#rahdue's wheel

[snowy-equinox]

Revisiting Rahdue's Wheel

Rahdue’s Wheel is a much-larger-than-average tarot spread that originated from Eileen Connolly’s 1987 book, Tarot: The Handbook for the Journeyman. It’s difficult to find detailed information outside of the book, as its size makes it unpopular among most tarot readers. Hell, Connolly herself needs 28 pages to explain it all. Rahdue’s Wheel shows up occasionally on Tumblr or Reddit, but its reputation has mostly become a kind of “Eat the Pig Trough and Get Your Picture on the Wall” for diviners. 

It’s when you get past the size that you start to realize the spread itself has some problems. 

Tackling the ‘Size’ Premise

Let’s get the premise out of the way: Rahdue’s Wheel does not use all 78 cards. When you look at the spread in detail, it’s broken down into 7 sections: 

Inner Wheel - Present

Center Wheel - Future

Outer Wheel - Past

Dagim Block - Past life

Taleh Pillar (right side) - Past life relationships

Shor Pillar (left side) - Past life memories/experiences

Malkuth Block - Answers the 9 questions you are supposed to have asked before the reading

The last section, the Malkuth Block, is optional. Even if you choose to use it, you may not pull the rest of your deck. Connolly says “Any cards that have not been used are left face down and are not to be read. They do not pertain to the reading and leaving them face down retains the original energy of the spread. If you turn them over, you break the esoteric structure of the entire spread.” At most, this spread requires 69 cards, not 78. 

The Popular Criticisms

While its gimmick is an exaggeration, it is still a behemoth of a spread. Many believe it is unwieldy and bogged down with too much information. This is a common criticism of larger spreads; the more information you pull, the easier it is to get lost. The continual energy drain of pulling, followed by the mental drain of interpreting, can leave you with inaccurate results.

However, this is assuming that you have to do your tarot readings in one sitting. I don’t hold with that idea. You can take on the Wheel in parts, doing a section a day for a week. Or, you can pull all the cards one day, write down what you got, and then do the interpreting the next day. Personally, I think if you have the time, dedication, and skill to parse through all the information, you should be able to get good information out of a large reading. 

The Information

In my opinion, Rahdue’s Wheel’s failure is not due to its size, but the quality of information it gives you.

While I approached this spread with the assumption that most people will read it for themselves, Connolly goes back and forth on the role of her readers. In most of the section dedicated to Rahdue’s Wheel, she talks exclusively about “the client”, implying she is writing for a professional tarot reader and the reading is meant to be between two people (reader & querent). However, at one point, she advises the reader to do the Rahdue’s Wheel for themself four times a year, and there are a couple of “for yourself or the client”’s sprinkled throughout the section. 

I bring this up because this spread is not very good if you’re reading for yourself. The three wheels are the exact same questions; the only thing that changes is the tense. I know what my current health concerns are, and likely I know what my past ones were. The entire past wheel is redundant, as you’re just reliving everything without added context or commentary. Pulling a Three of Swords for past relationships tells me a break-up really hurt me, but it doesn’t tell me how that’s still affecting me. There’s no new information given to the querent beyond “this is how your life and philosophies have changed”. 

The redundancy cuts both ways in the reader/querent question. If you read for yourself, you’re wasting time and energy on things you already know. On the other hand, if you’re reading for someone else, you’re not giving the querent new information that can solve their problems. If anything, it’s spiritual junk food; the reader gets to come off as intuitive and knowledgeable (assuming the cards are all accurate), while not giving any real advice. The querent will leave feeling fulfilled from their amazing connection with the reader without any new ideas on how to fix their situation. 

The Past Life Issue

The other issue that becomes apparent right away is the focus on past lives. The wheels total 39 cards, while the past life sections total 30. This makes the past lives sections nearly half of the spread. Connolly believes that our actions and mindsets are influenced by the hidden memories and traumas of our past lives. She rationalizes that knowing about these lives is a good way to look deeper into the querent’s psychology. This gives us context for the previous problem: The reason we’re looking at every aspect of a person’s life is to find patterns stemming from the past lives. If we find your past life was betrayed by a lover, we know the root cause of your commitment issues. The wheels and the past lives sections work together to illuminate the overarching themes of the querent’s karmic life. 

This creates multiple barriers in order to make this spread work: 

You must believe in past lives as a concept

You must believe you personally have at least one past life

You must believe that issues from your past life can affect your current life

If you have all three beliefs, then this spread can do amazing things for you! But many people don’t have all three. I can’t get past the third one myself; I think it’s possible to connect with and learn from your past lives, but I don’t think their traumas become ours. For many, they don’t have the necessary beliefs to bridge the gap between the two halves of the spread. 

