Farzon
Hmm, your answer mirrors a lot of my own experiences with this spread over the last years.
I read this tip for the first time in the companion book to the Tarot of the Spirit. A reading "flows" with this method in my experience, while you would otherwise start with other forms of analysis. This way you're really forced to interpret each single card, even the difficult ones.
So much agreed! In old spreads from the Golden Dawn there was also a stage of verification at the beginning to see if the reading would turn out right.
I haven't done this for a long time... I used to sort the cards according to their elemental attributions at the end of a reading. Maybe I should revive this habit, it really was useful.
Another technique to close the reading, that I borrowed from the GD's Opening of the Key:
Pairing the cards at the end of the reading. Card 1 with card 10, card 2 with card 9 etc. In most of the cases this should give a good summary of the reading.
First, you can lay the cards face down, and you read each card by itself in the order of the spread. Laying them all face-up will distract you, especially if you see card 10.
I read this tip for the first time in the companion book to the Tarot of the Spirit. A reading "flows" with this method in my experience, while you would otherwise start with other forms of analysis. This way you're really forced to interpret each single card, even the difficult ones.
2nd, if the reader and querent have discussed what is to be asked, card 1 to 4 shouldn't be a surprise for the querent. These cards are there to basically mirror the situation as it stands now. If the querent doesn't agree to what these cards say, then the spread is wrong and needs to be struck down and started over. There's no point going further. Either the question was wrong, the querent didn't tell you the whole story, the reader got distracted when shuffling, etc.
So much agreed! In old spreads from the Golden Dawn there was also a stage of verification at the beginning to see if the reading would turn out right.
In this third pass, you look at the overall spread, and see what suits are there. Is there a dominance of one suit? Is one absent? Is there one number in particular that shows up in several times (3 or 4 cards of the same number is significant) Count the cards, what percentage to they represent based on 10 cards? For example, the major arcana represent 28% of the deck - so not unusual to see 2 cards out of 10 being major arcana. 3 or more could mean forces at work beyond the querent's control. For minor arcana - 3 cards or more of the same suit, or the same number, can be significant. You expect to see a balance overall. Any suit that's dominant is crowding out other suits.
I haven't done this for a long time... I used to sort the cards according to their elemental attributions at the end of a reading. Maybe I should revive this habit, it really was useful.
Another technique to close the reading, that I borrowed from the GD's Opening of the Key:
Pairing the cards at the end of the reading. Card 1 with card 10, card 2 with card 9 etc. In most of the cases this should give a good summary of the reading.