Tarot: The Celtic Cross spread

This is the little excerpt from the book about Tarot I am currently working on, enjoy :).

The Celtic Cross

The most famous of all spreads, unfortunately also the most overused one. The Celtic Cross is a common-use spread, if you don't know what spread to use for the reading, use this one. This spread has qualities of many aforementioned spreads, plus it shows many tendencies we want to use or avoid. Unfortunately it also contains a great deal of relations between different card positions which normally isn't well taught. That's why I will teach you this spread traditionally, as I was taught.

For this spread you need to select   10 cards. Meanings of these cards are as follows:

Card 1: That's it

Card 2: That crosses it

Card 3: That's the crown of it

Card 4: That's the base of it

Card 5: That was before it

Card 6: That comes after it

Card 7: That's the querrent

Card 8: That's where it takes place

Card 9: Those are hopes and doubts.

Card 10: This is the result, This is where it leads to.

This explanation might look a bit confusing, but it's the one I started with and it's also probably the only one that shows the basic relations of cards to the card 1 (hence the bold it word). But let's give some a bit more extensive explanation now.

Card 1 shows the current situation, Card 2 shows either positive or negative influences that cross the situation (sometimes the universe is on your side, and sometimes it pushes obstacles in your way).

Card number 3 shows what consciously drives us into this situation, why we want to achieve what we want to achieve. Card number 4 shows what drives us unconsciously (that's the base of it). Fourth card is why we really are in such situation but it isn't apparent at the moment.

Card number 5 shows what preceeded this situation (the past) and card 6 shows what comes after (the future). From this sense cards 5,1,6 are The Three Cards spread and have the same relations as in that spread.

Card number 7 shows the querent's take on the situation. How he behaves and how he feels about the situation. It can happen that the situation will be good according to the reading just this card will show bad signs, that means the querent is too pessimistic about the whole thing to see things as they really are (opposite can happen too).

Card number 8 shows the surroundings of the querent, where it happens. This card can show the external influence regarding the situation and/or the querent (if you use The Celtic Cross instead of the Relationship spread, then this card represents querent's partner).

Card number 9 shows hopes and doubts. Positive cards are hopes and negative one are doubts (or fears). This card shows the the querent hopes for or what he is scared of.

Card 10 is the final result. We can say that card 6 is the near future and card 10 is the distant one. Once again we can do a Three Card spread comparison of cards 5,1,10 as we originally did 5,1,6. The difference between 6 and 10 is also important, as it shows the development of the situation in the future, so use these two as a Two Cards Of The Day spread.

Now, the reading of the spread has a bit different order. First cards you reveal are card number 5 and card number 9. You want to see these two first to find out what happened and what are expectations of the querent. The difference between these two should also give you some information about the current situation.

Next card you reveal is card number 1, the current state of the situation. Then card number 2, what is crossing the current situation. Then cards 3 and 4 to check the background of the situation, then followed by cards 7 (querent) and 8 (surroundings). While revealing each of the cards you are checking all the relationship between the cards and you are trying to sort of guess what will happen next.

Cards number 6 and 10, future related cards, are revealed as the last one. After you check all relationships between the cards you then should try to see the whole picture, to read the spread as the whole.