A “Near-Term Breakout” Spread
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here is a spread that is intended for use when we feel becalmed or unmotivated and are looking for a definitive “breakout moment” sometime in the next month.
You will need two decks for this spread, one for the fifteen “advice” cards in the top row and one for the “mode of action/inaction” cards below that will include the randomly-placed significator or “focus card. The result of the draw will be a four-or-five-card reading — four if there are no cards underlying the significator and five if there is an “external motivator” card beneath it.
Begin by shuffling Deck #1 and dealing fifteen cards face-down into five stacks of three cards; these can be distributed in any order. I recommend allowing reversals for this pull but it isn’t mandatory.
Next, choose a significator or “focus” card from Deck #2 and leave it in the deck. This can be any card that speaks to the root of the problem and it may refer to an objective state of being, a subjective sense of affliction or another person who is causing the feeling of unrest.
Shuffle Deck #2 and begin dealing cards face-up, from left-to-right, into the bottom row until the significator shows up; where it lands will describe the nature of any action or inaction that should be embraced as a way to address the issue. (Once again, I advise applying reversals.) There may be zero, one or several cards beneath it by the time it appears.
If there are previously-dealt cards under the significator, select the uppermost one directly beneath it as the external motivator that propelled the querent into the current dilemma. If there are no cards below it, the motivation will come entirely from within as a psychological rather than a circumstantial incentive.
Take the three-card set immediately above the significator’s “mode of action/inaction” position and spread it out in a line, either left-to-right or bottom-to-top; place the “external motivator” card (if any) as an initiating factor at the beginning of this sequence, with the significator following it and the bulk of the cards last. (See the example spread below.)
Read the four-or-five-card series in the column represented by the specific mode of action or inaction as advice for entering that particular response scenario.
I randomly created a rather bleak example reading to demonstrate this method. If I were to give it a title, it would be “Another Small Step into Despair.” I postulated that the imaginary querent was feeling “stuck in neutral” with no clue how or where to make her next move, so I chose the RWS 8 of Swords as the “focus” card identifying her state of duress.
The 8 of Swords turned up in the “action/inaction” mode labeled “Cooperate/Placate (Stabilize)” with several cards beneath it. The idea behind this position is that some kind of conciliation or appeasement is a better way to approach the matter than confrontation; backing down gracefully could be the preferred option (although given the outcome in this case it looks like she might have to flee “with her tail between her legs”).
Judgement reversed was immediately below the significator in the stack, so it became the “external motivator.” The woman acknowledged that she felt like a “victim of fate” being compelled by forces beyond her control to take an untenable position. The implication of its reversal was one of being “laid low” by destiny.
The significator landed upright, so there was no mystery about her present state of affairs; she recognized that she didn’t know where to start.
The first card in the “advice” stack was the 7 of Disks reversed; the title of this card in the Thoth deck is “Failure” (the Golden Dawn’s original meaning was the slightly less morbid “Success Unfulfilled” but the premise is the same). Its position identifies it as the “breakout” or “realization” card but its message is uninspiring in that it “doubles down” on the fated nature of her circumstances, in which no opportunity to make headway presents itself because she is immobilized by the sheer weight of adversity. The upshot may be that there is no visible way out for her.
The second, or “developmental,” card was the upright Ace of Disks that with less-ominous cards would be an ideal “stabilizing” influence. Here it scarcely makes a difference since it, along with the 7 of Disks, is elementally hostile to the 8 of Swords and also to the “outcome” card. It may have the right idea but it doesn’t have the horsepower to make it stick. The suggestion is one of “building castles in the sand.”
The final card was the sinister 9 of Swords, showing that any step she might take to get around the 7 of Disks with the anemic help of the Ace of Disks could well be a false one that drives her even deeper into pain and misery as a result of her initiative, but this time her plight is more self-inflicted than innocent. It could be that she will become her own worst enemy by striving in vain to succeed in the face of such daunting odds. Rather than merely being stymied and frustrated by her inertia, when all is said and done it appears that by trying she will become even more decisively “dead in the water.” If this were a jailbreak she wouldn’t get far because the figurative “bars of the cell” are there waiting for her.
I thought I might find some relief for her by calculating the “quintessence” card, but no matter whether I used my personal method of subtracting reversed-card values or “played it straight” by summing everything as upright, I came up with the Moon (18) by “casting out nines” and the Hermit (9) by “Theosophical reduction,” not the most uplifting cards under the circumstances. Overall, the reading conveyed a sense of malaise that even the most compassionate interpretation couldn’t explain away.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on June 17, 2024.
