AUTHOR’S NOTE: The most intriguing concept I’ve encountered in my periodic study of playing-card divination – which has been an on-again, off-again affair over the past ten years – is the practice of including the two Jokers of a standard deck in the reading. I understand that most traditional cartomancers don’t bother with them, but those who do seem to get some story-telling mileage out of their presence.

One of the key roles of the shifty Joker is to serve as a “stop” card that proclaims “Stop reading now!” because you won’t get straight answers out of the cards that follow it in a line spread, or those that surround it in a larger tableau. However, beyond that cautionary interpretation, it is sometimes viewed as representing a mystery or surprise involving the adjacent cards. The advice would then be to pay close attention to appearances in the matter, with the expectation that something unforeseen may arise.

When attempting to draw parallels between the Joker and the tarot trumps, I realized that it has a lot in common with the Fool when it comes to the unexpected. In fact, Aleister Crowley described the latter as “an original, subtle, sudden impulse or impact, coming from a completely strange quarter.” I think the Joker would certainly identify with that definition. As far as mystery, the High Priestess is the “Mistress of the Unseen” who may also have a surprise or two up her sleeve. Neither the Fool nor the High Priestess is likely to tip us off about what to watch out for in the subsequent cards, the Fool because he doesn’t know and the Priestess because she ain’t talkin.’ The Joker is merely being a puckish dissembler.

It isn’t uncommon for a tarot reader to be at a loss for words when one of them shows up in a spread because neither one offers much information to go on. The Fool usually receives a vague “something new is coming your way” spin with no reliable details, while the Priestess elicits a warning that “the facts are being kept from you;” these anemic hints may set the stage for increased awareness by offering a “heads-up,” but they do little to advance the drama when the narrative is hijacked by their ambiguity . This is about as useless as divination gets, and the rest of the reading may be fraught with uncertainty because misapprehension looms so large in the outlook. The Fool and the High Priestess may not be official “stop cards,” but they may very well act as such when we try to factor their unhelpful influence into the overall picture. For his part, the Joker will just thumb his nose at us and maybe favor us with a smirk and a loud “razz-berry.”