Archetype Cards

Rating:
Summary: The Essential Archetype Card Collection
Review: "..archetypes are not passive entities floating around in the psyche like old family portraits hanging in a dusty ancestral castle. They take an active role as guardians and inner allies, awakening you when you're in danger of falling into destructive behavior." ~Caroline Myss

Caroline Myss has created an 80-card deck with an instruction booklet. The informative booklet is essential for understanding the Archetype Cards, however choosing the cards was quite an easy process. Within a few minutes you find all the cards you need to understand which Archetypes are most active in your psyche. This can encourage a greater understanding of who you are and your purpose in life.

Everyone has the "Child, Victim, Saboteur and Prostitute (not for sale)." There are few different "child" elements to choose from.

The booklet explores the meaning of each card, but I really think the cards will jump out at you when you see your inner world unfolding in pictures. When I went through the entire pack for the first time, I ended up with two extra cards. Once I thought about it a bit more, I took out the two extra cards and finally had the correct cards.

My cards turned out this way:

1. Child - Magical/Innocent Child - Sees the potential for sacred beauty in all things. The belief that everything is possible.

2. Victim - This Archetype reveals areas where you might allow yourself to be victimized. Also deals with forming personal boundaries.

3. The Saboteur - Fears related to self-esteem that might cause you to block your own empowerment and success.

4. Prostitute - Not what you think, but rather it means that you are "not for sale." This shows your need to birth your self-esteem.

5. Teacher - Love to communicate richness of experience.

6. Poet - Finds beauty in life and tries to express soul insights in symbolic language.

7. Lover - Passion and devotion to someone or something. (Um, Amazon? lol)

8. Goddess - Nature, life force, etc. This can also manifest itself in extreme self-indulgence. Caroline also shows the "shadow" versions of each Archetype.

9. Healer - Transforming pain into healing.

10. Damsel - Explores the possibility of succeeding without a knight and looking at romance in a healthy way.

11. Angel - A desire to help those in need.

12. Artist - Seeing life symbolically. Expressing a dimension of life that is beyond the five senses.

After using this card deck to understand my light/dark qualities I can now try to avoid the negative aspects by emphasizing the positive traits. This all makes sense even if you didn't make a sacred contract before arriving on the planet.

If you study these cards, you will find yourself analyzing people. Yep, Virgo, that is what we do. I recently told someone not to be such an energy vampire. Although, maybe that is my own inner Vampire making me aware that someone is draining my life force. That was one of the cards I took out of the pack at the start.

If you are looking for a companion to the cards: Caroline Myss' Journal of Inner Dialogue will impress you.

Caroline has been a part of my "birthing of the self" in a big way and I think she has some interesting items that are healing and entertaining.

Once you find your Archetypes, you can make notes in your journal and really start to understand who you are and why you are walking this earth.

~TheRebeccaReview.com

Rating:
Summary: Another Use for These Cards
Review: I use them for creative writing. They're perfect for short stories or screenwriting. Shuffle the deck and then pick 2, 3, or 4 archetypes and you have the basis for your characters! For example, the "Vampire" archetype could be a lawyer, a lover, or even a literal vampire.

You can put them into a setting, scene or conflict, or just freewrite and see where they take you. This is exactly the kind of writing tool I've been looking for. I tried using tarot cards but with 74 "characters" (versus the 22 Major Arcana of the tarot), there's a lot of possibilities.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Deck
Review: My interest in archetypes and how they are presented in tarot decks is what drew me to this particular deck. I wanted to work with something that dealt with pure archetypal energies and so was quit drawn to give Myss's cards a try.

At first I was a little put off by the abundance of red coloring and also the cover picture is not the best the deck has to offer. I read a review here though and the reviewer mentioned the very items I was concerned with but also had many wonderful things to say about this deck.

The cards are sturdy and durable, the colors vibrant and alive. The artwork and symbolism reflects beautifully the energy of each of the cards titles. The Light (positive and helpful) and Shadow (negative, problematic, challenging) notations on the cards give a rich spectrum of meaning to the archetypical energy they describe.

This deck is a wonderful tool for self-awareness and development. Spending some time and reflection on each card, is a great way to let those parts of you that wish to be acknowledged and heard come to the forefront. If there are particular aspects of yourself you?d like to develop, or make stronger, working with this deck can aide in that endeavor.

A simple reading you might like in using these cards follows:

The Problem or Challenge Solver: When you have a particular small ?now? problem that you?d like insight into, here is a very simple three-card spread.

Draw three cards at random and lay them out in a row left to right.

Card 1 represents the problem or the energy that is fueling the problem.
Card 2 represents the way through the problem and the energy that
can guide and support you.
Card 3 represents the probable outcome or where this can possibly go if the energies are fully supported and encouraged

There are several situations when this reading is appropriate.
Some of them are:
1.When you feel like ?something? is amiss in a situation, but you can?t put your finger on it.

2.You think you know what the problem is but it is something else entirely.
3.It can confirm for you what the problem area is when you already had some idea to begin with.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Deck
Review: My interest in archetypes and how they are presented in tarot decks is what drew me to this particular deck. I wanted to work with something that dealt with pure archetypal energies and so was quit drawn to give Myss's cards a try.

At first I was a little put off by the abundance of red coloring and also the cover picture is not the best the deck has to offer. I read a review here though and the reviewer mentioned the very items I was concerned with but also had many wonderful things to say about this deck.

The cards are sturdy and durable, the colors vibrant and alive. The artwork and symbolism reflects beautifully the energy of each of the cards titles. The Light (positive and helpful) and Shadow (negative, problematic, challenging) notations on the cards give a rich spectrum of meaning to the archetypical energy they describe.

This deck is a wonderful tool for self-awareness and development. Spending some time and reflection on each card, is a great way to let those parts of you that wish to be acknowledged and heard come to the forefront. If there are particular aspects of yourself you'd like to develop, or make stronger, working with this deck can aide in that endeavor.

A simple reading you might like in using these cards follows:

The Problem or Challenge Solver: When you have a particular small "now" problem that you'd like insight into, here is a very simple three-card spread.

Draw three cards at random and lay them out in a row left to right.

Card 1 represents the problem or the energy that is fueling the problem.
Card 2 represents the way through the problem and the energy that
can guide and support you.
Card 3 represents the probable outcome or where this can possibly go if the energies are fully supported and encouraged

There are several situations when this reading is appropriate.
Some of them are:
1.When you feel like "something" is amiss in a situation, but you can't put your finger on it.

2.You think you know what the problem is but it is something else entirely.
3.It can confirm for you what the problem area is when you already had some idea to begin with.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Deck
Review: The cards are 5 1/2 inches long and 3 1/2 inches wide. I have very small hands and have no trouble shuffling this deck. There are 74 Archetype cards, and 6 blank cards. The edges of the cards are rounded, and boasts over 63 border colors.

Yes, you read right--63 border colors. Each card front has 3 elements: a center image enclosed in an octagon, a pale yellow partial circle enclosing the center image, and a colored border on the top and bottom of the card. As I began to work with these cards, I realized that there were many shades to the borders. I counted 8 different shades of brown, 17 shades of green, 14 shades of blue/purple, 4 shades of pink/mauve, 8 shades of orange/yellow, 9 shades of red, 3 black borders, and 2 unusual border colors like steel gray (Mediator) and plum gray (Engineer). Each border color has an imbedded etched design that's a shade lighter than the border color and is the same etched design that's on the box.

Talk about rich! When trying to find the words to describe some of the borders, I thought I'd have to dip into my son's crayons! Here are just a few of the border colors: earthy taupe, creamy tangerine, midnight blue, olive green, deep mauve, teal, sienna, honey, moss, chocolate, lavender, sky blue, forest green, amber, indigo, sand, seafoam green--it's enough to make your mouth water! (By the way, I just made up most of those color names based on what they looked like to me.) There are 6 blank cards that are bordered with the same bright red as the box, although the border is more narrow. The octagon in the center is blank for you to make up your own Archetype cards, and, as with the rest of the deck, contain the scripts "Light Attributes" and "Shadow Attributes".

Accompanying this deck is a 105 page Guidebook that is the same size as the cards. You need not to have read Caroline's book Sacred Contracts to use this deck, because the Guidebook gives you the mini-version of her take on the 4 survival Archetypes common to all (Child, Saboteur, Prostitute, and Victim), Archetypes in general, and even questions for self-examination in determining Archetypes that play a major part in your life.

Some card examples: The Poet is a profile of an African-American woman with glasses. As she speaks, a pair of doves seem to fly from her mouth. The Guide is a women dressed in royal blue, and she blends in with the blue background. An owl is perched on one hand, and a latern is held in the other. This card reminds me of The Hermit in traditional Tarot. The Rebel is what looks to be a teenage girl, sitting upon a sofa that's perched on a tree trunk. The Detective is a woman with a book to her face, peeping out of a hole in the cover. The Addict is a man pushing against a tidal wave, the Bully is a blustering, blowing storm cloud, and the Destroyer is an erupting volcano. The Rescuer features a woman in a boat, about to throw a heart-shaped life preserver overboard. The Dilettante features a 5-armed woman, which is a very accurate way to look at the "jack of all trades, master of none" aspect of this Archetype. The Prostitute is reminiscent of Demi Moore's character in Indecent Proposal, especially as a nude woman covered with money.

