The Tarot and other similar methods of divination are based on the assumption that there is no such thing as random coincidence (at least where the mind is involved), that what may appear to be a random selection, a coincidence, is in fact what Jung termed synchronicity.
Now I go along with this. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be a Tarot reader.
Nevertheless, in every reading I do there is one point where I go to the card rather than let the card come to me. That is the selection of the Significator, the card that represents the querent (the person for whom the reading is being done).
I divide the sixteen court cards, well shuffled, into two roughly equal piles, face down, choose one pile, divide that in two, choose one of them, divide that in two, choose one of those, and so on until there are only two cards left, one in each pile. The one of them that is chosen will be the Significator.
The question, obviously, is: how do you actively distinguish between the two piles (go to the card) rather than simply make a “random choice” and depend on synchronicity (letting the card come to you)?
There are two ways. If the querent is a believer, you can simply let him/her select the pile (face down, of course) each time. This works very well.
However, many querents are manifestly sceptical about the whole thing, and the negative vibrations have a negative effect on the selection system. With them, and also obviously with a querent who is not present at the reading (a situation that is now quite normal, with many of us doing readings online or by email) it is necessary for the reader to make the selection. I do this by dowsing for it with a pendulum.
This can be done either by letting the pendulum point at one of the piles of cards, or by holding the pendulum over each pile and eliciting a Yes or a No response. In the latter case, the pendulum should always be held over both piles, one after the other, to confirm the response, though I have been doing this for years and have never known two No’s or two Yes’s.
Again you come down finally to two cards, then one.
The reason I am writing this post is that I did this the other day for a querent who had contacted me by email, and came up with the Knight of Wands.
It didn’t fit at all, so I ignored it.
You should never do that.
The question had come from a woman in Norway and was about a relationship. It was couched in 3rd Person terms, but this is quite usual: “Should this girl pursue this relationship with …?” You know the kind of thing. Only one name – the name I bore in mind when dowsing for the Significator – and no indication whatsoever that the querent was anyone other than the girl in question.
When I sent my reading I received a reply thanking me for my time and effort (it was a free reading) but pointing out that she was the mother of the girl in question …
Suddenly the Significator – the Knight of Wands – made perfect sense. It was her setting out to protect her daughter.
Yes, we should always select the Significator with the utmost care, whatever method we use, and we should always take it very seriously indeed.
Swimming in the Sea of Time 