Finding the significator

Nholdamek

Hi,

I'm trying to figure out the Opening of the Key spread. My question is, how do you find the significator? What if you don't know anything about the querent? I'm not finding much information on this.

Also, any resources anyone can point me to about this spread would be much appreciated. I really can't read any books unfortunately.
 

Nholdamek

Hi,

Quick question. I am noticing that each decanate of a sign has a court card associated with it. Could I just get the birth date of the querent, and the significator could be the court card for the decanate under which his or her birth date falls?

For example, my birth date is September 21, so I'd be Queen of Swords.

That's all I can come up with.
 

firecatpickles

Nholdamek said:
Hi,

Quick question. I am noticing that each decanate of a sign has a court card associated with it. Could I just get the birth date of the querent, and the significator could be the court card for the decanate under which his or her birth date falls?

For example, my birth date is September 21, so I'd be Queen of Swords.

That's all I can come up with.
Yes...

http://www.tarot.org.il/Library/Mathers/Book-T.html

http://www.supertarot.co.uk/lessons/18eds.htm

http://www.supertarot.co.uk/ootk/ootk.htm

and other assortments:

http://www.hermetics.org/
 

thinbuddha

I have used the OOTK spread in the past, but never really bothered with the bit about the sig card. But yes, you can assign a significator based on birth date only. That is the way that is how Paul Hughes-Barlow of "supertarot" does it. His site has some info on the OOTK spread, though it is hard to follow without (OK, even with) his book.

www.supertarot.co.uk
 

thinbuddha

Edit- found the page:
http://www.supertarot.co.uk/ootk/ootk.htm

If you search the archives here, there is a couple threads on the subject where a quick overview of the spread is given. This can be a good place to start, because I found that the web page sort of glosses over a few crucial things.

My experience with this spread is limited. I find that reading that many cards at once is a bit overwealming for me, so I do much shorter spreads based on similar rules. YMMV.

Cheers,

-tb
 

Nholdamek

Thanks for the replies.

Actually, I learned about this spread through supertarot. :) But I don't see where he says he uses the birth date of the individual.

I just did a reading based on this last night, and it worked quite well and was accurate.

Few questions:

According to http://www.tarot.org.il/Library/Mathers/Book-T.html, after the card counting, then the story should be filled in by pairing the cards to either side of the significator, and then outside of those, etc. But if you do that then some of the cards will not be used, because the significator is likely not in the center.

According to supertarot, the pairing should begin with the two outermost cards, and inward until the center card(s) are encountered. Which is correct?

By the way, what is this book t? Is this the book of Thoth? And, it only mentions the matters associated with the first, second, and fourth stacks I think, it skips v. I'm confused about that.

One last thing.
Is the order of the stacks (the elements from left to right) fire, water, air, earth or fire, air, water, earth? On supertarot, he says:

A. fire
C. water
B. air
D. earth

So I thought maybe the order was different than the normal ordering of the elements.

I'm only using the first stage right now. that in itself took me an hour to interpret everything. But it was very accurate and I liked it overall.
 

thinbuddha

I have PHB's book, so I think that's where he mentions using birthdays to choose a sig.

As far as pairing cards, you can do this from any significant card in the spread. I don't always do this step, but when I do, I do it from the Majors, as well as any other cards that stand out for some reason or another.

When you are pairing the cards, imagine that the string of cards is really in a circle. So when you reach the "end" of the line, you go to the other end and move inward. An example:

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H

Pairing from card B:
A&C
H&D
G&E
F

As far as the order of the elements, I was confused about that myself- so I ended up setteling on Fire-Water-Air-Earth. His book and website contradict each other on a few things, and frankly I don't follow his method slavishly. I can't remember what he says in either the book or the web, but it seems to work out the way I chose to do it.

Book T, I believe, is a Golden Dawn book about tarot (and possibly other subjects). I believe it is out on the web in electronic format if you'd like to read it. I might be remembering this wrong, but I think that Book T is where the OOTK spread is first described(?). I have not read it.

As far as the stacks to read: I have only ever bothered to read one stack. I choose the stack that most relates (elementally) to the question at hand. I might pick the water stack for a reading about relationships- the earth for work readings etc.

