This article is about the “good” vs. “bad” form of Ti for INFJ.
Yes INFJs, there is actually a form of Ti which is good and normal for you and then there is the other form of Ti that you go apeshit over and fly too close to the sun with.
Briefly, the two forms of Ti are loosely outlined in my article INTJ and INTP and The Two Forms of Ti.
Now, it is commonly known that INFJs get locked into what is known as the “Ni-Ti loop” when they start to analyze too much and forestall action (or extraversion) to stay in an introverted mode that aids and abets their dominant orientation (Ni).
But, since there are two forms of Ti, there is only one that you have to watch out for that is really bad, or rather, “too good to pass up”, when the INFJ gets a-going into super Ni mode.
I suppose this super Ni mode is a natural phenomenon of the type when it goes to an extreme. Which is to say that INFJ is naturally philosophical and loves to ask the question “why?”
That is Ni dominance for you – it creates a naturally philosophical way of looking at all the pretty things that happen, or have happened, on this lovely Se world of ours.
Since Ni is the opposite of Se, it cannot accept at face value what transpires on this blue-green world of ours. It has to look behind or within phenomena.
Ah, notice I said “phenomena”.
Well, as long as that “phenomena” is people-oriented in nature it is natural and fine for INFJ, because they are in one way or another “people – oriented” types from the cradle to the grave.
It is really when that “phenomena” that they want to look behind and within becomes object-oriented in nature that they go awry.
And to keep it simple, that is the major difference between the two forms of Ti that I outlined in my article on said topic – subject-oriented Ti vs. object-oriented Ti. The former is Aquarian in nature, the latter is Geminian in nature.
INFJs are naturals at pegging people rather quickly into categories. As a matter of fact (or interpretation), this whole typology business is a perfect INFJ playground.
Why?
Because Myers-Briggs (and astrology) is all about “what type are you?” Are you a cat person or a dog person? Are you a black and white thinker or do you tend to take into consideration the nuances of distinctions between things? Are you an intuitive or a sensor? Are you a thinker or feeler? Do you like green eggs and ham? Etc.
So, this tendency of INFJ to think categorically is a Ti thing and it is always applied to people.
Ti Aquarius is basically the question, “How do people work?”
And this is all fine and good and natural.
And it is this form of Ti that an INFJ naturally uses in their daily operations.
And so they get rather good at pegging people, sizing them up, summing them into some category or the other in some system of categorizing people, such as Myers-Briggs.
Categorical Thinking
Well, basically, categorical thinking of any sort is a thinking function job, especially introverted thinking, because extraverted thinking tends to be more dynamic and less static.
But, Ti is basically the question, “what is this thing or person (x) for all times and all sakes, more or less?”
All definitions are Ti in nature because they imply a rather static and circumscribed identification of some thing or state.
Things.
Nouns.
Yes, Ti is THE NOUN in language and thought.
What is it?
Not “why is it?” That’s Ni. Ni is like “why does this thing exist at all? Ni has a bit of a crisis in this Se world of manifestation. Ni basically asks “why does anything or anyone exist?” or more briefly, “why exist?”
Yes, why exist when you could be busy not existing? Why be here at all? Why any of this? That’s pretty much the level that Ni gets stuck at in the manifested world of material existence where essences are all covered over with material particles and shadows and so on.
Where Se says “there is something” and moves on to a judging process to either define what that “something” is (thinking function) or to decide if it likes or doesn’t like that something (feeling function), introverted intuition gets stuck with that “something” and stays with it because, yes, while it is plain as the nose on your face that there is “something” there, why the fuck does it exist?
Why, why, why?
And what?
Now, scientists of the last few centuries have been busy categorizing all manner of physical phenomena into categories, classifications, and systems of all different sorts.
And the basic way they do this is by observing the traits of these things and noticing that some are alike in various ways and thus can be sorted into one class on that basis.
For example, all mammals are by definition warm-blooded creatures. So, if a creature meets the criteria of cold-blooded, then, it is not a mammal.
You see, we have now have the category of mammal and one of the criteria for not fitting into this category.
Anyway, that is more of Ti Gemini form of classification.
