Significator cards. Why and how?

canid

Calcifer said:
I didn't see this mentioned anywhere....
The old gals that I learned from insisted on significators because it reduced the deck to 77 cards when you shuffle (a highly magical number). To them, this is where the accuracy of the reading came from - in fact, not using one was unthinkable. Years later, and I do not recall just which book it was, I finally saw that theory acknowledged in print.
Just my unbidden $0.02's worth
Michael
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Wayl, I mentioned it a few days ago.
 

Calcifer

JylliM said:
That's fascinating! Can I ask who the 'old gals' were? As in, roughly when and where they were born, and who taught them their craft? It's great to have a connection with an old tradition, if that's what it is.
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Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier, I meant to - but it completely slipped my mind...
I was referring to my mother, grandmother, and my great aunt, Olivette (whom I never knew much about). My mother and her mother were both born in Lewiston, Maine (as was I), and just how, when, and where they picked up card reading is still a mystery to me. They'd read cards all the time I was growing up and I just took tarot for granted I guess, and I never asked. In retrospect, I now wish I had.
I cannot say that I was "force-fed" tarot, but I know I picked it up because I knew I was more or less "expected" to. Hard to describe... They were both devout Catholics, but it didn't seem to ostracize them from the community. Olivette had achieved some degree of fame on account of her actually reading for whoever the pope was at the time periodically. I suppose that spurred me on.
Michael
 

nisaba

All of that being said, and my having come down heavily on the side of no significators, in the interests of disclosure before someone else outs me, here is a spread devised by me that calls for a significator.

Note, however, that the significator doesn't describe the client. The significator describes the problem that the client wants to change.
 

baconwaffles

Barleywine said:
I experimented casually with using personal objects as the focus of a reading in lieu of a significator card, but never went far with it and don't remember the details now. It seemed like a workable approach. Regarding psychometry with photographs, I have no experience but did find the following link:

http://www.readersandrootworkers.org/wiki/Category:Psychometry
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I love where this link led to, very interesting. Also, I never use significators but neither have I truly understood them properly. Reading everyone's take on them spurred me to delve into significators and see what can blossom from there, very good stuff indeed.
 

JylliM

Calcifer said:
Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier, I meant to - but it completely slipped my mind...
I was referring to my mother, grandmother, and my great aunt, Olivette (whom I never knew much about). My mother and her mother were both born in Lewiston, Maine (as was I), and just how, when, and where they picked up card reading is still a mystery to me. They'd read cards all the time I was growing up and I just took tarot for granted I guess, and I never asked. In retrospect, I now wish I had.
I cannot say that I was "force-fed" tarot, but I know I picked it up because I knew I was more or less "expected" to. Hard to describe... They were both devout Catholics, but it didn't seem to ostracize them from the community. Olivette had achieved some degree of fame on account of her actually reading for whoever the pope was at the time periodically. I suppose that spurred me on.
Michael
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Thanks for that. That's very interesting. It would be good to know where it came from originally! It's fascinating to think of the Pope getting his cards read...
 

seven stars

People probably won't like me for this answer, but this is what I do all the time. Probably not the correct thing to do, but whatever, it's what I do & it always works.

When I do street readings, unless people want to pay me a lot more, I do 3 card spreads (for purposes of time and because 10 cards just tend to blow away). What the positions mean depend on the question (i.e., yes or no question, relationship question, past present & future, etc). Sometimes there's that *one* troubling card, the card the sitter has no idea what it's there for. When this happens, I say, well, let's see if there are any more clues as to why you got that card, and I draw a significator card to lay with that one to kind of go deeper into the meaning of why they got that card. On very rare occasions I've even drawn two significators to go along with the same card. If it still doesn't ring true I just tell the person I'm not getting anything, possibly because it's either unknown at this time or too much is pending, so ask another question.
 

Barleywine

seven stars said:
People probably won't like me for this answer, but this is what I do all the time. Probably not the correct thing to do, but whatever, it's what I do & it always works.

When I do street readings, unless people want to pay me a lot more, I do 3 card spreads (for purposes of time and because 10 cards just tend to blow away). What the positions mean depend on the question (i.e., yes or no question, relationship question, past present & future, etc). Sometimes there's that *one* troubling card, the card the sitter has no idea what it's there for. When this happens, I say, well, let's see if there are any more clues as to why you got that card, and I draw a significator card to lay with that one to kind of go deeper into the meaning of why they got that card. On very rare occasions I've even drawn two significators to go along with the same card. If it still doesn't ring true I just tell the person I'm not getting anything, possibly because it's either unknown at this time or too much is pending, so ask another question.
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Hmm, how do those differ from clarifiers (other than the name and the specific "why" focus)? It seems that they're serving much the same purpose.
 

seven stars

Barleywine said:
Hmm, how do those differ from clarifiers (other than the name and the specific "why" focus)? It seems that they're serving much the same purpose.
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You know what, I WAS talking about clarifiers - I'm sorry! No, I never use significators unless they're a specific part of the spread, like in the Celtic Cross, in which case it's the 7th card & represents the questioner & their influence on the issue being questioned. As in where do they fit in, etc.
 
Course of Action to be taken- Four of Wands and Ace of Swords Strength as no contact?