Анна Шиман
Draft translation. This text was translated automatically and has not been proofread yet — if something reads oddly, it does.
Tarot cards. The Emperor arcanum in psychological personality assessment.
If you want a precise tool for psychological assessment, take a look at Tarot cards. I am not a supporter of fortune-telling practices, although many people are happy to stay at that level of working with the system.
C. G. Jung (huge thanks to him) with his titanic work helped us bridge the deep gulf between popular psychology and esotericism (which today is modestly called “transpersonal psychology”).
Esotericism is a broad notion, but in essence all its practices work hidden, at deep levels of a person’s authenticity that are hard to reach consciously. Hard, but possible, if you do it with an experienced psychologist. That is why the chance of obtaining scientific confirmation and presenting it to society as statistics comes down to zero. Esotericism works only as long as it is not common property, so it rests on the person’s own individual faith and intuition.
To touch the subtle world and learn to find your way in it is an art that few master. That is exactly why the Tarot frightens people.
Yet if you draw on Jungian and archetypal psychology, you can very quickly find points of entry for deeper work to follow.
Yesterday, in a session of the course “Tarot Without Fortune-Telling”, one of the participants was doing a practical exercise and drew the Emperor card. The Emperor symbolises the father archetype and the Animus. Since the Animus archetype (the inner man) lies in a deep, unconscious layer of the psyche, it will be realised only through the lens of the “father complex”, which lies in a layer close to consciousness (the personal unconscious).
For a depth psychologist it is no secret that the image of the father in a person’s psyche is a synthesis of their attitude to their real father and of the archetypal form lying in the depths of our psyche. That is exactly why I do not advise my clients to have things out with their real parents. At least not until the parents have become ordinary people to them.
In this case the woman had a very difficult relationship with her real father, and because of that she placed many negative feelings in his image (fear, anger, rage) and blocked them. These feelings, as we know, form the basis of vitality. But the woman pushed this dangerous content out of consciousness and was left without inner support, without a source of energy, without inner motivation.
The psyche compensated for this block by leaning on an archetypal, ideal image of the father, which took its place in the structure of relations between all of its parts.
So the woman was cut off from her real feelings and began to project her ideal onto men. Of course, this causes difficulties in relationships, as it does in fulfilling herself, which depends on vitality.
Her “feminine part” remained tied to the image of her real father somewhere in the depths of the subconscious, and was blocked.
In such cases women often feel an inner conflict in which they want to prove their worth to their dad. At first this may even feel good and bring success in society: in career, finances, management and so on.
Over time the woman has to make ever greater efforts to hold the heights she has reached. And if we remember that she is cut off from her inner source, sooner or later she is bound to “burn out” emotionally and become apathetic, withdrawn and lonely.
For relationships with the opposite sex this is a real disaster, because no man will ever be able to reach the ideal he is unconsciously compared with.
The man feels pressure and a heavy responsibility. His love for the woman makes him strive to reach her “bar”, but sensing that his efforts are futile, he grows tired and gives up.
Some leave the family, some look for an “outlet” in a mistress, some take on risky ventures and end up in debt, some drink out of despair.
In this situation the woman cannot fulfil her femininity, and so she takes on the role of the mother, which later is bound to lead her into the role of the daughter, creating ambivalence and instability in her preferences, desires, behaviour and so on.
The mother archetype consists of the mother–daughter dyad. In this case we have a need for power (the mother), but without responsibility (the daughter).
This causes conflicts, quarrels, infidelity and all kinds of addictions.
And, of course, it is passed on to the children by example, forming destructive scripts in them.
Need I say that in such relationships people do not grow, have no free will and no right to an individual future?
Was it interesting to read?
And we have only taken one Tarot card, the Emperor.
Everything else you can study on our psychology courses.
How can Tarot be adapted to psychology?
I talk about this and show it in practice on our course “Tarot Without Fortune-Telling. A Journey to the Self”.
Anna Oleksandrivna Shyman, psychologist, course tutor.
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