The Significator, Shadow, Clarifier, and Jumper Cards in a Tarot Card Reading

Each of us has their own way of doing their Tarot Card Readings – right from our rituals, to the way we shuffle our decks, to the way we conduct our Tarot Reading sessions. However, there are a few ‘extra’ cards that each Tarot Card Reader ends up drawing every once in a while, in each of her Tarot Card Readings. These include the Significator card, the Shadow card, the Clarifier card, and the Jumper cards.

Today, I’m going to talk about those cards, which ultimately end up adding that extra value, that added oomph, to a Tarot Card Reading.

When we do a Tarot Card Reading, we usually ask the cards a question, and then draw the cards to arrange them in a particular layout. That layout is called as a Tarot Reading Spread. The number of cards that you draw depends on the specific Spread that you use. 

The ‘extra’ cards that a Tarot Card Reader occasionally ends up drawing while doing a Tarot Card Reading, which are usually not a part of the spread per se, include:

1: The Significator

This card is very commonly drawn in a Celtic Cross Spread. Some readers use it, some don’t. It really is down to the Tarot Card Reader’s personal preference. The Significator card is usually used to show the client / querent for whom the cards are being read for. Therefore, it is a card that represents him / her.

To quote from the LWB of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck:

Cups are assumed to represent people with light brown hair and of fair complexion; Wands represent those having yellow or red hair and blue eyes; Swords correspond to persons with dark brown hair and possibly gray, hazel or even blue eyes; Pentacles answer to very dark people. The procedure is as follows:

Select the Significator of the person or thing about whom or which the inquiry is made. It is the card which, in the reader’s judgment or experience, the most representative, and is not, therefore, of necessity the Magician or High Priestess mentioned in the official divinatory meanings.

So, if it is a reading about the client / querent, then one can choose a Significator card to be a Court Card based on the appearance of the client / querent. However, one is cautioned not to use The Magician or The High Priestess Cards for this purpose.

Alterntatively, if the spread is based on a specific subject / topic, then you can choose any other card as a Significator. For example, you can choose The Chariot card for doing a reading about your vehicle / car, or to do a reading about an upcoming journey or trip.

Finally though, the Tarot Card Reader can also use her own discretion based on her judgment or experience. 

My Take:

Personally, I don’t use prefer to use a Significator card. However, if I somehow must do so, and if I know the client from before, then I end up using a Court Card based on the personality of the client. Otherwise, for a totally new client, I use the Sun Sign and age as the basis of choosing the Significator card. 

2: Shadow Card(s)

Essentially, after one is done drawing / pulling out the cards for the Spread, many Tarot Card Readers look at the card at the bottom of the deck. Usually, that shows the underlying energies or forces at play.

My Take:

I started this practice after watching my Tarot Teacher do it. She used to call it the ‘Sky’ card — mostly because the spread that she would use more often was called ‘The Bird’ and the ‘Sky’ card represented the environment that the client / querent (Bird) was ‘flying’ through.

Later on, when I surfed the internet, I discovered that there were many other Tarot Card Readers who looked at that card, and called it the ‘Shadow’ card.

Over the years though, I’ve ended up pulling a card not just from the bottom of the deck, but also from the top of the deck. I combine their meanings to figure out the underlying forces at play, and the overall environment that will surround the client during the time frame of the reading.

3: Clarifier Card(s)

This is a card (or cards) that is drawn to explain or add value to a card that already exists within a spread. Normally, Readers pull this out when a card doesn’t really make much sense in that specific spread position, or if it doesn’t provide much or relevant information, or if it ends up leading to another question by itself.

As such, there aren’t any set limits to how many clarifier cards one can pull, which makes it a little difficult to control their numbers, especially for beginner Readers. This can (and often does) lead to even more confusion, rather than clarity.

My Take:

I prefer not to pull clarifiers as much as possible. But if it is really and truly required, then I pull one, at the most two. Any more, and I prefer to do a full spread to ask the cards what exactly they are trying to say at that point.

4: Jumper Card(s)

I wondered if I ought to include these cards in this list — but then, these are also the extra cards that add value to a question, a reading, or a spread. ‘Jumper’ is the name given to the card(s) that fall out of the deck while shuffling. Not surprisingly, these cards often answer the question that’s been rolling around in your mind while you’re shuffling the deck, or the question that you’ve been talking about while you’ve been shuffling your cards.

My Take:

There are times when a whole bunch of cards falls out. I take that to be faulty shuffling and don’t even bother to look at those cards. However, when I get anywhere between one to three cards falling out, I usually look. They are, pretty much, the answer to the question that’s been rolling around in my head while I was shuffling the cards. Even if I end up doing an elaborate spread about the question on my mind, the core of the message remains the same as the one revealed by these Jumper cards.

In Conclusion

These are the ‘extra’ or ‘additional’ cards that are often pulled by Tarot Card Readers while they do their Readings. In a very unique way, these extra cards serve a valuable purpose within a Tarot Card Reading.

Your Turn…

Did this blog post resonate with you? Do you also pull any one of these ‘extra’ Cards?

How do you use these cards? Do you have any meaning or attribute other than mine, that adds value to the reading via the extra card’s meaning? Did you have any other ‘additional’ card that you draw during your readings?

Let me know in the comments section below what extra cards you draw, and how you use them! I look forward to learning more about how you use them!