AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here is a spread based on the First Operation of the Golden Dawn’s “Opening of the Key” method, but with no Significator and without the formal counting of cards to populate it.

The four sub-packs from right-to-left are the same – Fire, Water, Air and Earth, but I’ve retitled them to suit my purpose. The cards randomly selected for the reading will reflect the querent’s present and future well-being in each area: Egoic/Spiritual; Emotional; Intellectual; and Physical. Note that the reading operates at both the subconscious, instinctual and fully conscious, volitional levels, so the testimony of the cards may not be immediately relatable to the client’s external circumstances and must be “talked through” with the individual.

Begin by having the sitter shuffle the deck and cut it into four sub-packs from right-to-left in any way they choose. Reversals may be introduced before or during the shuffle. (Since this is an expanded form of “general life-reading” no specific question is required although, if the sitter is interested in only one of the four areas, the process can be limited to the affected sub-pack and a question can be formulated before the target card is pulled from the fan as described below.)

Pick up the right-most Fire sub-pack and spread the cards face-down into a fan, holding it out in front of the querent.

Have them select one card from the fan but not pull it all the way out of the pack so its position in the sequence is maintained.

Flip the cards face-up so the card that was singled out is visible.

Identify either one or two cards on each side of the chosen card depending on whether you want a three-card or five-card reading. The middle or “hinge” card represents a turning-point in the life-area identified by the sub-pack while the adjacent cards show how the seeker can work through it from the beginning (at the left) to the end (at the right) and reach a conclusion. This mini-series can be segregated from the rest of the cards for clarity as shown in the example spreads.

Since Fire symbolizes both Ego and Spirit, read these cards as revealing his or her inner well-being in terms of ego-satisfaction and spiritual wellness. (Traditionally, this sub-pack relates to matters of work and business, but here I’m broadening it to cover all forms of self-advancement on both the egocentric and psycho-spiritual planes.) Provide insights to the querent on the current status of this area of life and how it is likely to develop. If the focus is literal and not subliminal, the sitter can be asked to help sort this out.

Moving from right-to-left, repeat this step for the “Water” sub-pack and read the series as the querent’s state of emotional well-being, including relationship considerations.

Do the same for the “Air” sub-pack, interpreting the cards to convey the sitter’s mental condition from the standpoint of intellectual well-being, including cognitive maturity, sound judgment, decisiveness, communication with others and the potential for disagreements or conflicts to arise.

Finally, complete this step for the “Earth” sub-pack and read the cards as showing well-being in all types of physical health and material resources.

Below is an example reading.

Overall, the picture here isn’t especially encouraging at first glance. While all four “hinge” cards are fairly well-favored, with the exception of the Queen of Swords and the 9 of Disks they don’t align perfectly with their elemental sub-pack. The rest are what is known as “neutral and supportive” but I think of them as “complementary opposites” that provide something their counterparts lack.

The Knight of Disks in the Fire sub-pack strikes me as a “landed” gentleman who is comfortable in his own skin but may be a bit bored with his current and future accomplishments. He is besieged by three elementally-hostile Air cards that gain strength from Fire and has only his somewhat shaky self-assurance (9 of Wands reversed) going for him. The Prince of Swords at the end is telling him to be wary of fast-talking scammers.

The 9 of Disks in the Water sub-pack is more pragmatic than emotional, but it is strongly supported by its complement of two more Earth cards and an elementally friendly (and highly sympathetic) Water card along with an agreeable Fire card that is well-placed with Earth (if not Water). The 9 of Disks would be an exceptional provider in a personal relationship, although not at all romantic.

The impatient and uncompromising Queen of Swords in the Air sub-pack is mistress of her domain and is for the most part endowed with compatible minions. Only the reversed 7 of Disks suggests a potential misstep as she works toward satisfactory closure in the 6 of Swords. She needs to attend to any unfinished business associated with the reversed Princess of Wands, which is most likely where the risk of failure lies. She is tough-minded enough to expel the “weak sister” from her retinue.

The Wheel of Fortune in the Earth sub-pack is traditionally a favorable card, not just a card of instability under changing conditions. As a Fire card it gets a “vote of no confidence” from the watery 5 of Cups, reversed 8 of Cups and reversed Death (as Scorpio), but the elementally supportive 8 of Disks, although reversed, is telling the “sphinx-at-the-wheel” to raise its sights just high enough above the level of interference to clear the hurdle and gain traction in practical matters. The Wheel is, after all, a trump card whereas, except for Death, the other are prosaic, and Death when reversed looks more like a “trip hazard” than an insurmountable barrier to progress.

From another angle, the reversed Eight is not a particularly dynamic number and there are two of them here, while Death (also reversed) has a connection to the Eighth House of “other people’s money” in the Golden Dawn’s Chaldean wheel of astrological correspondences, so investing in sketchy enterprises with shady partners would not be wise. However, I once described the Wheel of Fortune as an unstoppable “steamroller.” That should count for something although, with all the reversals, profits might still be “flat.”

This person comes across as savvy in the material affairs connected with partnerships and mundane “wheeling-and-dealing,” and quick-witted in intellectual matters. In the ego-flexing area of psycho-spiritual well-being, the individual is encumbered by hostile opposition that could slow but not halt growth as long as dishonest underlings (shown by the Prince of Swords) can be rooted out.