Where is tarot most useful? – Part II

Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

Years ago, during a mid-life crisis, I found myself attracted to a man who was not my husband. I was the emotional captive of a pair of beautiful eyes and an inviting smile. After exhausting my storehouse of coping skills, I searched my home for a Tarot deck I had purchased in San Francisco many years before….

Suddenly, my perception was opened in a way I had never experienced, for the cards’ symbolism spoke to me through my intuition, mirroring what I was feeling with astonishing accuracy. They gave me the insights to manage my emotions and move through the attraction without causing damage to my marriage.

— Toni Gilbert, Messages From The Archetypes: Using Tarot for Healing and Spiritual Growth

This passage from Toni Gilbert’s book is a fitting introduction to the second part of the discussion on where tarot is most useful. Last week, I looked at tarot as a way of telling us about the present. This week, the present becomes more personal:

Tarot tells us about ourselves.

It was apparently an inscription on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi that delivered the exhortation “Know thyself.” It almost certainly wasn’t the first such exhortation, and it definitely wasn’t the last. For millennia, people have devoted their time — sometimes their lives — to the pursuit of self-knowledge. Today, one of the ways we can do this, if we are able and so inclined, is through tarot, which enables us to shed light on who we are — both the areas that are already illuminated, and the areas that reside in the shadows but which influence our lives greatly nonetheless.

How does it do this? Through the use of archetypes.

There are several definitions of ‘archetype’, but the one I am going to use here — and which I draw on regularly in my articles — is the one that has been born from the field of analytical psychology pioneered by psychiatrist Carl Jung.

According to analytical psychology, archetypes “are innate, universal prototypes” (Wikipedia: Jungian Archetypes). In other words, archetypes serve as the blueprint for both who we are and the experiences that we have while on this planet. This is a coarse definition, given that there are books dedicated to the subject, but for reasons of clarity and brevity, I’d like to keep it as minimal as possible.

In tarot, there are broadly two main groups of archetypes: the major arcana comprising 22 named cards; and the minor arcana — four suits of 14 cards, from Ace through to King. (The minor arcana especially can be sub-divided, but that’s a subject for another article.)

Archetypes and the major arcana

The major arcana uses archetypes to describe the human journey towards — pick your term — self-actualisation, integration, individuation, wholeness, oneness. Each of the 22 cards charts a part of that journey, from the point where we step out into the unknown, ignorant of what is ahead of us (The Fool), to the point where we reach a completion (The World).

This journey might be represented in the tarot as linear, but perhaps we have experienced enough of ourselves and of life to know that things happen in loops, their shape similar to that of a spiral or DNA. We have a propensity to do things in repeating cycles. Some might see this repetition as failure — at one point in my life I certainly did. Others, however, see these repetitions as an opportunity to do something different — to break with karma. It may be that our personal evolution through spirals of experience is entirely natural, and an integral part of the human condition.

So the major arcana speaks of a journey from zero through 21, but it is one where we double-back on ourselves, where we revisit certain cards — some more than others at times, I know — and where we come to a form of completion in The World… only to start over again on something else. You can also split the main journey into smaller ones that happen simultaneously, various parts overlapping each other only to separate and spiral off into different directions. Whatever the form of the journey, and wherever you are in it, however, there will be an archetype that describes who you are/how you are/where you are at any particular time.

• If you are going through a time of great change, where it feels like aspects of you or your life are no longer relevant or workable, and are being burned away in the fires of change, then you are having an encounter with Death (13).
• If you are charging ahead, on a roll, full of confidence, to hell with the consequences, then you are riding The Chariot (7).
• If things seem unclear, if you are haunted by dreams that speak to you in metaphor, if the way ahead of you is obscured and life seems threatening, then you are walking by the light of The Moon (18).
• If you are being called, willingly or no, into a period of seclusion where you are encouraged to detach from the world around you in order to confront what lies within, then you are The Hermit (9).
• If your world is filled with joy and all feels light and illuminated, if you feel showered with blessings, then you are experiencing The Sun (19).

These are just some of the examples that the major arcana bring to you so that the story of you can be told to you. They are stories of the development of your character, and of your soul. They represent the big stuff that underpins everyday life.

Archetypes and the minor arcana

Archetypal experiences that are more ‘day-to-day’ are the domain of the minor arcana. This doesn’t mean that they are less significant; it is simply that they manifest differently. Whereas the major arcana are concerned with the development of the soul, the minor arcana are focused on the way the soul chooses to express and experience itself at a given moment in time. As with the major arcana, the minor arcana are complex, and there are myriad ways of interpreting them. For our purposes here, I will be painting in broad strokes and focusing on the approaches that I use the most in my work.

The minor arcana from Ace through to King describe an evolution through a particular expression of life, depending on the suit. (Note: the court cards also sit as a separate group of personality-based archetypes.)

Pentacles as an example of archetypal expression

Pentacles are associated with all things physical; and the journey from Ace to King is about how we live and define ourselves in our physical world. Ace is pure potential, the King is a culmination. These, and all of the cards between them, are archetypal energies associated with the development of that aspect of our lives.

• When we encounter the archetype of the Two of Pentacles, we learn how to work within the physical world, which is one that is defined by duality. And a juggling act ensues, as we hold the balance (or not) between one extreme and the other.
• With the Three of Pentacles, we move out into the world and choose a direction. This is the archetype of skills acquisition.
• With the Four of Pentacles, we now have more things to juggle, and therefore it takes more effort to hold on to them — the archetype of consolidation.
• The Five of Pentacles describes the experience we have when our things are taken away from us, and we ignore the assistance that we can get from other areas of our life that could be equally fulfilling: the archetype of poverty consciousness.
• The Six of Pentacles shows us back in the saddle again, materially speaking. Are we now treating our position with due respect and humility? It is the archetype of the rich man and the camel passing through the Eye of the Needle.
• The Seven of Pentacles demonstrates what happens when we reach a moment where we can carry on as usual, or try something different: the archetype of the rethink.
• The Eight of Pentacles continues the story of the Three — the archetype of devotion to one’s craft.
• The Nine of Pentacles, to me right now, is an expression of the archetype of The Prostitute: just how much are we willing to sacrifice of ourselves in order to have what we want? Are we a slave to anything?
• The Ten of Pentacles is the moment of a redefinition of roles and a handing over of the reins. This is the archetype of retirement, or the withdrawal from the aspirations of physical life.
• The Page of Pentacles is the archetype of as-yet untested youth, where ideals are born, often to be sacrificed and reshaped in the face of life and its complexity.
• The Knight of Pentacles illustrates the questing spirit, as we go out into the world ready to fight for what we want and what we believe in. This is the archetype of our encounter with the concepts of responsibility and accountability.
• The Queen and The King are the yin and yang expressions of the suit as it comes to maturity. In this instance, they are the custodians of the physical world, who have come to understand that the natural and material sides of life are interdependent. They embody the archetypes of wisdom, nurturance, security and abundance.

A whistle-stop tour, I know, and one that barely scratches the surface; but I wanted to give you an idea of the patterns of development and the different types of energy embodied by the cards in the minor arcana, and to demonstrate how — through the use of archetype — both the major and the minor arcana are able to capture and communicate to us expressions of what it is to be human.

When we are in a moment of uncertainty, or when we just want to know more about who it is that we are, tarot can bring us face-to-face with ourselves in a way that is not only accurate, but which is wholly accepting. In this way, tarot bears witness to our development as we discover our own truth.