How Many Clarifier Cards Are Too Many?
There comes a moment in almost every Tarot reading when you turn over a card, look at it for a while, and think:
“What the hell does that mean?”
So you pull another card to clarify it.
Unfortunately, the second card isn’t much help. You pull another. That one introduces an entirely new problem, so you pull another one. Ten minutes later, your innocent three-card spread has turned into a fifteen-card archaeological dig, and you’re considerably more confused than when you started.
Such are the perils of the clarifier card.
A clarifier is simply an additional Tarot card drawn to give you more information about a card already on the table. Used properly, it’s an extremely useful technique.
Suppose you’re asking about a new job opportunity and the Moon appears. That’s meaningful, but there are several possibilities. Is something being concealed? Are your own fears clouding your judgment? Is the situation simply too undeveloped for you to know what’s happening yet?
So you ask:
“What is the Moon referring to in this reading?”
You draw the Seven of Swords.
Now you’ve learned something. The Moon hasn’t disappeared or been replaced by the Seven of Swords. Instead, the Seven has narrowed the field. There may be information you don’t have, something occurring behind the scenes, or someone who isn’t being entirely straightforward.
That’s a clarifier doing its job.
The difficulty begins when we use clarifiers for something else entirely: trying to get a different answer.
Imagine asking whether a romantic relationship has a future and drawing the Eight of Cups.
You don’t particularly like that, so you ask for clarification.
Ten of Swords.
That’s even worse.
Another clarifier: Five of Cups.
By now the Tarot is practically standing on the table with a bullhorn, but you keep going.
And then—The Star!
Aha! You knew it! Everything is going to work out!
Except that isn’t clarification. You simply kept drawing until the deck produced a card you liked.
It’s an especially easy trap to fall into when you’re reading for yourself.
So how many clarifiers should you draw?
There isn’t an official Tarot rule, but mine is simple:
One clarifier is usually enough. Two should be the absolute maximum.
If the first additional card doesn’t make the situation clearer, I may occasionally draw a second. After that, I stop.
Because by then, the problem probably isn’t that there aren’t enough cards on the table. The problem is that I haven’t understood what they’re saying yet.
Five more cards aren’t necessarily going to fix that. More likely, they’ll give me five additional symbols, relationships and possible interpretations to sort through.
Sometimes the most productive response to a confusing reading is to walk away from it.
Write the cards down. Take a photograph. Go make coffee. Look at the spread again in an hour, or even the next day. Once you’ve stopped wrestling with it, the meaning will often become perfectly apparent.
Another way to avoid unnecessary clarifiers is to give the clarifier a specific question.
Don’t merely think, “Clarify this.”
Ask exactly what you need to know.
If you draw the Tower, you might ask:
“What area of my life does the Tower refer to?”
If you draw the Seven of Cups:
“What am I failing to see clearly?”
If you draw the Two of Swords:
“What decision am I avoiding?”
Now the extra card has a defined purpose rather than simply adding another symbol to an already complicated reading.
There’s also another possibility we sometimes overlook: perhaps the original card is ambiguous because ambiguity itself is the answer.
The Moon is a wonderful example. You ask what’s going to happen in a situation and draw the Moon. Naturally, you want to know more.
But the Moon may be saying that there isn’t anything more you can know right now.
You don’t have all the information. Events are developing out of sight. Emotion may be interfering with perception. The situation hasn’t settled into a definite form.
If that’s the message, drawing six more cards to force certainty out of the deck defeats the purpose. The Tarot may already have given you its answer:
You don’t know yet.
There’s one more useful question to ask yourself before reaching for another card:
“Am I trying to understand this reading, or am I trying to make myself feel better?”
Those aren’t the same thing.
A clarifier drawn because you’re genuinely trying to understand a card can be tremendously helpful. A clarifier drawn because the answer makes you anxious can easily lead to one more card, then another, then another—until eventually you find the reassurance you wanted.
At that point, you’re no longer listening to the Tarot.
You’re negotiating with it.
And Tarot is a lousy negotiating partner.
So before drawing anything else, give the original card a chance to speak. Look at its imagery. Think about its traditional meanings. Consider its position in the spread and its relationship to the cards around it. Ask yourself why that particular card appeared in answer to that particular question.
Quite often, you’ll discover that the clarification was already there.
And when it genuinely isn’t?
Draw one card.
Maybe two.
But if you’ve drawn eight clarifiers and you’re still confused, put the deck down.
The Tarot has probably already said what it has to say.
