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 Tarot Reading with the Book of Thoth
Obstacle Prince of Swords |
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Hidden Influences The Hierophant |
External Influences 6 of Cups |
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The Present 5 of Wands |
Suggestion 2 of Cups |
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The Past Lust |
The Outcome 5 of Cups |
The Past represents past events that are affecting the question.
Lust
Leo
Courage, strength, energy and action, une grande passion; resort to magick, the use of magical power.
The Present represents the current state or immediately approaching influence.
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.
Hidden Influences - Things that you may not be aware of, or barely be aware of.
The Hierophant
Taurus
Stubborn strength, toil, endurance, placidity, manifestation, explanation, teaching, goodness of heart, help from superiors, patience, organisation, peace.
Obstacle - This is the challenge.
Prince of Swords
Aquarius
This card represents the airy part of Air. This chariot is drawn by winged children, looking and leaping irresponsibly in any direction that takes their fancy; they are not reined, but perfectly Capricious. The chariot consequently is easy enough to move, but quite unable to progress in any definite direction except by accident. This is a perfect picture of the Mind.
The operation of his logical mental processes has reduced the Air, which is his element, to many diverse geometrical patterns, but in these there is no real plan; they are demonstrations of the powers of the Mind without definite purpose. In his right hand is a lifted sword wherewith to create, but in his left hand a sickle, so that what he creates he instantly destroys. A person thus symbolised is purely intellectual. He is full of ideas and designs which tumble over each other. He is a mass of fine ideals unrelated to practical effort. He has all the apparatus of Thought in the highest degree, intensely clever, admirably rational, but unstable of purpose, and in reality indifferent even to his own ideas, as knowing that any one of them is just as good as any other. He reduces everything to unreality by removing its substance and transmuting it to an ideal world of ratiocination which is purely formal and out of relation to any facts, even those upon which it is based.
External Influences - Attitudes about this situation from people around the querent.
6 of Cups
Sun in Scorpio – Pleasure
This card shows the influence of the number Six, Tiphareth, in the suit of Water. This influence is fortified by that of the Sun, who also represents the Six. The whole image is that of the influence of the Sun on Water.
The lotus stems are grouped in an elaborate dancing movement. From their blossoms water gushes into the Cups, but they are not yet full to overflowing, as they are in the corresponding card below; the Nine. Pleasure, in the title of this card, must be understood in its highest sense: it implies well-being, harmony of natural forces without effort or strain, ease, satisfaction. Foreign to the idea of the card is the gratification of natural or artificial desires. Yet it does represent emphatically the fulfilment of the sexual Will, as shown by the ruling Sephira, planet, element, and sign.
Suggestion - The recommended course of action.
2 of Cups
Venus in Cancer – Love
The Two always represents the Word and the Will. It is the first manifestation. Therefore, in the suit of Water, it must refer to Love, which recovers unity from dividuality by mutual annihilation. The card also refers to Venus in Cancer. Cancer is, more than any other, the receptive Sign; it is the House of the Moon, and in that Sign Jupiter is exalted. These are, superficially, the three most friendly of the planets.
The hieroglyph of the card represents two cups in the foreground, overflowing upon a calm sea. They are fed with lucent water from a lotus floating upon the sea, from which rises another lotus around whose stem are entwined twin dolphins.
The number Two referring to Will, this card might really be renamed the Lord of Love under Will, for that is its full and true meaning. It shows the harmony of the male and the female: interpreted in the largest sense. It is perfect and placid harmony, radiating an intensity of joy and ecstasy.
The Outcome - What will happen if the suggestion is followed.
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.
