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:
- The Past: Past events affecting the question.
- The Present: The current state or approaching influence.
- Hidden Influences: Things the reader may not be aware of (or barely be aware of).
- Obstacles: This is the challenge: obstacles may be avoided or may have to be dealt with.
- External Influences: Attitudes and thoughts regarding people around the reader.
- Suggestions: Recommended course of action.
- Outcome: The result of following the suggestions.
Your Horse Shoe Reading
Obstacle![]() 4 of Pentacles |
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Hidden Influences![]() 6 of Swords |
External Influences![]() The Beast |
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The Present![]() The Chamber |
Suggestion![]() Balance |
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The Past![]() 8 of Wands |
The Outcome![]() King of Pentacles |
The Past represents past events that are affecting the question.
8 of Wands
The means by which you arrive are not necessarily the means by which you'll stay.
The Present represents the current state or immediately approaching influence.
The Chamber
AKA The World in traditional Tarot.
The walls and windows are all bricked up, there appears to be no way out, but you got in somehow, so there must be a way. Have you tried looking behind you? Even if you're trapped forever (As you are in this world) there's likely something fun do while you're here.
Hidden Influences - Things that you may not be aware of, or barely be aware of.
6 of Swords
Something has to make the rain come down. It got up there but once there's enough of it, it falls back to Earth. It's not enough just to let it happen, if you want to understand you have to observe.
Obstacle - This is the challenge.
4 of Pentacles
It doesn't always come out the way you wanted. That doesn't mean you can't still enjoy it.
External Influences - Attitudes about this situation from people around the querent.
The Beast
3:00 – Card 7
AKA Judgement or The Angel in traditional Tarot. Female, Air, Aries.
Birth, gain and success. To eat the apple and learn mastery of life and death. To nurse and grow strong. To win. These are all steps toward the goal but not the goal itself, to mistake the method for the achievement will leave one halfway there.
Suggestion - The recommended course of action.
Balance
AKA Justice in traditional Tarot.
Not the scales of a common religious moralist and no longer a cardinal virtue, but the raw, heartless justice of nature.
The Outcome - What will happen if the suggestion is followed.
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.