Confusing Celtic-Cross...

Another thread which also looked at spreads simpler than the Celtic Cross, especially in the steps towards learning to read, is The Very Best* Beginners Spread.

Diana mentions that in France, they do quite well without this spread. Yes, but a popular spread is, to be sure to be sure, very similar indeed: the basic 'Cross' (including the 'crossing' card) is there, as is the 'outcome' card. Only the lower three of the right-hand bar are omitted.

Why it is called 'Celtic' may have something to do with the personal preferences of the Golden Dawn poet Yeats... and I am quite happy to continue calling it thus. Of course this does not in any way imply that it looks exactly like a Celtic cross, nor that the ancient Celts used it when they threw a spread using their Golden Tarot deck .

jmd said:

Why it is called 'Celtic' may have something to do with the personal preferences of the Golden Dawn poet Yeats... Of course this does not in any way imply that it looks exactly like a Celtic cross, nor that the ancient Celts used it when they threw a spread using their Golden Tarot deck .

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Or their Oghams........

jmd said:

Diana mentions that in France, they do quite well without this spread. Yes, but a popular spread is, to be sure to be sure, very similar indeed: the basic 'Cross' (including the 'crossing' card) is there, as is the 'outcome' card. Only the lower three of the right-hand bar are omitted.

Click to expand...

jmd: Where is the "crossing card" in the basic Cross? I don't know what you mean here. There are five cards, placed in the following order: one on the left, one on the right, one on the top, one on the bottom and a synthesis card in the middle, the latter being calculated by adding up the other cards and reducing the number. (The Cross is designed for using with Majors only. But if one uses minors as well, then one doesn't add up the other cards, but you choose the fifth card as with the other cards, randomly. But it doesn't work so well that way.)

I have looked through my books, and am quite at a loss to find other than the 'simple' five card spread when looking for that cross in those of French origin (amongst them Levi, Wirth, Maxwell, Carton and Papus)...

Yet I have used this spread - with a crossing card and outcome card - from early days, from French influence, and prior to even knowing of the Celtic Cross. It could therefore be either from someone who somehow increased the basic 5-card cross to incorporate an aspect of the Celtic Cross, or it is yet in other book(s) I am yet to find again.

From the evidence, I therefore stand corrected as to the mid-way variation between the basic 5-card and the 10-card versions...

It remains nonetheless interesting that on both sides of the Manche (err... the 'English' Chanel), cross-spreads have spread across regions.

jmd said:

It remains nonetheless interesting that on both sides of the Manche (err... the 'English' Chanel), cross-spreads have spread across regions.

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or one could go further and say that cross-spreads have crossed across regions.

Thanks for your detailed response.

I rather like the (Celtic Cross) notion of issue plus (physically) crossing card. I sense it doesn't matter much how you add cards to this basic idea. Rachel P. uses this concept in her "work spread" - A mini cross plus as many card (rows) as it takes. Alternatively, going for a past-present-future progression might add cards to the left and right of a center. It then seems natural to have a couple more (above and below OR at the ends) for "underlying" and "conclusion" issues? Et voila mes braves you have something looking like the "center bit" of a Celtic Cross - Something I do use. (I feel there really ARE only two or three basic spreads underlying most of this anyway!) Fwiw, I never think much of the CC's "column on the right" - It rather duplicates meanings which should be in the "core" cards? Moreover, it never fits on my small table

I sense a large spread like the Celtic Cross IS (perversely) useful for beginners. At least it gives us (sic) some cards to "waffle on" about, particularly when ya can't remember what most of them mean. <ducking> Doubtless, reading small spreads consistently and well, is central to the art...

Macavity