Hang on a minute guys,
Are you all saying that while I have a querent sitting in front of me who asks for a reading, am I then going to select or he/she is going to select a significator representing himself/herself and then put it back in the deck and then cut the deck into four groups and can only do a reading if the significator is found in one of the cut portions?
How in the world are we going to rammage through and find the pre-selected significator? Or don't we? Or what?
Why are we complicating the issue here. Are you saying without this wretched significator the querent will not have a proper or a genuine reading???

Apart from the above sounding ludicrous, I find it totally unnecessary.

When someone sits in front of me asking for a reading, then HE/SHE is my significator. Why should I select a card for them?

Perhaps I am missing something here..... if I am, can someone put me on the right track, please?

Actually Cedars what Stan says is true, that WAS the way it was done.  The using of a significator in this way is a way of the cards saying that the reader, querant and deck are all in tune, try it!  It almost always works and if it doesn't...... then should you read anyway?

Hmmm.....

I hear you Gem,
But..... hmmmmm... but..... what is the criteria of selecting a significator? Can you tell me please and I will try.
Also, how do I go on looking for the significator in one of the four cut cards...........?? Do I rammage through manually and look for it? This is becoming more of a clinical thing... dont you think?

again, the way I understood it is that the significators are trump cards.  kings, queens, knights and the rest - if you are looking for details as to which they represent there are several books but the long and short is that we are to be determining significator based on the attribute of the queriant (mean, deceitful or gracious and charming) as opposed to the astrological or age.  I still use the King to represent a male over age 40, a knight for a male under age 40 (thoth decks have the knight as the king place and the prince as the knight place so it will depend upon the deck you are using).  A queen for female over age 40.  Some will use a princess for female under 40 others will use knave, page and princess for youth of any sex.  Astrological can be determined by the card itself with wands being fire signs, swords being air, cups being water, discs being earth.  

you might use a king (knight if thoth deck) of wands to signify a male over 40 for a fire sign (wands would also be used for a fair haired, blue eyed queriant or (according to crowley and the thoth tarot) the knight of wands would be used to signify a male that was of a warrior spirit, impulsive, even cruel or bigoted.

and yes, after cutting the deck four times you will go through each until you find the significator, determine if that was the question they wanted to know about.  assuming yes, you would resuffle the cards and run the reading.  depending on who you ask you would use the significator as a predetermined card and not involve it in the reading or (doing a celtic cross) you would use it as the first card of the reading.  I prefer not to do that.  

I prefer to shuffle the "deck significator" into the section of the deck and then let the cards fall where they may.  If doing a celtic cross reading from the "Heh" pack (second group of the four packs from the left of the reader) on Love, marriage and relationships in general you would simply do the standard reading with whatever card showed up in the first position to signify a new (or different) aspect of the queriant in relationship to the question asked.

so, as you can see, it will take some work to know what to use as the significator and then what to do with it once you have it.

hope that helps.

btw:  gem stated "Actually Cedars what Stan says is true, that WAS the way it was done".  I am curious as to Gem's take on the use of the significator.

Thank you Stan for your in-depth explanation. I still think if the cards want me and/or the querent to know something, Significator or no significator, the message will come through...I find this too time-consuming and makes the reading more of a technical/clinical thing.
I am still interested to find out more about this topic and also your last question to Gem will be helpful to hear...
Thanks again Stan.