Ti Aquarius is not so much concerned with how the entire objective world can be classified into different categories, but, more with how people classify things historically and how they organize themselves into societies of differing customs and practices.
To put it bluntly, Ti Aquarius would be more inclined to study the scientists who were doing all this categorizing over the last few centuries then what it is they were categorizing in the first place.
And they would study these scientists as one branch (or category) of a society and ask how this population of peoples is different from, say, their opposite category of people – the people that take things on faith and have little interest in learning about classification schemes in the scientific-materialist sense.
After all, there are many people in any given society that are not interested in the aims of science. They seek religious doctrines for answers to questions. Or there are people that are not interested in science or religion, but, just want to have fun while they are alive on this blue-green world of ours. Etc.
There are people that want to study what other people do or are preoccupied with. This is Ti Aquarius. It doesn’t want to study the fields themselves or the domains but the people that are preoccupied with that domain.
And then it breaks up human or societal populations into different categories.
Sound familiar? This is basically what sociologists do.
Human systems. The systems that consist of the humans themselves. And all these humans tend to be preoccupied with different things. Societies are organized in different ways depending on geographic location, access to natural resources, their descent or genealogical relation to other societies of close ethnicity (bloodlines) and a plethora of other things.
But, all of these human societies, despite their differences share a lot in common too. For example, all humans need to eat, breathe, defecate, urinate, have relationships of differing orders, mate, die, believe in things, and so on.
However, some humans are more inclined to be breeders than believers. Some societies are more inclined to be one or the other as well.
And so, this is really what I am talking about for INFJ. They are rather natural at using this Aquarian form of Ti. It constitutes an implied Mercury position for them (similar to how Scorpio is their implied Moon position and normal “id function”).
INFJs are naturally inclined and good at studying populations of people and classifying them according to their particular preoccupations, habits, tendencies, motivations, behaviors, and so forth within that population.
They can also compare and contrast one population of peoples with another to see the likenesses and differences between them.
As long as they are studying and classifying people they are OK.
It’s when they start asking the question, “Hey, what are all these scientists studying?” and they start to shift away from looking at the people that are studying the field itself, excluding the human element, and just look at the field, in this case, the field of science.
And there are many fields of science in this day and age of the human race: biology, geology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, fractal analysis, spectrometry…don’t get me started…computer science.
Those are all “hard sciences”.
But, there is a branch of science called “social sciences”. That’s the INFJ natural form of science. Dare I call them soft sciences?
Well, yeah, it’s because they have the “people” element inherent in them. I mean, objects are not social. People are.
Social behavior. How do people interact with each other? How do they live together? How do they organize themselves into groups? What laws do they create in order to govern the human conduct in any given society?
So, law and political science are two more forms of this Ti Aquarius element of social study. Both law and political science study how people govern themselves.
Not how objects work.
Not cold-blooded classification of “things” even if those “things” are actually animals or living plants.
An Aquarian would want to know more about the political and social tendencies of the scientists that are studying those things than the nature of the things they are studying. Or they would only want to know that inasmuch as it tells them something about the scientists or studiers themselves, like, for example, what these scientists are likely to do in any given societal situation when they interact with other “non-scientific” populations. Or how much relative social/political power do these “scientists” have within the society under consideration?
Dare I call this form of Ti that INFJs naturally use “warm-blooded Ti”?
Dare I call it “mammalian Ti”?
Dare I say that INFJs are inclined to the soft machine?
If you need help with any of the INFJ issues outlined in this article, consider consulting with me. I have been helping INFJ’s since 2015 find their way in a world not made for them.
Featured Photo Author: Denish C (photo licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license”)
I like your choice of a pic.
No you don’t. You just think you do.
Lol. Taking notes. 🙂
I’m of the opinion that, despite all of the amazing things that science has studied and discovered, human consciousness is the most fascinating, and possibly complex, of all.
Given that I’m about to go spend 2 years studying semiotics, yes, I agree with the general premise behind this latest nugget of MBTi-tillation.
I’m fascinated by how people relate differently to phenomena (material and abstract) and how this affects their sense of being in the world, but I am also aware that I can’t completely abandon the so-called cooler, non-human side of the spectrum.
