For fun I decided to find a tarot card that matches up with each of the eight John Beebe personality archetypes. This can be an aid to journaling about your personality and also gives you a visual to draw upon when you consciously use a function in a situation.
Here is a Jungian take on exploring the archetypal characters within us:
Jung believed that our disposition to experience the heroes, villains, lovers, and despots in ourselves derives from archetypal, which is to say, ancient, universal character formations that are the root structures of our psyches…in our deeper or fuller consciousness we are multiple beings…we have many personalities within us. Some of these other selves are surprisngly close to consciousness and can be awakened quite easily by the use of theater games and guided imagery exercises.
Other Lives, Other Selves by Roger Woogler, p. 34
In astrology, there is a tarot card for each 10 degree slice of a zodiac sign (three cards per sign). These 10 degree slices are called decans. Decans were the earliest form of astrology beginning in the third millennium BCE. In the early 1900’s the Golden Dawn assigned a tarot card to each decan and the decans influenced the symbolism in the Rider Waite Smith deck.
I really enjoy the blending of tarot with astrology in that way and want to give a try at doing that with the personality types. I’ve seen tarot cards used to represent a single personality type, but let’s take a look at tarot cards for each of the 8 functions.
Here goes:
Hero function: The Sun. The Sun represents being seen for who you truly are. There is clarity, success, enthusiasm, feeling safe to be yourself. Wholeness and health. I find that this card resonates most with me for the hero archetype. There are other candidates too, like The Magician, Six of Wands, and Strength, so use whichever one resonates. The Sun’s opposite is the Moon, which I chose for the anima/animus (inferior) function, so that’s also why I settled on the Sun.
Parent function: The Empress/Emperor. The Empress is associated with the archetype of the mother. She is an emotional leader and represents unconditional love, nature, creativity. The Emperor is associated with the archetype of the traditional father. He represents stability, authority, and masculinity.
Eternal Child (Puer) function: The Fool. The Fool is innocent and unaware and at the beginning of the journey. This correlates well to the Eternal Child, which is a weaker function and where we remain child-like.
Anima/Animus function. The Moon. The Moon represents are deepest fears and being carried along by forces we pretend to understand. It represents being in the dark about something and acting instinctively. On the positive end, The Moon reminds us that the anima/animus (inferior) function is the gateway to the unconscious and the importance of dream work and shadow work.
Opposing Personality – The Hanged Man. The Hanged Man represents looking at things from a different perspective. Letting go, martyrdom, self-sacrifice, facing doubts. To me this matches up well with what is is like to use the function that is opposite our hero function.
Critical Parent/Senex/Witch – 10 of Swords. 10 of Swords represents feeling hurt, criticized, stabbed in the back. It is opposite the Parenting function, and in the absence of proper parenting, the card represents feeling like you have to take care of everyone and the exhaustion that entails.
The Trickster – 7 of Swords. This card is the sneak. It represents lying or using manipulation to get out of or control a situation.
Demon – The Devil. Beebe says that the demon function is the part of us that is both devil and angel, so I chose the Devil card to represent this function. The Tower would work too. The Devil represents being chained to a person or situation. Darkness, chaos, destructive behavior, wanting what is forbidden are all part of The Devil.
I’d love to hear what you think about these tarot card associations and if you came up with any different ones. If you get this blog post by email, just click reply to email me. Otherwise click here for my contact page.
