The Three Card Spread

It is the spread most people learn after the single card, and plenty of experienced readers use it every day. Three cards are enough to show movement, from where something started to where it is going, and few enough that you can hold the whole reading in your head at once.

It suits a question you want a story for. A situation that has shifted, a decision that keeps coming back, a stretch of life you are trying to make sense of.

Where it comes from

No one can say who first laid three cards in a row. Like the one card draw, it has no known author and no founding book. What is certain is how widely it is used now. Brigit Esselmont has published twenty five versions of it in a single article, from past, present and future to mind, body and spirit.

The layout

Lay the cards from left to right.

1. The Past. What has led to this. The influence that set things moving, which may still be fading out or may already have gone.

2. The Present. Where things stand now. The energy around the matter today, and very often your own state of mind about it.

3. The Future. Where this is heading if things carry on as they are. It shows a direction of travel, and you are free to change direction.

How to read it

Read the middle card first. The Present is the anchor, and the cards either side of it make sense once you know what they lead into and out of.

Then read left to right as one sentence. A good way to do it is to say it out loud with joining words: "Because of this, I am here, and so it is heading there." If the sentence will not join up, go back to the middle card. It is usually the one you have misread.

Look at the movement across the three pictures. Are the figures facing towards each other or away? Does the light change from left to right? Does one suit repeat? Two Cups and a Pentacle say the matter is mostly about feeling, with a practical end. A Major in the Future position says this is heading somewhere bigger than it looks today. Three Majors in a row say a lot is moving at once.

Reversed cards follow the Reversed Cards page, and the position helps you choose between the approaches. A reversed card in the Past is often something that was blocked back then and still has unfinished business. In the Present, it is often turned inward, or too much or too little. In the Future, it is most often delayed.

A sample reading

The question: "Where am I with my work?"

The cards: the Five of Pentacles, the Six of Cups reversed, and the Ace of Pentacles.

The Past is the Five of Pentacles. Two people struggle through the snow, one of them on crutches, past a stained glass church window glowing with light. Neither of them looks up at it. It is hard times and being left out in the cold, and it is also help that was close by and went unseen.

The Present is the Six of Cups, reversed. Upright, an older child hands a younger one a cup filled with white flowers in a quiet courtyard: memory, kindness, the good old days. Reversed, I read it as too much. The looking back has taken over. After a hard stretch it is comforting to go over how things used to be, and somewhere along the way the comfort has become a place to stay.

The Future is the Ace of Pentacles. A hand comes out of a cloud holding a single large pentacle over a garden, and a path runs through an arch in the hedge towards the mountains beyond. A seed of something practical. A new role, a new income, a new start in the physical world.

Now read them together. Pentacles hold both ends, so the question really is about work and money, and the Cups card in the middle tells me feelings are what sit between the two. The sentence goes something like this: "After a lean time I have been living in the memory of how work used to be, and a new practical start is on its way."

The Six of Cups reversed is the hinge. The Ace is already being held out. The only question the spread leaves open is whether you will look up from the old memories long enough to take it.

There is a quieter link too. In the Five, help glows in the window and nobody turns towards it. In the Ace, the gap in the hedge stands open for anyone who walks that way. The first card and the last card show the same lesson twice, once missed and once offered again.

Variations

The places change and the method stays the same. Here are the versions you will meet most often.

Situation, action, outcome. What is happening, what you could do about it, and what is likely to come of that. Good for a practical question where you want something to act on.

Situation, obstacle, advice. What is happening, what stands in the way, and a step you can take. This one suits a matter that feels stuck.

Mind, body, spirit. Three parts of you, side by side. Useful as a check in on yourself rather than a question about a situation. Notice which of the three cards is the odd one out.

You, them, the connection. You, the other person, and what sits between you. Remember that the card for the other person shows your side of things and your picture of them. They are not at the table to answer for themselves. The Relationship Spread page takes this further.

Whichever version you choose, write the three position names down before you shuffle, and keep them in left to right order. The sentence only works if you know which word goes where.

Try it yourself

Pick something that has changed in your life over the past year. Lay three cards for it as past, present and future.

Before you look anything up, write a single sentence that uses all three cards, joined with "because" and "so". Read it out loud.

Then shuffle again and lay three more cards for the same matter as situation, action, outcome. Write the second sentence underneath the first.

Put the two sentences side by side. The first tells you how you got here. The second tells you what you might do about it. Between them you have most of a reading, from six cards and two lines of writing.

If you would like the cards read against your own chart, my readings are here.