Spread

A spread is a pattern for laying out cards in a reading, where each place, or position, has its own question: past, present and future, or situation, obstacle and advice. Spreads range from a single card to layouts using the whole deck. The best known in English is the ten-card Celtic Cross, published by Waite in 1910, followed by the three-card spread. Most fixed spreads in use today were devised in the 20th century, and readers often make their own for a particular question. The word layout means the same thing. A common confusion is to think a reading needs a large spread; one or three cards is how most people read.