TWEAKING TAROT INTERPRETATION

A reminder ….

. panopticonsRus .

This essay is about symbolism, Jungian psychology, Tarot card reading, and other matters. It begins particularly with some background from Jung and gradually segues into a fairly detailed discussion of symbolism in Tarot card reading. In this way, I can imagine it being dissatisfactory for those who are here for one and not the other. However, the topics are not reciprocally incommensurable—certainly more knowledge of Jung’s psychology illuminates Tarot card reading (and thus one’s philosophy of life in general) and vice versa, however seemingly indirectly. Whatever metaphysical claims might be made about Tarot (or Jung’s psychology for that matter), both provide articulate, detailed, and helpful “explanatory vocabularies” for coming to grips with (1) the life of our mind, (2) our lives in general, and (3) the world in which these live and occur. So it may be I must ask for a bit more indulgence when parts of the below…

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TWEAKING TAROT INTERPRETATION

This essay is about symbolism, Jungian psychology, Tarot card reading, and other matters. It begins particularly with some background from Jung and gradually segues into a fairly detailed discussion of symbolism in Tarot card reading. In this way, I can imagine it being dissatisfactory for those who are here for one and not the other. However, the topics are not reciprocally incommensurable—certainly more knowledge of Jung’s psychology illuminates Tarot card reading (and thus one’s philosophy of life in general) and vice versa, however seemingly indirectly. Whatever metaphysical claims might be made about Tarot (or Jung’s psychology for that matter), both provide articulate, detailed, and helpful “explanatory vocabularies” for coming to grips with (1) the life of our mind, (2) our lives in general, and (3) the world in which these live and occur. So it may be I must ask for a bit more indulgence when parts of the below seem unrelated to other parts. Also, to the extent that any of the following has attached and does attach to astrology, the vast number of ways that astrology has been proven as a pseudoscience (at best) may be taken as evidence that astrology cannot be and therefore needn’t be thought of as “true.” This is no news. Jung makes it clear (in his Psychological types and elsewhere, particularly vis-à-vis psychology as a discipline in general) that the criteria of “truth” will always be inappropriate. In the most general sense, human life is not a scientific phenomenon, insofar as it is neither falsifiable nor repeatable, so the matter is outside the domain of science and can only “have reality” as a matter of philosophy (i.e., as something about which we can offer only descriptions of human experience).

Since the beginning of this year (2012), I have set myself the task of reading 10 pages of a book (generally nonfiction) per day. Part of that project has been to read more deeply in works by CG Jung, specifically his three magisterial tomes on alchemy (Psychology and Alchemy, Alchemical Studies, and Mysterium Coniuntionis).

Part of the rationale for reading Jung’s work is selfish beyond the value of whatever insight, analysis, and knowledge they impart. One of the things that I find very helpful in some of the parables from India is how they implicate one during the telling of the story. That is, in the process of seeming to be a mere bystander to the recitation (or reading) of the parable, it becomes clear at the end (or the realization is available at the end) that the listener or reader was not a bystander at all, but actually a participant in the “moral” of the tale. A related claim is that merely to encounter Hindu scripture (whether simply to read it or to hear it recited aloud) induces some degree of enlightenment even when the content itself is unclear (to the listener). I cannot speak to this last claim so much since whatever degree of enlightenment I have gleaned from Hindu scripture (specifically the Bhagavad-Gita and the Siva-Sutras) precisely arose from what understanding I had, because I encountered the texts in translation. This relates to my reading of Jung to the extent that reading his works has an effect that I must count as analogous to that claimed by Hindu parables; that is, reading his work activates imagery in my unconscious. Stuff gets “called forth” as it were. One of the points that Jung makes somewhere (I can’t remember where) is the general distinction between the psychological “needs” of the first half of life as opposed to the second “half” of life (with all due qualifiers to the notion that life can be divided in this way in the first place). As with most things Jungian, he provides an at least reasonable-sounding justification for such a division: that the first half of life (as it were) consists of a process of psychic accumulation, so that the dominant of psychological activity more often is devoted to “dealing with new material” (as it were), while the process to be identified with the second “half” of life concerns itself less with encountering (or encouraging the encounter with) ever new material and more with getting old material out of the way so that experience can continue to “flow” in the individual’s life.  If the first half of life is characterized by fostering sufficient breadth in the life-experience toward building a foundation, the second half concerns not allowing the existing edifice one has built to preclude new experiences.  The problem of the second part of life consists, precisely, in not becoming too ossified, to get overly set in one’s ways, to remain closed off from creativity and experience—in effect, too become so overly banalized with the supposed “familiarity” of every day experience that growth shuts down (or is more than necessarily retarded). In the first half of life, the opposite challenge prevails, insofar as everything is so abundantly available experientially that no growth occurs (or occurs only accidentally) for want to paying attention. In any case, I recognize that I am definitely in the second half of my life and so, if I am going to continue to foster growth, if I am going to continue my path of individuation, which Jung advocates we all continue to the very day of our death, then my process must be one of inviting the integration of material from my Unconscious, and Jung’s work—that is, when I read Jung’s work—has the effect of calling up and activating material in me that, at the very least on selfish grounds, proves valuable to me.

Jung’s contention, which remains valuable even when one might want to claim it isn’t “true,” is that European alchemy (or, more simply, the alchemical texts he researched) may be understood as indicating the psychological process of individuation (and not simply or not only) an often muddle-headedly confused or misdirected protochemistry that continuously failed and could only be of passing historical interest. On this view, the many drawings and illustrations Jung includes are not simply for the sake of illuminating his points; they also stand as living embodiments of the symbols of alchemy itself and so, at least in principle, continue to have the same kind of numinous force that prompted their creation in the first place. Below is (but) one example; the one that “activated material” in me and became the inspiration or point of departure for this essay:

From Jung’s Psychology And Alchemy

For Jung, what he means by “symbol” is very precise (i.e., it refers to something quite specific) and something, if one is familiar with various strands of thought in Euro-American philosophizing, distinct from the usual casual  sense of symbol one encounters. Specifically, a symbol is the embodiment (usually the realization in visual form) of something that is as of yet not known (and perhaps not even directly knowable). A symbol is not a token or a marker for something already known, in other words; Jung reserves the (semiotic sense of the) term sign for that. In common parlance , then, much that gets called a symbol is, for Jung, only a sign (e.g., a nation’s flag is not  symbol for the nation but only a sign).

To continue with this example, one might (with some justification) argue that a flag is a symbol (in the full sense of the word) to the extent that it in fact embodies whatever otherwise vague or unnamable qualities of a nation that one gets attached to (under the name of patriotism). In the first place, we must maintain the distinction that a thing might be used in a symbolic sense even though it itself is still only a sign. However vaguely we might be inclined to state what a flag actually points to (as a sign of governmental authority or whatnot), this vagueness is a function of not bothering to name what the sign signs rather than pointing to a legitimately unknown “something”. Second, it is also the case that that which may have once been an authentic symbol can (and usually will over time) become merely a sign. Jung spares no expense defending (if you will) the validity of the Trinity as an authentic symbol but also stints no criticism of how that (authentic) symbol becomes dogmatically merely a sign in social usage (particularly in reinforcing the authority of the Church). But Jung has further caveats to characterize what me means by symbol (as opposed to sign). The most important of these is that no human being ever “makes up” a symbol.

