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 3 of Swords
External Forces  7 of Swords
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The Recent Past 7 of Cups |
This Crosses the Significator
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The Future The Swamp |
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The Significator represents what the main theme of the reading deals with, the initial situation.
King of Pentacles
A portrait of Anton LaVey, (1930–1997), founder of the Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible. Anyone else would be Blasphemy.
You choose who you look up to. If you look up to a musician who does every drug in the book and dies at 25 your results may vary, from admiring the lives of men and women who have changed the world, lived happy and died old.
This Crosses the Significator denotes an added impulse that compounds the initial card, whether complimentary or contradictory.
King of Wands
Money is the king of all motivators. There is nothing in this world enough money can't buy. The people who tell you otherwise clearly don't have enough of it.
The Crown stands for what the asker is aware of consciously.
The Empress
Regime change in action, it happens more in the sewers than the senates. One goes out, another comes in.
The Foundation reveals unconscious driving forces that the querent may not be aware of.
8 of Pentacles
Things grow from other dead things. Don't overlook them for their dark origins, and don't dismiss the dead as a total erasure of what was.
The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.
7 of Cups
'It's hard to fill a cup that's already full'. –James Cameron, Avatar. What fills your cup? If you like what's there don't let the nightmares in. But if you want to learn more, you have to spill your past preconceptions.
The Future depicts that which lies ahead.
King of Wands
Money is the king of all motivators. There is nothing in this world enough money can't buy. The people who tell you otherwise clearly don't have enough of it.
The Querent represents the asker and their attitude towards the subject of the reading.
3 of Cups
Based on Canova's Three Graces. And don't say there's nothing to do in the Doldrums. Time spent doing nothing isn't wasted if it was enjoyed, only if it was miserable boredom.
External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.
7 of Swords
An Homage to Kurosawa. Seven swords belonging to seven Samurai.
In a realistic movie, even masters can die, and life has a tendency to move like the most implausible plot.
Hopes and Fears shows the expectations you have concerning the outcome of your question.
The Star
AKA The Star in traditional Tarot.
In this case it's Perseus slaying Medusa, a homage to Marqueste's sculpture.
Crowley explained every man and woman is a star. Astrologically, we all effect the fates with our rises and falls. We also congregate into bodies which are no mere illusion, but powerful forces in time. Other people have power over you, but you too have power over them.
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.
3 of Swords
The Vikings were once the most feared force on the northern seas, now they are remembered by statues, Swedish death metal, and Antonio Banderas movies. Do what you will to ensure your name, but once you're gone you have no control over what will become of it.
