Since I recently resigned from the magazine I was writing for, I thought I would share my former upcoming article here for everyone to enjoy.
In divinatory lingo, a spread is a pre-designed layout for the reader to arrange the cards or other lots as they are cast in a reading.
Spreads definitely have their place in modern divination, in a professional reading a spread can act as an easily recognizable baseline and set the client’s expectation for the reading. Even most people who don’t read for themselves will recognize the 3 card past/present/future layout or perhaps the more complicated Celtic Cross arrangement. For personal readings spreads can be customized almost endlessly, although often the Little White Book that comes with a deck of cards may only offer 3 or 4 standard hits.
And for many new readers these spreads can offer an ice breaker to learn the practice of reading a divination tool.
However for many others, spreads can make divination feel clunky, daunting, and unapproachable.
So why do we use spreads? Well, not all systems do, and I’d argue, not all systems need to. Some systems like I Ching and Astragals rely on casting multiple objects to receive one predetermined response. Likewise Ogham and Runes traditionally involved casting objects from a hand or vessel and interpreting how they landed in relation to the reader.
It was in the 18th century that an Italian card game began to gain popularity as a divination system, and finally an oracle had arrived that suited itself to prescribed layouts that would become known as spreads. In 1911 Arthur Edward Waite helped publish the deck that most people would recognize as the modern Tarot deck using paintings produced by Pamela Coleman Smith, and a book to go with it. In this book he introduced the world to the Celtic Cross spread, claiming it had been in use in the British Isles for years, but exactly how long is anyone’s guess.
Then a curious thing happened, in the 20th century, authors writing about runes began suggesting to “lay them out like tarot cards” even coming up with creative ways to design spreads around the very shapes of the runes themselves. By the late 20th century when other oracle decks began hitting the scene, the LWB offering 3 or 4 standard spreads just sort of stuck around as a practice and with notably few exceptions, authors and deck creators haven’t really explored other ways to use their tools that don’t completely mimic the Tarot.
Which is unfortunate I think. I always find it refreshing to find the rare LWB that offers no reversal interpretations or explicitly says to pull a card a day and use it as a meditation tool, or a storytelling tool, or whatever.
Some oracles lend themselves particularly well to single-twig daily readings
For good or ill, the public perception of Divination as a practice centers largely around the image of a reader laying out cards in a spread. And I’d argue that this harms the practice twofold, on one hand there are those who are simply not going to engage with that, either because it seems hokey, or because frankly it feels a bit rude.
Whether you believe your oracle puts you in contact with your angels, your ancestors or your God, maybe it feels a bit presumptuous to show up and say “Hey I need these 5 things from you then gtg kthxbai!” When was the last time you approached a friend with a form letter to converse with them? So why would you want to approach your highest and closest advisors in such a way?
Then on the other hand, while a spread can make divination accessible for some seekers, a script can also feel rather stifling to others. When there are ten cards on the table in front of you and the second doesn’t seem to make any sense, that can become overwhelming and quickly off-putting. Or a deck’s companion book says to lay these cards out in one of these prescribed spreads but none of the 4 spreads offered really make sense to the seeker’s motives.
More and more, divination is being approached as a tool for inner work and creative problem solving rather than the future telling practices long associated with the Tarot. For readers with these intentions, past/present/future spreads and their ilk can seem irrelevant at best and outright cheesy at worst. These querents want to talk to their own shadows and deal in jungian archetypes and have no need of what they see as Woo.
Many readers end up not getting the most out of their practice and often don’t understand why they can like their deck(s) so much but have such a hard time reading the cards to any satisfaction.
If the last several paragraphs resonate with you, I’d suggest its time to consider a break up.
Maybe not entirely. Maybe y’all can hook up from time to time so long as it doesn’t become toxic. The wondrous thing about divination is that it’s only as orthopraxic as you make it. The cards themselves don’t care how you use them.
So start thinking about how you want to use those cards. Maybe that looks like straightforward one-card pulls. Ask a question, get an answer.
Try throwing everything at the reading mat and see what sticks
Many spiritual development courses will suggest doing a one card pull in the mornings. Asking something like “What should I look for in the day ahead” or “What matter most needs my attention today?” carry that lesson or seed thought with you throughout the day and see how it does or does not resonate with you in your evening journaling entries. Hah ha, like you keep a journal, I see you with your seven empty notebooks; They are not too nice to use, get to it!
But what if that one card makes NO SENSE? Then ask another question! Start a conversation. Get short if need be. Just be ready to get roasted in return from time to time. Nothing stings like your favorite cards calling you an idiot, but if your pasteboard advisors can’t put you in your place, who can?
But really, if you have laid down one card on the table then there are a good twenty plus ideas still in your hand(up to 80 or more depending on the oracle deck). Shuffle and ask. Now you’re talking in an active conversation instead of filling out a form letter. You can take this in any direction a conversation could hope to go.
As you “talk” to your oracle, it may help to lay the cards out in a pattern if you intend to journal or otherwise review the reading at the end. I like to lay cards relating to/clarifying the same topic over top of each other, while cards that answer a question or relate to a new theme or action may be laid above, below or beside the previous card.
There is no wrong way to do this, it’s seriously whatever makes the most sense for you in the reading. In this way you sort of build out your own custom single-use spread for each new reading.
If you have been reading with spreads for a while this may take some adjustment. Even when creating your own custom spreads for readings, it can sometimes feel like you’re limited to a pool of “divination appropriate questions,” but now that reading has become a friendly chat you may think of entirely new questions that had never seemed askable before.
And while we are at it, another thing you may consider doing the next time a card doesn’t make sense is to bring in another oracle tool altogether. Hold a pendulum over that sucker and interrogate it. Scry that shiny pasteboard surface like it’s John Dee’s mirror. Or alternately, just pick a card from a different deck.
Over time you may find that two decks work particularly well together
The faeries giving you the run-around? Grab that dragon deck and ask them for some insight. Or the cast of Dr. Who. Everything has an oracle deck nowadays, just look at the kickstarters!
Before long you may find your readings take on a whole new level of significance and you may wonder why you ever used spreads in the first place. You may also find that spreads still have their usefulness from time to time (I do enjoy a particular 2-card spread when I’m doing my shadow work journaling, it keeps that practice consistent, insightful and brief).
Whatever direction your divination practice takes, the important thing is that it works for you, and that’s where getting one of those seven empty notebooks and starting to journal about your practice can really pay off. Note the way a reading makes you feel, note the way a reading pans out over the course of a day. Make notes of the times the reading provided insight that was way off base, or that was misunderstood in the moment. Keeping track of these details builds a database of information you can look at and audit.
By making notes of your readings and looking back at them periodically, you can gain a greater sense of what individual techniques and ideas are paying off. What decks you work best with and on which days and topics you should just leave the divination to somebody else.
There are all kinds of options for growing your divination practice if that is something you want to develop, and I’d argue that one of the most important things to keep in mind is that it is absolutely okay to break up with a deck or a practice that you feel is holding you back. #
stormborns
jacobvanloon
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