Three Card
Change spread
Past
What shaped this situation: the influences, choices, or events already behind it that still bear on where things stand now.
Present
Where things stand right now: the current energy, tension, or opportunity actually in play.
Future
Where this is heading if nothing changes: a likely direction worth weighing, not a fixed outcome.
About this spread
Three cards in a row, tracing a situation from what shaped it, through where it stands now, to where it's likely heading, tarot's simplest and most common starting point.
When to use it. Good as a first spread, or for a quick read on a situation without narrowing it to a strict yes-or-no question. Three cards give you a story with a beginning, middle, and direction, without the density of a ten- or fifteen-card layout. Read the cards in order, then read them again as a group: Etteilla's own students noted that three cards read in different orders tell six different stories, so if the first pass feels flat, try reading right to left instead.
Where this layout comes from
The three-card past-present-future format is one of the most widely used spreads in modern tarot practice, appearing across nearly every contemporary guide in almost identical form. No single author or text can be credited with inventing it; it functions as a shared convention rather than one person's creative work. Etteilla records the one verified refinement worth keeping: a January 1788 manuscript of the Interprètes du Livre de Thot notes that three cards read in sequence can be read in six different orders, and each ordering changes which card is doing the explaining.
What shaped this situation: the influences, choices, or events already behind it that still bear on where things stand now.
Where things stand right now: the current energy, tension, or opportunity actually in play.
About this spread
Three cards in a row, tracing a situation from what shaped it, through where it stands now, to where it's likely heading, tarot's simplest and most common starting point.
When to use it. Good as a first spread, or for a quick read on a situation without narrowing it to a strict yes-or-no question. Three cards give you a story with a beginning, middle, and direction, without the density of a ten- or fifteen-card layout. Read the cards in order, then read them again as a group: Etteilla's own students noted that three cards read in different orders tell six different stories, so if the first pass feels flat, try reading right to left instead.
Where this layout comes from
The three-card past-present-future format is one of the most widely used spreads in modern tarot practice, appearing across nearly every contemporary guide in almost identical form. No single author or text can be credited with inventing it; it functions as a shared convention rather than one person's creative work. Etteilla records the one verified refinement worth keeping: a January 1788 manuscript of the Interprètes du Livre de Thot notes that three cards read in sequence can be read in six different orders, and each ordering changes which card is doing the explaining.
Love
Change spread
The Beginning
Where the matter starts: what set this connection or question in motion, its root rather than its surface.
The Peak
Its high point: the best this has already reached, or is capable of reaching.
The Obstacle
What stands in the way: the real difficulty at work here, not just its symptom.
The Fall
Where this is heading if nothing changes: not a threat, a direction worth naming honestly.
About this spread
Papus' rapid method for a love question: shuffle only the fourteen Cups cards, cut, and lay the top four blind in a cross, then turn them to read.
When to use it. Papus designed this specifically for love questions, not as a general-purpose layout: draw only from the Cups suit, laid blind in a cross. Good when the question is squarely about a relationship or connection. The method depends on isolating Cups from the rest of the deck first, so it's not one to improvise with a full shuffled deck.
Where this layout comes from
Papus assigns a suit to each type of question and reads only that suit for the matter at hand: Bâtons for undertakings, Coupes for love, Épées for conflict, Deniers for money. For a love question, only the fourteen Cups cards are shuffled, the querent cuts, and the top four are laid blind in a cross before being turned face up to read.
Where the matter starts: what set this connection or question in motion, its root rather than its surface.
About this spread
Papus' rapid method for a love question: shuffle only the fourteen Cups cards, cut, and lay the top four blind in a cross, then turn them to read.
When to use it. Papus designed this specifically for love questions, not as a general-purpose layout: draw only from the Cups suit, laid blind in a cross. Good when the question is squarely about a relationship or connection. The method depends on isolating Cups from the rest of the deck first, so it's not one to improvise with a full shuffled deck.
Where this layout comes from
Papus assigns a suit to each type of question and reads only that suit for the matter at hand: Bâtons for undertakings, Coupes for love, Épées for conflict, Deniers for money. For a love question, only the fourteen Cups cards are shuffled, the querent cuts, and the top four are laid blind in a cross before being turned face up to read.
Wirth Cross
Change spread
The Case For
What argues in favor: the reasons this could work, read as the opening argument.
