Anyone know any good Majors-Only spreads?

[Luminessence]

I'm looking for some Majors-only spreads to do with my Ancestral Path deck, since it seems like an ideal deck to try this type of reading out with - I'm very drawn to the Major Arcana of the deck, but ambivalent about the Minors, so I figure I'll just go with that feeling for awhile. So does anybody know of some Majors-only spreads to try out?

 

[Rusty Neon]

One spread that is commonly encountered in contemporary French-language tarot books using the majors of the Tarot de Marseille deck is a 5-card Cross spread. It goes back to at least Oswald Wirth's time.

It consists of four cards laid out as the four tips of the cross, plus a fifth card in the centre. The position names of those four cards vary from author to author. The fifth card is the Synthesis card. It is not drawn immediately. Its identity is determined by adding up the numbers of the other four cards and then reducing the number until you get a number between 1 and 22 (Fool = 22 for this purpose). Thus, the fifth card might coincidentally be the same card as one of the other four. You then pull that card out from the deck and place it in the middle, as the fifth card.

For example, drawing the example from Oswald Wirth's book (because I'm lazy), if you have 4 Emperor, 2 Papesse, 14 Temperance and 18 Moon from a Marseille deck, those four numbers (4 + 2 + 14 + 18) would add up to 38. The number 38 would then be 3 + 8, giving you 11, the Strength card.

As a picture is worth a hundred words, here's an illustration of a Cross spread with the 5 position names:

http://www.tarotspreads.com/ShowSpread.mdv?SpreadID=64baca18e973b7fe2157199c31013367

 

[Rusty Neon]

In my previous post, I mentioned theosophic addition to arrive at the identity of the fifth (centre) card in the Cross spread.

_______

In his recent book, Jodorowsky has an interesting spread using more operations of theosophic addition.

It's a 3-card spread. Let's identify the cards as A, B and C.

Do theosophic addition of A + B + C to arrive at the card that indicates Underlying Aspects of the Question.

Similarly, A + C gives you the card for the Exterior Aspects of the Question.

A + B gives you the card for the Maternal (or Passive) Influences.

B + C gives you the card for the Paternal (or Active) Influences.

 

[Diana]

Any spread can be used. They all work just fine. (And I mean this sincerely.)

 

[Diana]

I've never seen that lay-out that Rusty Neon gives the link to. It is interesting, but not the most common one.

The 5 card cross spread that is the most common in continental Europe would be:

.....3
1...5...2
.....4....


1: Situation (what is positive)
2: Situation (what is negative)
3: Jury
4: Judge
5: Synthesis (which is the theosophic addition that Rusty Neon speaks of. The Fool/Mat/Fou/Fol would be 22, although it doesn't normally have a number. But in the theosophic addition, it is 22.)

 

[Rusty Neon]

Spread position names for the Cross Spread vary from author to author.

A very close variation on the spread position names given by Diana is the one given by Oswald Wirth:

1. Affirmation (Positive aspects of the situation) - the Pro

2. Negation (Negative aspects of the situation) - the Con

3. Discussion (Clarifies the type of resolution that is suitable to adopt)

4. Solution (permits the prediction of a result taking into account the Pro and the Con and especially the Synthesis)

5. The Synthesis (Card obtained by theosophic addition)

Wirth's is the one I wanted to give in my initial post but it was getting late in the night and I ran out of steam. Diana's point is well taken about the spread at the link I posted. Why the heck did I post that link last night? I should stop posting when it's late or when I'm in a hurry.

 

[Rusty Neon]

And these are the position names for the Cross spread that are given by author Colette H. Silvestre.

From Silvestre:

1. Represents the querent vis-à-vis his or her question
2. Will aid or frustrate the answer
3. Indicates the goal, the possibilities and the force majeur
4. Gives the answer
5. The synthesis (Card obtained by theosophic addition)

It's kind of interesting to compare Silvestre's position names with those in the TarotSpreads.com link given above, though these two sets of position names are clearly different.

From TarotSpreads.com (Spread credited to Guiley):

1. Present situation
2. Waning influences (Obstacles already overcome, changes which have occurred in the past)
3. Hidden or unconscious influences
4. Emerging influences
5. Synthesis (Draws together the other four influences) - No express mention is made of it being derived by theosophic addition

I'm curious where Guiley got the spread names from. Some of Guiley's own ideas perhaps.