Cross Spread

Difficulty: Easy
The Cross Spread is good for questions asking for advice. It can also be used to determine the meaning of a confusing card from a previous reading, or for that matter, to shed light on other points of confusion.
In questions asking advice, this tarot spread is self-explanatory. The main thing is to determine the difference between cards #2 and #3. #1 is the topic and #4 is the result.
In questions regarding confusion, such as: "What was the meaning of Card (X) in the last spread?" the main thing is also to determine the difference between cards #2 and #3. In this case, #2 will show what the card was not referring to, and Card #3 will show what was really meant. Card #1 is the topic and #4 represents the purpose it serves.
Your Cross Reading
DO This![]() The High Priestess |
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It Deals with This![]() 3 of Wands |
Do NOT Do This![]() King of Pentacles |
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It Leads to This![]() 7 of Cups |
It Deals with This
3 of Wands
A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff's edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them.
Reversed Meaning:
The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
Do NOT Do This
King of Pentacles
The figure calls for no special description – the face is rather dark, suggesting also courage, but somewhat lethargic in tendency. The bull's head should be noted as a recurrent symbol on the throne. The sign of this suit is represented throughout as engraved or blazoned with the pentagram, typifying the correspondence of the four elements in human nature and that by which they may be governed. In many old Tarot packs this suit stood for current coin, money, deniers. I have not invented the substitution of pentacles and I have no special cause to sustain in respect of the alternative. But the consensus of divinatory meanings is on the side of some change, because the cards do not happen to deal especially with questions of money.
Reversed Meaning:
Vice, weakness, ugliness, perversity, corruption, peril.
DO This
The High Priestess
She has the lunar crescent at her feet, a horned diadem on her head, with a globe in the middle place, and a large solar cross on her breast. The scroll in her hands is inscribed with the word Tora, signifying the Greater Law, the Secret Law and the second sense of the Word. It is partly covered by her mantle, to shew that some things are implied and some spoken. She is seated between the white and black pillars – J. and B. – of the mystic Temple, and the veil of the Temple is behind her: it is embroidered with palms and pomegranates. The vestments are flowing and gauzy, and the mantle suggests light – a shimmering radiance. She has been called occult Science on the threshold of the Sanctuary of Isis, but she is really the Secret Church, the House which is of God and man. She represents also the Second Marriage of the Prince who is no longer of this world; she is the spiritual Bride and Mother, the daughter of the stars and the Higher Garden of Eden. She is, in fine, the Queen of the borrowed light, but this is the light of all. She is the Moon nourished by the milk of the Supernal Mother.
In a manner, she is also the Supernal Mother herself – that is to say, she is the bright reflection. It is in this sense of reflection that her truest and highest name in bolism is Shekinah – the co-habiting glory. According to Kabalism, there is a Shekinah both above and below. In the superior world it is called Binah, the Supernal Understanding which reflects to the emanations that are beneath. In the lower world it is MaIkuth – that world being, for this purpose, understood as a blessed Kingdom that with which it is made blessed being the Indwelling Glory. Mystically speaking, the Shekinah is the Spiritual Bride of the just man, and when he reads the Law she gives the Divine meaning. There are some respects in which this card is the highest and holiest of the Greater Arcana.
Reversed Meaning:
Passion, moral or physical ardour, conceit, surface knowledge.
It Leads to This
7 of Cups
Strange chalices of vision, but the images are more especially those of the fantastic spirit.
Reversed Meaning:
Desire, will, determination, project.