as it helps me understand what is most important to the person I am reading for.

Extract the 4 aces and the Major Arcana from your deck. Ask the querant to shuffle the 4 aces and give them back to you, then they shuffle the Major Arcana and pick 8 cards and give these to you.

You then lay the out the card as illustrated below:-

MA 1	Ace 1	MA 2
MA 3	Ace 2	MA 4
MA 5	Ace 3	MA 6
MA 7	Ace 4	MA 8

Place the 4 aces in order first - placing the major arcana cards either side as shown

This is a reading based on another traditonal 3 card reading:- past, present and future.

Ace of Wands represents work, career, effort
Ace of Cups represents emotions, love life
Ace of Swords represents troubles and concerns
Ace of Pentacles represents money, material issues

This tells you what issues are most important to the querant, for example if Ace 1 was the Ace of Cups followed by the Ace of Swords, Ace of Pentacles and Ace of Wands, you would see they are more concerned about their emotional state, love life, and troubles than about money and work.

OK, so now you have another couple of spreads to work with, but feel free to do your own research and find the spreads you feel most comfortable with and most want to use.

Practice using all the spreads - ask your friends to support you. You will start to see how their readings compare, how different they are. By doing 3-4 spreads with a person you will notice that some cards and themes repeat throughout the session, and this will give you and idea of the particular issues which are most important or relevant.

 

Practical Exercise for this week

Again there's no multiple choice test for this lesson, but make sure you do plenty of practice before next week.