While everyone who regularly uses the Celtic Cross Spread adapts it to their own understanding, I am going to reveal the underlying richness of the traditional “Hopes and Fears” or 9th position* of this classic spread.
*I’m not counting the Significator.
Both/And
Early in my tarot reading career, I interpreted whatever card landed in this next-to-last position from both the perspective of what querents hoped and what they feared. For instance, with the 10 of Cups querents might hope for a happy home or family life. Yet they simultaneously fear: either that this is an illusion (the rainbow in some decks) or that they will be constrained in some way by family needs and concerns. This points to how our anticipations affect outcome (position 10). Thus, this card can provide an extremely valuable look into the quandary experienced by querents regarding their issue. Note that it doesn’t say whether the hopes and fears are right or not. They aren’t predictions. Therefore, what are they?
After extensive work on the emotions expressed by the cards in the RWS deck, including a research project I did involving almost 100 people, I came to look at this position more broadly as simply one’s emotions in the situation being described. Hope and fear or attraction and repulsion form the core polarity found in emotion: physiologically experienced as pleasure or pain/distress.
Empedocles’ Love & Strife
The 5th century BC Greek philosopher, Empedocles, first defined this core polarity as “Love and Strife” or attraction and separation, which combine in different ways to form all matter in the universe as well as in our psyches. Emotions can be placed along a grid with two axises: pleasure—pain and mild | intense. For instance, annoyance–anger-rage express a range, from mild to intense, of an emotion we tend to avoid as being painful.
The fact is, as Empedocles recognized, we always experience some combination of emotions—which is where we get all those feeling experiences and the emotion words we use to describe them. This is why interpreting the 9th card from different perspectives can, in itself, describe the stressful push-pull which is pictured in the central conflict revealed by the first two cards of the Celtic Cross Spread.
Motivation
As I researched emotion I came to understand that they are our primary motivating factors. What Motivates Getting Things Done by Mary Lamia has recently added to my level of understanding how this relates to the 9th card. Lamia is a clinical psychologist and researcher specializing in emotional awareness. (This book is about procrastination, which happens to be a particular issue of mine.)
In Chapter 3, Lamia points out how situations stimulate emotions that, in turn, direct our attention. We care about the situation because we feel something. So, whether we feel distress or interest, the feeling motivates us to take action. “The emotional importance we give to a stimulus influences how we will attend to it.” These emotions (along with associated thoughts and memories) script our present behavior.* One person may notice unwashed dishes and feel compelled to immediately do something about them, while another person may not even notice them.
*As tarot readers, it is vital that we become aware of such differences in people’s responses. For, if we assume our own bias to be the only response, it can skew the reading.*
Scripts
For Lamia, “Scripts are based on the repetitive activation of a given emotion or emotions consistently activated by a particular stimulus.” They form an implicit set of rules that help us make sense of our lives: “Depending on how well we learn, scripted responses can either help or hinder us as we interpret, evaluate, and make predictions in our experiences.”
The Role of the 9th Card
While our own scripts speak to our interpretative abilities as readers, scripts also point to the role of the 9th position card in a querent’s reading (either for oneself or another). “In consciousness, feeling and thinking always arise together,” with thoughts (that are actually conjectures) being “the best information your mind has available.” It is the underlying emotion (at root, the physiological affect or gut response) that most motivates human behavior. Furthermore, “emotions can be impervious to thought,” which is why a reader‘s informing someone of an outcome or best action—no matter how ‘right’ the reader is—is not as effective as when a querent emotionally “gets it.”
The Interactive Tarot Reading
The value of an interactive approach to tarot reading lies in the querent describing a card or speaking of what most draws their attention. At that point the attendant memories and the emotions associated with those images arise. By dialoguing with the querent about what arises the reader can help the querent evaluate how relevant these responses are to the actual situation and therefore which options and goals, indicated by the other cards, generate the most interest in the querent and/or promise the most relief from distress.
Summary
Emotional responses motivate us. Positive emotions give us energy and drive. Negative emotions result in a desire for relief. Both positive and negative emotions may be described by the card in position 9, although sometimes one clearly predominates over the other(s). Recognizing that this card describes one’s motivating factor(s) can help querents become aware how their history (i.e., their scripts) are affecting the outcome.
The Benefits
As with the other cards in the spread, emotional responses depicted in position 9 are not totally fixed. A consciously aware reader can help a client align themselves with their highest goals and recognize their options. Furthermore, energizes are vibrational and thus, by aligning oneself with the higher vibrations and lessons offered in the situation, and bringing consciousness to the emotional roots of the situation, a client can experience an emotional shift within the sacred space of the reading and thus change the way they meet the perceived outcome.
Please, try these ideas and let me know if this makes a difference in your own experience of the spread. Or, leave a comment on how you interpret and work with the 9th or “Hopes and Fears” position in the Celtic Cross Spread.
24 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 3, 2018 at 5:23 am
Ra Martin
As ever Mary, you illuminate and highlight the shadowy corners, or some things taken for granted. I’ve always interpreted that position in the way you describe it, but not taken it far enough into the territory you’ve revealed. Thank you as always for your deep scholarship.
November 3, 2018 at 6:15 am
Theresa
This is so brilliant. As always, you uncover new layers in tarot, Mary. I love the Celtic Cross and this adds a new layer to it!
November 3, 2018 at 6:38 am
The Hit List - Writing a book while working full time - The Tarot Lady
[…] Mary K. Greer wrote this brilliant piece on Position 9 in the Celtic Cross Spread. […]
November 3, 2018 at 10:42 am
mkg
Ra Martin,
Sometimes just a phrase or tweek to our normal way of doing something can add freshness and additional depth to a practice. Reading about the research into emotions and neuroscience has added so much to my understanding of tarot and the reading process.
