Birth Cards - Fact or Fiction?

[Tromdle]

I recently came across the concept of birth cards. There are several websites where you type in your birthdate and get 2 cards that represent you. I'm curious if anyone knows the origin of this. Tradition or gimmick?

 

My bday is March 12, 1980 and I got the Lovers and the Devil. I guess I'll take that as a balanced reading! LOL

[fire cat pickles]

Your birth card is the total of your birthday 3 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 0 = 24 = 2 + 4 = 6. The Lovers. You can also expand Lovers to 15 (or 1 + 5  = 6) to get 15. The Devil. It can be used as a significator for readings.

 

This is a common practice in tarot, so it’s definitely not a myth or fiction.

 

I use the Emperor often because my birthday reduces to 4. Personally, I wouldn’t use the XIII card as a significator! It’s up to you, of course.

[Sionainn]

I first saw this in the Tarot for Your Self book by Mary K. Greer. My birth card is Strength.

[Guest]

birth card is one way to find a card that is significant to you. The actual process is typically referred to as Theosophical reduction or Theosophical addition, both point to a process of adding or subtracting the separate digits of a large number to find a meaningful single digit. There is also theosophical evolution which is based around nine being the highest base number .

 

The overall affect of using this with tarot is rather weak. it is a very general frequency, obviously every single person born on the same day would have the same cards. so it is not a spectacular system to discover your significant cards imho.

 

 

[fire cat pickles]

I agree with whatsawhosit that it is a rather weak focal point. It doesn't add much to a reading and it takes a card out of the deck in your overall reading. This is especially true if you're using a Major. (Some people use a court card for a Significator.) I feel I'm better off leaving the Significator in the deck. If it shows up (particularly my court card/one of my court cards) in a reading, it may shed more light on the situation.

[Guest]

I wonder how removing the significator from the deck got started. If one's significator were to appear in one's spread that is significant. That is just the sort of stuff we are looking for in a spread, cards that are significant to us. I really think the magic to significators is knowing what they are, and watching for them.

 

I think it is much the same concept as knowing your most prominent planet and  watching for events with that planet in particular in your horoscope.

 

 

[fire cat pickles]

I'm not sure where removing the card from the deck came from, either. There are many techniques, particularly from cartomancy, where one looks for a Significator in the deck or in a stack of cards (the Opening of the Key spread, the Hedgewytchery method, Andy's Lenormand spreads, etc.) and one uses some of the adjacent cards to the Significator, or all of the cards in that stack, for the reading. Maybe taking the Significator out of the deck sprang out of this tradition.