Card 1
Present
The situation at the center of the question, as it is now.
10 cards
Celtic Cross tarot spread
The Celtic Cross tarot spread uses 10 cards in fixed positions — present, challenge, past, future, above (conscious aim), below (unconscious), advice, external influences, hopes and fears, outcome. Ten cards, the most detailed traditional spread. Rewards a specific question and punishes a vague one. Use it when a situation has several moving parts and you want them separated.
How many ways it can fall
4,675,765,217,094,107,136,000 possible Celtic Cross spreads
10 positions drawn without replacement from 78 cards, each landing upright or reversed: 78 × 77 × … × 69 × 210. Drawn once a day, it would take about 12.8 quintillion years to get through them all — so any particular spread is unlikely ever to come up for you twice.
Reversals double the count at every position. Readers who ignore them are working with 4,566,176,969,818,464,000 instead — still plenty, but a different deck of possibilities.
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What each position means
10 cards on a grid 4 across and 4 down, numbered in the order they are dealt; card 2 (challenge) lies across card 1 (present).
Card 2
Challenge
The card laid across the first: what crosses the situation — the obstacle, tension or complicating factor. Even a positive card here shows something to work with or around.
Card 3
Past
The recent past that is passing away but still has an influence.
Card 4
Future
What is approaching in the near future, typically weeks rather than years.
Card 5
Above — conscious aim
What you consciously want or think about the matter — the goal you would name if asked.
Card 6
Below — unconscious
The foundation beneath the question: feelings, motives or history you may not be fully aware of.
Card 7
Advice
Your own position and attitude, and the approach the cards suggest you take.
Card 8
External influences
Other people, circumstances and the environment around the question.
Card 9
Hopes and fears
What you hope for and dread — often the same card, since people fear what they most want.
Card 10
Outcome
Where the situation is heading on its current course, read together with the advice card.
A worked example
For a question about a stalled business partnership, the Eight of Swords as the present shows feeling trapped by options that are really open; crossed by the King of Pentacles, the challenge is a cautious partner with control of the money. The Hermit below says the real issue is a need for time alone to decide, while the Three of Wands as the outcome suggests expansion once that decision is made. Read together, the spread points away from the partner and toward the querent's own hesitation.
Where it comes from
The Celtic Cross was published by Arthur Edward Waite in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), which accompanied the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, under the heading "An Ancient Celtic Method of Divination". Nothing about it is demonstrably Celtic or ancient, but it became the most famous tarot layout of the twentieth century. Books disagree on the order of cards three to six; Waite himself placed the crowning and base cards before the past and future.
Variations
Some readers swap positions 3 and 5 or 4 and 6, following Waite's order; others add a significator card representing the querent before shuffling, or pull a clarifying card when the outcome is unclear.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “Celtic Cross Tarot Spread: Each Position Explained.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/tarot/spreads/celtic-cross/
For Wikipedia
{{cite web |title=Celtic Cross Tarot Spread: Each Position Explained |url=https://astrohot.com/tarot/spreads/celtic-cross/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-27}}