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Celtic Cross Spread

 

The Celtic Cross is the most well-known tarot spread and also the largest available here, involving ten cards. This spread begins with a pair of crossing cards at the center of the issue, essentially being two significators. When two significators are involved, they may strengthen or oppose each other, which speaks of the nature of the situation. Above and below the initial cross, we have two cards which are symbolic of the intellectual (top) and emotional (bottom) basis of the issue. The Before and After cards show the past and immediate future.

At the right, four cards are laid out, going upward. At the bottom you have a card representing yourself, and the next card shows how others may affect the situation. Card #9 indicates what you may be hoping for, or possibly, what you hope will not happen. Finally at the top is the outcome, meaning the distant or ultimate future.

Spread Positions

  1. This is it (what you asked about)
  2. This crosses it (strengthens or opposes)
  3. This crowns it (higher influences)
  4. It rests upon this (lower influences)
  5. This came before
  6. This comes next
  7. This is you
  8. The external world around you
  9. Your hopes, fears, and secret desires
  10. The result or outcome

 

 

 

Celtic Cross

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Celtic Cross Reading

The Crown

Death

The Outcome

Knight of Cups


Hopes and Fears

8 of Swords


External Forces

Ace of Pentacles


The Querent

King of Cups

The Recent Past

Knight of Wands

The Crossing Card

5 of Wands


The Significator

The Empress

The Future

The Wheel of Fortune


Foundation card


Page of Wands

 

 

The Significator represents what the main theme of the reading deals with, the initial situation.

 

 

The Empress

Seated on her throne, the Empress holds up the golden sceptre. She represents the archetypal female.

Upright Meaning:

Fertility, pregnancy, motherly instincts, fruitfulness, compassion, diplomacy, public rejoicings, jubilation.

 

 

 

 

The Crossing Card denotes an added impulse that compounds the initial card, whether complimentary or contradictory.

 

5 of Wands

A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare.

Reversed Meaning:

Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction, hypocrisy.

 

 

 

 

The Crown stands for what the asker is aware of consciously.

 

Death

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.

 

 

 

 

Foundation card reveals unconscious driving forces that the querent may not be aware of.

 

Page of Wands

A young man stands in the act of proclamation. He is unknown but faithful, and his tidings are strange.

Upright Meaning:

Dark young man, faithful, a lover, family intelligence, a messenger, favourable testimony. A dangerous rival, if followed by the Page of Cups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.

 

Knight of Wands

A man on a journey, armed with a short wand, and although armoured it is not on an errand of war. He is passing mounds or pyramids. The motion of the horse is a key to the character of its rider, suggesting his mission.

Upright Meaning:

Departure, absence, flight, emigration. A dark young man, friendly. Change of residence.

 

 

 

 

The Future depicts that which lies ahead.

 

The Wheel of Fortune

The Sphinx sits atop a wheel in the sky, symbolic of the wisdom of fate. Other Egyptian characters ride the wheel as it turns, which is surrounded by four cherubs who serve as the guardians of Heaven.

Reversed Meaning:

Increase, abundance, superfluity, comfort, gain, eminence, convenience, luxury, extravagance, benefit.

 

 

 

 

The Querent represents the asker and their attitude towards the subject of the reading.

 

King of Cups

He holds a short sceptre in his left hand and a great cup in his right; his throne is set upon the sea; on one side a ship is riding and on the other a dolphin is leaping.

Reversed Meaning:

Dishonest, double-dealing man; roguery, exaction, injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.

 

 

 

 

External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.

 

Ace of Pentacles

A hand reaching out from a cloud holds up a pentacle.

Reversed Meaning:

The negative side of wealth, malicious intelligence; also great riches, prosperity, comfortable material conditions, but this is to your disadvantage when the card appears reversed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopes and Fears shows the expectations you have concerning the outcome of your question.

 

8 of Swords

A woman, blindfolded and bound, with the swords of the card around her. Yet it is rather a card of temporary endurance than of irretrievable bondage.

Upright Meaning:

Bad news, violent chagrin, crisis, censure, power in trammels, conflict, calumny, sickness, having one's hands tied, insanity.

 

 

 

 

The Outcome of your question. Interpret this card in the context of the entire reading and as an indicator of the path you are currently on, but not necessarily bound to.

 

Knight of Cups

Graceful, but not warlike; riding quietly, wearing a winged helmet, referring to those higher graces of the imagination which sometimes characterise this card. He too is a dreamer, but the images of the side of sense haunt him in his vision.

Reversed Meaning:

Trickery, artifice, subtlety, swindling, duplicity, fraud.