Whatever material realization we humans accomplish, a symbol is already always our best attempt, our most adequate approximation of a numinous reality we cannot yet fully grasp. The point here is not that Jung is claiming a human incapacity for invention or asserting there can be noting authentic in “concocting” some kind of sign; the advertising industry, in particular, is paid enormous sums of money to create logos that stand in as signs for the corporations they represent. (One can see here how tempting it is to say that a logo is a symbol for a company, but this is precisely the usage Jung’s distinction wants to guard against). Rather, he is pointing to the empirically lived human experience of encountering something “not of our own making” (so to speak) and our subsequent effort to try to embody the numinousness or strangeness or unnervingness of that experience in a visually (or otherwise materially) representative form. This doesn’t mean that each symbol can only be or must always be utterly unfamiliar or “chaotic” jumbles of imagery. It is precisely the contrary, in fact. Insofar as all human archetypes cannot be encountered “in person” but only through a mediated (materialized) form, it follows that the archetypes will appear as symbols and how those symbols are realized will be subject to human creativity, sensitivity, and attention. Thus, to point only to one of the most widespread archetypes of all, the human notion of the Source (out of which each of us, as human beings, originate) has almost universally been described in nearly every culture in the world in the image of Woman (Nature, chaos, matrix, mother, &c). In Psychological Types, Jung goes out of his way to try to separate the notion of our biological mother from the “divine Mother” who is the more adequate symbol for our numinous sense of “Source” or “Origin” than our biological mothers. (This archetype is so pronounced in Jung’s view, to say nothing of other psychologists as well, that despite his call for maintaining the distinction, his engagement with his material permits him to collapse the idea into a hypostatization of “male” and “female” in the anima and animus complexes.)

With this notion of symbol in mind, it will be clearer how the image I included above could function as a prompt, a psychic goad occasioning further reflection. At the School for Designing a Society, two ideas are emphasized that dovetail with the above.  The first is to understand the notion of “composition” analogically, as the image of a society that does not yet exist (or even an image of a desirable society that does not yet exist). The sense here of “does not exist” is arguably problematic, for if it lacked existence then in what sense do we refer to or orient toward it at all? In this regard, Mannheim’s distinction for utopia is helpful. He defines society as simply everything that currently happens—whatever occurs, is (whether society approves of this or not). So in the South for a time, the current operating order of society included White plantation owners who kept octoroon mistresses. Meanwhile, everything that is not a part of the current operating order may be termed utopia (whether it is desirable or not, though most proponents of utopias assert that they are, in fact, desirable and should be brought into existence). Super. What this points to is that utopia has existence in an ideal form even within the current operating order of things. And one might argue (with some justification) that it is precisely by making utopia available to imagination in this way that it is neutralized and prevented from coming about. In any case, even without formulating the specifics of a compositional analogy, one may state that a composition (and thus a symbol) is oriented to or points to something “in utopia” (as a yet to be realized potential). Insofar as a composition in this sense analogizes with a utopia, there can be no question of asking the composer (or establishing in any way) what precisely the one-to-one correspondence (if any) there is between the composition (the symbol) and the desirable society (the archetype) that it analogizes with. One cannot, in this sense, “rationalize” the symbol by deconstructing it or whatnot any more than one can derive the utopia-to-come by dismantling the composition that analogizes with it. In human terms, the symbol (the composition) is all we have to work with, although this does not preclude making further compositions (or elaborating further symbols). I say this with the caveat, as Jung noted, that one cannot deliberately concoct a symbol; such would only denote sign or a logo. And any number of compositions would, for this same reason, fall into the category of sign. (In this respect, it is an adorable “coincidence” that a more authentic approach to approach to embodying a composition—that is, a way to avoid concocting a sign—occurs by de-signing instead.) The difference is in how one proceeds. Confronted by archetypal material, a human being then attempts to find an adequate embodiment for that material, and thus arrives at a symbol; so also the composer, confronted by utopian desire, then attempts to find the adequate structure and sequence of instructions for that desire. The second key emphasis in this follows from the first: a composition (a symbol) is always a point of departure, never a point of arrival. A sign leads you from the sign to the thing signed as the end of a journey (as a point of arrival); a symbol (a composition) on the contrary, precisely because it is already and an only ever partially adequate representation of something, becomes the point of departure for further speculation, thought, reflection, and human experience vis-à-vis that symbol (or composition). In this respect, to treat a symbol as a point of arrival, rather than a point of departure, represents a major blow to our capacity to find our way out of whatever undesirable trap we have made for ourselves (the current social order of things and the current ambit of our thinking) because treating the symbol or composition as a point of arrival blocks off the variety, richness, utopia, and alternatives embodied in the symbol or composition taken as a point of departure.

So, to return to the image for a closer examination: one especially notable detail is the the order of elements listed in the drawing (terra, aqua, aër, ignis—or earth, water, air, fire). Northrop Frye (in his 1957 Anatomy of Criticism) made the remark that science might indefinitely elaborate the number of elements in the world, but that in the human imagination there would forever be only four (earth, water, air, fire). To say there is too much already written about these four elements would be an enormous understatement. These four building blocks (and “ether” as the fifth element, or quintessence, upon which or within which the other four rest) have provided the explanatory building blocks in human culture for literally thousands of years. And the idea is by no means obsolete—nearly everyone is aware of their astrological sign and frequently whether that sign is either earth, water, air, or fire. That “sign” of the extent of the four elements also may be seen in the relentless presence of the four elements in the domain of magic (and thus also divination using Tarot). Earth, air, water, and fire are four (of seven) fundamental elements in most Tantric (chakric) Indian philosophies; they are pivotal in ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, &c. On and on. My own experience with this four-fold terminology comes primarily from doing Tarot card readings for people. And in particular, what activated my imagination here is the proposed sequence (earth, water, air, fire), since this is at odds not only with my own engagement with this series but also the dominant discourse in astrology. It becomes not only an important point of curiosity but also a principled systematic difference that the artist who drew this very old illustration serialized the four elements in this way. To examine why is the purpose of much of the rest of this essay.

Having invoked this stuff, I want to be clear: one may choose to serve (delicious) vegetarian food at a public event because (1) carnivores will not necessarily feel cheated if they have delicious vegetarian food as an alternative, (2) serving vegetarian food acknowledges and accommodates vegetarians, and (3) the choice reduces the risk of exposure to various forms of food allergies that seem so prevalent these days. Similarly, if my claims about the utility of the Tarot do not on the one hand invoke any wu-wu claims about magic, occult phenomena or whatnot vis-à-vis Tarot cards or, on the other hand, pooh-pooh them, this is more for the sake of not courting any of the distracting varieties of controversy in this regard. Just as there is a value to be extracted from yoga or martial arts quite apart from whether one accepts or rejects the metaphysical or spiritual benefits that are claimed by some, the value of Tarot that I have identified over the course of my life does not depend upon any occult metaphysics as well. Just as I said earlier of Jung’s work, that it is helpful quite apart from whether one could ever do the impossible of proving or disproving it is “true,” so too in the present case. Just as Jung insisted when in Psychological Types he proposed the types as (he didn’t put it this way exactly) symbols that connoted, rather than signs that denoted, the individual realities of people, the helpfulness of the four-fold articulation of elements proves a symbolic explanation for life experience, not some “factual” claim.

In Psychological Types, Jung identifies four fundamental, mutually exclusive psychological functions (the irrational functions of sensing and intuition, and the rational functions of feeling and thinking). Given that Jung’s book is more than 500 pages long, it’s not quite feasible to try to offer a summary reduction of what each of these functions gets at, or why sensation and intuition are irrational (one probably readily assumes how intuition could be classified as irrational) and why feeling and thinking are rational (here, the designation of feeling as rational may seem confusing). The basic distinction at work between irrational and rational is that rational functions involve, for want of a better word, a quid pro quo. Where thinking is concerned, we are all familiar with how one is “presented with some facts” and then, based on those “facts,” one draws a conclusion–it i precisely this dependency upon some identified basis that makes this operation warrant the name “rational”. It is to Jung’s credit that he recognized a similar kind of quid pro quo at work in the domain of feeling. (The definition he gives in Psychological Types is fairly astonishing in fact.) In both cases, the point is precisely that one “knows” something (whether intellectually or affectively) and draws an inference from that; this makes both functions rational. The irrational functions, by contrast, do not have this benefit of inference; here, the given simply “appears” or already seems to be and is accepted (as a point of departure) on that basis alone. Simply by looking in any one direction, you will encounter “on the screen of your consciousness” whatever visual data you encounter. Epistemologically, there is no rational ground for the assumption that “because I sense it, something must exist.” Herein lies the irrationality of sensation. Obviously, we constantly proceed from the assumption that this is a completely reasonable thing to do; nevertheless, it is (by definition) specifically irrational, as Jung (and basic logic) demonstrates. With this notion of irrationality in mind, it is easy to see how this conforms with intuition as irrational as well, in part because we are already inclined to dismiss intuition as irrational (e.g., those superstitious cases where “because of a feeling” we do or don’t do something).

