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Keying Your Tarot Cards
Because your tarot cards are magical tools
(like the wand, athame, chalice and plate), they must be
ìkeyed.î Keying is the means of personalizing magical
tools for your own use. In this case, keying ties the
cards not only to your own personal energies, but also to
the Universe at large. This means that when you throw a
tarot spread with a keyed deck, the cards not only
represent elements, people and concepts in the Universe ñ
they are tied to them.
Keying is what allows tarot spells to work. Because the
cards are actually linked to physical things in the
Universe, when you change or re-arrange the tarot cards,
you also change or re-arrange things in the physical
Universe.
In the progression of magical studies, the study of tarot
cards comes almost at the end. This is because you need
the plate, athame and sun candles to key your tarot cards.
You need to have studied and practiced with these other
tools before you can key your cards.
While it's possible to throw tarot spreads with unkeyed
tarot cards, the results will be less accurate than with
keyed cards.
Using a Signifier
A signifier is a card that stands for
someone or something. The signifier in a Tarot reading
poses the question that we want answered. We tie our Tarot
readings to specific issues and questions by using keyed
signifiers.
Most people who use the Tarot today do not use signifiers.
This leads to readings that are both less accurate and
less effective. Using a signifier guarantees that the
reading will be about the person or thing you want to find
out about, and only about that.
As a guide, we choose signifiers for people based on
chronological age and sun sign. For instance, children 12
and under are usually represented by pages, teenagers by
knights, adult females by queens and adult males by kings.
In the Crowley deck the page has both a male and female
card - the prince or princess. The adult male is signified
as a knight in the Crowley deck because Crowley said that
there are no adult males ñ males never reach maturity!
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