The Pictorial Key to the Tarot! A Thinker's perspective

I recently created a few posts on Jung's function types, which include thinking and feeling. However, they are long and dry. The best way to understand the function types is to see them in action, so to speak.

So I thought I would apply thinking and feeling to a topic I feel fairly strongly about, and I think others on AT do as well. That is the importance, relevance, and usefulness of A. E. Waite's book, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, in learning and understanding the Tarot cards.

Because the thinker deals in logical, concrete, definable thinking structures, learning the logical foundation of something, where something came from or what it is based on, becomes more important. Whereas a Feeler deals in abstract, indefinable feeling structures (that can be just as logical!), thus feeling people tend to be able to handle the future better. They don't need some kind of concrete base or foundation to begin learning, they only need to relate to the issue, or to connect to it with their abstract feeling. This is exemplified in a common axiom; when someone is in an unknown situation they say, "they feel their way forward". They don't think their way forward, because they have nothing concrete to think about if they are in an unknown situation.

Feelers want a source of study to help them understand how to use or understand something today, and going forward. Whereas a thinker needs to begin with a source of study that helps them understand what something is, based on where it came from or the (concrete) ideas it was based on.

So with that said I started a poll. (My first poll! )

Based on my assumptions, thinkers will prefer The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, whereas Feelers generally won't find it as useful. (Note: I don't think this will be 100% true though!) I am interested in hearing comments about the importance of Waite's book. But I am also very interested in hearing thinking vs. feeling comments as well, agree or disagree!

My view on Wait’s book is that I found it to be essential and critical in understanding the Tarot. And that is even though I don't agree with Waite on a quite a few fundamental things. I especially find his exchange of the Justice and Strength cards to be annoying. (But please don't focus the thread on that topic alone.) Understanding the foundation doesn't mean I have to agree with it, I just need to understand it before I can move forward. I think there was a reason the Rider-Waite Tarot became an extremely important foundation for the Tarot, and Waite's book helped me understand why (I think! ), thus it was essential in helping me understand the Tarot.

Note: that is not the only reason I like Waite's book. I like his expressive, yet verbally abstract style as well for example. I don't think that a Thinker or Feeler has to like or dislike the book for the reasons I mentioned. But I do think those other reasons would likely be linked to their thinking or feeling as well.

ETA: here is a link to the MTBI poll. At the end of the thread (page 9) I reposted the links to the tests so you can find out your personality type, and thus if you are Thinker or a Feeler, if you don't know.

Click here to view the MTBI poll thread.

Er ... I've managed to muddle along for thirty-odd years without reading Waite ...

that's not to say I haven't read writers strongly influenced by him, but not having read the original, I wouldn't know.

I think Waite's book is a very useful introduction to his deck, and since the majority of current decks have a direct or indirect connection to the RWS format, I suppose the book is important in that sense.

However, if a reader begins to try to find out the source of Waite's ideas, in the end she will discover a series of beliefs. Beliefs, IMO, lie somewhere inbetween the realms of thinking and feeling with a base in both, perhaps. Because you feel something is true doesn't make it true, but OTOH belief doesn't prove something is false, either. What you do with that belief is more to the point. A thinker might try to prove or disprove the belief. A feeler looks for emotional resonance or the lack thereof. I would suppose these things apply to any belief system including Waite's.

I haven't read Waite either. :blush: I vaguely remember coming across a copy years ago but didn't care for the style.

As a Feeler, never saw the need to read it. As a Thinker also, I might if I had the time and wasn't busy contemplating other things.

I've not read it, but I read lots of books.

I am F rather than T, but also huge N so very concept driven. (INFP, with the only mega strong preference N.)

I find I love a strong structure to hang things off, I'm always trying to see the specifics in the context of the general case. But that's my N talking. I have real trouble noticing what's out there (and not what 'should' be out there ) as against inside my head http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/sensing-or-intuition.asp

My F comes through in decision making especially where people are involved not really in how I learn or how I like to deal with understanding things.

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/thinking-or-feeling.asp

So I think it is N that drives this not F for me.

Waite's book???? Who knew!!!

If anyone wants to read it, it is online
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/index.htm

I'm not voting because it's been a couple of years since I read it, but it just made me impatient, often it seemed he wrote about a card without ever having seen it.

AJ said:

If anyone wants to read it, it is online
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/index.htm

I'm not voting because it's been a couple of years since I read it, but it just made me impatient, often it seemed he wrote about a card without ever having seen it.

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Thanks. I just scanned it again (I did look through a while back when it came with my deck) and it seems a bit muddled to me. Didn't I read somewhere that he did that deliberately? (Muddle I mean.)

I also find his style very pompous and that doesn't help!

nisaba said:

Er ... I've managed to muddle along for thirty-odd years without reading Waite ...

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What?!?

You must have a dozen or (many) more copies laying around the house with all the decks you have bought in all that time! You never cracked one? Not even a peek? Surely the creator of one of the most, if not the most, influential deck of the last century, deserves just a little more than that?

Aerin said:

I also find his style very pompous and that doesn't help!

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Agreed! Although I found it kind of humorous. I believe I read that Crowley didn't like him either; because he also thought Waite was pompous and arrogant.

In a strange way though, it also helped me understand him, or at least what he was trying to say. Pompous and arrogant people often aren't that complex, they just think they are. Or maybe I just read his book too many times!