I don’t care so much about mastering the underlying science as I do the motivations of the scientist studying it – but if I disregard the underlying science I reduce my chances of being able to more fully understand the scientist’s motivations.
Basically, I feel the need to melt the ice with warm eyes, for humans are influenced by myriad, cooler things.
As you said, “…all humans need to eat, breathe, defecate, urinate, have relationships of differing orders, mate, die, believe in things, and so on.”
In that brief sentence of apparently mundane commonalities you touch on vast universes of being, on systems so complexly intertwined that they cannot be mapped.
And in those systems we find echoes of the architecture of humanity.
In my experience, this Ti issue of appropriate focus therefore becomes not so much a question of the variety of entity in question (plant or human or bacterium or machine or code etc.) but, rather, the definition of relationship. Warming it up.
[This brings to mind Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung’s correspondence. “Atom & Archetype” is the name of the book. Highly recommended.]
And imagination appears to be key in this warming process! Think: a playful, imaginal ecology.
I think that’s why semiotics interests me – it’s like the sordid lovechild of Apollo and Dionysus, promising to build a bridge between the humanities and the sciences, a tunnel between the forest and the city. A way to navigate the interconnected needs and wants writ large across the face of… well, everything, seen and unseen, human or otherwise.
Relationality is the good shit, yo. And it is WARM.
“Sordid lovechild of Apollo and Dionysus” – what an exquisite metaphor! You could extend this beyond semiotics to describe the primary INFJ dilemma itself: the misguided search for a shining, unattainable Apollonian Heaven (Ti) instead leads us down into the murky, depraved depths of Dionysian Hell (Se).
Can I assume you are also an INFJ, WithThisWord? You certainly have a wonderfully poetic writing style!
Hi Stewart, thank you for your kind words. I do enjoy writing and am very happy to stew in metaphor 😀
I most certainly identify with the dilemma you describe, though I choose not to label those realms as heavenly or hellish. I find that both have the potential to flit between such extremes and am used to passing through them as part of my process.
And just like there is a variety of Ti that sits better with INFJs (warm, in thrall to auxiliary Fe), I believe that there is also an application of Se that suits us better (light and sporadic, not indulging the Fi id in a heavy and sustained quest to fill the hungry void of self, the struggle between the bird and the beast).
I do identify as an INFJ. I have had doubts of this in the past – perhaps due to my astrological configuration (libra sun, sagittarius rising and taurus moon) – but the more I read and the more I actually apply the invaluable advice Blake has given the more I come to find a sense of acceptance.
Hey, are you guys gonna create some love children? I feel something.
Only if you promise to be the surrogate <3
Our sordid love children could star in their own reality TV show. Got to be better than the Kardashians…….
For what it’s worth, my own Astrological big three are Sun in Sagittarius, Moon in Gemini and Taurus rising. So I also have a fire/air/earth combo, with two signs in common with you, WithThisWord.
I was born just before the Full Moon, so my Sun and Moon are in opposition. My Sag sun is also part of a tight stellium of planets (Mercury in Capricorn, Mars and Venus in Sag), so these are also opposed by the Gemini moon. This significant Moon position in my chart greatly increases the pull towards Gemini Ti for this INFJ. Under influence, I chose to study a hard science at University (Chemistry ) and have spent my whole career working for Government laboratories (I am a forensic scientist in the field of narcotics).
Stewart, how was that like, working in a hard science as an INFJ? If you are willing to share of course. 🙂
I’m happy to share, Schlopadoo, as my experiences may shed some light on the differences between good and bad Ti. And anyway, what INFJ can resist an invitation to talk about our favourite subject: ourselves?
I don’t have enough time to write very much at the moment, but for now I can say that Blake’s advice is critical for any INFJ considering a scientific or technical career. I made it work for me when I realised that I wanted to use my knowledge and skills to serve the public good in some way. In other words, the Aquarian form of Ti needed to be present and valued over the colder Gemini version. Of course I didn’t have these excellent definitions to hand at the time, but the principle was the same.