So far as I have encountered, Jung does not correlate his four functions with the four elements (his scientific compunctions might have prevented him doing so publicly, if not privately), but it is easy enough to see that the elements (especially in light of the already vast amount of signification accorded to the elements in Tarot) can align as follows: earth (sensation), air (intuition), water (feeling), and fire (thinking). To be clear: it is not that the four elements and four functions must be or should align in this way; rather, as an explanatory system, one can choose to make this alignment and then explore the  consequences and insights (for Tarot card interpretation) that comes of such an alignment.

One might argue, why bother with details about the sequence as earth, air, water, fire—maybe the order doesn’t matter. In fact, order is at least as important as the elements themselves. The difference between helium and carbon, for instance, is a difference in the configuration of exactly the same elements—so structure, order, sequence cannot be taken as negligible. A musical composition in the key of C has (in general) exactly the same elements as any other musical composition in C, yet it is the sequence and structure that makes the specific composition. A poem might have the same words as a laundry list—it is the structure that distinguishes them. Moreover, a configuration or a sequence points less to any relative position of the elements and more to the relationships implicated between those different elements. So it will not be a negligible difference if earth is followed by air or by water, &c.

The sequence earth, air, water, fire is the same as the astrological sequence of signs (e.g., Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries); a sequence that occurs three times (resulting in so-called cardinal, mutable, and fixed versions of earth, air, water, and fire). [For the sake of completeness, cardinal signs are signs that indicate the change into a “temperate” season and are specifically associated with Aries (fire, the beginning of spring), Cancer (water, the beginning of summer), Libra (air, the beginning of autumn), and Capricorn (earth, the beginning of winter).  Mutable signs are those that are “between” seasons and thus participate or change the characteristics of both; these are Gemini (air, between spring and summer), Virgo (earth, between summer and autumn), Sagittarius (fire, between autumn and winter), and Pisces (water, between winter and spring). Fixed signs are those that that are “within” a given season and wholly characteristic of it; these are Taurus (earth, spring), Leo (fire, summer), Scorpio (water, autumn), and Aquarius (air, winter). The symbology of of these fixed signs may be familiar but unrecognized in many Western churches, given that these four figures (in the form of the bull, the lion, the eagle, and the angel) have been co-opted as signs for the four Evangelists and thus comprise a widespread Christian image. When people accuse various Christian churches of “pagan” roots, this is one of the authentic pieces of evidence of that, but one nevertheless finds this symbol in both Catholic and Protestant settings.] In the popularized form of chakras in the west, the sequence (of the first four) is earth, water, fire, air—which is the sequence I originally encountered and have used to date in Tarot card reading as well. [In many, if not most, “descriptions” of Tarot decks, the sequence of suits is swords (air), cups (water), clubs (fire), discs (earth). This is the same order in conventional playing card decks as well; more will be said about this below.]

Sequence matters for the consequences that arise from adopting a a given sequence; it cannot be a question that there is only one right sequence, especially in a domain like this where human values and explanations are at stake. This would be intellectually sloppy were it not for the fact that we can only ever generate a relative adequate explanation, not in some scientifically verifiable sense, but in the moment by moment actual human interaction with oneself or another human being. The only cardinal sin in this respect is mistaking the system for true, in fact—in placing the knowledge I possess about (say) “Taurus” or “fire” as trumping all of the variation of human expression I actually encounter from someone “born in Taurus” or who exhibits a “fire” tendency. Ultimately, the fatuous dismissal by science of these kinds of explanatory systems redounds on science itself, even as it refuses to acknowledge its own epistemology. By definition, science can only strip away every existentially human aspect in order to talk about what is most inessential (on the human plane) about a human being—her material make-up. Physical materiality matters, of course, precisely where physical make-up is concerned (for instance, where medical biology or medicine is involved), but elsewhere it is not merely a non sequitur (e.g., in the domain of psychology or any other domain where existential condition in the cosmos is in play) but proves actually toxic and destructive for the human condition—this is what is meant when people object to “reductionist” explanations, and rightly so. Ont his view, it is completely unnecessary to try to figure out how to “reconcile” one chakric sequence with the sequence of (Western) astrology, though obviously there may be fruitful crosspollinations that come from the attempt. Ultimately, the elements themselves (air, water, earth, fire) are at the very least originally symbols, even if they have since dogmatically reduced to signs by long usage. One in fact might even find it fruitful to look at how the (various sequences of) chakras (earth/sensation, water/feeling, fire/thinking, air/intuition) relate or not to the astrological sequence (earth/sensation, air/intuition, water/feeling, fire/thinking) and to the alchemical sequence in the illustration above (earth/sensation, water/feeling, air/intuition, fire/thinking). [It goes without saying that the proposed terms after each / above are debatable–I’ll even anticipate myself and say that the different configurations one might offer instead would prove necessary to really making the various systematizations “work.” What is clear from Jung’s Psychology and Alchemy is that this very variety of expressions is endemic to alchemy–and explains (in contrast to the uncharitable insistence that this is all just errant nonsense) by the sequences of chakras, astrological signs, and the list in the alchemical illustration above would be different. On the one hand, this can be explained in that astrology, chakras, and alchemy are all pseudosciences, which is tantamount to admitting, again, that we should neither expect them to be true nor to abandon them for not being what they are not. Underneath all of these systems, Jung might argue, are humanly, perhaps even universally, recurring archetypes which each “system” attempts to name with the symbols of astrological signs, alchemical elements, or chakric nodes. In Jung’s Psychological Types, his own terminology for these archetypes are sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. And if I’m using them it’s partly for their flexibility and the intelligence with which Jung embodied them but also, perhaps in a spirit similar to Jung, to avoid the complacent dismissal that may arise when one talks too much about astrology, chakras, or ancient elements. Whatever terminology we use, the psychic functions of sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition are empirically observable, lived everyday human experiences, and imagining that we cannot talk about these things using a vocabulary like air, earth, water, and fire (or astrological symbols, or chakric names) has the tendency of abandoning to the empty sayings of science the “duty” or responsibility of providing such a way to talk about that human experience in the first place. Thus, one encounters no end of empty-headed “scientistic” superstition in the form of “genetic explanations” for human behavior or the pseudoscience of sociolinguistics, which perpetrates an intellectual fraud on people every bit as “untrue” as astrology, chakras, or ancient elements.]

The difference between the sequence in the alchemical illustration (earth, water, air, fire) and the astrological or chakric (ayurvedic) sequences may boil down to a difference in what significance someone accords to each element; i.e., precisely how earth, water, fire, and air might or does line up with Jung’s four functions (sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling) will be not only open to variation (since, on the one hand, there is no question of truth but only thoroughgoing consistency in the application of the terms) but will also (as Jung’s psychological typology suggests) necessarily vary according to the explanatory emphases of the psychological type doing the categorizing. For example, in one prevailing set of symbol associations, air and thinking tend to be linked, while water get linked with feeling; however, with equal justice (and equally often) water gets associated with intuition. Viewed one way then, the alchemist’s progress of “earth, then water” may be construed as a progression from “sensation to feeling” or “sensation to intuition.” If there is any reason to pick one over the other, Jung’s placement of irrational functions together (i.e., sensation and intuition) might signal a preference for the latter. But such a decision is itself a function of Jung construing feeling as rational and intuition as irrational in the first place; a different psychological type would reckon feeling irrational and intuition rational (or neither, or both, or something else entirely, &c).

