RainatDayBreak
Hiya! rwcarter mentioned in another thread that the order in which the cards are drawn affects their interpretation, and I wanted to learn more about that so I'm starting a new thread here. 
How the order of cards affects their interpretation
Tanga
Hiya! rwcarter mentioned in another thread that the order in which the cards are drawn affects their interpretation, and I wanted to learn more about that so I'm starting a new thread here.
Did you ask RWCarter what he was referring to?
Ofcourse - if you are using a spread with "fixed meaning positions" - then the meaning of a card that appears in one position, may be different from it if it appears in another. The fixed position 'directs' the interpretation.
If The Fool appears in "The Past" position - you might say "you've been on a journey of exploration where you have gained a great deal of your present experience"...
If it appears in the "Final Outcome" position and depending on the enquiry, you might say "It looks like you have alot of opportunities for travel (into the unknown) ahead of you"
Also you can read "the story" of a set of cards differently depending on their order...
Let's see...:
Queen of Pentacles, Tower, 9 of Pentacles
"Your mother (Queen) is having a hard time right now (Tower) and might benefit
from being encouraged to acknowledge her achievements and see the beauty in what she has (9 of Pentacles).
Tower, 9 of Pentacles, Queen of Pentacles
"You are in some kind of uproar presently (Tower), perhaps you've been having too much fun or been too self-indulgent with your finances (9 of Pentacles), which has resulted in your present problem... Perhaps you may need help/advice from someone who is money wise and has a patient and generous ear to hear you? (Queen of Pentacles)."
Etc, etc, etc...
CrystalSeas
When people post 3-card readings without any information about the positions, I often read them as past-present-future.
So a Tower card in the 'first' position will be interpreted very differently from the same card in the 'last' position.
So a Tower card in the 'first' position will be interpreted very differently from the same card in the 'last' position.
Barleywine
Past/present/ future seems to be the default in short spreads, but some people are careful to say "no position meanings" when they post, so I'm never sure how they're approaching the reading. Another way is to treat the central card in an odd-numbered line as the "focus" card and the ones surrounding it as modifiers. A third way is to take the most prominent card in the line (for example, a major) as the main topic and the others as additional information. Some people even switch the sequence around to see what additional insights come out of that. I use position meanings in most of my spreads, so there is usually a prescribed sequence that carries meaning with it.
Farzon
Guilty!
I love non-positional spreads and usually approach them in the way that the card's combined meanings will have a complete message for the situation in question. In such a spread the order of the cards will affect the meaning in the way Tanga stated. A line of cards becomes something like a sentence.
Then there are directions in the cards, movements and gazes, that will affect the overall meaning. Here as well, the order of the cards affects the directions in which the courts are moving, what's "at the back of their heads" etc. This comes from reading the TdM mostly, but I find it useful with other decks as well.
In three cards readings, it's simple to switch the cards around (like Barleywine said - guilty again) to get interpretations for every possible sequence. For me that was a very effective and fun way to learn about combining card meanings depending on their order.
ETA:
And there's a rather obscure method to define whether a court card indicates the querent or a third party in three card readings. Here the order of the cards will also be very important: if a court appears at the left, it's the querent. If it's at the right, it's someone else approaching the same situation as the querent. If it's the middle card, then the left will indicate the situation of the querent and the right one intentions or feelings of the third party.
It sounds complicated but I like it. I don't know anymore from who this comes, but I found it here on the forum around a year ago...
Barleywine
I forgot about directionality. Thanks for reminding me.
Farzon
Really? It wasn't thought as a reminder towards you... I would find that very presumptuous of me.
Tanga
gregory
There's also the imagery itself. Which way a person on one card is looking; what it is focusing on in the card next to it and so on.
If for instance you have the Tower in the centre and two people, one on either side of it, both looking away from it - that would suggest to me that they were ignoring some major problem; if those cards with the people were drawn in such an order that they were FACING the Tower, they could be seen as addressing that issue together.
Here are the same three cards drawn twice in a different order. Not the BEST example but I was busy.... But talk about getting a different picture from the order the cards are drawn...
If for instance you have the Tower in the centre and two people, one on either side of it, both looking away from it - that would suggest to me that they were ignoring some major problem; if those cards with the people were drawn in such an order that they were FACING the Tower, they could be seen as addressing that issue together.
Here are the same three cards drawn twice in a different order. Not the BEST example but I was busy.... But talk about getting a different picture from the order the cards are drawn...
Attachments
Barleywine
The two guys looking on are probably just betting on who's going to hit the ground first!
This example is what I meant by directionality, or "facing."