The 4 suits of the Tarot and the jungian psychological types

Jungian psychological types and Tarot suits seem to be symbolically connected. The characteristics of the four psychological types are summarized briefly in a sublime way by Jung himself:

• Sensation is that psychological function which, through the senses, tells us that something exists;
• the Thinking function tells us what it is;
• the Feeling evaluates or judges what it is worth for us. (eg: if it is a right or wrong thing, if it is a “good” or “bad” thing, etc.);
• Intuition tells us what are the possibilities beyond the reality we perceive with senses, in what directions it could move.

Psychological Types and Tarot

As a matter of fact, there are several symbolic elements that allow us to assign a Tarot suit to each “type” or psychological function. In summary, the associations between Tarot suits and psychological types are as follows:

• Pentacles – Sensation
• Swords – Thinking
• Cups – Feeling
• Wands – Intuition

It is interesting how the four suits lie in a disorderly way on the table of the Bateleur or Magician, only to find themselves arranged in an orderly way in the most powerful Arcanum, that of the World. The World corresponds to the Jungian Self, the unifying center of consciousness and unconscious.

In the World Tarot the pentacles corresponds to the ox, the sword becomes the eagle, the feeling is related to the angel, and the lion is associated to wands (as a solar animal, therefore associated with the fire element of wands).

Find out your psychological type!

Each of us is a particular psychological “type”, in the sense that only one of the four functions predominates in us, while the others, with different degrees of development, lie partially or almost totally in the unconscious.

Those “inferior” functions are precisely the energies that popolate our dreams! In other words, if we are “Thinking” types we will tend to dream of events or characters that engage our unconscious function of “Feeling” and vice versa. Similarly, the dreams of the “Intuitive” types will be full of sensorial aspects.

To complete the picture, there is a difference between extraverted and introverted types, so that we will have a combination of eight types (extraverted or introverted thinking, and so forth).

Do you want to find out what your psychological type is? There is a very well structured online test that allows you to discover your type: you can fill it out by clicking here!