AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have a number of new spreads stacked up that have taken a back seat to other projects. For the next few days I will posting them exclusively unless something else intervenes. In his book, Etteilla or the Only Way to Draw the Cards, Jean-Baptiste Alliette described what he called the "Etteilla Draw," … Continue reading The “Parsifal’s Draw” Negotiated Situational Development Spread
Situational Awareness Spreads
A “Chaldean Vertical Slice” Situational Development Spread
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although the Chaldean decans are a useful symbolic tool on a card-by-card basis, I'm always seeking ways to press the model into wider service. Here's another attempt that treats the attached Golden Dawn "wheels" as more than reference works. I decided to turn the diagrams of Chaldean decan and tarot card correspondences into … Continue reading A “Chaldean Vertical Slice” Situational Development Spread
A “Deep Dive” Card Selection Method and Multipurpose Spread
Here's another "new-to-me" idea, courtesy of The Grand Etteilla. In the book there is a five-card spread in which the reader creates the layout by initially pulling the fifth card from the top (Card #5), then the card five tiers below that one (Card #10), followed by the card five tiers below the tenth card … Continue reading A “Deep Dive” Card Selection Method and Multipurpose Spread
“All The World’s A Stage:” A Three-Tiered Short-Term Development Spread
This spread illustrates my long-held opinion that the Major Arcana rarely show significant "big-deal"events in a short-term reading; they may create an environment conducive to such events but they seldom "pull the trigger" all by themselves. Instead, they provide an archetypal "stage-setting," "thematic backdrop" or "environmental prompt" for the situational drama delivered by the Minor … Continue reading “All The World’s A Stage:” A Three-Tiered Short-Term Development Spread
The “Jodo’s Judgement” Situational Breakout Spread
The “syncretic” approach to esoteric study and practice has fascinated me ever since I first encountered Aleister Crowley's exhaustive and rather intimidating catalog of mystically-linked assumptions in The Book of Thoth, and in his even more relentless source material, Sir James George Frazer’s Golden Bough. I often combine ideas from more than one metaphysical discipline … Continue reading The “Jodo’s Judgement” Situational Breakout Spread
Rachel Pollack: A “Best-Case Scenario” Reading
Author's Note: It may be presumptuous of me to do this without being asked, but those of us who have ever met Rachel are deeply concerned about her condition and I wanted to capture that interest in an appropriate appeal to the tarot. It seemed fortuitous that I have her Shining Tribe deck. UPDATE: This … Continue reading Rachel Pollack: A “Best-Case Scenario” Reading
The “Gatekeeper and Keymaster” Best-Case Scenario Spread
The title of this spread comes from the two demonic characters ("Zuul" and "Vinz Clortho") played by Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis in the first Ghostbusters movie. The premise was rife with thinly-veiled sexual innuendo about the "gate" and the "key," but it seemed like a good basis for a tarot spread. The spread uses … Continue reading The “Gatekeeper and Keymaster” Best-Case Scenario Spread
The “Test of Strength” Developmental Insight Spread
As is probably obvious from my track record, I love to create spreads around cultural metaphors or analogies. This one is based on the "test of strength" games (aka "Strongman" or "High-Striker") that are popular at carnivals, in which the player uses a hammer to drive a metal striker up a vertical column with the … Continue reading The “Test of Strength” Developmental Insight Spread
Supporters and Detractors: A “Human Factors” Developmental Spread
The rationale behind this spread is fairly self-explanatory. None of us "live, and move and have our being" in a total vacuum. Even if other people have no direct or apparent involvement in the circumstances of the reading, we may still have cautionary feelings about them from a "what if" perspective that can color our … Continue reading Supporters and Detractors: A “Human Factors” Developmental Spread
A Domino-and-Cards Example Reading: House Sale
To test this spread I chose a real-life situation in which acquaintances have just started the process of trying to sell their current house and move to a bigger one. The deck here is the RWS Centennial Edition in a Tin (copyright U.S. Games, Stamford, CT, used by permission) that I shuffled to introduce random … Continue reading A Domino-and-Cards Example Reading: House Sale
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 