Even if you do believe past lives can affect our current lives, this spread still runs into the problem we discussed earlier: there is no advice given. At best, the reader will probably say to do “past life work” before sending you on your way. Knowing where your issues stem from can be helpful, but the knowledge itself won’t change anything. Ultimately, to see change you need a direction to go in. This spread will not give that to you. 

Finally Answering the Questions

Let’s revisit the Malkuth Block, the tarot reading within the tarot reading. Once the diviner has exhausted themselves sorting through every facet of your lives (present and past), it’s time to actually answer those questions you had that brought you to a reader in the first place. Connolly leaves it up to the reader to determine how many cards should be pulled per question. As I mentioned earlier, she says not every card will be flipped over and read, but then she goes on to say that if the querent only has one question, you must read all 9 cards in the Block. She does not give an explanation for this; I assume something to do with the “esoteric structure” but who knows. 

At this point, you’re doing a basic tarot reading. Surprisingly, many tarot readers are able to do “here’s the answer to your question” readings without knowing every single thing about you. If you’re just trying to get questions answered, the majority of this spread is unnecessary. It’s also incredibly damaging; by putting the questions at the end of the marathon spread, you get to the important part of the reading when the diviner is exhausted. 

Conclusion

Rahdue’s Wheel works well for very specific situations, like when you want to do past life work and don’t know what to focus on. But for the average reader this spread is too bloated. Not only is the size too large for most people to read accurately in one sitting, but the information it gives you is useless. You’re better off finding a smaller spread. 

While some use Rahdue’s Wheel as practice, I think most people bookmark it purely as a challenge spread to do “some day”. But this spread does work if you use it within the beliefs and framework Connolly created it for. I would bet there are a lot of people out there looking for just this kind of spread to help them with their past lives. They’ve probably heard the name before, but pass over it because no one talks about it as a past life spread or a karmic spread. They only talk about it as “The Ultimate Spread”. It’s become clickbait, in tarot form.

[psycherprince]

Tarot readings reopening

Hi all! Pros: I have my medication again. Cons: My insurance wouldn't cover it for some unknown reason. The situation: I have $10 to my name right now.

So: I'm reopening paid tarot readings! Prices vary from $5 to $20 depending on the size of the reading. All spreads you can choose from can be found here. You can also send in a spread of your choice, or for $5 I can also design a custom spread for you.

Testimonials:

(more testimonials available here)

Prices: 1-5 cards: $5

6-10 cards: $10

11-15 cards: $15

16+ cards: $20

Rahdue's Wheel (Full-Deck Reading) is available for $150, please be respectful of my time if you request this reading as it takes much longer than others!

All readings include at least one photo of your reading (more photos may be included for large spreads) and a typed interpretation of each card in its placement and general trends of the reading.

If you are interested, please inquire through tumblr DM or place an order on my website.

If you cannot purchase a reading, it would mean a lot to me if you reblogged this post! Thank you all!

[unhonest-iago]

Star's a Witch

Aimsey being a practitioner of witchcraft/wicca; star/fey pronouns used

Is more of a garden and kitchen witch, feir altar being rather small, a few shelves dedicated to needed reference material

Such as feir book of shadows that's comprised of many pocket books, noting down new plants star wants to use in star's practice and their medicinal/spiritual properties

When star needs more shelves, star gets Foolish to make them for fem. Tends to make each shelf with a different type of wood, none being the same. One being acacia, another birch and the third mangrove

Never wears shoes while in feir garden, talking to star's plants about what star hoped the day would have in store as it helps star place where fey are feeling mentally

A lot of star's practice revolving around ways to make living with star disability a little easier, results in attempting a lot of naturopathy

Fey still struggles with foraging for mushrooms, deciphering which are edible and which are poisonous

Reusing the plastic boxes from precut fruit for storage when star can, one such box holding feir crystals

One being made into a recipe box, placed near star's kettle divided into roughly 4 sections; it's based on mealtime, thus breakfast, lunch, dinner, & snacks which is then sorted into how much time and energy it takes to make the recipe

Fey keeps a citronella candle aflame when she has a window open for bugs, paired with a secondary candle to invoke one of the elements. Star picks it based on the weather; air if windy/fog, water if light rain, fire if drought, earth if sunny

Occasionally offers those who stop by a tarot reading; 3 card spread, only does bigger card spreads for starself

Refuses to ever do the rahdues wheel spread, the one that uses all 78 cards

Constantly has to remind Tommy that the cards answer in more abstract ways, that the answer won't be straightforward but something he has to think over

Creates a lot of sigils in the phrasing of Undertale's 'it fills you with determination' (examples under the cut)

Guide I used to help w/ the above pic

[karri-on]

Spent several hours this evening doing a modified Rahdue’s Wheel (I don’t do past life work, so that part of the wheel wasn’t relevant for me and I modified it to look as past parts of my current life). Not loving The Tower as the closer for my question on my path as a witch...