One thing that the alchemical, astrological, ayurvedic (chakric) systems all seem to agree upon is that earth is the first part of the sequence. A caveat must be offered here. In the alchemical treatises that Jung surveys in Psychology and Alchemy, that which signifies the beginning of the work also signifies the end; symbolically, then, earth occurs at the head and tail of the sequence. This may seem intellectually disingenuous, but not only is the beginning of any circle also the end, the intent of alchemy (as also the procession of time from one year to the next) consists in progressing from manifestation to manifestation, from realization to realization. Thus earth, in keeping with the sense of a symbol I desire to protect, serves as a point of arrival and point of departure simultaneously; more precisely, the moment one reaches a point of arrival, it legitimately should become the next point of departure. There is certainly no mystical obscurantism going on in this. Thus, merely for convenience one might describe the sequence as air, water, fire, earth (or, from the alchemical example, water, air, fire, earth; or in the ayurvedic sequence, water, fire, air, earth). [In the interest of accuracy, the ayurvedic or chakric sequence is not limited only to four elements; the first four chakras do correspond to the “gross” elements of earth, water, fire, and air, but the last three correspond to the “subtle” elements of time, space, and consciousness (or sound, light, and consciousness, or other similar terms). In this sequence, manifestation moves beyond the materiality of the gross elements into the subtle elements, and only then “reincarnates” figuratively and literally (as earth). Personally, I think this extension of the elements in the Indian is especially canny, but Jung’s system in general did not make any genuine feint in the direction of trying to accommodate this. He refers often to the notion of the self, which is comprised of the (conscious) ego and the (unconscious) remainder—and it would be in the unconscious parts of the self that one might further locate these additional chakric elements. Thus, even as Westerns symbolism unfortunately, with its unregenerate literal-mindedness, takes account only of the four gross elements, it nevertheless does not wholly sacrifice its utility or its capacity to be expanded, by those who would seek to, to accommodate the broader explanatory capacity of the chakric 7-fold sequence.]

For the purpose of this post at least, it will suffice to limit the discussion to the gross elements, remembering that (whether one looks at 4 or 7 elements) the notion of recurrent cycles (and the circle) is a wholly central facet of all the systems under examination. Moreover, it could never be a question whether a 4-element or 7-element system is more true or, necessarily, even “better.” In the first place, where Tarot is concerned, the four suits of the minor arcana (swords, cups, wands, discs) clearly correspond to the four gross elements; a simple enough conclusion to then infer is that the major arcana may be taken as embodying the remaining three subtle chakric elements. The fact that there are 21 major arcana (more precisely, the Zero of the Fool as the circular symbol of “all” and 21 progressively embodied other major arcana), suggest that the major arcana themselves may be divided into three sequences of 7 cards apiece. In Jung’s symbology, his focus on the four “gross” elements of psychology (i.e., the observable functions) thus also maintains an agnosticism about the nature of the unobservable (unconscious) “subtle” functions. What is salient here is that Jung does not permit himself to over-generalize the nature of the (unknowable) unconscious functions by analogizing them in some way with the conscious functions. He does not claim, for instance, that there is some unconscious equivalent of the functions of sensation, thinking, feeling, or intuition. This is an important piece of restraint on his part, because in all explanatory systems, which can only ever be incomplete, there is usually the temptation (if not an apparent necessity) to use the available heap of terms one is using to account for everything, even when it is not appropriate to do so. In binary explanations (e.g., to pick one quick example: the notion that everything can be boiled down in human behavior to love or fear), this binary immediately calls up the counter-factual experiences of “fearing what we love” and “loving what we fear”. This love/fear binary cannot, however, account for these counterfactuals and must either ignore them or cram them into one or the other of the available categories. So Jung’s restraint in not using his four observable psychic functions as a Procrustean bed for the unobservable functions of the Unconscious avoids distorting the “subtle” elements of the Unconscious (if we ever wanted to try to extend Jungian depth psychology). [This does not mean that Jung did not offer “names” for the structure of the Unconscious. Certainly his use of the term “self” is the analogy of the highest chakra, and his notion of archetypes corresponds to the chakra variously associated with  “space”.] Similarly, in astrology, although the popularized form of it tends to only speak of one’s Sun sign and the main thrust of symbology covers only the gross elements of air, water, fire, and earth, a more detailed familiarity with the system shows the central influence of 7 planets overall (as also then the 7 gods of the heavens). Given how old and widespread astrology is, and in the main how secretively it was treated as a revealed knowledge, it is probably vanishingly difficult at this point to determine to what extent astrology ever sustained a principled distinction between gross and subtle elements. It is very clear that much of astrology these days has been wholly materialized (even when people use the term “energy” rather than matter). But what this likely means in practice is that astrology will tend to over-generalize the materialism of the gross elements to the explanatory detriment of the subtle element. The avowedly “practical” nature of astrology may also contribute to this tendency to talk about materialities or observable actualities. In alchemy, at least as Jung surveys it, this is obviously the case. Jung expends great care to show that alchemists were, in fact, engaged in a ‘spiritual” process, where some were far more aware of this than others. But in the course of even these spiritualized alchemists, they never had more than four elements and everything that might “properly” be lodged in the domain of the subtle elements is either mystified (as god or the holy ghost of Christ) or various claims are made of elements that “over-generalize” their explanatory utility. Again, the particularly practical emphasis of alchemy somewhat rationalizes this excessive emphasis on the gross elements; there is a kind of sense that one needn’t pay too much attention to the details of any ‘subtle” aspects because it will, in effect, work itself out. It would be somewhat akin to someone doing akido without devoting any attention to the underlying metaphysical or spiritual aspect of the practice, either trusting that it will “come to the fore” itself merely by proper performance of the work, or perhaps even without ever thinking about it at all. The blunt benefit of this notwithstanding, unless we are going to insist that some people just can’t “handle thinking about it,” there is no intellectual reason for hobbling the explanatory flexibility of a hermeneusis just because 4 is easier to deal with than 7, or something like that. More precisely, the very act of “leaving it to god” (or any other obscurantist mechanism) to work out the spiritual aspects of alchemical practice is contrary to the generally rationalist pretense of alchemy in the first place (and thus also generally contrary to any rationalist pretense of any endeavor when it allows itself to adopt an irrationality in its scheme, even to make a fetish of it–as when sociology gleefully admits an inability to define the object of its supposed discipline, when physics cannot define  central object of its study, energy, or intelligence “researchers” admit in a US court of law that they can no more define what intelligence is, much less measure it). However, to be clear, even this generalization (in a context of 1,7000 years of alchemy) can be qualified–the Ripley Scrowle at least (as just one examples) specifically notes 7 steps of the alchemical process, though it is also possible that, by the time of its composition, this 7 had be articulated as the 7 heavenly bodies rather than seven terrestrial/spiritual elements.  [Since this paragraph is already too long, it can only help to add to it. With respect to how alchemists, with only four elements at their disposal, inevitably wound up attributing in explicable categories to things like mysteries and obscurities, Jung can still conclude, “It is clear enough from this material what the ultimate aim of alchemy really was: it was trying to produce a corpus subtile, a transfigured and resurrected body, i.e., a body that was that same time spirit” (Psychology and Alchemy, ¶511).

In this it finds common ground with Chinese alchemy, as we have learned from The Secret of the Golden Flower. There the main concern is the “diamond body,” in other words, the attainment of immortality through the transformation of the body. The diamond is an excellent symbol because it is hard, fiery, and translucent [i.e., water-like]. Orthelius tells us that the philosophers have never found a better medicament than that which they called the noble and blessed stone of the philosophers, on account of its hardness, transparency, and rubeous hue (Ibid, ¶511)

I cite this passage in detail to underline once again the symbolic inversion that culture has affected in the suits of conventional playing cards. There, the suit of diamonds is typically the least valued or weakest suit, while here is it clearly the pinnacle of the progression that goes from spades/swords, hearts/cups, clubs/wands, and diamonds/discs. That Orthelius refers to the diamond as rubeous even discloses why the suit of diamonds would be red.]

