Tirage en Croix

When is the fifth card drawn? Is it drawn after reading the first four? This makes the most sense according to your description.


Thanks in advance. I've been looking for a really good Majors only spread

Fudugazi said:

It is made up of the sum of the four other cards, reduced to a number between 1 and 22 (with the Fool being, for that purpose, 22).

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Your Quint card will be defined by the other cards in the spread, Herzog. So if you had the following cards:

1. 5 of Wands
2. The Hermit
3. 10 of Cups
4. Queen of Swords

Then I'd calculate your Quint as follows:

5 (5 of Wands) + 9 (The Hermit IX) + 10 (10 of Cups) + 13 (Queen) = 37 which reduces by addition to 10 which makes your Quint card X The Wheel of Fortune

But that's my own system of assigning numerical value to the Court cards. Others might have a different view.

\m/ Kat

Thanks

I found this thread because it spread being used in one of the reading circle posts. I decided to bump it up for others who may like discovering it... Also, I am going to finally make a folder of "watched" threads with interesting spreads (like I have been threatening for a long time.)

I love this spread - use it regularly with the Tarot de Marseille. Mary Greer had a lengthy description of the spread on her blog about a year ago. Just as nearly every book and LWB in English has the Celtic Cross spread, every book I've ever seen in French or Italian has this spread.

I believe it was Oswald Wirth who used the metaphor of a courtroom for this spread. Cards 1 and 2 are attorneys arguing for and against the issue at hand, and card 3 is the judge sitting above everyone else mediating between the two arguments, or giving a more objective viewpoint of the issue. In card 4 the judge issues his pronouncement - what must be done, or what the near future looks like.

I'm one of the few TdM readers who actually likes the un-illustrated pip cards. I often use just the suit cards for the first 4 spread positions, add them up and put the corresponding trump card in the middle for card 5. As the only trump, it really stands out as the most important card in the spread.

As Kwaw pointed out, the laws of mathematics skew the results when you add up the sum of the first four cards and reduce the number to something 22 or below. But there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it, except be aware that certain trump cards will appear very rarely, or not at all.

There's the question of what numbers to assign to the court cards when adding up the sum of the cards. I originally assigned 2, 3, 4 and 5 to the court ranks because it felt intuitively right. Then I found out these are the values assigned to them when playing the game and adding up the points in your hand. I think any system works as long as you believe in it and use it consistently.

Thanks, Pam O, for reviving this classic spread. I think it deserves to be better known in the English-speaking world.

Hi Sherryl,

I learned another option for numbering the court cards:
11 - Page
12 - Knight
13 - Queen
14 - King

I used this system in the TdM circle for June and the Quintessence resulted in one that resonated with the querant...

Sherryl said:

As Kwaw pointed out, the laws of mathematics skew the results when you add up the sum of the first four cards and reduce the number to something 22 or below. But there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it, except be aware that certain trump cards will appear very rarely, or not at all.

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Well, there is something you can do about it, if the result is 22 or above simply keep deducting 22 from the sum until you get a result between 0-21, instead of using 'theosophical' addition. The results are still sleightly skewed in favour of some cards rather than others, but far less so than using the usual 'theosophical' method - which excludes the possibility of some cards altogether. While not as simple as 41 = 4+1 = 5, it is nonetheless simple, basic arithmetic that shouldn't take anyone but a moron a nanosecond to work out. [Traditionally, at least in the French tradition I am familiar with, it was a method used only with major arcana readings.]

kwaw said:

Well, there is something you can do about it, if the result is 22 or above simply keep deducting 22 from the sum until you get a result between 0-21, instead of using 'theosophical' addition.

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I'm glad to read this. I've played around with the "subtract 22" method and was afraid I was making matters worse. I'm going to give it a serious tryout in future readings.

Sherryl said:

I'm glad to read this. I've played around with the "subtract 22" method and was afraid I was making matters worse. I'm going to give it a serious tryout in future readings.

Click to expand...

Another alternative I suppose, and simplest, is to just draw another card for that position. I don't think one has to follow spreads slavishly, use them as a model to create one's own, or adapt them according to your own ideas.

I have a copy of The Tarot of the Magicians by Oswald Wirth. I have not read it from the beginning as yet but, in looking through it, I found the following instructions on page 186:

"The number called intuitively by the consultant is used for cutting the pack, showing the number of cards which are to be taken out of the shuffled pack. The last one is put back: this is the affirmative arcana. The number which it bears in the order of the Tarot is noted; then all the cards are put back and shuffled a second time. The consultant then says another number, which is indicative, by the same procedure, of the negative arcana whose number in turn is written down. Then the reassembled pack is shuffled for a third time, the consultant states a third number which reveals the reply of the oracle. Finally a fourth and last turn is made determining the statement."

(By "affirmative", "negative", "reply of the oracle" and "statement" he was referring to the four arms of the cross layout.)

Wirth's instruction is to note the first card drawn and then "all of the cards are put back and shuffled a second time" for the next drawing. It seems that it is possible to draw the same card for as many as all four arms of the cross layout. Does anyone agree or disagree with that interpretation of Wirth's instructions?

I realize that in practice one can follow any procedure one finds suitable (Wirth himself wrote that "no rule stands" and that he was offering a method with that understanding), but I am simply really curious about the implications of the method he outlined.

If it is possible to draw the same card and have it assigned to more than one position in the same layout, then this is a rather distinctive and interesting characteristic of the method -- one that I have not seen mentioned in the brief descriptions of the method I've come across to date on various Tarot Web sites.

Thanks in advance for any comments and insights!