Does Anyone Recognize This Large Spread?

Birdsman72

Hi, I'm wondering if anyone would recognize the spread a reader regularly uses on me. I've been looking online and through this forum, but I can't find anything that looks even close. I want to learn it so I can see what my own deck says. I'll describe it the best I can.

She places the significator (one card for an individual, two for a couple)at the top. She then proceeds to spread the cards, in a row about sixteen inches wide (I didn't count the number of cards), four or five rows. Then two more rows, each a foot long, single file like in a game of Solitaire, one on each side of the large spread she just laid out and put a card crossways at the bottom of each of those rows. All in all, she put out about half the deck, then set the remainder off to the side. Of course, cards are both upright and reversed.

My problem is, she only picks and chooses which cards to "read" and ignores others. I feel she's not getting the full message when she does this, and not telling me everything.

Does this spread sound familiar to anyone? Or did she create this spread herself? I'd appreciate any advice anyone can give!
 

Hemera

We briefly discussed this here already. I do not recognise the spread she was using but it could be a spread of her own. I never use large spreads like that because it just seems to get more complicated for me the larger the spread gets. I know some people are comfortable with them, though.


The fact that she was picking and choosing the cards she read points to her leaning heavily on intuition in the reading. She picked the cards she intuitively felt had a message for you and were speaking about you and addressing your question. I have seen a few readers do that and while some can be very good at it others may not. If you feel she wasn't getting & passing on the full message it could mean that her intuition was not as good as she was hoping for. Maybe she was honest but not very good? Or maybe she was not having a very good reading day?
Whatever the case, I think you did the right thing in coming here to learn the cards yourself. It is not rocket science and if you want to learn it is certainly possible to learn to read for yourself -and do a better job than she did. :)
 

Birdsman72

Thanks again Hemera! I would find a large spread like this confusing as well. You've actually hit on my major dilemma with this reader and her methods, including this particular spread. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, thinking she's honest but was just having a bad day when it comes to reading. I mean, we all have off days. But factoring in some of the other strange terms she's used in interpreting the cards (I'll start a thread on that topic after I type this), her "reading" the remains of a candle I burned, and the mis-reading of the astrology charts, I can't help but be suspicious. First she claimed the cards read only a week into the future, then said they can see to the end of the year. There are also a couple other discrepancies I've noticed which have nothing to do with the tarot or astrology.

In a way, I wondered if this large spread wasn't done to look more impressive and give her a wider selection from which she could choose the cards which give only a positive message to lead me on and keep coming back. To tell me all the answers I need in one session would mean only one payment for her. The first time she did this, I was indeed impressed because it was my first tarot reading. But as I learned more about the cards myself, I began to ask questions or act knowledgeable, and she didn't seem to like that very much. She seemed to depend on my ignorance to maintain the mystique of only she being able to understand the cards.

I mentioned I'm not really interested in knowing the future, but there is one aspect in my life I want to know about, a certain romantic relationship. A prediction she made from reading the charts in addition to the cards, which was supposed to happen the last week of April did not happen. When I questioned her about this, she stared blankly at the charts and did not answer, then changed the subject. She now insists this event will either happen in late August or toward the end of this year. Yet the Eight of Cups (upright) and The Sun (upright) keep coming up, which she says indicates the end of a current relationship ("abandonment") and the other person will turn the break-up (which is supposed to be her decision, not his) to her advantage and be triumphant (The Sun), leaving my friend humiliated, scorned by others, and hurt. But that's a little off this topic.☺

On the other hand, some of the statements she has made during our readings have been eerily correct. So I'm not sure what to think. I thought if I could learn this spread myself or find someone who knew of it, I could solve this issue. To be completely honest, I don't really want to make a return visit to this particular reader. Thus my reason for wanting to learn. And Thank You for the vote of confidence! I hope I can be a better reader than she is! ��
 

cybercat

It sounds like a Lenormand GT spread in a way. Some readers do have their own spreads they make that works well for them.
In a GT spread you don't have to read all the cards. But there is a pattern to read for certain questions. Good be a Gypsy fortune telling spread too.
 

Hemera

Ah yes, of course! I know next to nothing about Lenormands but you can find more about the Grand Tableau spreads here.
 

Trogon

I don't know that exact spread, but I have seen & read about other people using very large spreads. So, it wouldn't be unusual. From what I've read and seen, these large spreads don't seem to use positional meanings (which is a whole other topic) so I would suppose using one's intuition to pick out the pattern of the cards to read would fit in.

Now, I gather from your other posts, that you're interested in learning this in part, to kind of verify what the other reader came up with. I can only tell you what my experience has been. When I started learning, the book I was using gave the Celtic Cross as the spread to use for almost everything. And I struggled with that spread (10 cards, 11 if you use a significator) for quite a while. Fortunately, I found out about using smaller spreads which are much easier to use and interpret. Even after 20 years, I rarely use the Celtic Cross except when an issue needs a very in-depth reading.

My point is, since you're starting out, you may want to try some smaller spreads to learn with. Then work up to the larger spreads. It made learning a lot easier for me anyway. The Tarot Spreads Index has links to a lot of spreads, long and short, as well as topic based and more. You might want to find one or two that seem easy to use and start from there. My 2-cents worth anyway.
 

Birdsman72

Thank you cybercat, Hemera, and Trogon! I had never heard of Lenormand Grande Tableau until I joined this forum. After following the link Hemera included, I have to say my reader's spread does indeed resemble GT but on a smaller scale and with the addition of the two Solitaire-like rows, one on either side. I also looked quickly into gypsy fortune telling spreads, and my reader's spread does not match any of the ones I saw. So, I'm beginning to believe this is a spread of her own creation, but using a combination of techniques. Just as Trogon mentioned, my reader's large spread definitely does not have positional meanings, so it does appear she may (or may not) be depending on her intuition as to which cards are relevant to the question being asked. So I guess that mystery is solved.

My reason for wanting to learn this is two fold: I've always been fascinated by the tarot and how readers could look at the pictures and either give insight to the subconscious mind or predict upcoming events. This was just the push I needed to finally take the plunge. Secondly, yes, I did want to learn this spread to see what my reader wasn't telling me. The number of cards she ignored, other factors, and just the fact she acted suspiciously (meaning the tone of her voice, avoiding eye contact, etc) made me feel there is something she is not telling me. The messages she passes on from the cards and charts are always very positive and encouraging, yet her own actions and negative words ("if this..." or "but that...") seem to cancel them out, so I'm not really sure if she's being entirely truthful, like she's setting me up for a let down.

But since it seems it's not possible to learn this spread anyway, I do agree with Trogon's advice and start out with smaller, easier to interpret spreads.☺