TAROTJung, Archetypes and Tarot
Jung's Model of the Mind
Torch-Tarot assumes a model of the mind suggested by Carl Jung. This model includes a shared Unconscious inhabited by archetypes. Linking Tarot archetypes to this theory provides a modern explanation for how Tarot works.
Followers of Jung expanded his theories into personality tests including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI). Jung's work forms the foundation for learning styles used in education and brand archetypes used in marketing.
In brief summary, Jung’s model of the mind contains the Ego and Persona, the Self, the Anima and Animus, and Shadow.
The Ego and Persona
The Ego is the center of consciousness. Some call it the experiential Self. This is the 'I' that thinks and experiences while you are awake and thinking
The Ego uses masks called 'personas' to interact with other people in the real world. You treat co-workers differently than childhood friends, adopting different personas to match each occasion.
The Self
The Ego is shaped by society, social norms and expectations and is not the true ‘you’. Your Ego is susceptible to peer pressure, social media, advertising, and other external pressures.
The true inner you is the Self and the holistic whole that, when strong, asserts your unique individuality. An important part of self-realization is getting past your Ego to find your true, individual Self.
The Self includes the Unconscious and Conscious mind. Understanding the Self requires reconciling conscious and unconscious needs and wants. What does society expect of you vs what you actually want?
The Anima and Animus
The Anima and Animus reside in the Unconscious.
The Anima is the feminine side of a man’s Unconscious. The Animus is the masculine side of a woman’s Unconscious.
The Anima and Animus relate to parents, the other sex, and sexual identity. They often manifest in dreams. In many cases, they provide the source for mythical heroes and monsters that represent dark or bright aspects of the opposite sex. Many languages have masculine and feminine genders for most things, not just people. This suggests the Anima/Animus means more than just sex and identity.
A balanced Anima and Animus aids creativity because it allows differing internal views. Self-realization involves understanding this opposite sex within you. This is vital if an internal archetype:
- Is repressive to the enjoyment of your interactions.
- Sets unrealistic expectations or is based on bad experiences.
- Leads you towards manipulation and shallow interactions with the opposite sex.
Men and women possess both the Anima and Animus. The relative size and complexity of each varies between individuals.
The shadow
Finally, at the deepest level of the Unconscious is the Shadow.
The shadow represents the repressed or lacking aspects of a person’s inner Self. Although we are not conscious of our shadow, it is the root of our fears, negative actions and destructive thoughts, as well as our most primitive emotions. The Shadow contains the root of any need to belittle, manipulate or harm others.
If you find yourself often hating or internally criticizing or judging others, then it is your Shadow attacking others for perceived failures your Unconscious thinks you yourself have; too stupid, too prone to mistakes, too fat, too thin, or useless at the job.
Understanding your Shadow is the key to coming to terms with these darker parts of your Unconscious biases and traits.
We should note that the Shadow has positive aspects. It can guide you from doing socially unacceptable and dangerous actions without needing to try them out. It can also slow you down when you are about to make a mistake.
Monsters are often scary, but they have a message behind them; don’t do this, don’t bother with that, and don’t go there, and it will go badly if you ignore my advice, as it comes from your deepest and darkest intuitive Self.
Shadow archetypes were considered during the creation of Torch-Tarot even though it is not a Shadow deck. Knowing the psychological Shadow archetypes makes for a stronger standard ('Light Archetype') deck.
Three of root shadow archetype visualizations are discussed further in this article, but here's a taster via the Shadow Empress (aka the Shadow Caregiver, Medusa).
Shadows as complex characters
Shadow traits are not Tarot reversals. Your Shadow is not always your adversary. It is often repressive. But it is more complex than a 'personal villain':
- Sometimes they are 'a part of your enemy that lives in your head, rent free', but only sometimes.
- Shadow traits are a part of you that has become repressive in response to hurt. Fixing this pain, neglect or lack involves understanding your Shadow.
- Sometimes Shadow traits are something you need to save, such as the innocent inside you that does not (or cannot) realize their predicament. You are not their adversary, you are their hero.
- Sometimes your Shadow contains your opposite and seems like an enemy, but is actually your natural complement. You often see this in the typical rom-com movie; the two 'enemies' always seem to secretly admire the other, and this often works the same with Shadows. Hate is often a lover's disguise.
Hate is often a lover's disguise.
Many readers will have already thought 'Hey, Medusa was not really the villain!' Exactly.
