Thoughts on large spreads?

[Ica'rus]

This question has been slowly coming together in the back of my mind as I continue to do spreads. I have been wondering what everyone thinks about large spreads.

The reason for my question is I wonder when you have increasingly large spreads, once a card fills a position you're unable to draw it so it cannot show up again, but it may be just as appropriate in another position. Or do you feel that no matter how large the spread, the right card will show up where it's needed?

 

[AJ]

I get brainfreeze.

I have done one celtic cross, and it was very enlightening, but 3-5 normally gives me all the information I can stand and then some.

Welcome to AT, we love new members!

 

[donnalee]

I find that I usually do smaller spreads for folks and even for myself, and once in a great whilw will do something like the ones that require a card or two or three for each month of the upcoming year etc., and I figure it'll just work out as it will. If I did one month at a time on that same day and got the same cards for many of them, that might tell me something, but I think that some of the big spreads give a sort of overview that can have value, and then at other times I might look into the minutiae. YMMV.

 

[BrownBear]

I know what you mean. In any spread, each card can only appear one time.

I have found that majors pop up when a card wants to be in more than one place, drawing attention to that particular issue or energy.

I have always felt that in a larger spread, there are enough cards of a similar theme that there's always something appropriate to fill key positions.

Personally I prefer smaller spreads, and my main spread is only four cards (left to right):
3. the near past or what lies behind it,
1. the heart of the matter,
2. the challenge (overlapping card 1), and
4. the likely outcome or where it is headed.

 

[Water Lady]

I am a definitely sm spread person, like some of the others a occasional large for a special reason

 

[Starstuff]

I'm more of a short spread person, but I think part of that is because I'm pretty new at reading. I have trouble wrapping my head around lots of cards, but still enjoy digging really deep in to a few cards via a smaller spread.

I don't really think losing cards by placing them earlier in the spread is particularly huge issue, though (at least for me) - I feel like there's enough overlap in card interpretations that there's more than one way to say anything that needs to be said.

 

[Ica'rus]

Thanks for your responses. It's interesting what you think! As a beginner, doing large spreads does get overwhelming because of the amount going on and trying to keep track of the positions. (Eg: the venerable Celtic Cross). But you do have a good point, there are a lot of overlapping card meanings. I guess it comes down to weighing each potential of the card as they show up in some larger spreads.

I find myself using a basic 4 card spread similar to BrownBears most of the time. Just enough cards and the right positions to be very impactful.

 

[fairylights]

I personally am not a fan of large spreads, but this is very probably because of my relative inexperience with tarot. I also seek, usually, to distil and simplify when seeking clarity rather than trying to address each and every subtlety and nuance of a situation. Too much complexity makes it difficult for me to prioritize and understand what to focus on and this is what ends up happening with large spreads.

Four cards is my happy place. No more than six, usually.

 

[Atlas]

Hmm, this is a very interesting topic

It seems that I am one of very few who think quite the opposite regarding large spreads. I have since I began learning Tarot almost exlusively used larger spreads, such as the Celtic Cross, The 12 and 18-card versions of the Astrological spread, The Opening of the Key, Vala Cross (from the book Tarot Decoded which also contain the 18-card Astrological spread) as well as a few others, including Arthur Waite's 42-card alternative method of reading the Tarot, although I freely admit that this last one is hard to read.

I never feel any form of information overload or that the cards overwhelm me or such things. Quite the contrary, I feel that it is very enlightening to have more cards to help give me a good and thorough understanding of the situation I asked about.

--

As to your theory/idea that large spreads "use up" the cards so that there will not be enough of them to accurately fill the remaining positions, my personal view, is that there are several ways to look at this.

You may possibly be using modern scientific reasoning (mainstream as it were), to evaluate or analyze a method that quite likely cannot be explained by modern scientific principles. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but I wonder if Tarot really works by these principles

We don't quite know how the Tarot work and indeed why it work. But just about everyone who put some genuine effort into learning the Tarot, will see, and as time goes on, learn and know for certain that it does work. What are the principles, and for a lack of a better term, supernatural laws, that makes the cards appear in the correct position as we deal them out according to our question and our selected spread? Not an easy question to answer. Apparently, however large a spread we use, the cards will make sense one way or another. Perhaps there is no law governing this at all, but rather a form of an, as of yet, unknown intelligence.

There is also another aspect to consider, namely that of intuition and psychic skills which play an important role when interpreting the cards. Quite often, ideas coming from intuitive/psychic insight, will tell the reader that a card may indicate something one would not normally consider correct as related to the card's divinatory meanings. Yet it may turn out that one's intuition was correct after all.

And of course there is also the interplay between the cards. A card may mean something different depending on its surrounding cards, and therefore the scientifically theoretical possibility that the Tarot may run out of available cards is, as seen in this respect, extremely small.

Personally I have never experienced a situation where the Tarot appeared to run out of cards to accurately explain a situation, when I used very large spreads. They have always made sense, either alone or in combination with other cards supported by intuitive insight. And as a final note, in my personal opinion, a Tarot spread should be seen as one (long or short) coherent message, not as many small isolated messages coming from each individual card. So even at the very theoretical chance that the Tarot should run out of available cards, if lets say, one or two cards in an 18-card spread does not quite provide a 100% correct meaning, the overall message should still be correct.

And there is even more. If you make use of elemental dignities, reversed cards, numerological aspects, astrological associations, locational dignities, card counting and more, I cannot really see any chance of the Tarot running out of cards to use

Anyway, that's my thoughts on this
Atlas

 

[Ica'rus]

Hmm, this is a very interesting topic

It seems that I am one of very few who think quite the opposite regarding large spreads. I have since I began learning Tarot almost exlusively used larger spreads, such as the Celtic Cross, The 12 and 18-card versions of the Astrological spread, The Opening of the Key, Vala Cross (from the book Tarot Decoded which also contain the 18-card Astrological spread) as well as a few others, including Arthur Waite's 42-card alternative method of reading the Tarot, although I freely admit that this last one is hard to read

[snipped]

Anyway, that's my thoughts on this
Atlas

What a wonderful response. Thank you Atlas.

I am inclined to agree with you on many points. I have performed some large spreads (well, large to me!) like the Celtic Cross a few times, and they have proved enlightening, though challenging. I think the difficulty comes from too deeply analyzing each cards meaning in their position and not giving consideration to the overall message as you say. I am a deeply analytical person though, and I look for as much detail and meaning as I possibly can, in everything I do.

Your suggestion that I am attempting to explain Tarot's behavior using modern scientific reason is apt. I am a very technical person. This is exactly why the thought occurred to me in the first place. But the more I use tarot the more I see that it plays by it's own rules.

I admit it may be an issue of confidence. In the cards and in myself. There is a skeptical, logical side of myself that still disbelieves the cards and their ability and wait for the moment when they show as such. However the more I use the cards the more I believe. For instance last night I performed my first reading for someone else. It was a simple 1 card draw, with absolutely no context available. I had only my intuition to rely on. I had no idea what to suspect when I drew the card. It stunned me when I found out the card and my intuition, and not the dictionary meaning of the card proved to be stunningly accurate in interpretation.

As you point out, the many other ways of interpreting the cards and adding meaning through the use of astrology and elemental dignitaries, etc; Do offer far more meaning that one can ascribe to the reading.

However I think for a beginning like me, in a larger spread there is just too much to wade through and maybe too many conflicting theories as I look at all of the information available.

I have found myself performing many small spreads related to the same topic, versus a large spread. This may be more due to the changing nature of my questions as the cards give me answers. Do you think large spreads can apply in those kinds of situations too? Where there is a lot to know.