The “Compleat” Celtic Cross
AUTHOR’S NOTE: “Compleat” is an archaic English spelling that I’m using here to characterize my advanced approach to the considerably less-archaic Celtic Cross (CC) spread. (My “completely” irrelevant point-of-reference is Izaak Walton’s 1653 “fish-tale,” The Compleat Angler.)
Almost forty years ago I spent some time modifying Eden Gray’s version of A.E. Waite’s venerable Celtic Cross layout to meet my own needs as a pragmatic rather than mystical diviner. (I never had any use for Waite’s original “Sign of the Cross” design with its thinly-veiled Christian ideology, preferring Gray’s clockwise rotation and its solar implications.) I’ve used it successfully ever since, but in more recent times I have expanded its scope by adding a few preliminary and supplemental steps to my practice. You can find my personal CC variant here:
https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/parsifals-wheel-a-celtic-cross-variation/
My first innovation was to introduce the initial step of the “First Operation” from the Golden Dawn’s complex Opening of the Key method, the one in which the deck is shuffled and then cut into four sub-packs from right to left, representing Fire, Water, Air and Earth. The idea was to locate the pre-selected “significator” card (a modern equivalent would be “avatar”) identifying the seeker in one of the elemental piles and then “tell the Querent why he has come” for the reading based on the purview ascribed to that element (Fire/Wands = work, ambition and enterprise; Water/Cups = “affairs of the heart;” Air/Swords = legal disputes, arguments and difficulties in general; and Earth/Pentacles = all practical matters such as money and property). This was done without first hearing the individual’s own reasons for coming, and if there was ultimately a mismatch between the two accounts the reading was to be terminated as unworkable.
In applying this approach to the Celtic Cross, I interpret the significator’s position as suggesting the primary focus of the forthcoming ten-card CC, and I never abandon a reading even when this aim doesn’t agree with the querent’s stated goals, I just treat it as collateral input to be taken into consideration. I ask the querent to select a general topic area from the guideline below, then I get on with the formal CC.
My second permutation was to remove the 16 court cards from a second deck, shuffle them in a way that allows for reversal, and draw one card to place in the “Significator” position (Card #1 of the “cross,” a location I normally don’t use). Rather than interpret this card as representing the querent, I only look at the facing of the person in the image. If it is gazing or gesturing to the left, I will assume that the reading will concentrate on past circumstances that are still relevant, perhaps even showing that the individual is “stuck in the past;” if the figure is oriented toward the right, this suggests that he or she is eager to move forward and leave the past behind.
Reversal will obviously alter the figure’s “regard” (a fancy word for gaze), and it is vital to use a deck that includes a variety of postures for the court cards. The RWS is perfect for this since every court card except the King of Swords has either a pronounced or more subtle “direction of intent;” however, the sword held by the king is canted to the reader’s left, so I interpret him as being influenced by the past, befitting his reliance on legal precedent in his decisions. After making this call, I populate the rest of the CC with the main reading deck.
My final tweak is not new, but I sometimes rely on it when the cards or the querent encourage me to continue past the “End of the Matter” position. Although I almost never draw additional cards (not surprisingly called “clarifiers”) to further explain an ambiguous point in a reading, if the “outcome” (Card #10 of the CC) is inconclusive, I will pull two more cards to tell “the rest of the story.” But I recently did a reading where the client wanted a more extensive future forecast than can be provided by a couple of extra cards, so I drew a total of four from the original shuffle (I had to invent some position meanings for this expansion).
After interpreting this scenario, I had a flash of inspiration; I took Cards #7 through #14 and placed them in an oval such that Card #14 returned to the self-defeating Card #7 (in this case, the 7 of Wands implies having to remain in adversarial “battle mode”), with the observation that the querent could suffer a relapse of the emotional malaise she had been experiencing due to the lackluster nature of Card #14, the intended “final closure” (here it is the “ho-hum” 7 of Pentacles reversed, conceding “Oh, well, I tried”). To cap the analysis, I pulled a fifteenth card and placed it in the middle of the oval, calling it the “breakout” card that would reveal how she might escape from the recurring cycle of hardship. I read the “last word” of advice as “Keep your own counsel and become self reliant” (Hermit), and “Don’t let anything shake your self confidence” (not hard for the King of Wands even when reversed, although a little introspective self-doubt might well creep in). Here is what it looks like:
I decided to name this double-loop array the “Argent Helix” second-chance spread since “Silver Helix” is too pedestrian, “Golden Helix” has been used previously by a corporation and a couple of authors, and astrology has already claimed the “solar gold” to tarot’s “lunar silver.” (I will post a full explanation for this tomorrow.)
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 14, 2023.
