Invoking Pentagram of Fire Tarot Spread
This is a straightforward spread, which as far as I’m aware I devised myself during the long Naarm lockdowns of 2020. It’s a five-card spread in which each card is laid out in the sequence and pattern of an invoking fire pentagram as shown in the image below.
Because the spread will always result in one trump and one card from each suit, it provides a balanced view across the dimensions of one’s current situation.
Now when I say that I invented this spread, I mean that I devised it myself in isolation without any influence. It may well be that others have arrived at the same the approach, but if so I haven’t encountered it before.
The Method
First, divide up the deck into its five suits – the trumps (aka the major arcana) and the four suits of the minor arcana, Wands (Batons, Staves), Swords, Cups, Pentacles (Coins).
Don’t worry about putting the cards in suit order, but do make sure that each card is facing the same way up in its deck.
Now place each suit deck face down on its appropriate pentagram point: trmps at the apex, wands in the bottom right, swords upper left, cups upper right, and finally pentacles in the bottom left.
Take up the trump deck, and making sure you keep it face down at all times, slowly shuffle it. While shuffling you should try to let your mind go blank, which is, of course, a lot harder than it sounds. Keep shuffling through the cards until a card pops out or until they feel ready for you to choose one.
The selected card should be placed face down in the top position of the invisible pentagram, the point of spirit. This will be the overall subject, theme, or situation relevant to the spread.
Next take up the wands deck and repeat your shuffle-and-select technique. Place the second chosen card face down on the point of fire, the bottom right vertex. Repeat for each of the remaining three piles, placing them in turn on the points of air, water, and finally earth.
Once the pentagram has been cast, turn over the five cards in the same order you laid them out. In this example I drew the following spread using Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris’ Thoth Deck.
Reading the Spread.
Starting at the apex, the Trump card provides the overall context, situation, or consideration for the reading; this is the theme or the substance of the matter.
In my spread I've drawn The Fool”), the kabbalistic zero, the egg, the babe bathed in light, the green man, spring, virility and fertility, Dionysus, the madman obliviously stepping over the cliff edge, beginning a new adventure.
On the Fire point, lies the Seven of Wands, Valour, Mars in Leo, a last gasp of determination may save the day.
Peace, the Two of Swords, sits on the point of Air. This is the moon in Libra, balanced change, the most peaceful of the turbulent, complicated, and disordered air cards of intellectual manifestation.
The Ace of Cups, the Holy Grail, divine vessel of the waters of Life, the Yoni of the Moon.
Finally, on the vertex of Earth, the Nine of Disks, Gain, Venus in Virgo, good luck in material affairs, favour, and popularity.
Consolidation
Drawing on the excellent advice of Camelia Elias to just read the cards as literally as possible, I can see that I am at a new beginning, a Fool, undertaking a new adventure, a quest to gain peace through valour and spiritual love.
Additional Reading
Crowley, Aleister, “The Book of Thoth”, Weiser, 2017
Elias, Camelia, “Read like the Devil: The Essential Course in Reading the Marseille Tarot”, Eyecorner Press, 2021