The Case Against
What argues the other way: the real counterweight to the first card, not to be waved off.
The Judge
What weighs the first two arguments against each other: the perspective that decides between them rather than simply taking a side.
The Verdict
What the judge decides: the resolution the first three cards were already building toward.
The Synthesis
Add the four Major Arcana's own numbers together. If the total is 22 or under, that number's card is the fifth; if it runs over 22, add its two digits together (23 becomes 2 + 3 = 5, 57 becomes 5 + 7 = 12) until a single card number is left. Not drawn but calculated — the card that holds what all four others already said, together.
About this spread
Oswald Wirth's numerological cross: no cards are shuffled and dealt in the usual sense. You name a number, cut the Major Arcana deck by it four times to draw four cards, then calculate a fifth from their sum.
When to use it. Wirth built this as a Major-Arcana-only method: no significator, no suits, just the twenty-two trumps and a number named on the spot. He frames it around a serious question about a present decision, not general fortune-telling; he warns against a question as loose as asking what will happen to you. Good when you have one concrete decision weighing on you and want the case for it, the case against it, and a verdict, not just an outcome.
Where this layout comes from
This method appears only in the expanded edition of Wirth's book (printed 1926, published 1927), not in the original 1889 edition, which had no chapter on divination yet. Wirth restricts the whole method to the twenty-two Major Arcana: no suits, no significator, and a genuinely unusual final step, a fifth card calculated rather than drawn, from the digit-sum of the other four.
What argues in favor: the reasons this could work, read as the opening argument.
What argues the other way: the real counterweight to the first card, not to be waved off.
What weighs the first two arguments against each other: the perspective that decides between them rather than simply taking a side.
What the judge decides: the resolution the first three cards were already building toward.
Add the four Major Arcana's own numbers together. If the total is 22 or under, that number's card is the fifth; if it runs over 22, add its two digits together (23 becomes 2 + 3 = 5, 57 becomes 5 + 7 = 12) until a single card number is left. Not drawn but calculated — the card that holds what all four others already said, together.
About this spread
Oswald Wirth's numerological cross: no cards are shuffled and dealt in the usual sense. You name a number, cut the Major Arcana deck by it four times to draw four cards, then calculate a fifth from their sum.
When to use it. Wirth built this as a Major-Arcana-only method: no significator, no suits, just the twenty-two trumps and a number named on the spot. He frames it around a serious question about a present decision, not general fortune-telling; he warns against a question as loose as asking what will happen to you. Good when you have one concrete decision weighing on you and want the case for it, the case against it, and a verdict, not just an outcome.
Where this layout comes from
This method appears only in the expanded edition of Wirth's book (printed 1926, published 1927), not in the original 1889 edition, which had no chapter on divination yet. Wirth restricts the whole method to the twenty-two Major Arcana: no suits, no significator, and a genuinely unusual final step, a fifth card calculated rather than drawn, from the digit-sum of the other four.
Yes/No
Change spread
The Question
What the question is actually about, the ground the other five cards build on.
The Past
The relevant past: whatever led up to the situation behind the question.
The Difficulty
The difficulty to be overcome before the matter resolves.
The Help
The help you are given: whatever support or advantage is already working in your favour.
The Outcome
The future outcome, what the answer will lead to once the difficulty is met.
The Answer
The answer itself, read against everything the first five cards already showed rather than in isolation.
About this spread
A compact six-card layout built for a single, sharply defined yes-or-no question, moving from the question itself through what led to it and what stands in its way, to a direct answer.
When to use it. Good when you can state your question plainly and it genuinely has a yes-or-no shape. The layout spends five cards on context before it hands you the sixth, so a vague question won't sharpen just because the spread itself is short.
Where this layout comes from
One of several compact layouts McCarthy builds for a narrow, specific question rather than a broad reading, alongside her own warning that a focused layout still needs a focused question to work.
What the question is actually about, the ground the other five cards build on.
The help you are given: whatever support or advantage is already working in your favour.
About this spread
A compact six-card layout built for a single, sharply defined yes-or-no question, moving from the question itself through what led to it and what stands in its way, to a direct answer.
When to use it. Good when you can state your question plainly and it genuinely has a yes-or-no shape. The layout spends five cards on context before it hands you the sixth, so a vague question won't sharpen just because the spread itself is short.