Archetypes as the building blocks of the subconscious
But hey, hang on! This article is about Archetypes, but we haven’t mentioned any except the Shadow. But yes we have, because the building blocks of all parts of the Unconscious mind discussed so far includes archetypes.
The building blocks of all parts of the Unconscious mind discussed so far includes archetypes.
Archetypes are personality templates in the Unconscious. When they take control, we exhibit specific behaviors. They form the basis of dream symbology. While the Conscious mind sleeps, the Unconscious speaks through archetypes. When a Tarot reader draws a well designed card, the card imagery connects to our Unconscious archetypes.
There are two types of Archetype in Jung's model; personal and shared archetypes.
Shared Archetypes
Shared archetypes are the more important of the two types of archetype for our discussion as they are the ones we see in the Major Arcana. They represent ancient characterizations that have been with us since the beginning. The archaeological record suggests that they started as animals; everything from the sly trickster fox to the noble eagle.
The most common cave paintings are of animals such as bison, aurochs (an early bovine) and deer and they represented a duality; they were hunted and therefore represented a source of sustenance and life, but they were also very dangerous and could take life. Another very common type of animal in early figurines and cave paintings are the ones that shed their skin; the scorpion, amphibians and especially snakes. These were associated with transformation and rebirth.
As we moved away from hunter-gatherer societies to larger groups and into villages and cities, such archetypes evolved into human shaped spirit and god archetypes.
The Auroch God and Snake Woman are thought to be the root Gods, as they are the two major Gods found at the earliest Temple excavated; Göbekli Tepe, meaning they were the first two Gods worshipped by large groups and are among the oldest human-form archetypes, if not the oldest.
The Auroch God became less important with the advent of farming and the domestication of the Auroch into the cow, and his most well-known (if a little diminutive) mythical counterpart is shown on The Magician card; Pan.
Similarly, the Snake Woman is shown as a Goddess who is known to be derived from the same area as Göbekli Tepe (Upper Mesopotamia and later Anatolia, now called modern Turkey) and performs the same function as the Snake Goddess; Hecate. She appears on The High Priestess Card.
These early archetypes are still with us, via myths and fables, fairy tales, dreams and even trance induced visions. They are the closest visible versions of the hidden shared archetypes that we carry in our subconscious.
Personal Archetypes
Personal archetypes are the shared archetypes modified by personal experience. Thus, the shared Caregiver archetype is modified by our actual parent to become a personal archetype.
Personal archetypes appear in the Tarot as the minor arcana, and particularly the royal cards for the closest and most meaningful ones based on actual people in our lives.
Archetypes and the Hero's Journey
You may have noticed a similarity between the diagram of Jung's Mind model above and the way it was shown with a circle around it, reminiscent of the Hero's Journey diagram (as discussed in the Major Arcana Guidebook page and repeated below).
Assuming the circle on the outside of Jung's model is the circular Hero's journey, then the journey can be seen as travelling from the Conscious (Ordinary World) to the Unconscious (Special World) and back. The aim of the journey is to fix something that lies broken or uncomplete in your Unconscious:
- The lowest point (the ordeal) is spent resolving the deep, primal or insecure/incomplete Shadow, and the leap shown on the Fool card is breaking the shackles of rational thinking to make an intuitive psychological leap to the inner depths of your Unconscious.
- Your views on your allies and enemies are at least partly derived from your Anima and Animus.
- The elixir you fight to bring back is often healing through greater self-understanding.
At the very least, knowing this insight makes for writing very strong character arcs for authors. Myth, fairy tales and dreams are allegorical stories of becoming psychologically whole by beating not just mythical monsters and dark villains, but also repairing the shadow beasts of a fractured inner psyche.
For the rest of us, it also shows how most complex problems we face contain a major component where we are fighting our own inner problems, insecurities, and flaws. The inner language the Unconscious uses to represent these traits are our Shadow traits and Shadow archetypes.
Inner intuition and the Unconscious mind is talked about often in Tarot circles, but it may hide more secrets than even Tarot users previously suspected!
Conclusion
There are many different ways of explaining how Tarot works. Many are esoteric, but one of the best modern ones is thinking in terms of Jungian archetypes via shared archetypes and personal archetypes.
Torch-Tarot subscribes to this more modern explanation and takes our most ancient mythical characters as the closest known clues to our inner archetypes.