← Encyclopedia of Tarot · lesson 111/121
Multiples in a spread
Before a reader looks closely at any one card, many take in the spread as a whole and count. Three Kings, a table full of Swords, no Pentacles at all, more Major Arcana than not: these multiples are read as the flavour of the whole reading, and they tie together the positions that share them.
What readers count
- Cards of one number or rank. Two, three or four cards of the same rank — three Fives, four Kings — are read as that number's theme running through the question.
- A suit that takes over. When one suit holds most of the spread, the matter is read as living in that suit's territory: Wands energy and drive, Cups feeling, Swords thought and conflict, Pentacles work, money and the body.
- A suit that is missing. In a larger spread, a suit with no card at all can say which side of life the question leaves out.
- Many Majors. A spread mostly of Major Arcana is read as larger forces and turning points outweighing day-to-day choices.
- Many court cards. Several court cards are read as other people crowding into the question, or as different sides of the querent.
- Many reversals. Far more reversed cards than the reader's usual rate suggests energy blocked, delayed or turned inward.
- A number echo. A Minor card whose number matches a Major's — a Five beside The Hierophant, card V — is read by many modern readers as the Major's theme speaking through the smaller card.
In the tradition
Waite's table. In The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), Arthur Edward Waite printed a table he called "the recurrence of cards in dealing", inherited from French cartomancy. It gives a meaning for two, three and four of each rank, upright and reversed: four Kings "great honour", three Kings "consultation", two Kings "minor counsel"; three Fives "determination"; four Aces "favourable chance". The entries are terse and of their time, and few modern readers follow them word for word, but the habit of noticing them has lasted.
The Golden Dawn's table. Book T, the teaching of the Golden Dawn, gives its own "general meanings of several similar cards": a majority of Wands is energy, quarrelling and opposition; of Cups, pleasure and merriment; of Swords, trouble and sadness; of Pentacles, business, money and possessions; a majority of trumps, forces of considerable strength beyond the enquirer's control; of court cards, society and meeting many people; of Aces, strength generally. It also gives meanings for three and four of each rank, and they often differ from Waite's: three Fives, for instance, are "quarrels, fights" there. The two tables come from different lineages, so a reader picks one or reads the number's own character instead.
Modern practice. Joan Bunning, Yoav Ben-Dov and Anthony Louis all advise a first look at the whole spread before the single cards, counting suits, Majors and reversals. Number echoes come from the numerological approach of writers such as Mary K. Greer and Kim Huggens, who pair each Minor number with the Major of the same number; some also pair it with the Major whose digits add up to it (the Fives with Temperance, XIV, as well as The Hierophant).
Rarity matters
A pattern means more when it is unlikely. In a ten-card spread, two cards of one rank turn up about three times in four, so a pair there says little; three of a rank turn up less than one time in ten. In a seven-card spread a missing suit happens in most draws, while in three cards it is certain. A careful reader weighs a multiple by how surprising it is at that spread's size.
In a reading here
Tarot readings here show a section called Patterns across the spread. It lists two, three or four cards of one rank (a pair only in spreads of seven cards or fewer), a suit holding more than half the spread, a suit absent from a spread of six or more cards, a majority of Majors, three or more court cards, reversals well above the expected rate, and number echoes between a Minor and a Major from one to ten — each weighed by how rare it is at the spread's size. Beside it, Decans and the chart places each card in the zodiac (see Decans in tarot).