To press further into Tarot symbolism: one of the things apparent from Jung’s Psychological Types (it may even be the point of most enduring significance for humankind) is the notion that the 8 types Jung specifically names constitute 8 angles of “truth” that are otherwise incommensurable to any other. Here, the details of the 8 types are not what matters, but only a description of how one arrives at them.

In his pairings of sensation and intuition (on the one hand) and thinking and feeling (on the other), Jung defines each of these functions in terms mutually exclusive to the others. Moreover, while an emphasis by a person on sensation simultaneously affects an antithetical deëmphasis intuition (and vice versa), the same is true of thinking with respect to feeling (and vice versa). So, if one’s primary function is feeling (imagine it placed at 12 o’clock on a clock) then thinking (placed at 6 o’clock on a clock) is necessarily the inferior function. By primary and inferior here is not implied a better or worse but rather only that the primary function is the most habitually developed, while the inferior function is the most undeveloped. The platitude that highly cerebral people often have a very childish range of affective expression (or can’t express themselves at all) is simply a general indication of this observation. It is not, as one sometimes hears, that “thinkers” have no feelings (or vice versa), but only that the relative sophistication, variety, and facility of the primary function far outshines the relatively underdeveloped, clunky, or inept inferior function. Jung adds further that if one’s primary function tends to be extraverted, then the inferior function tends to be introverted and vice versa. Lastly, while the primary function tends to be under “conscious mental control,” the inferior function, being predominantly sunk in the unconscious, typically has a collective (i.e., transpersonal) or “archaic” quality. To illustrate what this might look like, an overly rational person might tend to be seized by absolute childish wantings or querulous, almost petulant demands, etc. Similarly, a charismatic and gregarious person might be subject to positively adolescent fits like “everyone hates me.” Meanwhile, whichever function tends to have the primary role (along with its antithesis in the unconscious), the remaining dyad (sensation/intuition when thinking or feeling tends to predominate, thinking/feeling when sensation or intuition tends to predominate) serves in a kind of supporting role, or as a half-conscious, half-unconscious mediation between the primary and inferior function.

For those familiar with the Myers-Briggs, the above serves to illustrate (to some extent) where some of the famous letter combinations (like INFP, ESTJ, INSP, &c) come from. If one is an intuitive (N) as opposed to an sensing-type (S), then the rational functions (thinking T, and feeling F) will be the support functions for the primary N, hence the NT or the NF (whether this core type is then introverted I or extraverted E and whether it is characterized by perceiving P or judging J thus yields the familiar four letter-dyads such as INTJ, ENFP, &c). What is not yet clear to me, as I’ve not read Myers-Briggs work specifically, is why in their scheme when (for instance, sensing S predominates) that a judging J or perceiving P function comes to the fore (so that one ends up with two more core types, SJ and SP). It is clear from Jung’s exposition in Psychological Types (upon which Myers-Briggs base their work) that he uses the term perceiving as a kind of analogy for irrational, insofar as perceiving types “accept the given as given” while the judging type is more analogous to a rational type, insofar as judging involves making a judgment. But from Jung’s book, it is not clear why this resort should be taken. In Keirsey & Bates’ Please Understand Me, which was another major deployment of the psychological typing schema (based on Jung’s, but after Myers-Briggs) also adopts the J and P distinction seemingly in contradiction to Jung’s scheme.

As Jung describes it in Psychological Types, his reference to 8 types points to the four constellations of functions that result from placing each function as primary (i.e., a primarily intuitive type with thinking and feeling as mediating functions to an unconscious sensing function or NTFS, a primarily thinking type supported by intuition and sensation over an inferior feeling function or TNSF, a primarily sensing type with thinking and feeling as mediating functions to an unconscious intuitive function or STFN, and a primarily feeling type supported by intuition and sensation over an inferior thinking function or FNST) with an introverted and extraverted version each.

In terms of what constitutes “truth,” the difference in orientation between extraversion and introversion proves to be highly significant; Jung even describes it as “fundamentally irritating.” Appeals to experience about this notwithstanding, the issue is that the difference in how “truth” is constructed and claimed winds up being effectively antithetical (and almost never a matter simply of semantics). But this fundamentally irritating difference manifests also depending upon the constellation of one’s functions—someone with an NTFS constellation is liable to find someone with any of the other three constellations irritating as well, or at least perversely determined to misconstrue everything one intends. Even when this difference can be negotiated gracefully, the fact will remain that the different emphasis in the constellation of functions will  tend to yield differences in emphasis when it comes to describing human experience, the world, &c. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the four different constellations of functions (plus their two variations of introversion and extraversion) effectively amount to different dialects.

The purpose of this (perhaps seeming) digression is to provide enough ground simply to explain a difference in the astrological, ayurvedic, or alchemical sequence of elements in terms of whatever psychological type the author of any given version of those series embodied. What is unfortunately but crucially necessary to underline in this is not simply that the apparent differences between the astrological, ayurvedic, or alchemical list of elements is not “merely semantic”. It is clear that all three lists begin with earth, but the next “step” in the sequence varies as air, water, and water (respectively). Presumably some system out there has fire “second”.  This difference between air or water (and even water and water in the ayurvedic or alchemical sequence) cannot be explained away with an argument of the type “well, by air the astrologer really meant the same thing the ayurvedic or alchemist meant.” In point of fact, this might be true if only because one system influenced another, but in general, the internal consistency of one system is not analogous (is incommensurable) with the internal consistency of another. More importantly, the specific shift of emphasis (for example, placing intuition above thinking, or some such) means that what “thinking” means when it is a support element for “intuition” is not the same thing as thinking when it is the primary function. Interpersonally, it is easiest to note this when dealing with someone who places our “inferior” function as their primary. What the intuitive construes as sensation can often be so “loopy” as to make a sensing-type pull her hair out, while what the intuitive-type considers as the sensing-type’s utter inability to get beyond being so damned literal-minded is a source of frequent exasperation. In theological circles, the high dudgeon and ceaseless controversy over literal and allegorical interpretations of the bible can be illuminated in this light. Similarly, the difference between thinking and feeling is so pronounced that thousands of years of patriarchy have now aligned this difference (incorrectly) along gendered lines. Notably, the claim by thinkers (men) is that feelers (women) are irrational, which itself may be understood, partially, as a function of the tendency of primary thinkers to have archaic, undeveloped feeling functions. Similarly, feelers (women) claim that thinkers (men) have no feelings at all, a point of view that again is illuminated by the tendency of feelers to have underdeveloped habits of (analytic) thought. The point of all of this is that the valence that arises from the primacy of one function renders the interpretation of all other functions in the light of that primary—and only other people who share one’s primary are going to be easily inclined to agree with whatever emphases one is throwing around.

All this being said, while the lens of personality type not only defines but also defines where one’s attention is placed (what emphases will tend to be made), one can still say that we all address ourselves to the same kind of numinousness of human experience. Jung was perfectly frank that all evidence points to (and in fact demonstrates) the impossibility of “seeing reality” outside of our perceptions, but he also absolutely accepted the hypothesis that there is some kind of “out there” out there. It is not, in fact, necessary to resort to such naïve realism (or even to take such a hypothetical reality in, precisely, a hypothetical sense). Nevertheless, it would only take a tweak on Jung’s outlook in general—the addition of a sort of quotation marks around certain terms and usages he took as hypothetically worth asserting—to sidestep this unnecessary (and unrealistic) realism.  That is, Jung’s scheme describes archetypes as “forms of thoughts” so whether sense data originates from without or within, the forms of thought in cognition will determine the contents of consciousness regardless. Consequently, similarities or (apparent) analogies between different explanatory schema may be said as arising precisely from the similarities or apparent analogies present in human experiences of forms of thought themselves.

To return to Tarot symbolism, the assignment of “intuition” to air (as opposed to water) would easily be one of those controversial moments. For one, a dominant symbol for intuition is, precisely, the ocean and water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces) are famous or notorious for their intuitive capacities (i.e., are credited with tremendous intuitive capacities). Similarly, the air signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) tend to be associated with reason, though the imputed “ADHD” of Geminis and the “spiritual” detachment of Aquarius make both seem colored by something else besides just “pure rationality”. And this can only be considered the tip of a very large explanalogical iceberg.