This helped me work out what type of science career to pursue. Academia was out, as the last thing I needed was more dry facts and abstract theories to study. A lot of my peers went for science positions in large pharmaceutical corporations, or that involved experimenting on animals, or chemical weapons research. All offered high salaries and an enticing package for a recent graduate, but for me it would have been like selling my soul to the Devil!
I stayed at Uni for another year to do a Masters in Analytical Chemistry, and this opened the door for me to work for a public lab, initially as a food analyst, testing for nutrients and trace elements to support a healthy diet, then moving into forensic drugs analysis, which is the work I feel I was born to do. Publicly owned labs can’t afford to pay huge salaries, but the rewards came from using my skills to help people, instead of generating more proits for bloated mega corporations, or worse still: torturing helpless animals or developing new ways for humans to slaughter each other.
I want to read more about what happens when an INFJ tries to employ Ti in less people-oriented subjects.
My INFJ friend says that INFJs trying to work in the hard sciences would probably get bored or start wondering about the nefarious implications of their work or how it will be utilized:
” first theyd get bored, then increasingly frustrated and tense from boredoms
also like say if they worked in a lab start to sniff around like WHAT NEFARIOUS DOINGS IS MY WORK BEING USED FOR!!!
then some kind of moral emotional crisis when they inevitably find out about some sketchy doings
long fantasies probably about being….THE ONE…..to….EXPOSE THE COMPANY TO THE WORLD
but….foods and shelter concerns……….so then just angst forever”
She told me to fix her typos and grammars but I think it’s funny. Is it typical for INTJ and INFJ to enjoy the absurdity and juxtaposition between intelligent discussion and “stupid” execution?
Hey Prax!
Well I’m an INFJ working for a company that provides software solutions to anyone who needs them.. I think this is by far one of the most dissatisfying jobs an INFJ could take up..
Getting the work done, by itself, is not hard.. It’s actually quite easy.. It doesn’t come naturally to me, but my Saturnian self takes great pride in doing my job well..
The theoretical concepts lie well within my capabilities.. They can be fascinating at times.. The moment of “getting it” is quite rewarding.. It’s the application and the terms of application that suck.. Because they never seem to have any valid justification.. I’m always questioning the need for the existence of the product.. Always questioning the methods employed to get these products out in time and the motive behind it.. All the questioning always leads to the same conclusion – these are unnecessary technological developments serving no purpose other than to make a tonne of money, for people who are already entitled to tonnes of money, by selling the illusions of independence and efficiency and belonging to billions of people.. In the meanwhile, a big fraction of these billions of people are actually working on creating similar products and now everyone is just competing with each other to be the first ones to sell fake happiness, to each other..
Run run run! stress.. there’s no time.. loss of personal meaning.. there’s no time.. is this what we set out to do? there’s no time.. is this what we need? there’s no time! whose time? my time? your time? our time? Time measured in dollars.. in pounds.. in yens.. in rupees.. fake time.. just like these units it’s now being measured in.. fake time.. fuck time .. run the infinite race.. create the sadness that we all want to escape from.. sigh.. that’s my thought process, every single time.. Now.. i’m pretty sure that’s not how most of my colleagues feel (bless them)..
Blake is absolutely right about us feeding on warm-blooded Ti.. maybe if we think of each of the subjects under the sciences as the calibrations on a thermometer, INFJs definitely need to embrace those which lie in the upper half of the instrument.. these would be the social sciences.. those can never cease to fascinate or satisfy because they are all about the big picture! We need to zoom out.. live and love in abstractions.. that’s when we feel free to play.. the warmer the science the broader the strokes.. the greater the room to add personal touches in the details.. the metaphysical angle adds the reddish orange hues and plays a very important role in any career an INFJ chooses.. hmm .. the physical sciences lie somewhere in the middle.. they can be relatively warm as long as they are studied with the aim of applying them to further understand the human mind – the creator of meaning.. computer science Ti in combination with Te processes and goals is the coldest of all in my opinion.. a definite no if an INFJ is looking for meaning of any kind, in any scale.. worse than boring, it becomes meaningless.. maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if one were allowed to indulge in it for the pure joy of it (I guess).. sorry.. I think I’m rambling now.. :p
Blake is absolutely right about us feeding on warm-blooded Ti
How come you always make me sound like I’m describing INFJs as some form of vampire?
