Interpreting a Tarot spread? (9-card spread from Liber T)
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Not too long ago, I did a Tarot spread to help out a friend with a relationship question. I used the 9-card spread from Liber Theta, which reads the top row of 3 as being reflective of the situation in Neshamah, the bottom row as the situation is Nephesh, and the middle row, Ruach. Similarly, the leftmost column is the past; the middle, the present; and the right, the future.
Of these, I am having definitely the most trouble interpreting the Neshamah row, and secondly, the Present column.
The spread came out:
The Devil - 9 of Disks - Ace of Swords
9 of Wands - The Star - The Hierophant
Lust - Prince of Cups - Prince of WandsIf anyone has any interpretations or advice they'd like to share, I welcome it.
Thanks
93, 93/93
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Ok so i'm assuming the cards are all upright? Your friend is in turmoil over a new relationship?
NESHAMAH
Devil: seduced by wrong thing, temptation, too much material emphasis
9 Disks: financial gain, windfall, inner ease
Ace Swords : power , control (feeling in charge) , death of a situation.The A.E.Waite Devil card has 2 lovers chained and horned. it looks like it's a mad and passionate affair?
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RUACH**
9 Wands: Inner strength, new friendships, overcoming threats, recovery, protecting what is genuinely valuable.
*Star * : Gifts , inspiration, charisma , inner vision
Hierophant; inspiration, divine guidance, , intuitionThis represents your friend's rational desire to find some solution? That is, a spiritual guidance solution via Tarot?
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NEPHESH**
Lust: Discipline, power, persuasion, commitment to true path.I think the Prince cups and the Prince of wands are mere representations of the 2 people involved here i.e. their physical and psychological mutual attraction.
It looks like your friend needs to question if this relationship is just based on sex and therefore this is what's causing his turmoil? I don't know though, what do you make of these above interpretations?
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Yes, all the cards were upright - I don't disturb their orientation while shuffling.
I mostly agree with your interpretations, Gerry. The Devil card captured my focus for the Neshamah row, and I wasn't really sure how to integrate the other two cards, but in general, it didn't seem like "yes, go through with this" type of row... which is sort of in contrast to the other two, in contrast to his personal feelings on the matter (which may or may not have been warped), and in contrast to what he believes his guidance is telling him.
Mostly - I'm not sure whether to interpret the Neshamah portion as being an instruction "from Neshamah," or as being a diagnosis as to how it's not being seen accurately, or something else.
I interpreted the two court cards as both being aspects of the querent that were conflicting. In the Nephesh row (where they're both present), I interpreted them as the energy from feelings and beliefs-of-self (Prince of Cups) getting tangled up with energy from Will-force (Prince of Wands).
Viewing them separately in rows, in the Present row, it seems like he's mostly being driven by what he thinks, at the personality level, is appropriate - in the Future row, it seems like accurate inner guidance will arm him to channel a deeper energy to manifest than what he's using now.
In other words, it seems to me now like the spread is advising breakup, against what he feels at a personality level.
Thank you for your responses so far
93, 93/93
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I'm not under the impression that this is an "advice" layout. It's a "what is" layout.
Careful with assuming advice from it. That strikes me more as your own reaction mixed with what you think "should be."
Personally, I think you should avoid "should" questions altogether. You ask about the reality of a situation. "What would be good to know about _______?" Then one makes one's own advice based on that.
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A couple things about the 3-fold Neshamah-Nephesh-Ruach method of reading this spread, first a request and then a statement about working with the spread:
Request
Without revealing the too much about the identity of the querant, can you tell us what their question is. The question will provide a context for us here that will most likely increase the accuracy of the interpretations you'll be receiving from us.
Statement
The Neshamah row can be interpreted as the source of the situation, completely outside of the querant's awareness. The Nephesh row can be interpreted as reflecting what's going, giving the querant a vague sense of the issue but they are still left somewhat "in the dark". The Ruach row can be interpreted as what the querant is aware of. But this awareness does not equal any sort of understanding of the situation. It mostly represents their immediate awareness of what's going on.
There is a principle of reflection and a principle of extension at play here and any sort of separation i.e. here's what's happening at the Neshamah Level, Nephesh level , etc is arbitrary and for the sake of convenience. It could be argued that what's really happening is illustrated at in the top row and, by extension, expresses itself in ways that are elaborated on by the bottom and middle rows.
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Past Present Future
Neshamah: The Devil 9 of Disks Ace of Swords
Ruach: 9 of Wands The Star The Hierophant
Nephesch: Lust Prince of Cups Prince of WandsI'm going to offer my interpretation and rather than moving from the past into the future, I'm going to start from the future and work backwards into the past.
The Future (of which the Querant is living into):
The querant has separated themselves from the relationship, either by ending it or by withdrawing into themselves. The querant foresaw this happening and having realized the accuracy of their intuition they took action in accord with it.The Present
The pleasure and passion of the relationship is ecstatic. Almost to a fault. Everything is up in the air. Everything is airy fairy. There are no boundaries or substance and the querant's response to this lack of anything substantial is alarming. Things are not what they seemed to have been. A deep and emotionally unstable aspect of themselves has surfaced and is running the show. This is not who they are and this is a bad sign.The Past
The querant found themselves in a fling that was too good to be true and appeared to be everything they were looking for and everything they thought they wanted. There were no strings were attached and everything was fun. -
Wow, a lot of bells are ringing with that - not all of them, but a lot of them. (Then again, I'm not the querent.) Thank you, Al-Shariyf.
The question was, "should I get back together (off a temporary break) with my fiance?"
The reading was done during the brief separation.
93, 93/93.