Myers-Briggs Type Indicators and the Court Cards

Tarot court cards (sometimes called "people cards") may represent situations, current attitudes, attitudes to develop, or actions to take, but they do sometimes point to actual people and may reveal a particular aspect of a person's character.

In this series, I am focusing the court cards as actual people. Before I proceed, I want to emphasize that I don't believe in "typecasting." It's important not to deceive yourself that you know someone until you have given time and attention to get to know them. The MBTI can help each of us understand some of the ways we approach life and interact with other people; the tarot cards can point to certain characteristics or talents. However, each of us must be truly be present to other beings. As my favorite Rabbi say, "When we look into each other's eyes, let us remember that we are looking into the eyes of god."

Now, back to our two systems!

While seeking to gain a deeper familiarity with personalities of the court cards, I turned to a system of Jungian psychological categories called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators. Like the tarot court cards, the MBTI categories do not describe the entirety of a person, but only the "differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions."

I have a fondness for tidy, organized systems that purport to explain everything. This inclination of many tarot students partially explains why Kabbalah, astrology, runes, and other systems have been grafted onto tarot, with varying degrees of practical success.

Like 19th Century occultists who grafted a faux Kabbalah onto the tarot, I turned to a system in which I'm not conversant, the MBTI. And like those occultists, I was initially impressed with a superficial similarity between the two systems: 16 tarot court cards and 16 Myers-Briggs personality types.

However, the vast difference between the two systems quickly became apparent. I persevered and finally came up with a set of correspondences that I will begin to test over the next few months.

The first difficulty in comparing the two systems comes from the fact that tarot court cards have two characteristics (rank and suit), while, on the other hand, the Myers-Briggs personality types have four pairs of characteristics. The MBTI pairs of characteristics are summarized here:

2 attitudes:
E/I - Extraversion or Introversion

2 information-gathering functions:
S/N - Sensing or iNtuiting

2 decision-making functions:
T/F - Thinking or Feeling

2 lifestyles:
J/P - Judging (relying mostly on your info gathering function S/N)
or Perceiving (relying mostly on your decision making function T/F)

The permutations of those 4 sets of characteristics results in sixteen psychological types, each designated by four letters.

One organized method of arranging all sixteen types is shown in the image below. The SJs are in the top left quadrant. Moving clockwise around the circle, the NJs are next, then the SPs and the NPs.

(The various types have been extensively described by David Kiersey, who divided the sixteen pairs  differently than Isabel Briggs Myers had. In Kiersey's system, two sets are SJs and SPs, based on the second and fourth letters, and the other two sets are NFs and NTs, based on the second and third letters).

In attempting to assign court cards to the sixteen types, I decided to rely on the information-gathering function and the decision-making function to narrow down the possible suits associated with each type.

Sensing = Pentacles
iNtuiting = Wands
Thinking = Swords
Feeling = Cups

Thus, in my system, a type that includes both Sensing and Feeling could be represented by a Pentacle or by a Cup. While a type that includes both Sensing and Thinking could be represented by a Pentacle or a Sword.

Attitudes (Extroversion/Introversion) and Lifestyles (Judging/Perceiving) can correspond to any suit or rank, as shown in the chart below.

Dividing the sixteen types into four categories, I assigned one card of each rank to that category. Thus the SJs include one king, one queen, one knight; the SPs, NJs, and NPs also contain court cards of each rank. Each category also contains three of the four suits.

Although I did not understand why Kiersey divided the sixteen types as he did, I decided to keep his system in mind, and made sure that each of his four categories also contain one card of each rank. (It may not have been sensible to let his system affect mine, as his NF and NT categories contain only two suits each.)

The first group of types, the Sensing-Judging types, contains three suits and all four ranks: 

ESFJ, ISFJ, ESTJ, ISTJ

E S F J (Caregiver) King of Cups 
I S F J (Nurturer) Queen of Pentacles 
E S T J (Guardian) Knight of Pentacles  
I S T J (Duty-fulfiller) Page of Swords

Kiersey labelled the SJs melancholic or depressive. 

The second group, the iNtuitive-Judging types, also includes three suits and four ranks:

ENFJ, INFJ, ENTJ, INTJ

E N F J (Giver) Page of Cups  
I N F J (Protector) King of Wands
E N T J (Executive) Knight of Wands  
I N T J (Scientist) Queen of Swords

In occult literature, kings are associated with the element of fire and thus to intuition. In my system of correspondences, only the King of Wands is aligned with an iNtuitive function.

The first two types in this group belong to Keirsey's NT category, which he labelled anesthetic or insensitive. The second two belong to his NF category, which he labelled hyperesthetic or over-sensitive. Taking his system into consideration affected which cards I assigned to this group and the fourth group of cards.

The third group, the Sensing-Perceiving types, include three suits and all ranks of court cards:

ESFP, ISFP, ESTP, ISTP

E S F P (Performer) Queen of Cups 
I S F P (Artist) King of Pentacles  
E S T P (Doer) Page of Pentacles  
I S T P (Mechanic) Knight of Swords

Occult literature associates Pages with the element of earth (sensing), Knights with the element of air (thinking), and Queens with the element of water (feeling). In my system, only the Page of Pentacles, the Knight of Swords, and the Queen of Cups are aligned with their proper function.

Kiersey labelled the SPs hypomanic, excitable.
 
The fourth group, the iNtuitive Perceivers, include three suits and four ranks:

ENFP, INFP, ENTP, INTP

E N F P (Inspirer) Knight of Cups
I N F P (Idealist) Queen of Wands 
E N T P (Visionary) Page of Wands  
I N T P (Thinker) King of Swords  

The first two types belong to Keirey's NF category, which he labelled hyperesthetic or over-sensitive. The second two belong to his NT category, anesthetic or insensitive. Keeping his system in mind affected the assignment of court cards to this group of cards and the second group.

*       *       *       *

This method of analysis and making connections between tarot and another system is probably not the most fruitful use of tarot, which is, most importantly, a visual tool for harnessing your intuition and exploring your experiences. However, this was a fun puzzle to work with. I haven't achieved a reliable, scientific chart or even a set of poetic correspondences to stimulate my imagination. However, it was an enjoyable mental exercise to come up with this (and two other) sets of correspondences.

There were several cards that I hoped would align with particular personality types: Page of Pentacles with the ISFJ type, King of Wands with the Counsellor (INFJ), and a few others. Less than half the time, I got what I wanted.

Discovering more about these assignments will require more time studying the Myers-Briggs categories with the court cards in mind. I wonder; will the MBTI bring light to the images on the cards?

EDIT: You can read about my conclusions about using these two systems in tandem at the end of my Page of Wands post.