TAROTJung, Archetypes and Tarot
Jung's Model of the Mind
This deck assumes a model of the mind suggested by Carl Jung, which includes the concept of a shared unconscious inhabited by archetypes or ’character templates’. Further assuming that the archetypes in Tarot are the same as the ones that Jung’s theory suggests would be powerful, not least because it provides a modern theory of how Tarot works.
The broad archetypes that Jung initially proposed have been researched and expanded to create accepted personality tests such as the Myers-Brigs Type Indicator (MBTI) test and the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator test (PMAI). It is also the foundation behind learning styles used in education and brand archetypes used in advertising.
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 and sometimes called the experiential self (or that part of you that seems to be doing all the thinking and experiencing). It is the ‘I’ most people think of when awake and thinking.
The ego shows itself through different ‘masks’ when interacting with others. For example, you treat co-workers differently to your closest childhood friends, and you do this by 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 the 'you' that is susceptible to social media and advertising. The true inner you is the self and the part that, when strong can reject outside influences and assets its own individuality. An important part of self-realization is getting past your ego to find your true, individual self.
The self includes both your unconscious and conscious mind, so one major hurdle of understanding your self is reconciling both your conscious and subconscious needs and wants. What does society expect of you vs what you actually want?
The Anima and Animus
Going deeper into the subconscious we see the anima and animus.
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 are important in relating to your parents, the other sex, sexuality and sexual identity. They also manifest often in dreams and in extreme cases are the source of mythical monsters and other creatures that represent a dark or bright aspect of the opposite sex. They can however create positive interactions when they are realistic depictions. A balanced anima/animus can also lead to creativity (and incidentally, also vivid dreams) because it allows differing internal views.
A major part of any journey of self-realization is understanding this opposite sex within you, especially if it:
- Is repressive to the enjoyment of your interactions, or
- It sets unrealistic expectations, or
- Leads you towards manipulation and/or shallow interactions.
Men and women often have both the anima and animus within them, but the relative size and complexity of each can vary between individuals.
The shadow
Finally, at the deepest level of subconscious 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, plus 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 subconscious thinks you yourself have; too stupid, too prone to mistakes, too fat, too thin, useless at the job… need we go on?
Knowing your shadow is the process of coming to terms with these darker parts of your deepest subconscious.
We should note that the shadow can have positive aspects. A well understood and rounded shadow will have a positive contribution to your life and happiness. 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 often 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.
The shadow archetypes were considered heavily during the creation of Torch-Tarot, because even though there are no shadow cards in the deck (yet), knowing the psychological shadow archetypes makes for a much stronger 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
Shadows are not Tarot reversals. More importantly, your shadow is not always your adversary. They may be initially repressive but they are far more complex than being just your 'personal villains'.
- Sometimes they are 'a part of your enemy that lives in your head, rent free', but only sometimes.
- They are often a part of you that has become repressive in response to hurt, and you need to fix this pain, neglect or lack. This involves understanding.
- Sometimes they are something you need to save, such as the innocent that does not (or cannot) realize their predicament. You are not their adversary, you are their hero.
- Sometimes it is encountering someone/something that starts as 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 can be a lover's disguise.
Many readers will have already thought things like, '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 shadows. But yes we have, because the building blocks of all parts of the subconscious mind discussed so far includes archetypes.
The building blocks of all parts of the subconscious mind discussed so far includes archetypes.
Archetypes are personality templates that exist within our subconscious. When they have control, they cause us to exhibit behaviors associated with their template, or act as if we are under control of them (or in extreme cases, under the fear of them). They are also the basis of significant parts of our common dream symbology; when our conscious mind is asleep the language of the subconscious mind does the thinking, and this language includes archetypes.
There are two types of Archetype in the model; personal archetypes and shared archetypes, both of which you can see on the diagram of the Jungian mind model above.
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 archeological 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 life, death and most importantly, 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 the oldest human-form archetypes.
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. More importantly, 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 personal archetypes.
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.
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 subconscious (Special World) and back, with the aim of the journey being 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 subconscious.
- 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.
Inner intuition and the subconscious 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.