Learn how to read the Celtic Cross Tarot Spread by Looking Deeper into what the cards and groups of positions mean and how to interpret them. Explore the Law of Attraction, intention and cause and effect within a tarot reading.
Welcome to Part Three, the penultimate post in this Tarot Elements tutorial series, the Celtic Cross Tarot Spread – Looking Deeper.
Having established the Celtic Cross Tarot Spread positions and explored their meanings in the previous post, we’re now going to take a closer look at some of those positions to see how we can further assist our client during their tarot reading, including exploring cause and effect, intention and the Law of Attraction.
Looking Deeper Into the Celtic Cross Tarot Spread
Quickly glancing over the tarot cards present in any Celtic Cross Tarot Spread will give you an indication and quick summary of events around the client. For the purposes of this illustration, I’m going to highlight the four cards which I immediately look to: cards 5, 6, 9 and 10; the Possible Outcome, the Immediate Future, Hopes and Fears and the Outcome. All four are outcome cards of sorts; all speak of the future and likely events. If we have a good collection of cards here, then all is well for your client. Conversely, if they’re negative cards you will be either confirming their situation, their dread, or predicting it. A mix of cards though suggests you need to dig a little further into the reading to find out how the situation will play out, and what, if anything, your client can do to achieve success.
Most often we’re simply looking at a case of cause and effect. I touched on this briefly earlier on, but now it’s time to look a little further into this concept within a Tarot reading.
Cause and Effect
We’re all on certain paths in life, whether they’re the ones we really want to be on is irrelevant at this point. The fact remains that we’re where we are because of the choices we made in the past. Those choices could have been responses to something affecting us outside of our normal control, but nonetheless, we still had to make a decision and a choice. In simple terms, the result of that choice is where you are today as shown within your Tarot reading.
If we look back to positions 5 and 6, the Possible Outcome and the Immediate Future, you can see in the explanations I give for them; that they contain the results of cause and effect – the past and present, and an indicator of things to come – the future. They are also visually directional and if we look at them now within this concept, you will be able to see cause and effect at work more clearly:
The vertical part of the cross gives us our first indication of cause and effect with the Heart of the Matter showing the present situation; the Root Cause showing us the past and the Possible Outcome showing exactly that – a possible outcome, based solely on the client following the current path. In other words, the likely outcome if they were to do nothing.
The benefits of looking at the vertical part of the cross in this way allows you to point out to the client that they can make new decisions to change the likely outcome. This essentially is changing direction for the future. The effect may not happen soon enough to see an immediate change, the horizontal cross will show us what’s in store there; but your client still has the power to make those changes, potentially for a better future. It’s still cause and effect, only by having a Tarot reading; they are now able to see what choices they have and what decisions they can make to improve the future, if indeed they need to.
As I pointed out earlier in the positional meanings, the Immediate Future (card number 6) is the result of the Recent Past and the Crossing card. The events in the recent past are more akin to the Heart of the Matter as they are closer in terms of time, but we’re still looking at cause and effect, only now the effect is showing in the Recent Past. It could also be the Crossing card, but as our example shows, the Crossing card can also be the spanner in the works, so to speak; the unexpected event that we must respond to, make a decision or a choice about. What is important to remember is that the Crossing Card is still in the Present.
The Power of Intention
For now we will concentrate on the two final positions I opened this post with – Hopes and Fears, and the Outcome. Looking first at the Outcome card, it is pretty self explanatory. This card is the accumulation of all the other cards in the reading, and with all things considered, this is the outcome for the querent if they were to continue on the current path. Of course we have looked at how we could change direction earlier in this post by examining the vertical part of the Large Cross, but some would say it’s not the only way we can affect the outcome, or indeed effect a change ourselves.
Position 9 – Hopes and Fears – has a large part to play in how the querent has a hand in the outcome via their hopes and fears for the outcome. We touched on this when we examined this position in the previous post; but it’s time to look a little deeper at the concept of intention and the Law of Attraction.
“Concentrated attention is the collection of units of power on a chosen point of intention.”
James Arthur Ray
This quote by James Arthur Ray sums up intention very well. When we really put our minds to doing something, we are giving it our full concentrated attention. Like Ray says, it’s a collection of units of power – our energy. This is what fuels the mental process to achieve. The very thing we want to do has become possible in our minds and we are now giving our energy to making it happen regardless of whether we really have any control over this process or not.
Law of Attraction
There are some that would say this is where the Law of Attraction comes into play. All that concentrated attention we’re putting out will actually attract to us the very thing we desire, for good or for bad; remember this position is about our hopes and our fears. It is said the Law of Attraction does not discriminate: what you focus your intention on, consciously or unconsciously, is the very thing the Universe will bring to you.
Now, while I don’t want this to become a debate about the legitimacy of those claims, or even the reality of these ideas; it’s worth noting that even at a lower level, expectation will play a part in how your client sees their chances. As a Tarot reader, I believe it’s part of your job to at least be aware of this so you can see the bigger picture. Your client’s reaction to the card that falls into the Hopes and Fears position will assist you in determining whether or not this card will have an impact on the outcome; or in fact, as I have seen before, the card that falls here becomes the outcome.
While this process seems to be very involved, it doesn’t actually take much time to assess the cards I have highlighted in this post and use them as further means of assisting your client, which is what this is all about. Through practice, you will be able to glean a lot of information for your client in no time at all. This process will become a quick scan of these cards, and become second nature to you as a reader.
Tarot Reading Check
Not sure about a tarot reading you’ve done? Do some of the cards look out of place, or not make sense to you? Sometimes we are too close to a situation to see clearly..
Let me go over your reading with you and see what else we can pull from the spread. If looks like you’ve got it nailed, I’ll show you some other reading techniques that you can apply to your future tarot readings. £20 for 30 minutes over Skype or Zoom, or via email through a number of emails to allow for interaction, language differences & keeping a record of new information.