A deck this universal could be used for divination, daily meditation, writing (character development), etc.

This is an outstanding deck in terms of size, construct, artwork, color, and Archetypal accuracy. If you're interested in the subtle nuances of Archetypes and how they play out in your life, or if you're interested in better understanding yourself and others, I would recommend this deck.

Rating:
Summary: Not Enough Information Included - New Issue Coming Out
Review: The editorial description, and the box containing these cards, seem to indicate that they may be used indpendently of Ms. Myss' other works... that there are instructions for using "...the cards to help determine which Archetypes are most active in your psyche, and how they can lead you to achieve greater insights into your life."

I did not find that to be the case.

The tiny booklet included with the cards contains detailed descriptions of the archetypes that are written on the cards themselves. The book advised the user to review IT (and not the cards) to determine the 12 archetypes most active in one's psyche. But neither the book, nor the cards, provide any information on how this knowledge will lead the user to any additional insights.

For instance, in Ms. Myss' book "Sacred Contracts" there are references to using one's 12 personal archetypes to create a natal wheel or chart, to see which archetype most influences one of 12 specific areas of one's life - thus leading to increased knowledge of how one should address issues in that area of life.

Apparently there are also instructions in Ms. Myss' book(s) about using the cards to do "spreads" on the "12 Houses" chart to observe how one's archetypes influence a specific current situation.

NO INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUCH "READINGS" OR FOR FURTHER INTERPRETATION/INSIGHT ARE PROVIDED WITH THIS SET OF CARDS.

The publishers have a NEW set of cards coming out, which seems to includes the "12 Houses" chart and instructions - it is called "Sacred Contracts: The Journey" and if you are looking for a set of cards to guide you in personal introspection, or with which to do "readings", I believe you would be better advised to purchase that.

If you already own Ms. Myss' books and are comfortable with the information presented on archetypes, and are looking for a set of cards with which do do the "spreads" she describes, then these cards are EXCELLENT. They are beautifully illustrated, and the concise light/dark attribute information presented on each will surely be enough information for that use. They are a bit large to be shuffled comfortably, but they seem very durable.

But as a stand-alone product, I was very disappointed. ... I wrote to the publisher asking about the use of this set of cards, since the little booklet included gives NO mention of using them at all, and was told, "The way the cards work is you're basically supposed to read through them and see which one applies to you."

As there is hardly ANY information on the cards themselves, and more in the tiny booklet (which should cost less than five dollars), I'd advise you not to waste your money on this set for stand-alone use, and look to one of Ms. Myss' books, or the newer set of cards, or a combination of a book AND this set of cards, as better tools.

I do not feel that this deck can be used alone for any "insight" or practical application. I do not own Ms. Myss' other books, but was able to glean enough information from her own website ( http://www.myss.com/Chart.asp ) and from "seeing inside" the books here at Amazon to note that there would seem to be something missing, application-wise, from this deck.

You will note that other reviewers made up their own ways of doing readings or interpreting the cards, and if that suits your purpose, fine; but these cards do not seem to fulfill Ms. Myss' purpose of helping users to determine their personal archetypes to increase their knowledge of themselves - UNLESS you own her other works, in which case they are neat, which is why I gave them three stars. As a stand-alone product I would have rated them with one.

Rating:
Summary: Remarkable ... profound!
Review: Whether you are a counselor, therapist, psychic, or are exploring your own interior landscape, these cards will help you move past superficial analyses and solutions to the core!

Inspired by Carl Jung's psychologically rich concept of archetypes and the collective unconscious, this deck describes the positive and negative characteristics of 80 elements of the psyche which transcend culture and time, which are, in a word, universal.

Just thumbing through the cards filled me with goosebumps as Ms. Myss showed me positive or negative characteristics of elements of my own nature that I hadn't recognized till now ... elements that I have been struggling with as negative, or depending on as positive, without seeing the opposite side and allowing them to operate three dimensionally in my life.

These cards can easily be used for formal readings, as with the Tarot, or by simply pulling a card to see what archetype is working in a particular situation ... they are as surprising and inspiring and downright useful as the Creative Whack Pack, and as easy to use, because all the information you need is right there on the card!

If you want to hone your abilities to reach profound psychological depths, go straight to the shopping cart button ... do not pass go ... do not collect $200!