More light may be shed on this from another angle, by understanding sorcery as a masculine imitation of female creativity. That is, if the preeminent act of female creativity will be identified in the creation of new life, then this process may be characterized in four stages: conception (air, or in-spiration), gestation (in the watery amniotic ocean), labor (as the willing of the new life to be realized), and birth (as the physical realization of the process of creation). In the artistic act of creation (monopolized in a historical sense and a real sense often by males only) the phrasing I have chosen brings out how the artistic (male-creative) process is a mimicry of female creation: inspiration, gestation, labor, and realization. The process of magic (and thus also alchemy, both in Europe and in its Tantric forms in India) are imitations of female creativity. [And I want to add: prior to so-called civilization with the advent of the Agricultural Revolution, the notion of Woman as Source—the identification was not everywhere always with Woman—made Her the Creatrix of everything. She was, in the most literal sense, THE creator. With the advent of the Agricultural Revolution, this creativity was at first embodied in all of the world-famous images of the Great Mother we still are aware of (Isis, Astarte, &c), but this creativity became gradually narrowed down to the production not of everything but only crops and children. And eventually even this miracle or dignity was undermined as men began insisting that it was they were the creative principle in reproduction because Woman was merely a passive vessel. Even at the height of such sexism, however, no man could deny he came from a woman—certain fatuous myths about Athena notwithstanding. And even the book of Genesis, which is one of the awful pieces of woman-baiting in human history, begins with a covert reproduction of birth-as-creation in chapter 1. In any case, when I say that sorcery is a reproduction of female creative magic, I mean an imitation of that creativity understood strictly in terms of the Great Mother notion of woman, i.e., as an analogue of pregnancy. Moreover, prior to the significant decline in claims to creative power in Woman that the Agricultural Revolution gradually and gradually everywhere brought about, the claim here is not that females necessarily were (or had to be idealized) as Nature herself. It was (likely) more that the sheer fact of women occasionally manifesting the creative power of Nature in a way that no man could (by creating children) made Woman seem somehow if mysteriously closer to Nature (and not necessarily “more sacred” than men). I’d like to believe otherwise; or, to put it another way, I don’t insist on this in order to belittle women or to deny them access to the kind of creativity that human culture could claim for MOTHER Nature. I do think, however, that this closeness to Creativity Per Se established their cultural role in the invention of so many basic elements of human civilization (the inventions of cooking, pottery, the oven, bread). Part of why I doubt that these culture heroines must have been everywhere revered for an identification with Creation is the range of (pre-agricultural) cultures still in evidence where Woman is denigrated (even if because She possesses a terrifying degree of power that Man tries to keep in check or under control). This is obviously an acknowledgment of power, but a very left-handed one.]

In this progression (of Creation or the mimesis of creation through sorcery), the process begins with a preexisting materiality (earth) and then in-spires (air) it, lets it gestate (water), and then through labor (fire) is brought to realization (earth). In a more literal, less magical sense, creation or creativity may be understood as a process of (irrational, i.e., not rationally explicable) inspiration as a “given” of perception; in the presence of this “raw experience,” one then (rationally) assigns a significance to it; with that significance decided, one then (rationally) decides upon a course of action (for materializing the significance) and commits to making it happen; and finally, there is the (irrational) realization of the significance itself (as a work of art, a bridge, &c). [The reason this last step may be called irrational is because, for all the rationales for how to get from point A to point B there is no question but that such a path is not necessary; thus, the adherence to the plan (other than for the sake of the givenness of the plan) is not based in rationality per se. Moreover, for all that one plans an action (a doing) the actual moment of doing itself has a quality of improvisation about it, precisely because there is already a disconnect between our conscious willing to action and how that action actually gets carried out by our bodies or the people we are asking to do things. Even in something so simple as moving your hand can this be seen. I most assuredly may decide to move my hand, but when it comes to actually getting down tot he nuts and bolts of how I am doing that, the whole process is sunk in unconscious habit. As such, this disconnect between “willing” and “action” also points to a moment of irrationality.]

From the early observations Jung offers once he gets around (in Psychology and Alchemy) to working out the details of the alchemical process, the juxtaposition of earth and air is shown to have a particular significance. To the extent that air signifies “spirit,” then the whole process of alchemy is, in some general sense, the liberation of spirit or essence from matter itself. The sheer fact of this transformation (as a mutation) makes quicksilver (as the quintessential air-water-fire-earth substance par excellence) as a sort of capacious master metaphor for the work generally, but there is (nevertheless) frequent resort to images of water to convey the protean nature of the entire process. And then again, if water (the universal solvent) is the master catalyst for change, what is actually being actualized—and that variously may be described (again) as the essence of matter (the stone). Or, if you would prefer, the essence of the stone per se (i.e., its spirit). By definition, between spirit as rational or irrational, one has to say that the heart has its reasons but spirit is a mystery. Moreover, understanding spirit (air) in a sense of wind winds up being a misleading metaphor—we only know the wind by its feel or through indirect phenomenon (like clouds) that we take to indicate wind. But in point of fact, the movement of the wind can only be guessed at or inferred; its operation is perpetually before our eyes, but we don’t see it; and every breath we take is implicated in it yet it is often the very last thing we would think about. [Also, to be more precise, taking the element of “air” to be “wind” may be more confusing than helpful. All matter, all appearances, are formed of all four elements in some admixture. one never encounters the elements in their pure form–so wind itself consists of air, water (vapor), fire (sensible heat), and earth (dust). Thus, the literal materiality is implicated more in water, fire, and especially earth than in “air” per se.] In this respect, air as a symbol for rational consciousness seems somewhat inapt—it is however  legitimate symbol for an “idea” if by idea is not meant a derived conclusion. The particularly compelling reason for this interpretation (in light of Jung’s exposition) is how “spirit” (as the essence of materiality) is implicated in the earth, air, water, fire sequence overall.

But if “air” is not going to be “thinking” and if it is going to stand in the place frequently reserved for “water” (as intuition), then what? For the alchemists in particular, they certainly emphasized something like reason or rationality (the “nous”) or intelligence as the preeminent function—that is, there is a dominant streak of this emphasis throughout the alchemical texts Jung surveys. This makes alchemy have some kind of more or less close association with Gnosticism in general, which (among other things) may be called the suppressed part of western religion; that is, to the extent that intolerant monotheism places a greater premium on affect (c.f., Augustine’s “I believe so that I may understand,” which pegs intelligence at least one notch below belief, even as Augustine was himself no unbright cookie). To say this is not to defame intolerant monotheism; in India, this “gnostic” element found full and uninhibited voice in Tantrism (and the complexly related phenomenon, Buddhist alchemy). This is to say that those who placed a premium on the thinking function might well find themselves in Europe drawn to a gnostic or alchemical calling, insofar as it provides the kind of spiritual outlet that, in India, would go under the heading of jñana yoga (knowledge yoga). Or to put this another way, for a thinking-type (TNSF), matter (sensation) and spirit (intuition) might especially seem an irrational Stoff amenable to the solution of ever dissolving water and transforming power of (fiery) consciousness. In such a scheme, air would likely move down into a dyad with matter (and one could further expect affective ejaculations from such an alchemical point of view given the then inferior function of feeling this implies).

