Decision Spread

 

 

Difficulty: Easy

This simple but highly useful spread calls for a question to be asked in this format:

'What happens if I do (X), and what happens if I do not do (X)?'

Please note that it should not be viewed as a decision between two different options, but about whether a single option should be exercised or not. A second option would call for a separate reading.

Card #7 is the significator, the overall theme of the query.

Cards #3, #1, & #5 represent the chronological sequence of events that occurs if the reader chooses to do (X).

Cards #4, #2, & #6 represent the chronological sequence of events that unfolds if the reader chooses not to do (X).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Decision Reading

The Significator Death	Outcome if you do it:
	6 of Cups	9 of Swords	The Hanged Man
	Outcome if you don't do it:
	Page of Wands	The Devil	10 of Swords

 

 

 

 

Death

The veil or mask of life is perpetuated in change, transformation and passage from lower to higher, and this is more fitly represented in the rectified Tarot by one of the apocalyptic visions than by the crude notion of the reaping skeleton. Behind it lies the whole world of ascent in the spirit. The mysterious horseman moves slowly, bearing a black banner emblazoned with the Mystic Rose, which signifies life. Between two pillars on the verge of the horizon there shines the sun of immortality. The horseman carries no visible weapon, but king and child and maiden fall before him, while a prelate with clasped hands awaits his end.

There should be no need to point out that the suggestion of death which I have made in connection with the previous card is, of course, to be understood mystically, but this is not the case in the present instance. The natural transit of man to the next stage of his being either is or may be one form of his progress, but the exotic and almost unknown entrance, while still in this life, into the state of mystical death is a change in the form of consciousness and the passage into a state to which ordinary death is neither the path nor gate. The existing occult explanations of the 13th card are, on the whole, better than usual, rebirth, creation, destination, renewal, and the rest.

Reversed Meaning:

Inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism; hope destroyed.

 

 

 

Outcome if you do it:

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

9 of Swords

One seated on her couch in lamentation, with the swords over her. She is as one who knows no sorrow which is like unto hers. It is a card of utter desolation.

Divinatory Meaning:

Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair.

 

 

 

 

The Hanged Man

The gallows from which he is suspended forms a Tau cross, while the figure – from the position of the legs – forms a fylfot cross. There is a nimbus about the head of the seeming martyr. It should be noted (1) that the tree of sacrifice is living wood, with leaves thereon; (2) that the face expresses deep entrancement, not suffering; (3) that the figure, as a whole, suggests life in suspension, but life and not death. It is a card of profound significance, but all the significance is veiled. One of his editors suggests that Eliphas Levi did not know the meaning, which is unquestionable nor did the editor himself. It has been called falsely a card of martyrdom, a card of prudence, a card of the Great Work, a card of duty; but we may exhaust all published interpretations and find only vanity. It expresses the relation, in one of its aspects, between the Divine and the Universe.

He who can understand that the story of his higher nature is imbedded in this symbolism will receive intimations concerning a great awakening that is possible, and will know that after the sacred Mystery of Death there is a glorious Mystery of Resurrection.

Reversed Meaning:

Selfishness, the crowd, body politic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outcome if you do not do it:

 

 

Page of Wands

In a scene similar to the former, a young man stands in the act of proclamation. He is unknown but faithful, and his tidings are strange.

Reversed Meaning:

Anecdotes, announcements, evil news. Also, indecision and the instability which accompanies it.

 

 

 

 

The Devil

The design is an accommodation, mean or harmony, between several motives mentioned in the first part. The Horned Goat of Mendes, with wings like those of a bat, is standing on an altar. At the pit of the stomach there is the sign of Mercury. The right hand is upraised and extended, being the reverse of that benediction, which is given by the Hierophant in the fifth card. In the left hand there is a great flaming torch, inverted towards the earth. A reversed pentagram is on the forehead. There is a ring in front of the altar, from which two chains are carried to the necks of two figures, male and female. These are analogous with those of the fifth card, as if Adam and Eve after the Fall. Hereof is the chain and fatality of the material life.

The figures are tailed, to signify the animal nature, but there is human intelligence in the faces, and he who is exalted above them is not to be their master for ever. Even now, he is also a bondsman, sustained by the evil that is in him and blind to the liberty of service. With more than his usual derision for the arts which he pretended to respect and interpret as a master therein, Eliphas Levi affirms that the Baphometic figure is occult science and magic. Another commentator says that in the Divine world it signifies predestination, but there is no correspondence in that world with the things which below are of the brute. What it does signify is the Dweller on the Threshold without the Mystical Garden when those are driven forth therefrom who have eaten the forbidden fruit.

Reversed Meaning:

Evil injury, weakness, pettiness, blindness.

 

 

 

 

10 of Swords

A prostrate figure, pierced by all the swords belonging to the card.

Reversed Meaning:

Advantage, profit, success, favour, but none of these are permanent; also, power and authority.