“Warring Archetypes”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: As my thinking on the Major Arcana continues to evolve, I occasionally experience an epiphany during my online tarot conversations. I was explaining my opinions about the most effective uses for the cards on the r/tarot forum, and was asked a question that sent me down an unexplored path.
Having worked with tarot divination for fifty years and with its psychological nuances for forty of those years, I now think tarot works best for decision-making and problem-solving questions and is less useful for mystical navel-gazing, psychic mind-reading of the “thinks/feels” kind or psychological profiling. (That last one is the forte of natal astrology.) I already know who I am, now I just want to know what might be coming my way.
The person I was conversing with brought up the point that, apart from the psychological self-examination that I no longer find necessary in my own case, what would I do when reading for a client who obviously has some mental/emotional issues that need sorting out? (Keeping in mind that I’m not a trained or licensed psychotherapist.)
“Do you feel this way about people who have not figured themselves out yet, or do you recommend sticking to astrology for this regardless?”
I replied that a lot depends on the cards that come up. If I get numerous trump cards, it might suggest a “complex” of some kind, maybe “warring archetypes” in the personality. In those cases I would probably switch from a pragmatic approach to a psychological one, or refer the client to a professional. But I find the need for such retrenching to be fairly uncommon.
The concept of “archetypes at war” in a given situation is one that I haven’t really paid attention to since, when we synthesize the trump cards in a reading, we are typically looking for cases in which they might be made to cooperate or at least coexist peacefully. But what if no reconciliation presents itself at the archetypal level and we have to take it down a notch to the individual level to see how the energies might be harnessed in the most constructive way? This is one instance where my view of the Major Arcana as archetypal “backdrops” or “scenery” for the more pressing mundane drama of the court and minor cards comes into its own. Recognizing that something intense might be going on in the sitter’s mind as reflected in the plentiful trumps, we could look for “hooks” to symbolically draw out its clandestine causes and consequences via the court cards and Minor Arcana.
There are more traditional ways to identify “archetypal adversaries” in a reading than by using the Golden Dawn astrological correspondences for the Major Arcana (many of which don’t thrill me anyway). When the Sun and Moon appear together, we might say of the former “All is revealed,” and of the latter “All that is revealed is not real.” With the Empress and the Emperor, we could envision the nasty Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner film “War of the Roses.” In a more prosaic sense, a Wheel of Fortune/World pairing makes me think of a conflict between “moving on” (Jupiter) and “staying put” (Saturn). Purely at face value, the Fool and Hermit suggest foolishness at war with wisdom. These are all straightforward “night-and-day” comparisons; no arcane “pretzel logic” here.
My personal “warring archetypes” are the Chariot, representing my Sun-sign of Cancer, and the Devil, connected with my Moon in the opposing sign of Capricorn. As a Cancer native, I am characteristically mellow and comfortable in dealing with most people since the Chariot is secure in its self-mastery and self-esteem (although I’m at the opposite end of the age scale, Barbara Walker once dubbed its signature expression “young-adult arrogance”), but my Capricorn Moon can make me more than a little flinty in a “Don’t tread on me!” way if I’m pushed too hard or treated unfairly. Cardinality will eventually out and the two polar opposites will unite to visit exquisite revenge upon the perpetrator. The last piece of the puzzle is my pitiless Scorpio Ascendant signified by Death, which along with the Devil will make sure the revenge is not only protracted but also exacting and irreversible. If there is a pound of flesh to be had, Death will extract it and the Devil will flay it to perfection. (For the record, I’m not an ogre; as the Wizard of Oz said “I’m a very good man, I’m just a very bad” . . . forgiver of personal slights.)
I recently had this situation in a three-card reading for a female sitter during a tarot presentation and demonstration. The Devil and Death came up side-by-side in the “past” and “present” positions of the spread. The first thing out of my mouth was “Ouch!” to which she — knowing a little about divination — jokingly (but rightly) scolded me “You aren’t supposed to say that!” These are both difficult cards, but Death wants to end the situation outright while the Devil intends to manipulate it for some devious purpose. The final card was the upbeat Queen of Wands. After considering for a few minutes, I told her it looks like Death is trying to finally put a stop to some kind of shenanigans that were played on her by the Devil in the past, and that while they “duke it out” as archetypal equals she should just “skate” at the first opportunity (and I slid the Queen away from the other two on the table, which brought a chuckle from the group). I closed with “It looks like you’re going to be free at last. Don’t look back on the carnage, just keep moving.”
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on February 6, 2022.
