The Love Triangle Spread
Difficulty: Complicated
Casually referred to as the Love Triangle, this spread can be used to determine the dynamics of the relationship between three people, regardless of whether romance is involved. This spread is arranged in the form of a hexagram, consisting of several large and small triangles. This tarot spread may seem somewhat complicated, but it is not entirely that difficult.
The first step is to interpret the card for each individual position in the spread. Generally, one might ask about a relationship they are involved in, but this does not have to be the case. Ordinarily, the reader's representative card is #1, their main person of interest is #2, and the other person would be #3.
The second step fills in the downward triangle and involves further examination of the individuals through their views of the other people. Each person has two more cards showing the way they see and relate to the other members of the triangle. For example, Card #6 indicates how Person #3 relates to Person #1, while Card #9 stands for Person #1's attitude toward Person #3.
The next step completes the upward triangle and the hexagram, focusing on cards #10–13. It also completes the many smaller triangles and hints at the potential for each relationship. The final card, #13 can be considered the significator of the reading, which suggests the overall potential for this three-way relationship.
Your Love Triangle Reading
| P#3 | 3to2 | 2+3 |
2to3 | P#2 | ||
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3to1 |  |
Overall |  |
2to1 |  |
| 1+3 |  |
1to3 |  |
1to2 |  |
1+2 |
 |
 |
P#1 |  |
 |
||
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1: Person #1
From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.
Divinatory Meaning:
They are for once almost on the surface – country life, haven of refuge, a species of domestic harvest-home, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these.
2: Person #2
The effigy of a knight in the attitude of prayer, at full length upon his tomb.
Reversed Meaning:
Wise administration, circumspection, economy, avarice, precaution, testament.
3: Person #3
A woman, with a bird upon her wrist, stands amidst a great abundance of grapevines in the garden of a manorial house. It is a wide domain, suggesting plenty in all things. Possibly it is her own possession and testifies to material well-being.
Reversed Meaning:
Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith.
4: Person #1's view of #2
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.
5: Person #2's view of #3
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.
6: Person #3's view of #1
A posse of youths, who are brandishing staves, as if in sport or strife. It is mimic warfare.
Divinatory Meaning:
Imitation, as, for example, sham fight, but also the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. In this sense it connects with the battle of life. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence.
7: Person #2's view of #1
The physical and emotional nature to which this card is attributed is dark, ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble. The King uplifts a flowering wand, and wears, like his three correspondences in the remaining suits, what is called a cap of maintenance beneath his crown. He connects with the symbol of the lion, which is emblazoned on the back of his throne.
Reversed Meaning:
Good, but severe; austere, yet tolerant.
8: Person #3's view of #2
A hoodwinked female figure balances two swords upon her shoulders.
Divinatory Meaning:
Conformity and the equipoise which it suggests, courage, friendship, concord in a state of arms; another reading gives tenderness, affection, intimacy. The suggestion of harmony and other favourable readings must be considered in a qualified manner, as Swords generally are not symbolical of beneficent forces in human affairs.
9: Person #1's view of #3
A hand – issuing, as usual, from a cloud – holds up a pentacle.
Reversed Meaning:
The evil side of wealth, bad intelligence; also, great riches. In any case it shews prosperity, comfortable material conditions, but whether these are of advantage to the possessor will depend on whether the card is reversed or not.
10: Overall relationship between persons #1 and #2
He has a form of the Crux ansata for his sceptre and a globe in his left hand. He is a crowned monarch – commanding, stately, seated on a throne, the arms of which axe fronted by ram heads. He is executive and realisation, the power of this world, here clothed with the highest of its natural attributes. He is occasionally represented as seated on a cubic stone, which, however, confuses some of the issues. He is the virile power, to which the Empress responds, and in this sense is he who seeks to remove the Veil of Isis; yet she remains virgo intacta.
It should be understood that this card and that of the Empress do not precisely represent the condition of married life, though this state is implied. On the surface, as I have indicated, they stand for mundane royalty, uplifted on the seats of the mighty; but above this there is the suggestion of another presence. They signify also – and the male figure especially – the higher kingship, occupying the intellectual throne. Hereof is the lordship of thought rather than of the animal world. Both personalities, after their own manner, are full of strange experience, but theirs is not consciously the wisdom which draws from a higher world. The Emperor has been described as (a) will in its embodied form, but this is only one of its applications, and (b) as an expression of virtualities contained in the Absolute Being – but this is fantasy.
Divinatory Meaning:
Stability, power, protection, realisation; a great person; aid, reason, conviction; also, authority and will.
11: Overall relationship between persons #2 and #3
A young man is seated under a tree and contemplates three cups set on the grass before him; an arm issuing from a cloud offers him another cup. His expression notwithstanding is one of discontent with his environment.
Divinatory Meaning:
Weariness, disgust, aversion, imaginary vexations, as if the wine of this world had caused satiety only; another wine, as if a fairy gift, is now offered the wastrel, but he sees no consolation therein. This is also a card of blended pleasure.
12: Overall relationship between persons #1 and #3
A young man on a craggy eminence brandishing a staff; six other staves are raised towards him from below.
Divinatory Meaning:
It is a card of valour, for, on the surface, six are attacking one, who has, however, the vantage position. On the intellectual plane, it signifies discussion, wordy strife; in business – negotiations, war of trade, barter, competition. It is further a card of success, for the combatant is on the top and his enemies may be unable to reach him.
13: Overall 3-way Relationship
A hand issues from a cloud, grasping as word, the point of which is encircled by a crown.
Reversed Meaning:
The same, but the results are disastrous; another account says – conception, childbirth, augmentation, multiplicity.
