Tarot 101: Using Personality Types to Understand Court Cards
One of the ways we might read court cards, as I discussed in the previous part of my Tarot 101 series, is to look at them as people. A pulled tarot card might represent yourself or someone in your life, or you might even choose to select a court card as a signifier to intentionally represent yourself or someone else in a reading. But how do you choose? We can personalize and analyze the qualities of each card to understand how a selected court card might represent one person or another, but one interesting way of attaching personality these cards that has been discussed is using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test.
What is Myers-Briggs?
By Jake Beech - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test (MBTI) is a “personality inventory” test used to make Carl Jung’s psychological research “understandable and useful” for people (Myers & Briggs Foundation). The test asks subjects to identify preferences based on the four dichotomies from Jung’s theories:
Favorite world - used to define Extraverted (E) or Introverted (I) personality types
Information - used to define Sensing (S) or Intuition (N) personality types
Decisions - used to define Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) personality types
Structure - used to define Judging (J) or Perceiving (P) personality types
When the result of each of these dichotomies is defined, a personality type is expressed in a four character “code” (Myers & Briggs Foundation).
(You can take the MBTI test here.)
What About Court Cards?
There are sixteen possible MBTI personality types (you can learn more about each type from the Myers-Briggs Foundation here). There are also sixteen court cards in a standard tarot deck with four face cards in each suit. The personality types can be more broadly attached to suits overall. For instance, Wands and Cups are both intuitive (N) suits, but wands are thinking (T) while cups are feeling (F). Swords and Pentacles can be paired in the same way. Both Swords and Pentacles are sensing (S) suits, but Swords are thinking (T) while Pentacles are feeling (F) (TarotX).
Using the MBTI personality codes can help us understand the ways that the suits interact with in a deck and how the different court cards differ from one another. As an example, we can look at the Knight of Wands and the Knight of Cups. Both intuitive individuals, but the Knight of Wands takes more time to think logically while the Knight of Cups is more considerate of people’s feelings and emotionally driven consequences.
It is also useful for breaking down stereotypes that are often embedded in the court cards, such as masculine power over feminine individuals with the implication that the Kings are move valuable cards than the Queens. (Plot twist: they’re equally capable and powerful cards, they just operate differently.) All MBTI personality types are equally valuable, and the court cards are too. Personality types of Individual Court Cards
Suit of Wands
Page of Wands - INTP
Knights of Wands - ENTP
Queen of Wands - INTJ
King of Wands - ENTJ
Suit of Cups
Page of Cups - INFP
Knights of Cups - ENFP
Queen of Cups - INFJ
King of Cups - ENFJ
Suit of Swords
Page of Swords - ISTP
Knight of Swords - ESTP
Queen of Swords - ISTJ
King of Swords - ESTJ
Suit of Pentacles
Page of Pentacles - ISFP
Knight of Pentacles - ESFP
Queen of Pentacles - ISFJ
King of Pentacles - ESFJ
Knowing your own MBTI personality type (or other’s) can be useful for getting a deeper understanding of the way court cards function should you choose to read them as people. It can also help you select signifiers by selecting the card that matches your particular personality type or selecting a card with a personality type you’d like to embody. For instance, if you are INTJ (Queen of Wands), you may choose to signify that you want to be more extroverted by placing an ENTJ (King of Wands) card.
Understanding and using MBTI tests and types and understanding Jung’s theories (which have been used to develop modern understandings of tarot and shadow work) is one way that you can continue to deepen your readings and give yourself more resources for approaching readings beyond card keywords.
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Sources:
“16 MBTI Personality Types in Tarot Court Cards.” TarotX, 13 Mar. 2020, tarotx.net/16-mbti-personality-court-cards/.
“MBTI Basics.” The Myers & Briggs Foundation - MBTI® Basics, www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/.
More Tarot 101: Welcome to Tarot / The Story of the Major Arcana / Card Keywords / Choosing a Deck / Practice Makes Perfect / Bonding with Your Deck(s) / An Introduction to Court Cards / Methods of Reading Court Cards / Using Personality Types to Understand Court Cards / Tarot Journaling