Celtic Cross Spread
Difficulty: Average
This is probably the most well-known tarot spread. A good, basic spread for beginners to practise with, the Celtic Cross is useful for questions of all types. In this spread, it can be helpful to notice the relationships between the pairings of cards #5 & #9, #1 & #2, #3 & #4, and #6 & #10.
- The significator epitomizes what the reading deals with, the initial situation.
- An added impulse that compounds the significator, which may be either complimentary or contradictory.
- This is what is consciously known (thoughts).
- Unconscious driving forces that may not be known fully (emotions).
- The immediate past regarding the current situation.
- The first future card indicates the immediate future.
- This card represents the reader and their attitude towards cards #1 and #2.
- The external influences, the places and people which influence the topic.
- This tarot card suggests expectations; what is secretly hoped for or feared.
- The second future card reveals the long-term outcome.
Your Celtic Cross Reading
The Crown |
The Outcome 3 of Pentacles
External Forces  Queen of Swords
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The Recent Past The World |
This Crosses the Significator
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The Future 9 of Wands |
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The Significator represents what the main theme of the reading deals with, the initial situation.
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.
Divinatory Meaning:
These are exceedingly contradictory; in the main, it is a card of money, business, barter; but one reading gives altercation, quarrels – and another innocence, ingenuity, purgation.
This Crosses the Significator denotes an added impulse that compounds the initial card, whether complimentary or contradictory.
6 of Cups
Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers.
Divinatory Meaning:
A card of the past and of memories, looking back, as – for example, – on childhood; happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past; things that have vanished. Another reading reverses this, giving new relations, new knowledge, new environment, and then the children are disporting in an unfamiliar precinct.
The Crown stands for what the asker is aware of consciously.
Justice
The figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess, and on this account it seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works – while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things; – differs in its essence from the spiritual justice which is involved in the idea of election. The latter belongs to a mysterious order of Providence, in virtue of which it is possible for certain men to conceive the idea of dedication to the highest things. The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills, and we have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it. It is analogous to the possession of the fairy gifts and the high gifts and the gracious gifts of the poet: we have them or have not, and their presence is as much a mystery as their absence. The law of Justice is not however involved by either alternative. In conclusion, the pillars of Justice open into one world and the pillars of the High Priestess into another.
Reversed Meaning:
Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.
The Foundation reveals unconscious driving forces that the querent may not be aware of.
7 of Cups
Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.
Divinatory Meaning:
Fairy favours, images of reflection, sentiment, imagination, things seen in the glass of contemplation; some attainment in these degrees, but nothing permanent or substantial is suggested.
The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.
The World
As this final message of the Major Trumps is unchanged – and indeed unchangeable – in respect of its design, it has been partly described already regarding its deeper sense. It represents also the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret which is within it, the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God. It is further the state of the soul in the consciousness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-knowing spirit. But these meanings are without prejudice to that which I have said concerning it on the material side.
It has more than one message on the macrocosmic side and is, for example, the state of the restored world when the law of manifestation shall have been carried to the highest degree of natural perfection. But it is perhaps more especially a story of the past, referring to that day when all was declared to be good, when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy. One of the worst explanations concerning it is that the figure symbolises the Magus when he has reached the highest degree of initiation; another account says that it represents the absolute, which is ridiculous. The figure has been said to stand for Truth, which is, however, more properly allocated to the seventeenth card. Lastly, it has been called the Crown of the Magi.
Reversed Meaning:
Inertia, fixity, stagnation, permanence.
The Future depicts that which lies ahead.
6 of Cups
Children in an old garden, their cups filled with flowers.
Divinatory Meaning:
A card of the past and of memories, looking back, as – for example, – on childhood; happiness, enjoyment, but coming rather from the past; things that have vanished. Another reading reverses this, giving new relations, new knowledge, new environment, and then the children are disporting in an unfamiliar precinct.
The Querent represents the asker and their attitude towards the subject of the reading.
5 of Cups
A dark, cloaked figure, looking sideways at three prone cups two others stand upright behind him; a bridge is in the background, leading to a small keep or holding.
Reversed Meaning:
News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects.
External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.
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. It does not represent mercy, and, her sword notwithstanding, she is scarcely a symbol of power.
Reversed Meaning:
Malice, bigotry, artifice, prudery, bale, deceit.
Hopes and Fears shows the expectations you have concerning the outcome of your question.
Judgement
The great angel is here encompassed by clouds, but he blows his bannered trumpet, and the cross as usual is displayed on the banner. The dead are rising from their tombs – a woman on the right, a man on the left hand, and between them their child, whose back is turned. But in this card there are more than three who are restored, and it has been thought worthwhile to make this variation as illustrating the insufficiency of current explanations. It should be noted that all the figures are as one in the wonder, adoration and ecstasy expressed by their attitudes. It is the card which registers the accomplishment of the great work of transformation in answer to the summons of the Supernal – which summons is heard and answered from within.
Herein is the intimation of a significance which cannot well be carried further in the present place. What is that within us which does sound a trumpet and all that is lower in our nature rises in response – almost in a moment, almost in the twinkling of an eye? Let the card continue to depict, for those who can see no further, the Last judgment and the resurrection in the natural body; but let those who have inward eyes look and discover therewith. They will understand that it has been called truly in the past a card of eternal life, and for this reason it may be compared with that which passes under the name of Temperance.
Reversed Meaning:
Weakness, pusillanimity, simplicity; also, deliberation, decision, sentence.
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.
3 of Pentacles
A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest.
Reversed Meaning:
Mediocrity, in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.
