CarlosPortages
Hello all,
What is your favorite Thoth spread and why?
One Love!
What is your favorite Thoth spread and why?
One Love!
And I like the relationship spread from Banzaf's books.
12
374
56
1 = you
2 = them
3 = how they see you
4 = how you see them
5 = how you see the relationship
6 = how they see the relationship
7 = the relationship
Lots of really juicy and useful comparisons and elemental dignities in that spread
Johari window spreads can be great too.
First Operation of the Opening of the Key, modified slightly to suit my method of working (I don't use a significator, and choose the pile to read based upon the nature of the question). This is more than adequate for 95% of my purposes.
I find sequential, rather than positional (such as the "Celtic Cross"), spreads to flow much more effectively for me.
And yes, I have done the full Opening of the Key when called for -- and I have a few hours to spare.
Years ago (well, decades, to be honest), I started prefacing my CC spreads with the first operation of the OOTK (cutting into four packs, locating the significator, and doing some minimal counting-and-pairing). This seemed to be useful to provide a circumstantial (that is, elemental) "backdrop" or incipient "field of operation" for the unfolding of the matter. Crowley said it yielded a story about the beginning of the matter, an observation I never found reason to quarrel with. (However, I didn't abandon the reading if it didn't square exactly with the nature of the question, I simply took it as an indication that the heart of the matter lay elsewhere - an overt Cups question may, for example, have its genesis in issues more closely allied with Disks.) I found the full OOTK to be a too iterative, a case of diminishing returns for the effort expended. Also, as an experienced astrologer, I found the zodiacal elements to be unsatisfying.
I'm curious, though, why you consider the CC to be purely positional rather than sequential. I've always used it as an evolving or emerging tableau, with the individual positions merely "spokes in the wheel" that I put in motion. Each one flows logically into the next, but of course I've tinkered a little bit with the traditional meanings to make that more seamless. Seems to me that every question has a past, a present and a future, and the root of the answer falls somewhere on that continuum; the positions in the spread are therefore somewhat fluid in regard to timing, and can often be "blended" to advantage. I don't see them at all as "stakes in the ground," but rather as a moving tapestry.