As we enter a new age where our world is growing bleaker and more stagnant, individuals have found a potential of hope and change residing within themselves. If the collective decides to remain ignorant and apathetic, it’s up to the individual alone to open their eyes, mind, and heart to create any indication of significant growth.
The esoteric and spiritual has constantly evolved and developed throughout time. Now more than ever, we have access to countless thoughts and ideas spanning across influential minds and movements. Although many topics can be quite similar and interchangeable, I want to bring attention to the Enneagram and the Tarot. Both are quite mysterious in their origin stories, but through their journey they have been picked up and dissected by many different people who attempted to listen to what they may have to offer.
Rather than predicting events in the future, the Tarot offers us a map of the collective unconscious. This deck of 78 cards exhibit symbolism and numerology to be channeled by a reader and spoken to a querent. Each card incorporates energy of an archetype, and indicates a journey in which the Ego constantly battles with the mind, body, heart, and soul. There could be a hint of ‘magic’ tossed into the cards, but realistically the collective will experience each card at least once in their lives, if not several cards in one day. A reading then becomes an act of synchronicity, and brings awareness to an individual where they may be falling into a pattern.
An individual’s pattern is quite unique, though, and this can be shown through the Enneagram. The personality can theoretically be divided into 9 distinct types. Each person falls into one core type, which then has a wide range of health levels, ‘wings’, ‘fixes’, and instincts. The types are divided into many different triads, first starting with body, heart, and head centers. Along with an individual’s core type, one can also have a ‘wing’, which is one of the two numbers adjacent to the core. Whichever number it leans on most can show a different flavor of that core type. To add more spice, an individual can also have two other ‘fixes’ accommodating their type, which are numbers that reside in the other two centers not included as their core. And just for icing on the cake, there are three instincts (social, sexual, and self preservation) that can make a complete typing feel unique – one in which we are dominant, one as our secondary, and one playing the role of a blind spot. Once these can be identified, individuals now have a map to their own unique unconscious patterns.
The work to the Enneagram doesn’t just stop with the Enneagram. It’s great to know all of these fancy terms and see where you or people you know fit into it all, but at the end of the day it will just reveal to you how stuck you are in a pattern. Your Personality tries its hardest to get what it wants, but it thinks its only vehicle to do so is your Ego – because it’s easier that way. In the end, it will all feel very unsatisfying and empty unless we engage in what our soul is really asking for. It’s a lifelong, necessary conversation with yourself in order to become aware of your pattern and lead your soul back to your body. Tarot can be a great messenger for this.
Tarot cards will continue to adapt with time, but they could also adapt with types of people, and the Enneagram may have shown this. With Tarot guiding individuals on their journey to becoming more aware and present, the Enneagram does the same job, but it also considers the roadblocks apparent in each type that may not speak to the others. So, if one card is pulled and has a message regarding negative thought patterns, a body type is going to have that card resonate differently than a heart type. If a card talks about being concerned with ones energy, it will also have different advice for a social-dominant person than it will with a self preservation-dominant person.
There are many interpretations of the Tarot, but I’ve noticed that a person’s type can influence their interpretations, and therefore reflect personal struggles within the cards’ possible meanings. Although this brings plenty of great insight and possibilities, it may not speak to the collective as much as it does the interpreter’s type or similar type combination. So, I intend on working with what each of the 78 cards may look like through the lens of the 9 types, and considering here and there if it may be speaking to other Enneagram factors. I'll be updating my discoveries on this blog.
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