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 Knight of Swords	Outcome if you do it:
	7 of Swords	6 of Swords	7 of Pentacles
	Outcome if you don't do it:
	Page of Cups	3 of Cups	The High Priestess

 

 

 

 

Knight of Swords

He is riding in full course, as if scattering his enemies. In the design he is really a prototypical hero of romantic chivalry. He might almost be Galahad, whose sword is swift and sure because he is clean of heart.

Reversed Meaning:

Imprudence, incapacity, extravagance.

 

 

 

Outcome if you do it:

 

 

7 of Swords

A man in the act of carrying away five swords rapidly; the two others of the card remain stuck in the ground. A camp is close at hand.

Divinatory Meaning:

Design, attempt, wish, hope, confidence; also quarrelling, a plan that may fail, annoyance. The design is uncertain in its import, because the significations are widely at variance with each other.

 

 

 

 

6 of Swords

A ferryman carrying passengers in his punt to the further shore. The course is smooth, and seeing that the freight is light, it may be noted that the work is not beyond his strength.

Divinatory Meaning:

Journey by water, route, way, envoy, commissionary, expedient.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outcome if you do not do it:

 

 

Page of Cups

A fair, pleasing, somewhat effeminate page, of studious and intent aspect, contemplates a fish rising from a cup to look at him. It is the pictures of the mind taking form.

Reversed Meaning:

Taste, inclination, attachment, seduction, deception, artifice.

 

 

 

 

3 of Cups

Maidens in a garden-ground with cups uplifted, as if pledging one another.

Divinatory Meaning:

The conclusion of any matter in plenty, perfection and merriment; happy issue, victory, fulfilment, solace, healing.

 

 

 

 

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.