I, like a lot of pagans, occasionally read Tarot. After a while, it occurred to me that it might be worthwhile to create a Kemetic Tarot layout to use rather than always defaulting to the Celtic cross. There will probably be several of these (especially since I dedicated my Thoth tarot to Djehwty in a fit of whimsy, and I suspect He'll expect me to manifest clever ideas on what to do with it as a result), but here is the one I have right now.

(Cat optional.)

I'm calling this the "brothers" spread because it's a layout based in part on the duality of Heru and Set. I would consider the most basic reading to be a four or five-card reading; the one I did earlier was a nine-card. The format can be expanded for more detail fairly easily.

The first pair of cards are the ones for Heru and Set themselves; Set goes on the left (He is, after all, associated with left-handedness) and Heru on the right. These cards represent the raw influences of forces associated with these gods on the situation being observed.

This will probably be redundant for Kemetics, except for the bits that are nuances of my own personal gnosis, but:

Heru is primarily a god of kingship. His is the domain of order and community, especially as they relate to each other. His realm is one of continuity, stability, the union of many disparate people together into something beyond what they are separately. In the negative, He may be stagnation, order for the sake of order, status unchallenged.

Set is the opposed god embodying chaos and confusion. He is the sterile desert, silencing the fertile lands; He destroys. His realm is that of the individual, and accomplishing personal strength. He is also a god who facilitates growth and transformation, because He favors destroying the outmoded, the limiting, the self-destructive, and any other things that prevent personal accomplishment. He may be a disruptive influence or a goad to development.

The brothers are sometimes pictured together as a dual god with the Set-animal head and a hawk's head. They are portrayed crowning the king together, who must embody both rulership and union of all peoples and personal strength. A balance between these great forces has to be struck.

It would be a mistake to characterise one of the gods as the "good influences" and the other as the "bad influence". Order and continuity have an important place, as do chaos and change.

The third card is placed below and between the cards for the gods: this is the card of neheh, cyclical time. Neheh is that time marked by human rituals and recognitions: the cycles of the sun and of the year, for example. It is also the timeless time, ever-renewed. The card placed here will describe established patterns, habits of thought and being, and the things reinforced by repetition.

The fourth card is placed above and between the cards for the gods, opposite neheh: this is the card of djet, linear time. This is the time of unique events and irrevocability. This is the time in which results happen, in which transformations appear and persist; it is also the time in which things that are lost are unrecoverable. This is the space in which things can be attained and accomplished, and in which things done can never be undone.

Djet and neheh are another duality: the interactions between them form the shape of time.

One can stop here, or move on to the first elaboration: the next four cards go in the spaces between the four primary cards, on the diagonals. They are the manifestations of Heru and Set in djet and neheh, straightforwardly enough.

The ninth card goes in the center and completes the trinity of trinities (three is plurality, so three threes is many manies; this card also unites two complete groups of four, the basic axes and their interactions). It is unity and totality. It may be an 'outcome' card, if that is appropriate to the read; it may also be an encapsulator of the situation that has already been explored and illuminated.

There are a number of ways of reading these; I would suggest, in true Kemetic form, layering as many interpretations as one can find to see what the spread is suggesting. (Kemetic community joke: if asking a question of form "Is [Kemetic religious topic] this or that?" the answer is always "Yes.")

Suggestions for expanding on the reading if more detailed results are desired: any of these positions can be expanded into two or three cards instead of one, where the two would be a duality form, and a three the duality plus their union or synthesis. I would not use positive/negative duality here; I would probably use either conception and enacting or celebration and correction (both of which are drawn from Egyptian god-dualities) or some other nuanced form.