Key Cards

Major Tom

I just want to share this article I've written. I hope I'm putting it in the right forum. :laugh: Do let me know what you think. I've learned all this since I've been here. ;)

Tarot as a Self-Development Tool - Your Soul, Personality and Shadow Cards

I strongly believe the best reason for consulting the tarot is to gain the information you need to produce the outcomes you desire. I often find while consulting the cards, for my clients and myself that it is we ourselves who stand in the way of the achievement of our needs and wants. Tarot invariably points to the path of spiritual growth and understanding.

An experienced tarot reader has easy access to this path via her/his knowledge of the cards but where can someone with little or no knowledge of the tarot start?

The answer lies in discovering your key cards - called your soul, personality and shadow cards. At any given moment we reflect an image found in the tarot. Your key cards reflect you for this lifetime. These cards are found by combining a bit of numerology with the tarot. You take your birth date and numerologically reduce it to a single digit. Your soul card is the corresponding card from the major arcana of the tarot.

If while reducing, you get a number less than 21, that number represents your personality card, otherwise your soul and personality cards are the same.

Your shadow card is the card whose number numerologically reduces to the number of your soul card.

For example, my birth date is 22 August 1955. So I add 2+2+8+1+9+5+5 = 32 „_ 3+2 = 5. This makes my soul and personality card 5 - The Heirophant, and my shadow card 14 - Temperance.

If your birth number is 1, your soul card is 1- The Magician, your personality card is 10 - The Wheel of Fortune and your shadow card is 19 - The Sun.
If your birth number is 2, your soul card is 2 - The High Priestess, your personality card is 11 - Strength and your shadow card is 20 - Judgement.
If your birth number is 3, your soul card is 3 - The Empress, your personality card is 12 - The Hanged Man and your shadow card is 21 - The World.
If your birth number is 4, your soul and personality card is 4 - The Emperor, your shadow card is 13 - Death.
If your birth number is 5, your soul and personality card is 5 - The Heirophant, your shadow card is 14 - Temperance.
If your birth number is 6, your soul and personality card is 6 - The Lovers, your shadow card 15 - The Devil.
If your birth number is 7, your soul and personality card is 7 - The Chariot, your shadow card 16 - The Tower.
If your birth number is 8, your soul and personality card is 8 - Justice, your, shadow card 17 - The Star.
If your birth number is 9, your soul and personality card is 9 - The Hermit, your shadow card 18 - The Moon.

Once you've identified your soul, personality and shadow cards - begin your studies there. Seek out images of your card - seek out interpretations - you will find many with a simple search. As you advance in your study - try creating your own version of your cards. Many seekers find that study of their soul, personality and shadow cards provides them with invaluable information about themselves. I know it has for me.

I offer free soul card readings on my website. })
 

Alex

questions from Alex_the_ignorant

Major Tom.

There's something I don't understand. It is what the shadow card is supposed to mean, in practical terms. May be I don't have that of a good understanding of what one's "shadow" is all about. I've always understood "shadow" as a personality trait that is repressed and denied as part of the self. For that reason, we cannot "see" our shadow, even though we can eventually sense it when it is manifested in others (and for that reason we often strongly reject our "shadow" qualities in others). As defined above, what I understand as "shadow" is very akin to what Freud defined as "projection". So I am not sure how Jung's "shadow" can be differentiated from Freud's "projection" but I guess there is a distinction, otherwise Jung would not have created a special term for it. I am also assuming that the term shadow is being used as initially defined by Jung (something I don't understand very well to begin with).

I also know that certain feelings can be said to have a "shadow". For example, jealousy is a "shadow" quality of love. But when it comes to personality and shadow cards… Then it gets screwy. If we attribute, for example, qualities of "direction" and "control" to The Chariot, then "The Tower" would stand for an undermining drive towards chaos. Right? Someone whose "personality" card is "The Chariot" is likely to be goal oriented and determined. The shadow quality of this person, something this person would most likely loathe in others, is a drive towards self-destruction and chaos, lack of direction and careless disregard for security zones?

I don't know if I have understood this right. My experience of myself goes a bit against the meaning I attribute to the Chariot as a personality trait. Other than steering the wheels of my life so I won't crash somewhere, I am not getting this life's challenge very well. On the other hand, I'm sort of comfortable with The Tower part. I guess I'm missing something in this whole story of personality and shadow cards?

Alex.
 

Major Tom

Re: questions from Alex_the_ignorant

Thanks for this Alex. I'm just learning this stuff myself, so you're helping me learn. :)

Alex said:
Major Tom.

