Sigmund Freud has been credited for establishing personality theory in the early 1900’s, the age of modernity where rationalism and a scientific approach was the prevailing mode of thought throughout the western world. Perhaps, though, there have been other times in history when educated minds have considered personality types, traits and origins. Although the middle ages had erased much of accumulated civilized knowledge, at least one source has survived: the tarot deck.
It is believed that tarot cards date beyond ancient Egypt (Sadhu, 1962). When the Egyptians were in danger of being conquered by the Persian Empire, they wanted to insure their accumulated wisdom would be preserved. Stories within the bible itself contain references directly identifiable to tarot cards, such as The Tower, Strength, and Judgement. This paper will focus on the sixteen court cards, the Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess (or in other decks the King, Queen, Knight and Page) of each of the four suits – Wands/Batons, Cups, Swords and Disks/Pentacles/Coins. In readings, the court cards usually represent people – spouses, relatives, friends and other important figures in our lives (Cavendish, 1975).
The suit of the court cards as well as the member role form the two dimensions of the calculated personality. Interestingly, both represent one of the four elemental forces manifesting the personality and so two elements are combined, identifiable by certain traits symbolized in the element. The suits actually represent the piece of human technology associated with mastery over the particular element; so the wand represents mastery over fire in the form of a torch, a cup can hold the element of water, and so on. Similarly with role, Knight represents fire, Queen water, Prince air and Princess earth (I will stick to the Aleister Crowley definitions for simplicity, but it is worthwhile knowing that the suits and court cards vary between deck types (Crowley, 1944)).
Each element symbolizes a particular theme, an umbrella under which rest many related traits, further refined by the crossing of it with another element. Fire brings with it masculine ideas of aggression, industriousness, persuit with passion. Water is associated with feminine qualities of emotion, sensitivity, love and pleasure. The idea of air is linked to conflict, intellect, instability and ethereality. Earth is solid and tangible, related to tangible practical matters, deliberate and present. With these general ideas in mind we can project 16 different personality categories containing unique characteristics, and compare them with traits in the five factor model of personality. Refer to Table 1 for each court card, it’s list of associated personality characteristics and which ‘Big 5’ trait each characteristic is associated with. Court card characteristics were compiled from tarot guides by Crowley (1944) and Cavendish (1975).
Not every characteristic translated over into a five factor trait, and all categorizations are not absolute. I did not attribute characteristics that were overly ambiguous such as ‘discrete’ or ‘thoughtful’ since they could equally belong to more than one category. Other characteristics, such as ‘subtle’ did not seem to fit in to any category. Still others do not seem to be characteristics in the psychological sense, but perhaps may be telling of a particular way that personality theory may be lacking: in terms of the physical, kinesthetic movements. Specifically, the Knight of Disks is described as ‘slow’ and ‘clumsy’, the Prince of Wands as ‘swift’, the Princess of Wands is ‘quick’, Princess of Cups ‘gentle’, the Princess of Swords ‘subtle’ and ‘acute’. The Knight of Cups and Princess of Swords are both described as ‘graceful’. It would be interesting for future research to examine the possibility of relationships between personality types and body language. If common body language characteristics could be found in people with particular personality traits, this could add to better understanding of personality as well as lead to more accurate trait assessments.
There was also an interesting deviation between Crowley and Cavendish’s description of the Princess of Disks. While Cavendish provided a list of characteristics in similar fashion to the other cards, Crowley went on to describe the personality of this card as “too various to enumerate. She contains all the characteristics of woman, and it would depend entirely upon the influences to which she is subjected whether one or another becomes manifest…In one sense, then, her general reputation will be one of bewildering inconsistency” (1944). Does this mean her personality is continuously changing? It would be interesting to pursue the potential meaning of this statement within the context of personality theory, since it is the common belief at this time that personalities are stable and only subject to small change over long periods of time.
Lastly, coding the characteristics was imperfect at best. Some seeming contradictions, such as having High and Low Conscientiousness traits present in the Knight of Disks could represent an error of interpretation, or perhaps just like in people taking personality traits today sometimes people have opposing characteristics. Perhaps though, it could also indicate a flaw in the current personality trait theory. Further examination could be done to comparing completed pictures of the 16 court personality types and compare them to current data. Is it possible that these 16 cards represent the most common combination of personality traits?
Cavendish, R. 1975. The Tarot. Westerham Press, Ltd.
Crowley, A. 1944. The Book of Thoth. U. S. Game Systems, Inc.
Sadhu, M. 1962. Tarot: A Contemporary Course of the Quintessence of Hermetic Occultism. Wilshire Book Co.
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