The Three Pyramids Spread
Difficulty: Complicated
Basically, there is the main pyramid in the centre, and two smaller pyramids on each side. One is inverted.
Positions 1 & 3 represent where the reader comes from, or what has made them/shaped them on the various levels. Can be from environment, upbringing, schooling, etc. A look at the past, but with more objectivity than is usually given when using tarot cards.
Positions 4 & 5 represent who the reader is right now. May or may not make pleasant reading, but hey, this is what this is about, right?
Position 6 represents who the reader could be. Again, it might or might not look good, but a person can learn from that and change who they are accordingly. (This is a bit like how Scrooge did things in 'A Christmas Carol'.)
Positions 7 & 8 are the reader's strengths. This is the light they have, which can be bought to the forefront. What carries the person should not be hidden or unacknowledged.
Position 9 represents what should be given to oneself or created within.
Position 10 & 11 represent personal areas for development or weaknesses. Again, might not make good reading, but if someone looks at their strengths first, they will be able to see a balance is there and can choose to focus on one side or the other. This is where a person could really see how their shadow side comes into play.
Position 12 represents what the reader should be offering externally, or what they can bring to their world or to others who inhabit that world.
Your Three Pyramids Tarot Reading with the Book of Thoth
Strength #1 |
Strength #2 |
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Exhibit |
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Nurture This |
Potential |
Infirmity #1 |
Infirmity #2 |
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Now #1 |
Now #2 |
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Base (past) #1 |
Base (past) #2 |
Base (past) #3 |
1: Base #1
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.
2: Base #2
Sun in Capricorn – Power
The Four, Chesed, shows the establishment of the Universe in three dimensions, that is, below the Abyss. The generating idea is exhibited in its full material sense. The card is ruled by the Sun in Capricornus, the Sign in which he is reborn. The disks are very large and solid; the suggestion of the card is that of a fortress. This represents Law and Order, maintained by constant authority and vigilance. The disks themselves are square; revolution is very opposite to the card; and they contain the signs of the Four Elements. For all that, they revolve; defence is valid only when violently active.
So far as it appears stationary, it is the 'dead centre' of the engineer; and Capricornus is the point at which the Sun 'turns again Northward'. The background is of deep azure, flecked yellow, suggesting a moat; but beyond this is a pattern of green and indigo to represent the guarded fields whose security is assured by the fortress.
3: Base #3
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.
4: Where you are now #1
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.
5: Where you are now #2
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.
6: Your potential
Mercury
Skill, wisdom, adroitness, elasticity, craft, cunning, deceit, theft. Sometimes occult wisdom or power, sometimes a quick impulse, a brain-wave. It may imply messages, business transactions, the interference of learning or intelligence with the matter in hand.
7: Strength #1
Pisces
The Knight of Cups represents the fiery part of Water, the swift passionate attack of rain and springs; more intimately, Water's power of solution. He is clothed in black armour furnished with bright wings which, together with the leaping attitude of his white charger, indicates that he represents the most active aspect of Water. In his right hand he bears a cup from which issues a crab, the cardinal sign of Water, for aggressiveness. His totem is the peacock, for one of the stigmata of water in its most active form is brilliance. There is here also some reference to the phenomena of fluorescence.
The characteristics of the person signified by this card are nevertheless mostly passive, in accordance with the Zodiacal attribution. He is graceful, dilettante, with the qualities of Venus, or a weak Jupiter. He is amiable in a passive way. He is quick to respond to attraction, and easily becomes enthusiastic under such stimulus; but he is not very enduring. He is exceedingly sensitive to external in fluence, but with no material depth in his character.
8: Strength #2
Moon in Aquarius – Futility
Netzach, in the suit of Swords, does not represent such catastrophe as in the other suits, for Netzach, the Sephira of Venus, means victory. There is, therefore, a modifying influence; and this is accentuated by the celestial rule of the Moon in Aquarius.
The intellectual wreckage of the card is thus not so vehement as in the Five. There is vacillation, a wish to compromise, a certain toleration. But, in certain circumstances, the results may be more disastrous than ever. This naturally depends upon the success of the policy. This is always in doubt as long as there exist violent, uncompromising forces which take it as a natural prey. This card, like the Four, suggests the policy of appeasement.
The symbol shows six Swords with their hilts in crescent formation. Their points meet below the centre of the card, impinging upon a blade of a much larger up-thrusting sword, as if there were a contest between the many feeble and the one strong. He strives in vain.
9: Nurture this
Cancer
The Queen of Cups represents the watery part of Water, its power of reception and reflection. She reflects the nature of the observer in great perfection. She is represented as enthroned upon still water. In her hand she bears a shell-like cup, from which issues a crayfish, and she bears also the Lotus of Isis, of the Great Mother. She is robed in, and veiled by, endless curves of light, and the sea upon which she is enthroned conveys the almost unbroken images of the image which she represents.
The characteristics associated with this card are principally dreaminess, illusion and tranquillity. She is the perfect agent and patient, able to receive and transmit everything without herself being affected thereby. If ill-dignified, all these qualities are degraded. Everything that passes through her is refracted and distorted. But, speaking generally, her characteristics depend mostly upon the influences which affect her.
10: Weakness #1
The Princess of Swords represents the earthy part of Air, the fixation of the volatile. She brings about the materialisation of Idea. She represents the influence of Heaven upon Earth. She represents to some extent the anger of the Gods, and she appears helmed, with serpent-haired Medusa for her crest. She stands in front of a barren altar as if to avenge its profanation, and she stabs downward with her sword. The heaven and the clouds, which are her home, seem angry.
The character of the Princess is stern and revengeful. Her logic is destructive. She is firm and aggressive, with great practical wisdom and subtlety in material things. She shews great cleverness and dexterity in the management of practical affairs, especially where they are of a controversial nature. She is very adroit in the settlement of controversies.
11: Weakness #2
Saturn in Sagittarius – Oppression
The number Ten refers to Malkuth, which depends from the other nine Sephiroth, but is not directly in communication with them. It shows the Force detached from its spiritual sources. It is become a blind Force; so, the most violent form of that particular energy, without any modifying influences. The flames in the back ground of the card have run wild. It is Fire in its most destructive aspect.
The whole picture suggests Oppression and repression. It is a stupid and obstinate cruelty from which there is no escape. It is a Will which has not understood anything beyond its dull purpose, its 'lust of result', and will devour itself in the conflagrations it has evoked.
12: Behavior to exhibit
Aquarius
Hope, unexpected help, clearness of vision, realisation of possibilities, spiritual insight, with bad aspects, error of judgment, dreaminess, disappointment.