I pointed out before that each of the different constellations is incommensurable with any other because the “derived terms” of each configuration cannot match terms in any other configuration. In this present case, we see how intuition (air) is “suffering” (is being construed as “irrational”) in a way that a primarily intuitive orientation would not make. To see the difference, one need only look at various mystics in the European tradition (or elsewhere, of course). Because “intuition” is so often associated with a “feeling,” this makes sorting out instances of the distinction difficult—for instance, Nietzsche seems predominantly an intuitive (note also particularly how in service to his intuition his prodigious intelligence is devoted). At the same time, one can compare the difference between “ecstatic” mystics (i.e., Maria von Morl, or Jellaludine Rumi) and “contemplative” mystics (Meister Eckhart or the author of the Cloud of Unknowing). [By this, I’m not claiming that this distinction can be maintained so tidily.] In this context, that fire (as the fire of consciousness) ends up as the most crucial function is hardly surprising (nor a demerit of the system). By contrast, in the ayurvedic sequence, the linking of water with the second chakra (the genitals, the belly) anatomically associates with gestation, digestion, acidic dissolution, destroying to create (converting food into nutrition) and of course sexuality. Here, in part because the “subtle” elements (i.e., more spiritualized) are dealt with in other parts of the chakric system, it is not necessary to load this “second step” with the kind of spiritual claims one encounters with air as spirit and the essence of materiality. Even so, that this step involves breaking down mere materiality (earth) for the sake of liberating energy or nutrients still shows a kindred analogy (with the alchemical sequence) at work. Moreover, to the extent that this has anything of spiritual nature about it at all, in more Western terminology it could be likened to the soul (i.e., soul food, soul music), where soul is the diachronic expression of the (synchronic, or eternal) spirit. Thus, where spirit aerates earth preparatory to further transformations (by water and fire, by significance and consequence) in alchemy, soul dissolves earth preparatory to further sublimations (by heart and voice and time and space and consciousness).

In a typical interpretation of the suit of air (swords) in Tarot interpretation, swords have a certain negative “reputation” largely for the association with “combat” or struggle that they tend to obviously suggest. One might (playfully) infer something of a female bias insofar as it would have been men who were  more primarily responsible for sword-wielding, while the (female) Tarot card readers placed a less negative valence on the suit of cups (water/love). Understanding air (and swords) as intuition, then, reconfigures this perhaps overly literalized meaning. In the first place, the sexual imagery of in-spiration (as conception) at least makes a (generally) friendlier stabbing out of the sword, but in a more general sense, since for there to be a new creation what already is must be supplanted or put aside. This need not always be literally the case, but in the economy of the unconscious (or the womb) the new creation starts as an island of exception to the current landscape. In this respect, there is at least some kind of breaking down of the status quo, and this can be signaled with the (cultural) image or sign of war. Perhaps even more particularly, it suggests the hero motif in general, where the (mythologically) male figure goes to conquer, overcome, or slay the (earth or cosmic) dragon of materiality. The unfortunately sexist consequences of this myth are that women have been associated with materiality and men with the hero; the problems of this alignment are enormous, continuous, and ongoing, and far too extensive to go into here in any detail. One can also see in the “sudden appearance” quality of an inspiration how in itself this is already a “miraculous appearance” out of the (materiality of the) world. And as a miracle (or at least a rupture of the typical) simply by virtue of being a-typical, it then has the quality of irrationality (even if after the fact were are quite capable of rationally explaining that irrationality away).

Archetypally, we may say (with Jung) that there is a sequential, near-recurrent cycle of human psychological activity that Tarot symbolizes (or can be used to symbolize). I expect as I read more of Psychology and Alchemy, further details will emerge to deepen this basic statement. For instances, while the stages of alchemical work have been characterized in more than one way, the most dominant forms involved (at least initially) four stages: melanosis (or the nigredo), leucosis (whitening, or the albedo), xanthosis (yellowing or citrinitas, which was eventually dropped altogether), and iosis (reddening, or the rubedo; Jung adds “this word comes from ιός [poison]. But since it has about the same meaning as the red tincture of later alchemy I have translated iosis as ‘reddening’”). Moreover:

Whereas the original tetrameria [the four-step process of alchemy) corresponded exactly to the quaternity of elements, it was now frequently stressed that although there were four elements (earth, water, fire, and air) and four qualities (hot, cold, dry, and moist), there were only there colours: black [nigredo], white [albedo], and red [rubedo].

The nigredo or blackness is the initial state, either present from the beginning as a quality of the prima material, [also known as ]the chaos or massa confusa, or else produced by the separation ([various called the] solutio, separatio, divisio, putrefactio). If the separated condition is assumed at the start … then a  union of opposites is performed under the likeness of a union of male and female (called the coniugium, matrimonium, coniunctio, coitus), followed by the death of the product of the union (mortification, calcination, putrefactio) and a corresponding nigredo. From this, the washing (ablutio, baptisma) either leads directly to the whitening (albedo), or [alternatively] the soul (anima) released at the [previous] “death” is reunited with the dead body and brings about its resurrection, or [s yet another alternative] the “many colours” (omnes colores) [also known as the] “peacock’s tail” (cauda pavonis) lead to the one white colour that contains all colours. At this, the first main goal of the process is reached, namely the albedo, [also known as the] tincture alba, terra alba foliate, lapis albus, &c., highly prized by many alchemists as if it were the ultimate goal. It is the silver or moon condition, which still has to be raised to the sun condition. The albedo is, so to speak, the daybreak, but not till the rubedo is it sunrise. The transition to the rubedo is formed by the citrinitas, though this, as we have said, was omitted later. The rubedo then follows direct from the albedo as the result of raising the heat of the fire to its highest intensity. The red and white are King and queen, who may also celebrate their “chymical wedding” at this stage (Psychology and Alchemy, ¶333–4).

The specificity of Jung’s summary here may make it harder to follow than need be. Nevertheless, it points to three stages (nigredo, albedo, and rubedo, or black, white, red) with the acknowledgment that alchemists gradually dropped a yellow (citrinitas) phase that otherwise occurred between the white and the red. [Note the correspondence of black, white, and red with the standard deck of playing cards–a lingering trace of the alchemical symbolism.] In effect, these three stages may be summarized as involving the preparation (nigredo) of the earth, then its washing (albedo), and its heating or firing (rubedo). One can see in this how alchemy served as an input to the development of chemistry.

When Jung writes, “If the separated condition is assumed at the start … then a  union of opposites is performed under the likeness of a union of male and female (called the coniugium, matrimonium, coniunctio, coitus), followed by the death of the product of the union (mortification, calcination, putrefactio) and a corresponding nigredo,” this is not a step in the process per se, but a sub-step in the process of preparation (the nigredo) itself. Taking this sub-process in a chemically literal sense, if one planned on working on “salt,” but you had only sodium and chlorine, it would be necessary (because the elements are separated at the beginning) to first join them in order to proceed. This process of joining itself reprises in miniature the opus of alchemy in general; it is a mise- en- scene, though one whose end goal is something more like the initial prima material itself rather than the sought after lapis of alchemical work overall. This is why the end result of the process brings back the initial nigredo condition.

That the rubedo involves heating (fire) and that the albedo involves washing (ablution, or baptism) points clearly to the notions of elemental water and fire symbology. Moreover, while an application of heat may most probably have always quite literally meant (in a physical interpretation of alchemy) the use of fire, with “washing” (ablution, baptism, whitening) it cannot be that this means only rinsing with water, but points rather to any use of liquid (cf acid washing). Jung observes that some alchemists took “water” to be the beginning and end of the work—it was their master metaphor—here again, the mere physical thing of “water” is not the principle invoked by the “elemental quality” water itself (fluid, dynamic, changing, dissolving, &c).

In his respect, it is significant that the “separation” produced during the nigredo is referred to variously as “solutio, separatio, divisio, putrefactio”. Here, we have a metaphor of death (disintegration) in putrefactio, splitting apart in separatio or divisio, and the water sense of dissolution in solutio. The appearance of a water metaphor here suggests how some alchemists could have arrived at the element of water (not the physical actuality of water) as a master metaphor for the work in general. With putrefactio, the metaphor is not exactly one of “dissolving,” but of physical de-composition. With splitting or dividing, however, the metaphor is virtually a physical process, of severing, cutting (with a sword or scalpel or chemical implement). The present-day technique of frakking is a very current version of using air to shatter earth (and liberate what is trapped inside). What I am pointing to by noting the variety of techniques here is how they signal already different emphases of approach: those who favor water (feeling-types) may see this preparatory step in terms of a solution, while thinking types may characterize it in terms of a divisio; intuitive types might describe the process in terms of an airy separation, while sensing types might describe the process in terms of an inner capacity for de-composition (a putrefactio) in earth itself.

