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Celtic Cross Spread

 

The Celtic Cross is the most well-known tarot spread and also the largest available here, involving ten cards. This spread begins with a pair of crossing cards at the center of the issue, essentially being two significators. When two significators are involved, they may strengthen or oppose each other, which speaks of the nature of the situation. Above and below the initial cross, we have two cards which are symbolic of the intellectual (top) and emotional (bottom) basis of the issue. The Before and After cards show the past and immediate future.

At the right, four cards are laid out, going upward. At the bottom you have a card representing yourself, and the next card shows how others may affect the situation. Card #9 indicates what you may be hoping for, or possibly, what you hope will not happen. Finally at the top is the outcome, meaning the distant or ultimate future.

Spread Positions

  1. This is it (what you asked about)
  2. This crosses it (strengthens or opposes)
  3. This crowns it (higher influences)
  4. It rests upon this (lower influences)
  5. This came before
  6. This comes next
  7. This is you
  8. The external world around you
  9. Your hopes, fears, and secret desires
  10. The result or outcome

 

 

 

Celtic Cross

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Celtic Cross Reading

The Crown

King of Swords

The Outcome

3 of Wands


Hopes and Fears

The Devil


External Forces

4 of Pentacles


The Querent

Queen of Pentacles

The Recent Past

The Hierophant

The Crossing Card

The Hermit


The Significator

3 of Pentacles

The Future

10 of Wands


Foundation card


Ace of Wands

 

 

The Significator represents what the main theme of the reading deals with, the initial situation.

 

 

3 of Pentacles

A sculptor at his work in a monastery. Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest.

Upright Meaning:

Artifice, trade, skilled labour; regarded as a card of nobility, aristocracy, renown, glory.

 

 

 

 

The Crossing Card denotes an added impulse that compounds the initial card, whether complimentary or contradictory.

 

The Hermit

An old man with a walking stick holds up a lantern to enlighten his path.

Upright Meaning:

Prudence, circumspection, insight, self-awareness, retreat, solitude, detachment, isolation, peace, withdrawal.

 

 

 

 

The Crown stands for what the asker is aware of consciously.

 

King of Swords

He sits in judgement, holding the unsheathed sword. He recalls the conventional symbol of justice in the Major Arcana, and he may represent this virtue, but he is rather the power of life and death.

Upright Meaning:

Power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, defensiveness, security, high office, duty, public service.

 

 

 

 

Foundation card reveals unconscious driving forces that the querent may not be aware of.

 

Ace of Wands

A hand reaching out from a cloud grasps a stout wand or club.

Reversed Meaning:

Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish also a certain clouded joy.
A sign of birth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Recent Past represents past events and concerns.

 

The Hierophant

Seated on his throne, the Pope symbolises the male understanding of the spiritual workings of the world and traditional values. Two monks flank him on either side.

Reversed Meaning:

Society, concord, overkindness, weakness, doormat, misinterpretation, misunderstanding.

 

 

 

 

The Future depicts that which lies ahead.

 

10 of Wands

A man oppressed by the weight of the ten staves which he is carrying.

Upright Meaning:

Fortune, gain, success, false-seeming, disguise, perfidy. The rods that he carries may be bad news to the place he brings them. Success is stultified if the Nine of Swords follows.

 

 

 

 

The Querent represents the asker and their attitude towards the subject of the reading.

 

Queen of Pentacles

The face suggests that of a dark, intelligent woman, who has the quality of greatness. She contemplates her pentacle, using it as a tool of skrying and divination.

Upright Meaning:

Opulence, generosity, magnificence, liberty, meditation, divination, intelligence, dignity, potence, grand, important, majestic.

 

 

 

 

External Forces represents the influence of others in your life as well as trends in your relationships with others.

 

4 of Pentacles

A crowned figure, having a pentacle over his crown, clasps another with hands and arms; two pentacles are under his feet. He clings to what he has.

Upright Meaning:

Possessiveness, desperation, obsession, gift, legacy, inheritance, materialism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopes and Fears shows the expectations you have concerning the outcome of your question.

 

The Devil

The devil holds the lovers, Adam and Eve in chains. This card represents the fall of man.

Reversed Meaning:

Evil, weakness, pettiness, vehemence, betrayal, deception, prison, small-mindedness, trifling.

 

 

 

 

The Outcome of your question. Interpret this card in the context of the entire reading and as an indicator of the path you are currently on, but not necessarily bound to.

 

3 of Wands

A calm, stately personage, with his back turned, looking from a cliff's edge at ships passing over the sea. Three staves are planted in the ground, and he leans slightly on one of them.

Reversed Meaning:

The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.