How to Read a Shadow Card in a Tarot Reading
Before we talk about what a shadow card is in a tarot reading, I feel it’s important to understand a little bit about tarot cards as a whole and how they work with our psyche.
Tarot cards are just cards with images on them. So why are they so mystical and so spot-on when doing a reading? I believe that it comes from our subconscious mind’s ability to take the images on the cards and put together a story about what is going on, based on experiences, knowledge, and psychology.
Each person who performs a tarot reading has some idea of what each card means to them. Yes, there are “standard meanings” that you can use, but the most effective tarot readings are done by people who have experienced the essence of tarot cards in their daily lives.
They’ve made the association between pulling the 3 of Swords near the end of a relationship or the Queen of Swords showing up on a day when you have to deal with someone who is so direct and honest with themselves and those around them that they alienate people.
When you create these associations with the images on the cards, they’re more impactful and relatable.
But before I spend this entire post talking about how tarot works and what it is.. here is a post where I’ve already done that. :-)
This is where I go into detail about how I think a tarot deck ACTUALLY works and some basics about the deck itself that every tarot reader should be familiar with.
What is the Shadow Self?
Your shadow self is the self that you may not be aware of, the self that you hide from the world because it may not line up with what society (or you) expect.
These are the emotions, thoughts, and traits that you don’t want to accept that you have because they don’t line up with the mask that you put on for the world. These are the feelings and personality traits that are the hardest to overcome because they’re buried so deep that even you don’t want to acknowledge their presence, it's called shadow work. Sometimes you might not even consciously be aware of the shadow parts of yourself.
This shadow self is hidden from you a lot of the time and a part of ourselves that we want to hide from the world. But we need to embrace this shadow self because this shadow self is also part of us. If we want to fully show up to the world, we need to embrace all aspects of ourselves.
Carl Jung, who popularized the idea of the shadow self, said that the shadow self could include positive as well as negative aspects of ourselves, but they’re just repressed.
We all have a shadow aspect to us.. a lot of the time it shows up in our opinions and judgments of other people.
“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”
What is a Shadow Card?
Now that we’ve got an understanding of how a tarot deck works and what our shadow self is.. let’s get to the point and talk about what a shadow card is in a tarot reading.
A shadow card is the card at the bottom of the deck when you're done shuffling and laying out your tarot reading. If you’ve ever wondered what the point of cutting the deck was, or why you would want to make sure ALL the cards are shuffled, this is one reason why. You might not use all the cards in the deck in your readings (and yes, there are some readings that use the ENTIRE deck of 78 cards…) but the order of the cards is still important.
The card at the bottom of the deck, your shadow card, is the card that is a reflection of the shadowed aspects of yourself that may be working for or against you in the topic of the reading.
Let’s say that you do a reading about a new job offer and after you shuffle and lay out your cards, you flip the deck over and there sits the Ace of Swords. This Ace is telling you that there are some new thoughts and opinions that are showing up in your mind that you might not be paying attention to. What thoughts are you pushing down about this job offer? What do you see, but don’t want to see?
Why use a Shadow Card?
Not everyone uses a shadow card or uses one in every reading. But sometimes they're helpful, more helpful than a clarification card can be. The choice is yours whether or not you see using one as being pertinent to the situation.
For example, if I ask a specific question, I may find it useful to use a shadow card. But for a general reading, unless something comes up that is really confusing, I probably won't use a shadow card.
