Reading the Cross Spread

No Two Are Alike

With the Cross spread, it's honestly better for your sanity to assume that the same shape doesn't make it the same spread.
Even when the layout is identical, the order you lay the cards down differs from one version to the next — and you'll almost never find two that hand the same role label to each position.

The SCHEMAcards Version

Out of all the Cross spreads out there, the SCHEMAcards AI builds on the one designed by a Korean diviner, but uses it a little more simply — closer to the left half of the Celtic Cross, i.e. how positions 1/2/3/4/5/6 of the Celtic Cross are used.

First off, you can see right away that the right half of the Celtic Cross — positions 7/8/9/10 — has been dropped.

And in position 2, you can see that the Celtic Cross's position 2 (obstacle) and position 3 (unconscious motive / foundation) have been folded into one, right?
The Celtic Cross's position 2, the obstacle card, is originally one of those cards that actively reflects outer activity as much as the inner world.
But here it's fused with the inner-facing unconscious motive / foundation, so it feels more natural to treat the obstacle as an 'inner obstacle' too.

Taken as a whole, this spread takes really well to a sequential reading — going straight through it in order from position 1 — and it tends to be easy to read.

Sequential Reading

Position 1 gives you a good opening: read the querent's situation and stance there, along with the central mood of the whole reading.
From there, look at the inner world of position 2 together with the past in position 3, and trace your way back to find what gave rise to the present situation in position 1.
Position 4, shaped by those causes, reads as a clear intention grounded in the querent's own expectations, and it lets you gauge how to read position 5.
Position 5 is influenced by 2 and 3 as well, but it's the seat where you see what picture position 4's will ends up drawing on top of the present situation in position 1.
In other words, position 5 is simply where the flow of the earlier cards converges — not a prophecy fallen from the sky.
Then all you have to do is check whether that final picture really follows naturally from the path the querent is already walking.