Archetype

An archetype is a universal pattern of human experience that recurs in myths, dreams and stories across all cultures, according to the concept developed by Carl Gustav Jung. In tarot, the Major Arcana are interpreted as archetypal images: The Empress embodies the Mother, The Hermit the Sage, Death the principle of Transformation. Reading a card as an archetype makes it possible to recognise which psychic force is active in the querent beyond external events. This perspective, spread from the mid-twentieth century onwards, turned tarot into a tool for self-knowledge rather than a device for prediction alone.