Or, how come you always sound like a hungry vampire when you comment?
Hahaha aren’t we?
If we thrive in and on warm-blooded Ti, this site is lifeblood.. I’m quite a sucker for it :p
What happens when an INFJ goes into the hard sciences? Edward Snowden. A perfect example of the concept you just explained.
Piggie,
“Blake is absolutely right about us feeding on warm-blooded Ti.. ”
Your line stuck out for me too and I had the same image of vampires Blake mentions. I mainlined those words and they warmed my cold dying marrow to life and sent delicious firing of the old grey cells.
MMMM, don’t we smack our lips at warm-blooded ideas about the human experiment and possibilities for the beings within the experiment? Don’t we sink our teeth into the black and white of the page and chew through for meaning that connects us back to the spark of beingness and transforms it into doingness. This drive must be fed, no?
Okay, maybe that’s just me. Maybe I am a vampire, but I give blood willingly, so it is a reciprocal relationship. Or it is my hope.
When it comes right down to it, isn’t everyone a vampire of sorts though? We feed on a variety of things both literally and metaphorically and extract the nutrients that feed our various drivers and aims that are very necessary for our existence. We also are fed on and sometimes that is taken and sometimes it is given in generosity.
! Good Lord, and I’m off to do a PhD in biology in a cut-throat institute in a few months!
It’s true that sometimes I feel like I’m more interested in the motivations of people rather than things/ideas themselves. However, it’s when I’m trying to connect the dots and search for what is unknown that makes science exciting for me. Of course, the practical stuff behind all that can become really draining at times. The worst is when you don’t have any freedom in how you’re navigating the research. <– I think that's pretty important for an INFJ.
I know how much you've warned about over-Ti'ing in INFJs and now the very thing that dominates "hard sciences" Gemini Ti, but here I am, still surviving amongst the competition and going on to do some back-breaking work in the next few years. Of course, I would never ever consider industry or the likes after the PhD – I hate the idea of corporations or businesses or what not, and making applications out of my ideas – ehhhh no, me don't like. I'm only considering academia – and being able to teach is my ultimate goal.
I guess what I want to ask is what should an INFJ do if she/he were to engage in a Gemini Ti-dominant field? I know my Ni has really leveraged me amongst the competition thus far and will continue to be my friend throughout the years. But I know the loneliness and the dryness of research can be really draining for literally every PhD student that has existed on the planet, and will certainly affect me up to a certain point. So…preventative measures? Anyone?
My first Starling article post!!!
Anyway Schlopadoo, I think the best advice would be to exercise your Fe as much as possible. Activities like socializing, discussing and revising the material with friends, art, etc etc. I recall in the comments section for the article “Tertiary Temptation” (or another similar article) there was a PHD in robotics who was struggling, and he managed to complete his dissertation and make his life significantly easier by exercising Fe. You might want to employ the same strategy.
I get a basic understanding of the cold stuff so that I can use it as a tool for the warm stuff. For example, if I have a basic understanding of logic itself, I can listen to an ENTJ rattling off and use that to get into his perspective. In human interactions, the content emitted (whether physical, emotional, or mental) is secondary to the main objective. I’m paying attention to the content, but it’s like a slightly muted tape playing on the side – the “loud” part of my side of the interaction is in the getting-behind-the-content. I can use the cold stuff to elicit more content. My mind uses the content to get into the perspective. And then it all gets worked into the big picture.
Hey Blake,
I’m interested in understanding how you associate functions with planets/signs..
Why Ti Aquarius or Ti Gemini only? Why not Ti Virgo, since Virgo is ruled by Mercury? Although Virgo does seem more like an Si/Se sign..
I guess what I’m asking is.. Are we talking about planets representing functions, with signs giving form to their expression, or, is it more about drawing an analogy between the application/appearance of the functions in different types and the characteristics of particular planets in different signs? I dunno whether I’m making sense..
