By coincidence or not, there are 16 MBTI character types and 16 Tarot court cards. In tarot reading court cards usually represents people or external forces. Since there is the same number of MBTI as court cards, the next logical thing seems to connect them, I looked online for people that already attempted this and made a comparison table with a summary of how I would interpret these findings.
MBTI character types for each tarot court card based on numerous websites.
From the table, we can see that Queens and Paiges (Princesses) are usually assigned introverted characteristics, while Kings (Knights) and Knights (Princes) extroverted.
In a Summary column, I tried to pick the best matching MBTI based on these four columns. You are right to disagree, there is no correct answer.
One of many ways to use tarot cards to get a deeper insight into reality and what is going around. This article is not meant to be a full tutorial on how to use this spread, rather a quick reference.
Paul Hughes-Barlow introduced me to OOTK (Opening of the Key) spread and instead of repeating all his words, I will just link to books, websites, and youtube channel, check out Useful menu group. OOTK (Opening of the Key) spread.
OOTK spread has specific way card should be cut, depending on the question/problem specific pile is taken and analyzed.
Stack 1
Stack 2
Stack 3
Stack 4
Step 1.
Full deck
Step 2.
Top half from column 4
Remaining bottom half
Step 3.
Top half from column 2
Remaining bottom half
Top half from column 4
Remaining bottom half
Tetragrammaton associations
Heh
Vav
Heh
Yod
Correspondences
Material
Thoughts
Emotions
Personal
Splitting cards and pile correspondences
Card values
Cards
Count
Upwards
Downward
Change direction
Comment
Aces
5
Clockwise
Counterclockwise
Five elements
Knight, Princes
4
Counterclockwise
Clockwise
Yes
Four letters of YHVH
Queen
4
Clockwise
Counterclockwise
Yes
Four letters of YHVH
Princesses
7
Clockwise
Counterclockwise
Yes
Seven palaces of Malkhut
Minor cards
2-10
Clockwise
Counterclockwise
Fool, Aeon, Hanged man
3
Clockwise
Counterclockwise
Three mother letters
Zodiac cards
12
Clockwise
Counterclockwise
Twelve signs of the Zodiac
Planetary cards
9
Clockwise
Counterclockwise
Seven planets plus moons
Card counting quick reference table.
How to choose direction
There is no hard rule when choosing a direction. You can use Upwards, Downwards columns from the table as starting direction, you can also choose clockwise or counterclockwise or go in both directions to get more insights.
Changing direction
Let’s say you have 7 Wands Valour Upwards, you will count to 7 clockwise, you stop on 10 Disks Wealth downwards – you will still keep the same direction and count 10 clockwise.
Only court cards change counting direction. Let’s say you have 7 Wands Valour Upwards, you will count to 7 clockwise, you stop on Knight of Disks Upward – you will change direction to counterclockwise and count 4 to next card.
And don’t forget to include current card into count.
Counting steps
Choose any card from the spread
Decide direction: clockwise or anti-clockwise
Find selected card count in the table.
Count in a selected direction, including starting card.
If you landed on the card that you have visited previously and from the same direction, the string ends.
If you landed on the card that you haven’t visited, go to step 3.
Visual card strings
Using described rules I created a website where you can enter the string of cards and it will display all strings.
You can also press “Random” button to get a random string of cards and observe all relations and different strings.
To get more information about arrow colors and how to enter your own card string into text area, read instructions in “Instructions” tab.
Counting clockwise from each card we can see that there are two independent strings.Looking at the same string as above, but this time starting counterclockwise from each card.
String with court cards changing directions
Landing on court card will change directions. More court cards in string – more often direction is changed and complexity of strings increase tremendously.
Several times found strings with 3 independent strings. Don’t forget to share interesting strings that you find, or if you get string with 4 or more independent substrings.
