The Golden Dawn or Thoth Method
Difficulty: Complicated
Note: Tarot decks that use reversed cards such as the Rider-Waite do not work well with this spread, which was designed to be read using elemental dignity.
The Golden Dawn spread is best suited for use with the bifrost Tarot and especially the Book of Thoth, as these decks are meant to be read a certain way with the court cards. Princes and queens represent actual men and women connected with the matter, while princesses generally represent ideas; thoughts or opinions, and knights represent arrival or departure of a matter depending on the direction faced.
In this tarot spread, particular attention should be paid to a card's exact position in relation to its neighbours. Whether the neighbour cards bear the same energy (suit) determines whether a card is considered well-dignified or ill-dignified. Opposite suits ill-dignify each other, while other suits are considered friendly. Tarot cards of the same suit or element strengthen each other.
As with other tarot spreads, it is important to count the cards' tendencies, such as whether there is a lot of one particular suit or number pattern. The patterns reveal special messages. Having several majors present indicates higher forces at work, several cups suggest strong emotions, etc.
Card #1 represents the reader and the nature of the topic at hand.
Cards #2 & #3 are read in extension of #1 to further comprehend the nature of the topic.
The two sets of three tarot cards at the top of the spread represent chronological sets of events. The current path as it would unfold naturally is represented by cards #4, #8, & #12. The alternate path that could be taken is represented by cards #13, #9, & #5. However, if the reader gets the feeling these cards are telling them they go together, then the alternate path is to be considered an extension of the current path, and to be read chronologically in this order: #4, #8, #12, #13, #9, #5. Just keep in mind: this is only if the two paths seem particularly similar.
Cards #14, #10, & #6 shed light upon the psychological undertones of the current issue.
Cards #7, #11, & #15 represent the influences of karma and destiny beyond the reader's control. These cards suggest adapting to this, as fate.
Your Golden Dawn Reading
| The Alternate Path (or Extension of Current Path) |
Your Current Path |
|||||
 Knight of Swords |
 The Swamp |
 The Sun |
 4 of Cups |
 Ace of Cups |
 4 of Wands |
|
| The Querent | ||||||
 9 of Swords |
 The Lovers |
 3 of Pentacles |
||||
| The Psychological Basis | Karma | |||||
 The Sorceress |
 King of Swords |
 Queen of Wands |
 King of Wands |
 The Empress |
 Ace of Swords |
|
The Querent
cards represent the querent and the nature of the topic at hand. The first card (in the center of the spread) represents the very core of the matter, and the other two cards around it are added to it in order to further comprehend the nature of the topic.
9:00 – Card 6
Male, Air, Sagittarius.
Ceration is the alchemical act of adding a liquid to the substance while heated, yielding a softer substance with a wax-like texture. Not to be confused with alchemical union, but an important step toward it.
Drawn on July 4th to the sound of fireworks. Weapons and explosives are now components of ritual as often as components of battle. I suppose they always were.
Nature grows in the most desolate, diseased places. Study how nature does it to survive your own climate.
Your Current Path
cards represent your current path as it would unfold naturally. These cards are read in chronological order from left to right.
When you order people to do something, be certain that your orders are clear.
AKA 2angels1grail in traditional 4chan. If you're offended, figure out why you're offended and excise the weakness.
If you lost the means to do what you will, try retracing your steps. You had them before, you should be able to find them again. Unless they fell into the sewer, that would totally suck.
The Alternate Path
cards represent the alternate path that you could choose to take in lieu of the Current Path. However, if the cards that come up seem to indicate that they go along with the Current Path, these three cards should be interpretted not as an Alternate Path, but as a chronological extension of the Current Path (also read from left to right).
The guillotine is the most effective method of killing ever invented. You can poison or shock or stab or shoot people but nothing is so certain to cause death as severing their head. Amazing how fast the world forgot that.
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.
Damn bright thing always vomiting heat and blinding light onto the populous. The artist of this deck isn't a fan.
The Psychological Basis
cards shed light upon the psychological undertones of the current problem.
12:00 – Card 11
AKA The Priestess in traditional Tarot. Female, Fire, Leo.
The master of events, the shaper of destiny, the will in action. The opposite of the fool, the Sorceress is active, in control. Aware instead of ignorant, wise instead of apathetic. A goddess, for the only gods that exist are men and women who make deities of themselves.
The coronation of the nuclear bomb. It's the sword that can annihilate a city, a few of them can end the world. It's a weapon so deadly that its mere existence changed the way mankind thinks of war. It's the point at which humankind's means finally exceeded its goals. 1945 was the end of one world and the birth of a new.
An homage to H.R. Giger's Alien Hieroglyphs and an insult to perspective. A wand that does nothing more than sap the life from you and squirt it down the drain.
Karma
These cards represent the influences of karma and destiny that are beyond your control. They suggest adapting to this fate.
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.
Regime change in action, it happens more in the sewers than the senates. One goes out, another comes in.
'At the east of the garden of Eden he placed the Angel and a flaming sword that turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life'. –Genesis 3:24
