Game Plan Spread
Difficulty: Easy
When a person has a certain plan in mind, this simple five-card spread presents a choice, hinting at what action or attitude should be taken for their plan to succeed, and what should be avoided to help the plan work out for the best.
The initial card is laid in the centre of the layout, the significator. The following four cards are laid out clockwise around the significator.
In this spread, the second card is about what drives the reader, but also says they are not fully conscious of this, perhaps even completely unaware of it. It provides a hint as to the reason they strive for their goal.
The third card uncovers what others think of the reader and their goals. The reader may or may not be aware of this. Sometimes other people factor into the plans (and sometimes they don't).
The fourth card suggests what not to do. If things are permitted to go down this path, the plan will collapse.
The fifth card is a hint as to how to make this plan work out favourably. The idea this card presents should be followed to make the plan successful. It is the differences between Cards #4 & #5 that should be noted, as the differences provide important clues.
Your Game Plan Tarot Reading with the Book of Thoth
Unconscious Drive 6 of Swords |
External Influences 2 of Disks |
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Significator 5 of Cups |
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How it Will Succeed 4 of Cups |
How it Will Not Succeed The Lovers |
5 of Cups
Mars in Scorpio – Disappointment
This card is ruled by Geburah in the suit of Water. Geburah being fiery, there is a natural antipathy. Hence arises the idea of disturbance, just when least expected, in a time of ease. The attribution is also to Mars in Scorpio, which is his own house; and Mars is the manifestation on the lowest plane of Geburah, while Scorpio, in its worst aspect, suggests the putrefying power of Water.
Yet the powerful male influences do not show actual decay, only the beginning of destruction; hence, the anticipated pleasure is frustrated. The Lotuses have their petals torn by fiery winds; the sea is arid and stagnant, a dead sea, like a 'chott' in North Africa. No water flows into the cups. Moreover, these cups are arranged in the form of an inverted pentagram, symbolising the triumph of matter over spirit.
6 of Swords
Mercury in Aquarius – Science
Tiphareth shows the full establishment and balance of the idea of the suit. This is particularly the case with this card, as the intellect itself is also referred to the number Six. Mercury, in Aquarius, represents the celestial Energy influencing the Kerub of the Man, thus showing intelligence and humanity.
But there is much more than this in the symbol. The perfect balance of all mental and moral faculties, hardly won, and almost impossible to hold in an ever-changing world, declares the idea of Science in its fullest interpretation.
The hilts of the Swords, which are very ornamental, are in the form of the hexagram. Their points touch the outer petals of a red rose upon a golden cross of six squares, thus showing the Rosy Cross as the central secret of scientific truth.
2 of Disks
Jupiter in Capricorn – Change
The number Two, Chokmah, here rules in the suit pertaining to Earth. It shows the type of Energy appropriate to Two, in its most fixed form. According to the doctrine that Change is the support of stability, the card is called Change.
The card represents two Pantacles, one above the other; they are the Chinese symbols of the Yang and Yin duplicated as in the Hsiang. One wheel is dextro- and the other laevo-rotatory. They thus represent the harmonious interplay of the Four Elements in constant movement. One may in fact consider the card as the picture of the complete manifested Universe, in respect of its dynamics.
The Lovers
Gemini
Openness to inspiration, intuition, intelligence, second sight, childishness, frivolity, thoughtfulness divorced from practical consideration, indecision, self-contradiction, union in a shallow degree with others, instability, contradiction, triviality, the 'high-brow'.
4 of Cups
Moon in Cancer – Luxury
This card refers to Chesed in the sphere of Water. Here, below the Abyss, the energy of this element, although ordered, balanced and (for the moment) stabilised, has lost the original purity of the conception. The card refers to the Moon in Cancer, which is her own house; but Cancer itself is so placed that this implies a certain weakness, an abandonment to desire. This tends to introduce the seeds of decay into the fruit of pleasure.
The sea is still shown, but its surface is ruffled, and the four Cups which stand upon it are no longer so stable. The Lotus from which the water Springs has a multiple stem, as if to show that the influence of the Dyad has gathered strength.