I've always understood "shadow" as a personality trait that is repressed and denied as part of the self. For that reason, we cannot "see" our shadow, even though we can eventually sense it when it is manifested in others (and for that reason we often strongly reject our "shadow" qualities in others).

I suppose this is a good place to start. The problem with psychological explainations is they tend to focus on an extreme example.

Consulting my 1968 edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives me these definitions:

1. Shade.
2. Patch of shade, dark figure projected by body that intercepts light ray, this regarded as person's or thing's appendage, one's inseparable attendant or companion.
3. Reflected image.
4. Type, faint representation, adumbration, premonition.
5. Slightest trace.
6. Unsubstancial or unreal thing or counterfeit.
7. Privacy, obscurity.
8. Shelter, protection.

Then of course, there's shadow boxing. :laugh:

Now, it seems to me that there's plenty in these definitions to support the ideas of repression and denial.

When it comes to practical applications - a shadow seems something to embrace and nurture. I would rather work with something that intercepts my light than fight against it.

Don't you just love the word 'adumbration'? How about 'premonition'? })
 

Alex

True

but the problem is that psychoanalitic ideas so heavily contamine every single area of human existence. And many Tarot readers purposedly employ these ideas when trying to give the Tarot some more credit (not that I necessarily think it's a good idea but people don't ask my oppinion either).

I bet the term "shadow card" has been the idea of some adept of Jungian psychology, and I bet many people will try to understand it with that reference in mind.

If you ever come to publish this article, may be a short explanation of how you apply the term "shadow" will avoid some confusion.

Thanks

Alex_the_Ignorant
 

Diana

Tom: a lovely article! Thanks for sharing it with us.

What happens if one of the cards is 8 or 11?

Do you use the Marseilles/Thoth tradition, or the Waite way of numbering?
 

Ruby Red Slippers

Major Tom,
Have you ever read Tarot for Yourself by Mary Greer? She also goes through all of these aspects. I bought it when I first started with the tarot and go back to it all of the time. It has helped me to learn about myself, and also enhances a reading if you know these cards for the querent. It broadens the reading.
Her book also gives a Lieftime card graft which is very cool to work out for yourself.
Thank you for opening up this thread and discussion.
Ruby
 

firemaiden

Major Tom said:
Many seekers find that study of their soul, personality and shadow cards provides them with invaluable information about themselves. I know it has for me.})

Thank you Major T (Dah Majooooooooooor!)from the bottom of my soul card for sharing the secrets of this with us here. Yes, of course, a person can look it up in Mary Greer or elsewhere, but it is nice to have it here at our fingertips. I was just musing, it would be nice to know what people's soul and shadow cards are...:)

Now, if I may be soooo bold, perhaps, you might be willing to share with us a tad more??? like.....(you know what's coming, right?) okay: how has this information been valuable to you....?
Well, if too personal to post here, or if that should be another thread...so be it... but you know me, just had to ask. :cool:

(adumbration???)
 

Major Tom

Re: Re: Key Cards

Diana - I find for this particular purpose it works best if 8 = Justice and 11 = Strength. :)

Ruby Red - I've never read Mary Greer. I suppose I should really. :|

firemaiden said:
how has this information been valuable to you....?

(adumbration???)

I think I've finally recognized a slight tendancy, on my part, to go over the top. :laugh:

Adumbration: Adumbrate: Represent in outline; faintly indicate; typify; foreshadow; overshadow.

I still think Tarotbear made an excellent example of Temperance. })
 

firemaiden

Soooo, Tom, speaking of Temperance, if you are the harumphant, then Temperance is your shadow card, so you learned how? that you have tendancy to go over the top?

Tarotbear as Temperance looked exactly the way I envisioned my polemicising angel to be, the one come comes galumphing in my room in at all hours to have metaphysical arguments with me and try to turn me into a believer... (so far, I have pretty much talked him out of existence). As far as impersonating temperance...perfect, especially upside down?

Question: (real question) don't sometimes people find their card without using the year? or is that another card. I seem to remember by one method I ended up as the HP and by another as the Lovers, as you showed me. (and shadow the Devil -- which of course, is the voice of the Cosmic Toaster)
 

Major Tom

firemaiden said:
Question: (real question) don't sometimes people find their card without using the year? or is that another card. I seem to remember by one method I ended up as the HP and by another as the Lovers, as you showed me. (and shadow the Devil -- which of course, is the voice of the Cosmic Toaster)

I don't know why someone couldn't find a card by omitting the year. I also don't know what you would call it. Leave out the year I become an Empress, Hanged Man, World kind of guy. })

You could also use the current year to find your Year card. My year card is The Chariot and this year's shadow The Tower. :eek: