"Man Overboard" on the Steamship Archetype

[Lillie]

The way I see it is that people that don't talk good, but wanna sound edjumaketed say things like, "The Tarot trumps are archetypes..."

But for those of us that speak well, such statements are like fingernails dragged across a chalkboard.

Wow.

If I'd known it was that irritating.....

I'd have said it more often.

 

[Kenny]

If the Majors are not Archetypes then what are they?

 

[Scion]

I don't think it's that they're not archetypes, but rather that the word archetype only describes them partially, and is usually used incorrectly.

S

 

[Umbrae]

I don't think it's that they're not archetypes, but rather that the word archetype only describes them partially, and is usually used incorrectly.

S

Indeed. To state, "The majors are archetypes" turns the word archetype into a malapropism. Or as Dan Hicks would say, “It’s bad grammar baby…”

"(when you say I ain't been lovin' you good)"

Form however, is a much gooder and more comprehensive word.

Now here’s the real gig – if’n we can’t commun’cate well about Tay-roe, howz we gonna do when we be sittin’ down wid a sitter?

Or iz we just repreatn’ da same ole mistakes (Exemplary of the poor scholarship of our parents world? Is that truly our aspiration? Or do we aspirate to something higher? (roflmao))

 

[frelkins]

as wikipedia notes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes), Jung himself discussed several major "archetypes," or psychological people-role-profiles, such as:

* The Self, the regulating center of the psyche and facilitator of individuation
* The Shadow, the opposite of the ego image, often containing qualities that the ego does not identify with but possess nonetheless
* The Anima, the feminine image in a man's psyche
* The Animus, the masculine image in a woman's psyche

and there are other literary ones that appear in common myth, like:

* The Syzygy
* The Child
* The Hero
* The Great Mother
* The Wise old man
* The Trickster
* The Puer Aeternus (Latin for "eternal boy")
* The Cosmic Man
* The artist-scientist


Do these not all appear in Tarot Trumps -- in fact, don't some cards perhaps contain a couple in their recognized meanings?