The seven-card Horse Shoe is a convenient, basic layout that can be used to answer different types of questions, especially concerning questions where insight would be helpful. Like several other spreads, it has cards representing the past, present, and future.
The pinnacle of the Horse Shoe, looking like the top of the mountain, shows the obstacle or challenge that needs to be addressed and overcome. Card #6 suggests a course of action to meet this challenge. The final card shows the outcome or future, should this advice be followed.
Other clues are provided in Cards #3 and #5, which indicate hidden or outside influences that come into play, affecting the journey to your goal.
Obstacle  8 of Swords |
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Hidden Influences  Queen of Swords |
External Influences  King of Pentacles |
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The Present  7 of Pentacles |
Suggestion  Death |
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The Past  The Tower |
The Outcome  Justice |
The Past Card represents past events that are affecting the question.
The Tower
Lightning strikes the top of a Tower, knocking the crown off the top. Reminiscent of the Tower of Babel, two figures fall from grace.
Upright Meaning:
Misery, calamity, deception, ruin, catastrophe, distress, adversity, disaster, discord, falling apart, going all to pieces, injury.
7 of Pentacles
A young man, leaning on his staff, looks intently at seven pentacles attached to a clump of greenery on his right; one would say that these were his treasures and that his heart was there.
Upright Meaning:
Money, business sense, barter, ingenuity, purgation, commerce, trade, deal, transaction, good economy, industry.
Queen of Swords
Her right hand raises the weapon vertically and the hilt rests on an arm of her royal chair the left hand is extended, the arm raised her countenance is severe but chastened; it suggests familiarity with sorrow. She is a bitter, unmerciful oppressor of those who fall under her reign.
Reversed Meaning:
Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit, infidelity, cheating, lack of moral values.
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.
Reversed Meaning:
Disquiet, difficulty, opposition, accident, treachery, unforeseen disaster, entrapment, bondage.
King of Pentacles
His face is rather dark, suggesting also courage, but stubborn. The bull's head is a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is engraved or blazoned with the pentagram, signifying the four elements of nature and the spirit which governs them. This suit is sometimes represented as coins or disks, and is symbolic of money and material goods or services.
Upright Meaning:
Valour, intelligence, business aptitude, mathematical gifts and attainments; success, proficiency, arrival, execution.
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.
Upright Meaning:
End, destruction, loss, failure, terminus, conclusion, completion, closure, resolution, outcome, annihilation, downfall, rebirth.
Justice
A female judge holds the sword of Justice in her right hand and the scales of Justice in her left. This is symbolic of fairness and the knowledge of the law, as well as the power to execute judgement.
Upright Meaning:
Equity, rightness, probity, fair, honest, reasonable, uprightness, nonpartisan, balance, justness, integrity.