The helpfulness of Jung’s terminology is not simply that one can file away phenomenon as I have just done; as Todorov noted, the weakest possible hypothesis about a phenomenon is that it can be classified. The strength of Jung’s terminology is that the classification has more explanatory power than simply taxonomizing. For instance, if a sense-oriented alchemist may locate the nigredo in the de-composing nature of earth itself (in a putrefactio), then this orientation should belie also an “inferior explanation” (a supporting piece of “evidence” originating from the inferior function along with this primary assignment to sensing). To put this another way, what would be the (symbolic) participation of “air” in this context of putrefaction; or, in what way do the values embodied in the symbol of air “make an appearance” here. In a literal and empirical sense, air would appear exactly as the gas of decomposition, which would have the appearance of manifesting from out of nowhere. It would seem that there was some mysterious inner presence (in a body) that suddenly makes it bloat, that (of course) stinks to high Heaven (that being its desired destination in any case). The irrationality of this is that if earth is materiality per se, then why posit (all of a sudden) this non-material presence “within” matter. Here also, spirit seems to appear more as flatuus than pneuma. But the point is not to “critique” a view that puts an emphasis on earth (or putrefactio) but only to point to the explanatory utility (or consequences) of saying one is a sense-configured alchemist. Conversely, those who would emphasize air (a separatio), in the first place this begins to blur off into having a sense of an “analytical” (dissecting) approach, but I do not want to follow that thought at the moment. To describe the metaphor in physical terms, air “gets into” the material to be split apart and thus breaks it down. For human beings, standing around in our earliest days, and wondering at the unnerving process of decomposition, great debates might have raged whether the process was happening from without or from within—is it the body itself (the earth) decomposing or something (invisible) in the air that is responsible. Insofar as an airy explanation is rooted in intuitive imagination (with close observation giving credit to or blaming flies for having something to do with the delivery of “death” from out of the spirits of the air), the essential nonmateriality of air, with all of its positive associations about higher realities and “spirit” in the lofty sense, must confront the gross (figuratively and literally) materiality of the rotting body. How, after all, could the “holiness” of spirit (air) somehow “cause” the gross material transformation of the body after death. Here, the inferior explanation is, precisely, that the body itself is fallen, disgusting, profane—here we can see one of the human experiences that may be an input to Manicheanism (or at least the Manicheanism that the Catholic Church objected to as a heresy), which insisted that everything that exists materially is “evil”.

The conventional ordering of the Tarot suits is swords (air), cups (water), wands (fire), and discs/pentacles (earth). These correspond in a regular deck of cards to spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds. It is a seeming piece of irony that the suit of diamonds (i.e., some of the most valued and highly compressed earth/carbon there is) should be generally the weakest suit. There is some very tangential sexism in this insofar as patriarchy had to find a way to denigrate Woman but could not completely erase Her from the picture (since self-evidently everyone originates from Woman). Not accidentally, then, the suit of spades tends to be the most valuable. The word spades derives in an immediate sense from Italian, where it means “sword” or “spade” (i.e., the shovel). This itself derives from Latin’s spatha, while is a “broad, flat weapon or tool.” At this point, there might be a temptation to get into a chicken-or-the-egg argument whether the shovel proceeded the sword or vice versa or, perhaps more pertinently, why the same word should refer to both. But the history of weapons suggests that very many of our most common melee weapons developed (from obvious necessity) out of farming implements: the dagger is simply any knife, the sword was a kind of shovel, the hoe (a stick with a blade on the end) becomes the ancestor of various gisarmes, halberds, bec-de-corbins, glaives, etc. But what particularly matters here is exactly that a shovel is used for digging into, breaking up the earth (a separatio). And lest I be accused of overreading a legible sexism in this, it is worth remembering that the aboriginal word for “penis” and “plow” is the same. (We can be grateful to the aboriginal people for being so forthright and noneuphemistic in their terminology.)

In Jung’s Pychological Types (as distinct from Myers-Briggs exposition of the topic), he would distinguish between (say) the intuitive type whose thinking function supports the primary function and a primarily oriented thinker whose intuition supports that thinking. For either type, however, air (as a symbol) will likely recommend itself as a center or starting point. I suggest this may be why there is an ambiguity between, say, a separatio (what I’m going to call a breaking up or even a blowing up of earth) compared to a divisio (a cutting apart that more resembles, or at least easily shades off into the sense of “analysis” as a dissecting or breaking down). Perhaps it is even sufficient precisely to point out that one is a “breaking up” (intuition) and the other is a “breaking down” (thinking). Thinking and intuition are not, in Jung’s scheme, antithetical (even as they are incommensurable, or mutually exclusive). The presence of one permits the support of it by the other (or the mediation of the primary function and the inferior function). I’m suggesting that a thinking type will tend to raise that primary function to the highest function of her alchemical series—this may be why there are so many alchemists who tout intelligence or reason as the highest of all human capacities (higher even than the soul). In this case, air comes to symbolize the genuinely irrational (the unknowability of spirit) so that “reason” (or intelligence) makes a delighted fetish out of the very unknowability of spirit (air). Where the inferiority of this explanation particularly begins to become visible is when intelligence (the highest function) begins to claim for itself a capacity (by the processes it undergoes) to know this unknowable thing. This is obviously a piece of self-deception; one that arises particularly from coming to mistake the contents of one’s consciousness (and one’s descriptions of reality) for reality itself. To a certain extent, this is visible in eastern philosophy as well, although the caveat that language can never adequately describe the undescribable seems not to be forgotten for long.

All of the foregoing, then, in a perhaps stumbling way, attempts to conceptualize the different sequential approaches one can find in Jungian, ayurvedic, alchemical, and astrological sequences of earth, air, water, and fire. The attempt has been to show how disagreements about what would constitute the “right” ordering of these four elements is beside the point (on the one hand) but also to avoid the temptation merely to say “each sequence is saying the same thing; it’s just a semantic difference”. Within the context of any given explanatory schema, one may certainly critique internal inconsistencies, but the value of other sequences lies precisely in its own different, but still internal consistency, as an alternative schema. and of course, if I am thinking-oriented, then I will not feel persuaded to adopt a feeling-oriented configuration, but neither do I need to. The primary error for everyone consists in believing that their explanatory scheme is not only true but also the only one.

Concretely, the foregoing suggests an addition tot he notion of how the suit of swords (or air) symbolizes.  It’s surface interpretation as conflict may still be useful, but (reading that conflict in a Jungian sense) what is at stake is not a war in the human sociological sense of war, but rather the breaking down of the status quo, the invasion of (complacent, settled) earth that may no longer be bearing fruit. Farmers know the earth must be aertaed (but not so much that it turns to dust and blows away). Rather by definition, this external input is not likely to originate in “the known”–it will arrive precisely with the force of a visitation, an in-spiration.  If it appears as an “idea,” it is less that this is a rational idea (a thought, an idea as a product of thinking) and more like an image, a vision–as something that could in all likely only be adequately embodied as a symbol, the very creation of a new idea in its. THe forms of these ideas are, of course, as determined as any other, in just the same way that every newly fertilized egg is the familiar template of a human being, without in any way making a claim about how that human being will ultimately develop (other, of course, than vague and useless biological platitudes). If we can extract the sexism, then we can see the suit of swords and air as pointing toward the hero’s journey. If this can all be summarized in a single distinction, the difference here is between “an idea” and “a thought”.

Moreover, if this resort will be taken in Tarot interpretation, then the irrationality of intuition must be located here and not with the suit of water. (reading Jung’s definition of feeling in Psychological Types would be extremely helpful for understanding his sense of feeling as rational as well as the underlying epistemology and “knowledge” of feeling). Still more could be added about the consequences of this shift of interpretation for the suit of air, but this is all more than enough for now.