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 Ace of Wands |
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It Deals with This 2 of Cups |
Do NOT Do This Death |
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It Leads to This 10 of Swords |
It Deals with This
A youth and maiden are pledging the love of one another, and above their cups rises the Caduceus of Hermes, between the great wings of which there appears a lion's head. It is a variant of a sign which is found in a few old examples of this card.
Upright Meaning:
Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy, the interrelation of the sexes, and – as a suggestion apart from all offices of divination – that desire which Nature is sanctified.
The Grim Reaper rides into town on a pale horse. The king has fallen, and the Pope greets Death with the king's family. The sun sets in the gateway on the horizon.
Reversed Meaning:
Inertia, sleep, lethargy, hope destroyed, depression, sloth, misery, undoing, ruin, subjugation.
A hand reaching out from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.
Reversed Meaning:
Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish also a certain clouded joy.
A sign of birth.
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.