After we’ve gone through the different personalities of the court cards in the Understanding the Tarot Court series, and having checked out how to find out our personal Tarot court card(s), I think it is but natural to talk about the Personality Spread.

This Personality Spread is a Tarot reading spread that can be used to get a deeper understanding of a person, and find out more about his / her personality.

I have to admit – this isn’t a spread that I have learnt from anywhere. In fact, I have created the Personality Spread on my own. So it is still a work in progress… Any and all input will be appreciated!

The Personality Spread: How It Began

The Personality Spread began with a question from one of my students. He asked me if there was a spread that would help him to understand the personality of a person, say someone who he has just met, and decide if that person was going to be a good friend in the long run or not.

Naturally, I told him that he might just as easily find a spread or two online. But then he asked if I could come up with one, or rather, create a spread that he could use.

So I thought and thought, and came up with this brilliant (that is what I would like to think!) spread. And of course, I thought of sharing this spread over here. However, I would love all your inputs and we can make the Personality Spread even better together!

In this spread, I have used all the stuff that we’ve looked at during our study of the Tarot court cards. So lets look at the Personality Spread, shall we…

The Personality Spread: Spread How-Tos

As we can see from the picture, there are 3 basic layers to the Personality Spread.

The cards with the smiley face on them are the court cards, and the other cards are what I like to refer to as the ‘situation’ cards.

Here’s how this spread is drawn.

• First, you separate out the Court Cards from the other cards in your deck.
• Now holding the deck in your hands, close your eyes and focus on the person you want to know about.
• Now from among the Court Cards, draw 10 cards.
• After that, from among the other cards, draw out 10 cards.
• Place them in the positions I have mentioned in the drawing above in the following manner:
  • First, lay down the court cards.
  • Then lay down the ‘situation’ cards.
• When you do the reading, start opening and reading the cards as per the numbers mentioned above the position names.

The Personality Spread: The Positions

The positions in this spread are very interesting.

• The +ve and –ve cards in the center define the positive and negative aspects of his personality on the whole
• Passions talks about what drives this person
• Values talk about the value systems and ethics that this person has in his life
• Trustworthiness defines how and how much this person can actually be trusted in different situations
• Can you depend on this person? And how much? The Dependability position will tell you that information
• Does he have integrity? The Integrity position will let you know
• What about his loyalty? Will he be a loyal friend? The Loyalty position will tell you that
• And of course, the Advice position will give you advice on how to behave and be around this person
• While the Future position will talk about the future of your friendship in the long run.

Simple, yes?

Well, let’s do a sample reading just to get a fair idea of the spread.

The Personality Spread: A Sample Reading

Here’s a picture of the sample reading. Now, lets analyze it.

The Center: Main Personality Traits

Right in the center, we have the King of Pentacles at the +ve position and the Queen of Wands (↓) at the –ve position.

Now based on my first impressions (intuitive thoughts), I can say that he is a financially well-to-do person, perhaps a businessman, who loves his routines. He is also quite money-minded. Also the –ve card says that he can be very moody when he is unhappy, or when things don’t go his way. He could even have anger issues. As such, the Queen of Wands (↓) card also makes me feel that he might be a very passive-aggressive sort of a person.

The Outer Layers: Personality in Situation

Now, let’s look at the Personality in Situation scenario.

Passions: Here we have the Knight of Wands (↓) with the 8 of Swords. So, he often restricts the way that his passions could drive him. Every time something interesting comes around, he probably thinks himself out of actually going and doing it. He could very well be suppressing his own passions and desires.

Values: The cards in his scenario are the Knight of Swords and the 7 of Pentacles (↓). Here we see someone who doesn’t have any patience at all. As far as values go, this person can be quite impatient with someone who doesn’t conform to his ideas of what is correct. He doesn’t like to take his time and get to know you and will often be quick to be judgemental.

Trustworthiness: Here we have the Page of Cups with the 6 of Wands. He will easily trust you, but only when you let him take the leadership role in whatever situation the trust is required. As such, he will often rely on his intuition to trust someone, but then again, he has to be the one taking the lead.

But bear in mind that he can be quick to judge as well (from the previous position) and be careful about this.

Dependability: Here we have the King of Wands and the 6 of Cups. He can be someone who you depend on. However, this will work only if he knows you for a long time, and have a bunch of good, happy memories together.

As such, his trust and dependability issues might arise from good and bad experiences of his childhood.

Integrity: Here we have Knight of Cups (↓) and 4 of Swords (↓). So he is a person who doesn’t put much stock by any emotional appeals made to him. He probably won’t be someone who learns his lessons from past experiences, rather someone who dwells on them and lets them rule his emotions. So, if he trusts you and you haven’t broken his trust, then he is your best buddy. But if not, then beware, because he can also be quite vengeful if it came to that.

Loyalty: Here we have the Page of Pentacles (↓) and the 4 of Cups. Naturally, this too ties in with the other interpretations. He will be loyal, but only if you have proved your loyalty to him over a period of time.

Advice: We have the Queen of Swords and the 9 of Cups (↓) in this position. The cards are advising you to be like the Queen of Swords – ie – be nice but draw the line at some point. While he may not be someone whom you want to antagonize, he is also not someone who you want to be BFFs with either. Especially when things aren’t going so great, don’t go to him for a shoulder to cry on. Emotions aren’t his thing.

Future: And the King of Cups (↓) combines with the 9 of Wands in this position. As the advice position said, emotions aren’t his thing. And yet, you might find yourself in a difficult time emotionally and he will appear to be very standoff-ish to you. Long term, this relationship may not proceed beyond a ‘general acquaintance’.

Your Turn…

What did you think about the spread? Did the positions make sense to you or did you have some other positions in mind? According to you, what positions should have been taken into consideration?

Have you tried this spread? What were your thoughts? Was it useful and accurate?

Again, this spread is a work in progress, so please feel free to try it out, and let me know your thoughts, changes, and suggestions in the comments section below.