Where this layout comes from
One of several compact layouts McCarthy builds for a narrow, specific question rather than a broad reading, alongside her own warning that a focused layout still needs a focused question to work.
Celtic Cross
Change spread
Significator
A card chosen to stand for the querent, laid face up before the shuffle: rank by age and standing, suit by colouring. It is not dealt and not read — it only says who the reading is about.
This covers him
Laid over the significator. The matter as it presently stands and the atmosphere it is being conducted in.
This crosses him
Laid across the first card, turned ninety degrees. The opposing force — not necessarily hostile, but the thing that will not let the first card stand alone.
This crowns him
Above. What the querent hopes for or believes is happening: the ideal of the matter rather than the matter.
This is beneath him
Below. The foundation the situation actually rests on, usually something already accepted and no longer examined.
This is behind him
The influence just passed, still close enough to be felt.
This is before him
The influence arriving next. Read together with position 10, not against it.
Himself
The querent's own attitude in the matter — the first card of the staff and the honest one.
His house
Environment and the people in it: family, work, the tendencies of the room he stands in.
His hopes or fears
Deliberately one position for both, because they are rarely distinguishable in the querent's own account.
What will come
The outcome the other nine produce. Read last and read as consequence, not as prophecy.
About this spread
The Celtic Cross sets a cross of six cards against a staff of four. The cross describes the situation and the forces crossing it; the staff reads forward from the querent outward to what will come.
When to use it. When the question is large enough to have a history and a house around it. For a single decision it will tell you more than you asked for.
Where this layout comes from
The arrangement is Waite's 1910 printing of a Golden Dawn practice, itself a tidying of older English cartomantic layouts. The position names are kept in their original wording because the wording carries the method: 'this covers him' is an instruction as much as a label.
A card chosen to stand for the querent, laid face up before the shuffle: rank by age and standing, suit by colouring. It is not dealt and not read — it only says who the reading is about.
Laid over the significator. The matter as it presently stands and the atmosphere it is being conducted in.
Laid across the first card, turned ninety degrees. The opposing force — not necessarily hostile, but the thing that will not let the first card stand alone.
Above. What the querent hopes for or believes is happening: the ideal of the matter rather than the matter.
Below. The foundation the situation actually rests on, usually something already accepted and no longer examined.
The influence arriving next. Read together with position 10, not against it.
The querent's own attitude in the matter — the first card of the staff and the honest one.
Environment and the people in it: family, work, the tendencies of the room he stands in.
Deliberately one position for both, because they are rarely distinguishable in the querent's own account.
About this spread
The Celtic Cross sets a cross of six cards against a staff of four. The cross describes the situation and the forces crossing it; the staff reads forward from the querent outward to what will come.
When to use it. When the question is large enough to have a history and a house around it. For a single decision it will tell you more than you asked for.
Where this layout comes from
The arrangement is Waite's 1910 printing of a Golden Dawn practice, itself a tidying of older English cartomantic layouts. The position names are kept in their original wording because the wording carries the method: 'this covers him' is an instruction as much as a label.
Fifteen Card Spread
Change spread
The Querent
The Querent, the problem surrounding them, and their present situation and primary influences. A court card here often stands for the Querent themselves, or for whoever else is dominant in the matter.
Key Card
Together with card one, one of the two key cards in the spread, giving extended information on the Querent's situation and character.
Key Card
Together with card one, the other key card in the spread, giving extended information on the Querent's situation and character.
Natural Direction
The direction the Querent's life will naturally follow, unless some action is taken to change that course. Read together with cards eight and twelve, further out along the same line.
Natural Direction
The direction the Querent's life will naturally follow, unless some action is taken to change that course. Read together with cards four and twelve, part of the same line.
Natural Direction
The direction the Querent's life will naturally follow, unless some action is taken to change that course. Read together with cards four and eight, the furthest point on this line.
Alternative Action
A possibility for alternative action, which may be desirable or undesirable depending on the other cards around it. Read together with cards nine and thirteen, further out along the same line.
Alternative Action
A possibility for alternative action, which may be desirable or undesirable depending on the other cards around it. Read together with cards five and thirteen, part of the same line.
Alternative Action
A possibility for alternative action, which may be desirable or undesirable depending on the other cards around it. Read together with cards five and nine, the furthest point on this line.
