Types of 3 Cards Spread?

[chongjasmine]

Besides past, present and future, what types of 3 cards spread are available?

[Wanderer]

It's not a question of what is available, but rather what you want to know.   There are some spreads that are popular because they fill a certain niche, but we draw the cards according to our intentions. The meaning of each position is what is in our mind, and nothing more. In other words, any three card spread is available, from "What sort of sandwich should I make?" (Top, Middle and Bottom), to "What is my current state of being?" (Mind, Body and Spirit), or "What's really going on in this relationship?" (Me, Her, and the situation). It's entirely your choice, so long as you decide in advance and focus on the position of each card when drawing them. 

 

You can also do non-positional spreads: just draw three cards in relation to a question, without specific positions, and see how they interact with each other. Often the answer lies in the interaction between the cards, as much as in the cards themselves. Your relationship with the cards is something that you develop, but try to think of it more as a conversation with them than a fixed ritual. 

[Barleywine]

"What kind of sandwich?" is a perfect analogy. If I'm using Elemental Dignities, I usually treat the middle card as the principal or focus card, and the two flanking cards as modifiers. (But I also follow Jim Eshelman's advice that all of the cards interact with one another, which opens up the ED concept a little more.) Sometimes I determine which card is "dominant" (for example a trump card among lower-ranking cards) and treat that as the focus, with the others as additional information. The three-card, left-to-right series can also show developments over time, from "now" into the future, without having a "past" component. All odd-numbered line spreads have an automatic focus card at their center position that can serve as a kind of "hinge" in the reading.

[Wanderer]

Aye, that happens a lot, @Barleywine! Although I don't use specific models like the Elemental Dignities, I'm frequently struck how one card (and often it's the middle one) seems to be the focus. Before I started doing these non-positional spreads I thought they would be hard to interpret... but they normally end up with the instruction manual incorporated into them, just by virtue of how the cards relate.