This easy-to-read four-card layout is one of the most useful of all the spreads. The first card is the significator, and the last shows the outcome, provided that the advice given is followed. The advice is broken down into two cards which can easily be compared and contrasted. Card #2 suggests what to avoid, while #3 shows the path to take.
This spread can also be used to ask about the meaning of a card from a previously executed spread that may have been unclear. In this usage, Card #2 shows what it did not mean, while #3 clarifies the meaning.
DO This 3 of Swords |
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It Deals with This Queen of Cups |
Do NOT Do This 7 of Cups |
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It Leads to This 10 of Swords |
It Deals with This
Beautiful, fair, dreamy – as one who sees visions in a cup. This is, however, only one of her aspects; she sees, but she also acts, and her activity feeds her dream.
Upright Meaning:
Good, fair woman; honest, devoted woman, who will do service to the Querent; loving intelligence, and hence the gift of vision; success, happiness, pleasure; also, wisdom, virtue; a perfect spouse and a good mother.
Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.
Reversed Meaning:
Desire, will, determination, project, ambition.
Three swords piercing a heart; cloud and rain behind.
Reversed Meaning:
Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion, a storm brewing.
A murder victim, pierced by ten swords showing the act of excessive force.
Reversed Meaning:
Advantage, profit, success, favour, power, authority, triumph over your enemies.