Significator cards. Why and how?

Barleywine

Herodotus said:
Personally, I like significators because they connect me with the deck I'm using, if that makes any sense. I feel like this way, I'm as much a piece of the Tarot's life as it is of mine. I've got at least one default significator from each suit, representing a specific area of my life, and depending on which of those significators in a given deck appeals most to my aesthetic sensibilities can help me decide which deck I use for a specific situation.

Interesting concept. Before I stopped reading regularly for myself, I kept to the King of Cups (Thoth Knight) as my personal significator because I'm a mature (and then some

) male with a strong Cardinal/Water presence in my astrological make-up. Hadn't thought about having a representative from each suit to mark my presence in the specific areas of life shown by the four elements. Food for thought. Thanks!

Grizabella

I've often let the deck provide the significator because sometimes it just seems like the best way to go. For instance, with the Celtic Cross, I just shuffle and lay out the cards, beginning with the first card of the deck and then crossing it with the second card. I don't always get a court card, of course, but it's been very interesting and insightful doing it this way because it gives important insights very pertinent to the reading. My next experiment will be to use the first card on top of the deck and the last card from the bottom of the deck to form the cross with. I think that might be interesting, too.

Has anyone ever read using a photo of the sitter when reading online? Or using someone the sitter is concerned about either online or in person? I find myself tuning in very closely when I see a person's photo. I'm going to try a Celtic Cross sometime with a photo of the person as significator or maybe. I don't know why, but I can tell a lot of things from a person's eyes in a photo. I don't know if that's a skill that has a name or not, but it often works extremely well for me. It might be sort of the same thing as having someone's initials before a reading.

Barleywine, you said you like the use of psychometry. Do you use it yourself? And maybe you have some insight about seeing a photo of someone as a contact point with the sitter or someone the sitter is concerned about or both. Is there a name for that?

Barleywine

Grizabella said:
I've often let the deck provide the significator because sometimes it just seems like the best way to go. For instance, with the Celtic Cross, I just shuffle and lay out the cards, beginning with the first card of the deck and then crossing it with the second card. I don't always get a court card, of course, but it's been very interesting and insightful doing it this way because it gives important insights very pertinent to the reading. My next experiment will be to use the first card on top of the deck and the last card from the bottom of the deck to form the cross with. I think that might be interesting, too.

Has anyone ever read using a photo of the sitter when reading online? Or using someone the sitter is concerned about either online or in person? I find myself tuning in very closely when I see a person's photo. I'm going to try a Celtic Cross sometime with a photo of the person as significator or maybe. I don't know why, but I can tell a lot of things from a person's eyes in a photo. I don't know if that's a skill that has a name or not, but it often works extremely well for me. It might be sort of the same thing as having someone's initials before a reading.

Barleywine, you said you like the use of psychometry. Do you use it yourself? And maybe you have some insight about seeing a photo of someone as a contact point with the sitter or someone the sitter is concerned about or both. Is there a name for that?

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

canid

Grizabella said:
That's the first time anyone has explained the use of the significator card. Thank you, Thirteen! I'm going to start using them now. I don't usually, but this makes a lot of sense to me.

Instead of a card significator I've sometimes used an item the sitter had on them. Like a ring or a coin or something small and meaningful like that. Having something the sitter had been close to for a long time that could be put on the table while I did the reading was a way of adding more of their energy into the reading.

Yes, I will give it a whirl too! I only use significators with Kipper.

canid

Grizabella said:
I've often let the deck provide the significator because sometimes it just seems like the best way to go.

That's exactly how and why I use the Shadow Card! I always tried to explain, but that's it in a nutshell!

danieljuk

When I first started learning tarot in my teens, there was no internet or AT and I had some books which all had the same "view" of tarot and it was all very formal and you never did anything outside of the "rules". It was suggested you always choose a significator which looked like you (or the sitter) in one of the books (not on astrological attributes or personality or any other method, just looks on the card) and you always placed it and used tarot with the Celtic Cross spread always. I've rarely seen a tarot card which looks like any actual person in real life!

I found it horrendously stuffy and now I avoid signifcators because of it, they get in the way of the natural flow of my readings but perhaps I should look at them again. I don't really use a card to represent a person or me in a reading but sometimes I look out for a card that could represent them in the reading positions (not as a separate picked out one).

I prefer to use them to represent what you are reading on, like someone picks a card they want to read on as the theme, Lovers for a love reading for example but it would take that card out of the reading. If a card keeps repeating or coming up, I do a spread on that card, I like to use it for that.

Grizabella

canid said:
Yes, I will give it a whirl too! I only use significators with Kipper.

I have that cute little Kipper with the monkey on the cards but my booklet is in German so I've never really used it. I think there's an English version out now that I'd like to get some time.

Barleywine, thanks for the link. I could have spent hours there just looking around. It's an interesting site.

canid

Grizabella said:
I have that cute little Kipper with the monkey on the cards but my booklet is in German so I've never really used it. I think there's an English version out now that I'd like to get some time.

Barleywine, thanks for the link. I could have spent hours there just looking around. It's an interesting site.

I have the English version! Plus, I have Ciro's.

canid

danieljuk said:
When I first started learning tarot in my teens, there was no internet or AT and I had some books which all had the same "view" of tarot and it was all very formal and you never did anything outside of the "rules". It was suggested you always choose a significator which looked like you (or the sitter) in one of the books (not on astrological attributes or personality or any other method, just looks on the card) and you always placed it and used tarot with the Celtic Cross spread always. I've rarely seen a tarot card which looks like any actual person in real life!

I found it horrendously stuffy and now I avoid signifcators because of it, they get in the way of the natural flow of my readings but perhaps I should look at them again. I don't really use a card to represent a person or me in a reading but sometimes I look out for a card that could represent them in the reading positions (not as a separate picked out one).

I prefer to use them to represent what you are reading on, like someone picks a card they want to read on as the theme, Lovers for a love reading for example but it would take that card out of the reading. If a card keeps repeating or coming up, I do a spread on that card, I like to use it for that.

Also, it removed a card that may be pertinent.

Tanga

Interesting inputs. Thanks all.
Thanks Barleywine for the psychometry link.

Never thought to add that to a reading but... *eyes twinkle* will try it out first at
some future learning meetings I attend.

Significator cards. Why and how?

Barleywine

Grizabella

Barleywine

canid

canid

danieljuk

Grizabella

canid

canid

Tanga