And.. What are the different forms of Ni, Fe, Te, etc? Those would be articles on their own i guess 🙂
I’m interested in understanding how you associate functions with planets/signs..
Intuition = Fire signs
Thinking = Air signs
Feeling = Water signs
Sensation = Earth signs
Extraversion = Cardinal signs
Introversion = Fixed signs
Ambiversion = Mutable signs
As for the planetary one-to-one associations to a function, well, I’ll just demur on that one for the time being. There is a correspondence, but, it might be more confusing than edifying to give them.
Why Ti Aquarius or Ti Gemini only? Why not Ti Virgo, since Virgo is ruled by Mercury? Although Virgo does seem more like an Si/Se sign..
There is no Ti Virgo because Virgo is an earth sign and I assign earth to sensation function and as such there can be no Ti or Te or T, only Si or Se. Because Virgo is a mutable sign, I assign the first half to Si and the latter half to Se.
Both Gemini and Aquarius are air signs, which, I assign to the thinking function. Aquarius is a fixed air sign and so I assign the entire sign as introverted thinking because fixed = introversion (to me at least).
Gemini, being a mutable air sign is both introverted and extraverted (ambiverse). I assign the first half of the sign to Ti and the latter half of the sign to Te.
I guess what I’m asking is.. Are we talking about planets representing functions, with signs giving form to their expression, or, is it more about drawing an analogy between the application/appearance of the functions in different types and the characteristics of particular planets in different signs?
Um, I’d say that it is more the four elements of astrology that represent the basic four functions of Jung/MB. And if you combine each of the four elements with one of the 3 astrological modes (cardinal, fixed, mutable), you get 12 possible combinations.
That is basically what Jung was doing in his book Psychological Types.
The difference is that I am adding “ambiversion” to account for why in the Jungian system you can get 16 types while in astrology you can only get 12. The reason is because the mutable signs are bicorporeal or double-bodied signs by astrological tradition and therefore harbor both an extraverted and introverted temperament in them. Thus, they are two-in-one signs or “convertible” signs.
Yeah, I’d have to write an article on it. I will.
Was Jung into astrology?
Yes.
I love the astrology stuff as that was my main jam before getting into MBTI stuff.
Is there a reason why you have decided to focus on the 4 humours/temperaments instead of just easier-to-understand (at least for me) 4 elements?
I guess that don’t have quite the same overlap/correlations, but the 4 humours have never resonated much with me.
@blake
Thank you.. That’s fascinating.. Things seem clearer..
Ah yes I remember the ambiverse Gemini Thinking from your Ti in INTJ vs Ti in INTP article!
And it’s funny how you’ve referred to the Si types as ‘salt of the earth’ on more than one occasion.. I wonder whether that was conscious or subconscious..
The way you are blending Astrology, MBTI and Temperament with each article is giving a sharper form to the figure of the Goddess of how-we-are-who-we-are.. It’s like metaphysical DNA phenotyping.. There’s something about flesh on bone which reveals more of the soul than just the skeleton, as the virtually generated faces of those long dead Egyptian Kings show us.. Looking forward to more on this stuff 🙂
It’s like metaphysical DNA phenotyping
Yes, that’s a good way of putting it. It seems inevitable that any discussion of Myers-Briggs or astrology leads to the metaphysical. Psychology itself is really based on a metaphysical reality because anything pertaining to “the psyche” has its origins on another plane of existence besides the earthly level.
I think the functions of Myers-Briggs are actually indicating different planes of existence, with the laws appropriate to those planes of existence, which manifest in the subject who is alive to those respective planes as “psychological” tendencies of the plane in question.
For example, there is a plane of “feeling”, not simply just people with a predisposition to be “feelers”. I mean, what is “feeling”, really?
I posit that it is one of the 3 forms of metaphysical reality (I skip the “sensation” realm as that is physical reality proper). I would call it the “psychic” plane and perhaps that would be a better term for it than the “feeling function”. Of the psyche.
And people that are most alive to the psychic plane could be properly classed as psychic types, or feeling types.
Anyway, hermeticists had this shit figured out a long while ago.
As far as psychology is concerned, it is still in its infancy, and I would say in many respects, it has gone backward since its inception.
You cannot understand the psyche or the psychic at the level of the physical. It is mirrored there in physical (or physiological) structures, but, it does not have its origin at the level of the physical. Which is why I think a purely physiological approach to psychology will, and has, necessarily drove the field backwards rather than forwards.
Must seek the types on the metaphysical level appropriate to them, unless it is the sensation type we are seeking, and in that case we can just look around us for a clue to their psychology. They stop at surfaces, for one thing. And if its not one thing, then, it’s another 🙂
So, yeah, fun shit.
Now that Blake has ventured into the realm of metaphysics and different planes of existence, I feel more comfortable talking about my own metaphysical interests. Blake’s description of the four type functions being aligned to different levels of existence is also how I have come to understand them.
Mystics from every culture have spoken of these hidden realms for thousands of years, and they are known by any different names in mystical texts. The four worlds of the Hermetic Qabalah (which provides much of the esoteric framework for the modern Western Mystery Tradition) are perhaps the most well known to students of the occult. It’s easy to see how these worlds can be assigned to the four type functions:
1. Atziluth (World of Emanation/Divine insight) corresponds to Intuition.
2. Briah (World of Creation/Divine intellect) corresponds to Thinking.
3. Yetzirah (World of Formation/Divine emotion) corresponds to Feeling.
4. Assiah (World of Action/Divine action) corresponds to Sensation.
This is far from a precise science by its very nature, and cannot be neatly defined, categorised and measured using Gemini Ti.
But neither is it an arbitrary fantasy dreamed up to support a religious viewpoint.
If metaphysics is a science, then it is an empirical, evidence-based one. It is different from the conventional sciences because the evidence is supplied mainly by intuitive perceptions; and the initial evaluation of such vague, nebulous data is better suited to Feeling judgement. Thinking (of the Aquarian Ti sort, as described by Blake) comes in next to help define, categorise and refine the data passed to it by Feeling.
It doesn’t require much of a leap to see how INFJ’s are innately suited by nature for this type of scientific enquiry, if they are so inclined. Psychology and the other soft sciences mentioned by Blake fall here as well.
Carl Jung used this “metaphysical” approach to derive his psychological theories, and this is perhaps the best evidence for why he was probably an INFJ type himself.
@blake
> You cannot understand the psyche or the psychic at the level of the physical. It is mirrored there in physical (or physiological) structures, but, it does not have its origin at the level of the physical. Which is why I think a purely physiological approach to psychology will, and has, necessarily drove the field backwards rather than forwards. Must seek the types on the metaphysical level appropriate to them <
This is why i find your take on how disorders could manifest as a continuum of type interesting.. It adds context and, within the scope of MBTI, also suggests areas of focus and those of improvement..
Sorry! My comment got messed up while posting it.. Posting again..
“You cannot understand the psyche or the psychic at the level of the physical. It is mirrored there in physical (or physiological) structures, but, it does not have its origin at the level of the physical. Which is why I think a purely physiological approach to psychology will, and has, necessarily drove the field backwards rather than forwards. ”
Absolutely!
The physiological approach appears to work because statistically we are dealing with a majority of sensors.. It’s not funny how hard a time intuitive doms have even getting others to understand their problems.. Most of them don’t even seek help because their issues sound “silly” to people living in the “real” world.. Because most people aren’t alive to the realms of existence some of us suffer in.. How does one make others, or, even expect others to appreciate what they cannot feel or see?
The world itself appears to migrate from one plane to another.. Letting one dominate now and then another.. Oh this world limits itself so by stopping at results.. How much have we unlearned and for what purpose.. The auto-tuned voices of the future smack of laziness and self deceit.. The wisdom of what is natural is buried under the concrete, adorned by headstones which do not even honour it..
“Must seek the types on the metaphysical level appropriate to them”
This is why i find your take on how disorders could manifest as a continuum of type interesting.. It adds context and, within the scope of MBTI, also suggests areas of focus and those of improvement..
