Path Spread
Difficulty: Easy
For the Path, the querent asks for suggestions on how to behave properly in order to achieve a desired result. The Current column shows how the querent has been acting, and the Suggestedcolumn suggests how the querent should act in order to achieve a certain goal. The chart-like spread uses the standard 3 levels: Rational, Emotional, and External Stance (how one projects one’s self outwardly). When comparing the Current to Suggested cards, the most important thing is to notice the differences between the 2 cards. It is these differences which hint at the behaviors that you should think about changing.
Card #1 is the significator, the card which should reflect the nature of the query and/or the desired outcome.
Card #2 shows the way you are and have been thinking. Card #7 shows how you need to change the way you think in order to serve yourself better.
Card #3 tells you about your emotional attitude. Though it may seem difficult to manipulate one’s own emotions, it can be done if you put your mind to it. For example, acting a certain way such as smiling intently for a few minutes will lead the emotions to follow. If you try this, as silly as the exercise seems, you will find that this evokes the emotion of happiness. For this reading, you should try to make yourself feel the way that Card #6 tells you.
External Stance means how you act outwardly, how you hope others see you. Card #4 tells you how you were acting, while #5 indicates how you should act outwardly, for other people’s sake. It is the differences between these cards that hint at what behavior patterns should be altered.
Your Path Reading with the Thoth Tarot
Current |
The Significator  4 of Disks |
Suggested |
|
Thought |
 The Hermit |
 The Hanged Man |
|
Emotion |
 Princess of Disks |
 3 of Swords |
|
External Stance |
 2 of Disks |
 10 of Swords |
The Significator
4 of Disks
Sun in Capricorn – Power
The Four, Chesed, shows the establishment of the Universe in three dimensions, that is, below the Abyss. The generating idea is exhibited in its full material sense. The card is ruled by the Sun in Capricornus, the Sign in which he is reborn. The disks are very large and solid; the suggestion of the card is that of a fortress. This represents Law and Order, maintained by constant authority and vigilance. The disks themselves are square; revolution is very opposite to the card; and they contain the signs of the Four Elements. For all that, they revolve; defence is valid only when violently active.
So far as it appears stationary, it is the 'dead centre' of the engineer; and Capricornus is the point at which the Sun 'turns again Northward'. The background is of deep azure, flecked yellow, suggesting a moat; but beyond this is a pattern of green and indigo to represent the guarded fields whose security is assured by the fortress.
Current Thoughts
The Hermit
Virgo
Illumination from within, secret impulse from within; practical plans derived accordingly. Retirement from participation in current events.
Suggested Thoughts
The Hanged Man
Water
Enforced sacrifice, punishment, loss, fatal or voluntary, suffering, defeat, failure, death.
Current Emotions
Princess of Disks
The Princess of Disks represents the earthy part of Earth. She is consequently on the brink of transfiguration. She is strong and beautiful, with an expression of intense brooding, as if about to become aware of secret wonder.
Her crest is the head of the ram, and her sceptre descends into the earth. There its head becomes a diamond, the precious stone of Kether, thus symbolising the birth of the highest and purest light in the deepest and darkest of the Elements. She stands within a grove of sacred trees before an altar suggesting a wheatsheaf, for she is a priestess of Demeter. She bears within her body the secret of the future. Her sublimity is further emphasised by the disk which she bears; for in the centre thereof is the Chinese ideogram denoting the twin spiral force of Creation in perfect equilibrium; from this is born the rose of Isis, the great fertile Mother.
Suggested Emotions
3 of Swords
Saturn in Libra – Sorrow
This card is dark and heavy; it is, so to speak, the womb of Chaos. There is an intense lurking passion to create, but its children are monsters. This may mean the supreme transcendence of the natural order. Secrecy is here, and Perversion.
The symbol represents the great Sword of the Magician, point uppermost; it cuts the junction of two short curved swords. The impact has destroyed the rose. In the background, storm broods under implacable night.
Current External Stance
2 of Disks
Jupiter in Capricorn – Change
The number Two, Chokmah, here rules in the suit pertaining to Earth. It shows the type of Energy appropriate to Two, in its most fixed form. According to the doctrine that Change is the support of stability, the card is called Change.
The card represents two Pantacles, one above the other; they are the Chinese symbols of the Yang and Yin duplicated as in the Hsiang. One wheel is dextro- and the other laevo-rotatory. They thus represent the harmonious interplay of the Four Elements in constant movement. One may in fact consider the card as the picture of the complete manifested Universe, in respect of its dynamics.
Suggested External Stance
10 of Swords
Sun in Gemini – Ruin
The number Ten, Malkuth, as always, represents the culmination of the unmitigated energy of the idea. It shows reason run mad, ramshackle riot of soulless mechanism; it represents the logic of lunatics and (for the most part) of philosophers. It is reason divorced from reality.
The card is also ruled by the Sun in Gemini, but the mercurial airy quality of the Sign serves to disperse his rays; this card shows the disruption and disorder of harmonious and stable energy.
The hilts of the Swords occupy the positions of the Sephiroth, but the points One to Five and Seven to Nine touch and shatter the central Sword (six) which represents the Sun, the Heart, the child of Chokmah and Binah. The tenth Sword is also in splinters. It is the ruin of the Intellect, and even of all mental and moral qualities.