November 3, 2018 at 10:45 am
mkg
Theresa,
I’m so glad you like it. I’m looking forward to your two! new books.
November 3, 2018 at 1:38 pm
Valentina Ranzi
I also mean “fears and hopes” as the conflicting emotions of the person regarding the question under consideration. Glad to have an intuition similar to yours !!
November 3, 2018 at 2:03 pm
mkg
Valentina,
I’m so glad we are on the same page. Taking Into consideration the motivational role of emotions adds even more depth to the position.
November 3, 2018 at 6:46 pm
MLS
I like this and agree with your perspective. When a card is upside down, I tend to read it as a warning or as a thing passing away. Like if I recently got 9 pentacles reversed in position 9. That mirrored a warning for me of loss of autonomy. If it had been upright I would read it as a hope for autonomy. Could the upside down position represent, simultaneously, a hope? or the upright position a fear? yes, I can see it that way, too, because in the emotional life — as you show — opposite feelings can be involved and held in dynamic balance.
November 3, 2018 at 9:17 pm
mkg
MLS, as I explain in my book on tarot reversals, use whatever works for you. I find that when you have a clear and firm intention for how the cards will work that they generally oblige. It’s one reason why we can’t always make sense out of the way someone else reads the cards. While I usually have an idea of what a card means, I sometimes throw my standard meanings out the window based on the insights of the querent or my intuition in the moment. I really can’t tell if another reader is right or wrong even if I can suggest possibilities.
November 3, 2018 at 11:53 pm
MLS
Thanks. Sometimes the cards are a vehicle for articulating an intuitive insight.
November 4, 2018 at 11:36 am
Lisa Frideborg Eddy
Ohhhhhh… So much food for thought! This was really helpful in terms of understanding hopes and fears for me: Furthermore, “emotions can be impervious to thought,” which is why a reader‘s informing someone of an outcome or best action—no matter how ‘right’ the reader is—is not as effective as when a querent emotionally “gets it.”
November 4, 2018 at 1:54 pm
mkg
It’s great to find a researcher who can backup what you’ve been trying to explain to students for years.
November 4, 2018 at 8:02 pm
April M Love
Where can I find information on initiating the interactive Tarot reading process? I’d like to know how best to involve the querent without seeming as though I’m fishing for information. I want to maximize the clarity of the information that the querent gains without me “tailoring” the reading with my personal “filters.”
Thank you, Mary.
November 4, 2018 at 8:07 pm
mkg
April, thanks for asking. My book _21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card_ goes into this. You might also find the Appendix on the Traps and Solutions of an interactive tarot reading to be helpful.
November 5, 2018 at 11:10 am
skysunjess
This is such a wonderful Tarot Blog Mary!! I have always read card 9 as the greatest Hopes or Fears, emotional experiences that the querent will have to face before the final outcome.. Hopes are potentials and Fears are blocks to those potentials… Sometimes the card can be both a hope and a fear.. either way an awareness of these feelings can help to alleviate fear and and give blessings to our hopes..
What are your new books your working on?? Im excited…
November 5, 2018 at 11:14 am
mkg
I also try to remember that hopes can occasionally be unrealistic and fears can be great motivators.
I don’t generally talk about books I’m working on unless/until the conversation can be part of the process.
November 5, 2018 at 1:25 pm
skysunjess
So true (hopes/fears) Mary:) Im very excited about your future works:) & I really love this blog!!
November 5, 2018 at 1:26 pm
mkg
Thank you, skysunjess.
December 8, 2018 at 12:32 pm
parsifalswheeldivination
Hi, Mary. I guess I’m one of those who have adapted the CC to my own understanding since I’ve been using it since 1972. I first learned Eden Gray’s version and have extrapolated from that. In her first book, which was kind of an oblique PKT clone with some modern psychological insights, she dismantled the Hopes/Fears duality and placed Fears in the seventh position, eliminating the apparent redundancy between “Himself” and the Significator as described by Waite. I’ve since expanded on that and turned “Fears” into a reactionary response to, or push-back against, the “Near Future” card as a way to grapple with and hopefully assimilate its impact going forward. At the bottom of the staff, it makes me think of the “psychic basement” where unresolved past problems manifest as negative reinforcement, with an eye to how they affect the development of the present situation. I know you have an appreciation for Gray’s contribution. What do you think of her innovation regarding Position #9?
January 26, 2019 at 3:00 pm
mkg
parsifal,
Yes, I can see “Fears” as a response to the “Near Future” card. I also tend to look especially for connections between fears card and the card below the central cross – the root, source or unconscious. Regarding Gray’s innovation regarding Position #9, I don’t really see the need to separate hopes and fears as I read them primarily as emotions.
Mary
January 6, 2023 at 7:01 pm
Brittany Day
Thank you for thiss
January 6, 2023 at 9:36 pm
Jessica Leigh
I love your blog… great insight as always:) ❤️
November 23, 2023 at 3:45 am
Tarot Diary Thurs 23rd Nov 2023 The Celtic Cross. I really need to buy The St Jinx Gay Tarot decks! – Tarot Card Meanings – UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF TAROT
[…] Position 9 in the Celtic Cross Spread […]
January 4, 2024 at 11:15 pm
Beth
I am a novice reader. I did a spread where the 8 swords was upright in the 9th position with ace of wands upright in 10th and temperence in 8th and 9 of cups upright in 7th position. I interpreted this as the person was on a positive track but was fearful of not making it or getting stuck. I saw that more as a fear than a reality. It was interesting that the card in 7th position was so positive which is partly what influenced my perspective. Can you add to this or use this example to demonstrate your insight.