Comic Strip Spread
Difficulty: Easy
Note: This spread works best with decks like the Diary of a Broken Soul or Surrealist Tarot because they display scenes rather than pips and do not use reversals.
The Comic Strip Spread is a simple nine-card chronological spread that looks like a page of a comic book. This method should be used to get a glimpse of the future as it would pan out naturally. It may be insightful to use this spread in coordination with biorhythms. The spread is easy to read as a storyboard, just like a comic strip.
The main subject is apparent in the first card, while the story plays out through the following tarot cards.
It is important to pay particular attention to the cards and the relationships with their neighbours. Notice which directions the cards are facing, and how they interact.
Your Comic Strip Reading
The Universe |
8 of Wands |
5 of Wands |
Queen of Disks |
8 of Disks |
The Hanged Man |
The Aeon |
Ace of Cups |
4 of Wands |
Card 1: The Universe
Earth
The matter of the question itself, synthesis, the end of the matter, may mean delay, opposition, obstinacy, inertia, patience, perseverance, persistent stubbornness in difficulty. The crystallisation of the whole matter involved.
Card 2: 8 of Wands
Mercury in Sagittarius – Swiftness
The card refers to Hod, splendour, in the suit of Fire, whence it refers to the phenomena of speech, light, electricity. The pictorial representation of the card shows the Light-wands turned into electrical rays, sustaining or even constituting Matter by their vibrating energy. Above this restored universe shines the rainbow; the division of pure light, which deals with maxima, into the seven colours of the spectrum, which exhibit interplay and correlation.
This card, therefore, represents energy of high velocity, such as furnishes the master-key to modern mathematical physics.
Card 3: 5 of Wands
Saturn in Leo – Strife
This card is referred to Geburah of the suit of Fire. Geburah itself being fiery, it is a purely active force. It is ruled also by Saturn and Leo. Leo shows the element of Fire at its strongest and most balanced. Saturn tends to weigh it down and to embitter it. There is no limit to the scope of this volcanic energy.
The symbol represents the wand of the Chief Adept, showing that the authority is derived from the superiors; were it not so, this card would be thoroughly disastrous. Moreover, there are also two wands of the Second, or Major Adept. They have the head of the Phoenix, which gives the idea of destruction (or rather purgation) through fire, and the resurrection of the energy from its ashes.
Card 4: Queen of Disks
Capricorn
The Queen of Disks represents the watery part of Earth, the function of that element as Mother. She represents passivity, usually in its highest aspect. The Queen of Disks is throned upon the life of vegetation. She contemplates the background, where a calm river winds through a sandy desert to bring to it fertility. Oases are beginning to shew themselves amid the wastes. Before her stands a goat upon a sphere. There is here a reference to the dogma that the Great Work is fertility. She thus represents the ambition of matter to take part in the great work of Creation.
Persons signified by this card possess the finest of the quieter qualities. They are ambitious, but only in useful directions. They possess immense funds of affection, kindness, and greatness of heart. They are not intellectual, and not particularly intelligent; but instinct and intuition are more than adequate for their needs. These people are quiet, hard-working, practical, sensible, domesticated, often (in a reticent and unassuming fashion) lustful and even debauched. They are inclined to the abuse of alcohol and of drugs. It is as if they could only realise their essential happiness by getting outside themselves.
Card 5: 8 of Disks
Sun in Virgo – Prudence
The number Eight, Hod, is very helpful in this card, because it represents Mercury in his most spiritual aspect, and he both rules and is exalted in the sign of Virgo, which belongs to the Decan, and is governed by the Sun. It signifies intelligence lovingly applied to material matters, especially those of the agriculturalist, the artificer and the engineer.
One might suggest that this card marks the turn of the tide. The seven of Disks is in one sense the fullest possible establishment of Matter – compare Atu XV – the lowest fallen and therefore the highest exalted. These last three cards seem to prepare the explosion which will renew the whole Cycle. Note that Virgo is Yod, the secret seed of Life, and also the Virgin Earth awaiting the Phallic Plough.
The interest of this card is the interest of the common people. The rulership of the Sun in Virgo suggests also birth. The disks are arranged in the form of the geomantic figure Populus. These disks may be represented as the flowers or fruits of a great tree, its solid roots in fertile land.
Card 6: The Hanged Man
Water
Enforced sacrifice, punishment, loss, fatal or voluntary, suffering, defeat, failure, death.
Card 7: The Aeon
Fire
Final decision in respect of the past, new current in respect of the future; always represents the taking of a definite step.
Card 8: Ace of Cups
The Root of Water
This card represents the element of Water in its most secret and original form. It is the feminine complement of the Ace of Wands, and is derived from the Yoni and the Moon exactly as that is from the Lingam and the Sun. The third in the Hierarchy. This accordingly represents the essential form of the Holy Grail. Upon the dark sea of Binah, the Great Mother, are Lotuses, two in one, which fill the cup with the Life-fluid, symbolically represented either as Water, as Blood, or as Wine, according to the selected purpose of the symbolism.
Above the Cup, descending upon it, is the Dove of the Holy Ghost, thus consecrating the element. At the base of the Cup is the Moon, for it is the virtue of this card to conceive and to produce the second form of its Nature.
Card 9: 4 of Wands
Venus in Aries – Completion
This card refers to Chesed in the suit of Fire. Being below the Abyss, it is the Lord of all manifested active Power. The original Will of the Two has been transmitted through the Three, and is now built up into a solid system: Order, Law, Government. It is also referred to Venus in Aries, which indicates that one cannot establish one's work without tact and gentleness. The wands are headed by the Ram, sacred to Chesed, the Father-god Amoun-Ra, as also to Aries; but at the other end of the wands are the Doves of Venus.
In the symbol, the ends of the wands touch a circle, showing the completion and limitation of the original work. It is within this circle that the flames (four double, as if to assert the balance) of the Energy are seen to play, and there is no intention to increase the scope of the original Will.