I think that you can read the other stacks to get a real full picture of what the reading is saying. For example- if your reading is on a relationship, and the water stack has 18 cards in it, this is an indication that the Moon card is important to the reading somehow.... But what if the Moon card isn't in the water stack? It can tell you (something) to know where it is. I dunno- the whole thing is so much work that I only ever grab a small handful of cards for a reading rather than splitting the deck into the four stacks, so I can't really comment on just *how* useful reading the multiple stacks can be.

-tb
 

Nholdamek

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Concerning the order, it doesn't make much sense to have fire air water earth, since the order in everything else is fire water air earth.

I did email Paul though to ask him to clarify. I'll post with his reply.

Would someone interpret and clarify this paragraph for me from that Book T?

4. Find the Significator. It be in the HB:Y pack, the question refers to work, business, etc.; if in the HB:H pack, to love, marriage, or pleasure; if in
the HB:H pack, to money, goods, and such purely material matters.

I'm assuming the y, h, and the other h refer to the different stacks. But if so, which refers to which? And it only mentions three, while there are actually four stacks.

Also in the fourth operation:

1. Shuffle, etc., as before.
2. Find the Significator: set him upon the table; let the thirty-six cards following form a ring round him.
3. Count and pair as before.

Confused about #2.

By the way, about which stack to read, I only read the stack with the significator in it.

One last thing.

Is the Universe card a planetary or elemental trump card? In card counting, there is definitely a difference, yet it says it is for both earth and saturn.
 

thinbuddha

Nholdamek said:
On supertarot, he says:

A. fire
C. water
B. air
D. earth


I think that the ABCD above refers to the order in which the stacks are placed on the table. The whole deck is placed on (A) fire, then cut in two- the top portion is moved to the (B) air pile. Returning to the (A) fire pile, you cut that in half and place the top onto (C) water. Returning to the (B)aire pile, you cut in half and place the top half on the (D) earth pile.

Reading across the stacks, it is fire-water-air-earth, but they aren't placed onto those stacks in this order. I believe that if you want to be doing this all the "correct" way, then thee stacks should read fire-water-air-earth reading from right to left in order to match with the way Hebrew is read and written.

The stack names refered to in Book T refer to the Kaballistic name of God wich has four letters, and is translated into our alphabet as YHVH (from memory, this is from the name of the hebrew letters: yod-heh-vau-heh). You are really streatching my knowledge in this area, but suffice it to say that these different aspects of God roughly match up with the elements fire, water, air and earth....

You might post something in the Thoth forum or he Kaballa and alphabets forum. There are several people who would know more about Kaballistic relationships that might not otherwise be reading this thread.

-tb
 

Nholdamek

thinbuddha said:
I think that the ABCD above refers to the order in which the stacks are placed on the table. The whole deck is placed on (A) fire, then cut in two- the top portion is moved to the (B) air pile. Returning to the (A) fire pile, you cut that in half and place the top onto (C) water. Returning to the (B)aire pile, you cut in half and place the top half on the (D) earth pile.

Reading across the stacks from left to right, it is fire-water-air-earth, but they aren't placed onto those stacks in this order.

Oops, i think you're right there. I'm blind so i can't tell what any images that might be there are.

So is the entire deck placed to the right then cut to the left? Or do you cut to the right. According to your description above it sounds like you start on the left.

thinbuddha said:
The stack names refered to in Book T refer to the Kaballistic name of God wich has four letters, and is translated into our alphabet as YHVH (from memory, this is from the name of the hebrew letters: yod-heh-vau-heh). You are really streatching my knowledge in this area, but suffice it to say that these different aspects of God roughly match up with the elements fire, water, air and earth.... though I'm not sure which order to read these in, and don't have the proper reference in front of me to look this up.

You might post something in the Thoth forum or he Kaballa and alphabets forum. There are several people who would know the answers about the Kaballistic relationships that might not otherwise be reading this thread.

-tb

Yeah, I knew about the names associated with those, just wasn't sure why he didn't mention what was associated with the v, while the other three letters were mentioned.

I might take your advice on posting in that board. :) Thanks