Horse Shoe Spread

 

 

Difficulty: Easy

The Horse Shoe is a classic tarot spread. It is more advanced than the three-card reading, yet simpler than most other spreads. It is a versatile method that can be used for most queries, though there are other spreads which would go into more depth. Like the simple Past, Present, and Future spread, it contains these cards in positions #1, #2, and #7, but also has four other tarot cards that help the reader understand how to deal with the future better. The cards are to be read as follows:

1. The Past: Past events affecting the question.
2. The Present: The current state or approaching influence.
3. Hidden Influences: Things the reader may not be aware of (or barely be aware of).
4. Obstacles: This is the challenge: obstacles may be avoided or may have to be dealt with.
5. External Influences: Attitudes and thoughts regarding people around the reader.
6. Suggestions: Recommended course of action.
7. Outcome: The result of following the suggestions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Horse Shoe Reading

	Obstacle 7 of Pentacles
Hidden Influences 9 of Wands		External Influences 5 of Pentacles
The Present The Fool		Suggestion Page of Swords
The Past 8 of Pentacles		The Outcome Ace of Cups

 

 

 

 

The Past represents past events that are affecting the question.

 

8 of Pentacles

An artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies.

Divinatory Meaning:

Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage.

 

 

 

 

The Present represents the current state or immediately approaching influence.

 

The Fool

With light step, as if earth and its trammels had little power to restrain him, a young man in gorgeous vestments pauses at the brink of a precipice among the great heights of the world; he surveys the blue distance before him – its expanse of sky rather than the prospect below. His act of eager walking is still indicated, though he is stationary at the given moment; his dog is still bounding. The edge which opens on the depth has no terror; it is as if angels were waiting to uphold him, if it came about that he leaped from the height. His countenance is full of intelligence and expectant dream. He has a rose in one hand and in the other a costly wand, from which depends over his right shoulder a wallet curiously embroidered. He is a prince of the other world on his travels through this one – all amidst the morning glory, in the keen air. The sun, which shines behind him, knows whence he came, whither he is going, and how he will return by another path after many days. He is the spirit in search of experience. Many symbols of the Instituted Mysteries are summarised in this card, which reverses, under high warrants, all the confusions that have preceded it.

In his Manual of Cartomancy, Grand Orient has a curious suggestion of the office of Mystic Fool, as apart of his process in higher divination; but it might call for more than ordinary gifts to put it into operation. We shall see how the card fares according to the common arts of fortune-telling, and it will be an example, to those who can discern, of the fact, otherwise so evident, that the Trumps Major had no place originally in the arts of psychic gambling, when cards are used as the counters and pretexts. Of the circumstances under which this art arose we know, however, very little. The conventional explanations say that the Fool signifies the flesh, the sensitive life, and by a peculiar satire its subsidiary name was at one time the alchemist, as depicting folly at the most insensate stage.

Reversed Meaning:

Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.

 

 

 

 

Hidden Influences - Things that you may not be aware of, or barely be aware of.

 

9 of Wands

The figure leans upon his staff and has an expectant look, as if awaiting an enemy. Behind are eight other staves – erect, in orderly disposition, like a palisade.

Reversed Meaning:

Obstacles, adversity, calamity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obstacle - This is the challenge.

 

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.

Reversed Meaning:

Cause for anxiety regarding money which it may be proposed to lend.

 

 

 

 

External Influences - Attitudes about this situation from people around the querent.

 

5 of Pentacles

Two mendicants in a snow-storm pass a lighted casement.

Divinatory Meaning:

The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated – that is, destitution – or otherwise. For some cartomancers, it is a card of love and lovers – wife, husband, friend, mistress; also, concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonised.

 

 

 

 

Suggestion - The recommended course of action.

 

Page of Swords

A lithe, active figure holds a sword upright in both hands, while in the act of swift walking. He is passing over rugged land, and about his way the clouds are collocated wildly. He is alert and lithe, looking this way and that, as if an expected enemy might appear at any moment.

Divinatory Meaning:

Authority, overseeing, secret service, vigilance, spying, examination, and the qualities thereto belonging.

 

 

 

 

The Outcome - What will happen if the suggestion is followed.

 

Ace of Cups

The waters are beneath, and thereon are water-lilies; the hand issues from the cloud, holding in its palm the cup, from which four streams are pouring; a dove, bearing in its bill a cross-marked Host, descends to place the Wafer in the Cup; the dew of water is falling on all sides. It is an intimation of that which may lie behind the Lesser Arcana.

Reversed Meaning:

House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.