AUTHOR’S NOTE: A popular opinion among mystical tarot readers is that formal (aka “positional”) spreads are too rigid and therefore hamper performance of the fluid, freestyle interpretation those practitioners favor. As a long-time creator of such spreads, I can confirm that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Pursuing their oracular muse, they prefer pulling and reading cards until the number drawn and the story they tell feel “just right” in an intuitive way. I call this unstructured approach “throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.” There is also a hint of staying in the comfort zone in their steadfast disavowal of a systematic framework. (I was going to dismiss it as “Goldilocks avoidance syndrome” but even that fable featured a perverse tenacity in its quest for a uniformly bland texture and temperament.)

Compared to the paltry 60+ mentioned in the verbose 2017 essay linked below, over the past nine years I have developed well over 300 tarot and Lenormand spreads, the vast majority of them positional in design. I find that placing conceptual guardrails on my predictions is perfect for efficiently keeping the reading on a taut leash so I don’t wander around looking for informal clues that will hopefully point me in the right direction, and I won’t plunge over any avoidable discursive cliffs in my eagerness to reach some kind of closure. If I have a reliable anchor I won’t be lured into error by footloose “hot air” (i.e. aimless rhetoric) of my own making.

My goal is not to put the narrative “on rails” like the worst of the computer adventure games where the player’s objectives are all laid out in advance. Instead, I want to create a landscape that opens up to exploration while also providing a roadmap with signposts that will steer me toward the next milestone when I’m ready to move on. Unlike the protagonist in the Styx song “Too Much Time on My Hands,” I can’t afford to have “nowhere to go and all day to get there.” In truth, a recognizable conclusion is typically hidden in the cards and I don’t want to spend too much time finding my way to it, so an effective spread can keep me on-track.

I’ve come across a few spread-creation tutorials over the years, but all of them were overly complex. For me, spread construction boils down to three critical ingredients: “What do I want to know about the matter in question?” (i.e. “What should my position meanings cover?”); “How much do I want to know about the subject?” (i.e. “How many spread positions do I need to adequately explain it?”); and “How do I want the message delivered?” (i.e. “What form should the layout take: line; triangle; square; circle; parallel; multi-pointed, etc?”). That’s really all there is to it, and it tends to encourage more streamlined readings with clearer objectives. I’ve found five cards to be the “sweet spot” for this.

Currently, my favorite pattern is the five-card “bell-curve” sequence with a peak moment (often a turning-point, climax or crisis) in the middle or “hinge” position. This spread can handle nearly any conceivable reading scenario where an up-and-down linear path to the outcome is envisioned, and I’ve crafted quite a few variations on the theme. Right up there with it is the modest French Cross that admirably serves a similar purpose. Another common layout in my repertoire is the nine-card “box” in a variety of analytical modes.

Three cards are my bare minimum for pursuing a narrower scope, and I often use a triangular format that embraces the three principles of the “Hegelian (actually Johann Fichte’s) dialectic:” thesis, antithesis and synthesis or, more prosaically, action, reaction and resolution. The three-card line is useful mainly for brief “past/present/future” readings

Then there is the parallel arrangement of two or more chains of cards that are read via comparison for the purpose of decision-making. Last but not least among the standard suite is the venerable Celtic Cross, which I have described as the “Swiss Army knife” of all-purpose spreads. (Lenormand reading is a separate subject that I won’t go into here, but the Grand Tableau is the “gold standard” of exceptionally large layouts unless we’re brave enough to attempt one of Etteilla’s 45-card extravaganzas.)

The formal spread can become the literal reader’s best friend when more specificity is wanted than just a “warm, fuzzy feeling” about the querent’s forthcoming opportunities and challenges. It offers a coherent overview of the salient features while also imparting chapter, verse and footnotes for their comprehensive expression. Of course, it’s not nearly that anal in practice, I’m merely waxing poetic, but you get the picture: very little subjective guesswork is required when the essential details are spelled out in an exemplary fashion, so the diviner’s intuitive faculties can be turned toward burnishing the plot.

When coupled with the traditional card meanings, classical spreads deliver the descriptive baseline for the discerning practitioner’s amplification with more vivid storytelling content. Once understood, they can be embellished as needed with a mix of inspiration, imagination and ingenuity. My own recipe for success involves disciplined analysis augmented and energized by anecdotal insights derived from years of practice.

The Art of Spread Creation