Celtic Cross Spread
Difficulty: Average
This is probably the most well-known tarot spread. A good, basic spread for beginners to practise with, the Celtic Cross is useful for questions of all types. In this spread, it can be helpful to notice the relationships between the pairings of cards #5 & #9, #1 & #2, #3 & #4, and #6 & #10.
- The significator epitomizes what the reading deals with, the initial situation.
- An added impulse that compounds the significator, which may be either complimentary or contradictory.
- This is what is consciously known (thoughts).
- Unconscious driving forces that may not be known fully (emotions).
- The immediate past regarding the current situation.
- The first future card indicates the immediate future.
- This card represents the reader and their attitude towards cards #1 and #2.
- The external influences, the places and people which influence the topic.
- This tarot card suggests expectations; what is secretly hoped for or feared.
- The second future card reveals the long-term outcome.
Your Celtic Cross Reading
The Crown |
The Outcome The Emperor
External Forces  6 of Wands
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The Recent Past The Swamp |
This Crosses the Significator
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The Future 6 of Cups |
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The Significator represents what the main theme of the reading deals with, the initial situation.
The Sorcerer
AKA The Magician in traditional Tarot.
The sort of guy who knows, wills, dares and keeps his mouth shut.
This Crosses the Significator denotes an added impulse that compounds the initial card, whether complimentary or contradictory.
3 of Pentacles
Nature grows in the most desolate, diseased places. Study how nature does it to survive your own climate.
The Crown stands for what the asker is aware of consciously.
10 of Pentacles
The tree of life doesn't play out flawlessly like it does in the diagrams. It's actually far more distorted than that. Don't mistake the map for the territory and follow books blindly.
The Foundation reveals unconscious driving forces that the querent may not be aware of.
Knight of Wands
Read 'The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha', preferably the edition with illustrations by Gustav Dore. At the very least see the play 'Man of La Mancha'.
Mock what lunatics you may, but at some point you've been the fool too, and fools, whatever else they are, are also the best dreamers.
The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.
The Swamp
8:00 – Card 1
AKA Temperance in the traditional Tarot. Male, Earth, Scorpio.
Stagnation, nothing moves, nothing changes. Barriers block every effort to improve or change, not that rock has anywhere to go. The elements and life move around it, grow from it, decay upon it, but it goes nowhere.
The Future depicts that which lies ahead.
3 of Pentacles
Nature grows in the most desolate, diseased places. Study how nature does it to survive your own climate.
The Querent represents the asker and their attitude towards the subject of the reading.
The Devils
11:00 – Card 9
AKA The Devil in traditional Tarot. Female, Fire, Capricorn.
Predators, perpetrators, the strong over the weak. They are movers and manipulators of fate, but always at each other’s throats. Time devours its own children and this is the card of that act, for time itself is only a continuum, it's really time's children that devour each other.
External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.
6 of Wands
If you're stuck, the first step to freedom is to examine what's holding you in place.
Hopes and Fears shows the expectations you have concerning the outcome of your question.
3 of Wands
Two wands to keep them rowing in circles past death, one wand to put an end to it.
The Outcome of your question. Interpret this card in the context of the entire reading and as an indicator of the path you are currently on, but not necessarily bound to.
The Emperor
In this case King Sargon of Akkad. A great ruler in his own time rarely even makes the history books in ours.