Decision Support
Will help the Querent make whatever decision is necessary. For someone past middle age, these cards point to past actions bearing on the question; for someone younger, they point to the future. Read together with cards ten and fourteen, further out along the same line.
Decision Support
Will help the Querent make whatever decision is necessary. For someone past middle age, these cards point to past actions bearing on the question; for someone younger, they point to the future. Read together with cards six and fourteen, part of the same line.
Decision Support
Will help the Querent make whatever decision is necessary. For someone past middle age, these cards point to past actions bearing on the question; for someone younger, they point to the future. Read together with cards six and ten, the furthest point on this line.
Beyond Control
A force operating beyond the Querent's control, which cannot be changed but can be adapted to. Read together with cards eleven and fifteen, further out along the same line.
Beyond Control
A force operating beyond the Querent's control, which cannot be changed but can be adapted to. Read together with cards seven and fifteen, part of the same line.
Beyond Control
A force operating beyond the Querent's control, which cannot be changed but can be adapted to. Read together with cards seven and eleven, the furthest point on this line.
About this spread
Robert Wang's Golden Dawn alternative to the Celtic Cross: a central trio for the Querent surrounded by four three-card lines, each one reading further out from what's already in motion.
When to use it. Wang presents this as the simpler of the Golden Dawn's methods, and a direct alternative to the Celtic Cross. Its strength is combinatorial: fifteen cards depending on their neighbours offer far more to read against each other than ten fixed positions do, at the cost of more cards to lay out.
Where this layout comes from
Wang lays this out as a plainer, more combinatorial alternative to Waite's Celtic Cross within his own Golden Dawn-based system, recommending it explicitly over the more famous ten-card method for the depth of its neighbouring-card combinations.
The Querent, the problem surrounding them, and their present situation and primary influences. A court card here often stands for the Querent themselves, or for whoever else is dominant in the matter.
Together with card one, one of the two key cards in the spread, giving extended information on the Querent's situation and character.
Together with card one, the other key card in the spread, giving extended information on the Querent's situation and character.
The direction the Querent's life will naturally follow, unless some action is taken to change that course. Read together with cards eight and twelve, further out along the same line.
The direction the Querent's life will naturally follow, unless some action is taken to change that course. Read together with cards four and twelve, part of the same line.
The direction the Querent's life will naturally follow, unless some action is taken to change that course. Read together with cards four and eight, the furthest point on this line.
A possibility for alternative action, which may be desirable or undesirable depending on the other cards around it. Read together with cards nine and thirteen, further out along the same line.
A possibility for alternative action, which may be desirable or undesirable depending on the other cards around it. Read together with cards five and thirteen, part of the same line.
A possibility for alternative action, which may be desirable or undesirable depending on the other cards around it. Read together with cards five and nine, the furthest point on this line.
Will help the Querent make whatever decision is necessary. For someone past middle age, these cards point to past actions bearing on the question; for someone younger, they point to the future. Read together with cards ten and fourteen, further out along the same line.
Will help the Querent make whatever decision is necessary. For someone past middle age, these cards point to past actions bearing on the question; for someone younger, they point to the future. Read together with cards six and fourteen, part of the same line.
Will help the Querent make whatever decision is necessary. For someone past middle age, these cards point to past actions bearing on the question; for someone younger, they point to the future. Read together with cards six and ten, the furthest point on this line.
A force operating beyond the Querent's control, which cannot be changed but can be adapted to. Read together with cards eleven and fifteen, further out along the same line.
A force operating beyond the Querent's control, which cannot be changed but can be adapted to. Read together with cards seven and fifteen, part of the same line.
About this spread
Robert Wang's Golden Dawn alternative to the Celtic Cross: a central trio for the Querent surrounded by four three-card lines, each one reading further out from what's already in motion.
When to use it. Wang presents this as the simpler of the Golden Dawn's methods, and a direct alternative to the Celtic Cross. Its strength is combinatorial: fifteen cards depending on their neighbours offer far more to read against each other than ten fixed positions do, at the cost of more cards to lay out.
Where this layout comes from
Wang lays this out as a plainer, more combinatorial alternative to Waite's Celtic Cross within his own Golden Dawn-based system, recommending it explicitly over the more famous ten-card method for the depth of its neighbouring-card combinations.