[finding-artaxerxes]

I just added Rahdue’s Wheel to my listings! This spread is a doozy! It uses an entire 78 card tarot deck! It delves into your present, your past, your future, and your relationships to the outside world and to yourself. This reading is not for the faint of heart! 

[lunaandstardust]

Did a reading with both my tarot decks for the first time. They look great and my future looks pretty nice.

-Luna

[jonathon-bellehaven]

Rev. Jonathon S. Bellehaven; M.Th. with Mason Lightbourne, Reiki Master/Teacher of White Light Practices, both of the Bellehaven Family Tradition, setting up the spread for Rahdue’s Wheel tarot spread. The spread itself only takes about 15-30 minutes but the divination and raveling of the individual cards and correspondences into a bigger picture can take anywhere from 5-9 hours to complete from start to finish. This spread is not for the faint of heart as it requires a great amount of concentration and discipline depending on the complexity of the questions asked as you can have up to 9 to answer as well as delving into past, present, future, past lives and karmic seeds. Mason Lightbourne is presiding over and divining the meanings with careful consideration.

@whitelightpractices @jonathon-bellehaven

[interstellar-elf]

Tarot spreads can be as simple as one card to represent the mood of the day to ‘I will use all 78 cards and you cannot stop me’ aka Rahdue’s Wheel.

[craftinthecloset]

So I did Rahdue’s Wheel

I’m drained. I feel called out. But it was very informative.

Now it is time to relax, take a shower, and try to regain energy

[intrinsecus-latet]

Rahdues wheel tarot spread

So, i obviously never post much in terms of my own content here. Mainly fashion and things I like, but I am a witch i just never post that kind of stuff on here due to shyness about my own craft. I recently did the rahdues wheel spread

as seen here(not a good pic but also the person who took it was helping me set up and boy howdy we are both dead) and let me tell you. This spread called me out so much and it also was an absolute pain to set up. I feel exhausted and sick from this but it was very enlightening and going forward i think i have more of a clear idea of what i want to do with my career. I just wanted to post this because this is my blog and so i get to post whatever i want, i think i will go back to regular scheduled couture posting after this, just wanted to be proud about this one moment. (as a disclaimer, i would not attempt this unless you are ready to be hot, sweaty, back broken and mentally and spiritually exhausted by the end if not the beginning of this spread. Truly would only attempt if you want a good exercise and mental work out.)

[kenziekatwitchcraft]

I’m doing Rahdue’s wheel finally. I’m exhausted just looking at it. Time to interpret!

Side note... my kitty, Harley, has been a menace throughout the whole card pulling process. He has laid on them 3 times.

[danascraft]

Look what I did (it took me 3 hours)

[prediction-princess]

Rahdue Wheel Spread Live Blog

Hi guys, I’m doing a Rahdue Wheel spread for myself today and I’m going to live blog parts of it so blacklist Rahdue Wheel if you want to avoid it.

[existentiallydrifting]

About to embark on a journey know as Rahdue’s Wheel. Prep and set up has already taken me over two hours. Wish me clarity and endurance bc baby imma need it

[psycherprince]

My etsy and patreon are now live! After my hours got slashed at work (as in, I-haven’t-had-a-single-shift-in-the-past-week slashed), I decided to open up tarot on a more permanent basis. Buy single readings through my etsy, or get monthly readings as well as original tarot spreads and guides to learning and improving your tarot skills through my patreon.

My patreon has 8 tiers ranging in price from $1 (access to my posts and a one-card monthly reading) to $100 (early access to my posts, voting power, a 10-card monthly reading, 3 free readings per month with no card limit, unlimited pendulum questions, and a Rahdue’s Wheel reading upon subscription) so check it out, subscribe if you can, and cast a vote on what my first post should be! Subscriptions before Feb. 14 will get a monthly reading for February, subscriptions after Feb. 14 will start their monthly readings in March.

Reblogs appreciated, please boost!

[will-o-the-witch]

Going through your tarot tag, did you do the rahdue wheel (not sure how old that post was)? I am both extremely tempted and intimidated by it and I was wondering about your experience with it.

I actually never ended up getting around to it! Never could find anybody to read it for