As the man who coined the terms collective unconscious and synchronicity, Carl Gustav Jung has been a mega-influence not only in the fields of psychology and human consciousness, but also in the in the world of tarot readers, psychics and mystics alike.
His ideas, though not directed at Tarot, have certainly shaped how many readers see the cards.
Tarot readers often describe the images from the deck in terms of archetypes, a concept thoroughly examined and expounded upon by Jung.
And the whole process of tarot reading itself might be described as ‘intended synchronicity’. We’re actively creating a meaningful, acausal event meant to access information from the unconscious.
Though Jung doesn’t mention Tarot at all in the clip below, it’s well worth watching anyway.
It’s from a BBC interview in 1959. In it Jung talks about fear, time, space, death and why it’s so important for us to know ourselves as best we can.
It’s part 4 of 4 and starts mid-conversation. If you’d like to see the others parts, links are posted below.