@Stewart
Fascinating 🙂
It amazes me how the ideas left behind by mystics of the past seem to be blueprints of the same construct.. All the signs on the road seem to point in the same direction.. Different languages, different symbols, same instructions, available to those who want to interpret them.. Those who misinterpret, get lost along the way..
Questions arise.. Is there just one destination? Are we to understand? Or integrate? Or transcend?
The strangeness of the journey never really being chosen by the traveller strikes when the traveller begins wondering what his destination might be..
“Carl Jung used this “metaphysical” approach to derive his psychological theories, and this is perhaps the best evidence for why he was probably an INFJ type himself.”
Thank heavens for that 🙂
And.. If there is any doubt about his type.. Memories, Dreams and Reflections.. It hardly takes a chapter to see the man was INFJ.. His claims that he was an introverted thinker, lets just say, genius does not abate the wannabe in us..
What about Ti in ISFJs? Would it be flip flopped for them, Ti Gemini – Good; Ti Aquarius – Bad? I think I’ve met quite a few ISFJ scientists (hard sciences), and they’re good at what they do. Logical, no-nonsense, and responsible. Responsible <– That's pretty key. Also, pretty cool-headed. If ISFJs can handle Ti Gemini, that might explain why some of them can survive in hard sciences without feeling empty or un-fulfilled or any of that shnazz. They aren't looking to initiate anything radical, but they do a good job at what they do. I'm thinking clean, precise science. I really respect that.
Mercury symbolizes how you…communicate right? (Not the biggest expert in astrology) Does Mercury also represent the tertiary function or not really? How does the two relate (communication and tert function)?
Just trying to think how we can deduce the implied signs of Mercury for each MBTI type roughly…
Mercury symbolizes how you…communicate right?
Yes, more or less. Mercury in a nutshell symbolizes how you think, speak, and communicate. Or perhaps it would be better to say that Mercury is how you formulate or frame thoughts. But, yeah, to keep it simple, Mercury symbolizes how you communicate, how you think, and the type of stuff that you are trying to communicate.
Does Mercury also represent the tertiary function or not really?
Mercury represents half of the tertiary function. So, in this article, I am saying there are two forms of Ti for INFJ. Well, the Aquarian form of Ti is equivalent to an implied Mercury in Aquarius position for anyone of the INFJ temperament.
The other form of Ti, the one that gets INFJs in their Ni-Ti loop is equivalent to a implied Jupiter position, so one could say (by my lights, roughly) that all INFJs have an implied Jupiter in Ti Gemini (the first half of the sign of Gemini is Ti, the latter half, Te).
The Jupiter form of the tertiary is where types get into trouble from too much of a good thing. At least, that is my current thinking on the topic.
Tertiary temptation is the Jupiter form of the tertiary function, not the Mercurial form, the latter of which I would class as neutral and correct.
Aquarian Ti domains and concerns (people-oriented, social sciences) are good and right preoccupations for an INFJ. For example, INFJs can make fine lawyers, sociologists, anthropologists, and in short, observers of people.
This very thing we are doing here (typology) is an Aquarian Ti thing par excellence. INFJs naturally ask the question of which category does x person belong in.
Are they fat or skinny or middling?
Are they Irish or Jewish?
Are they smart or ignorant?
Are they educated or naive?
Are they blond or brunette?
Do they have a pointy nose or a fleshy nose?
Are they married, divorced, or single (ie, what is the relationship status of this person)?
Do they walk upright or do they slouch?
What shape are their teeth?
Are they atheist, agnostic, or orthodox?
And in short, via the Ni dominant process, they ask what this means for the person or about people in general.
Anthropologically speaking, the question could be asked what are the sexual practices of a tribe of people that classify themselves as atheists?
Let’s explore the implications of those two categories. To find more categories. It might be found, for example, that this tribe of people that identify as atheists (don’t believe in the existence of god) have a high tendency towards also fitting into the sexual practice category of being sexually submissive.
So, this is relatively natural thinking for an INFJ.
Same thing with people of the “INFJ” category. People that identify as “INFJ” tend also to identify with one side of many other either/or categories.
And I mean this even in a hard data kind of socioeconomic data. For example, it has been reported via one survey of the 16 different Myers-Briggs types that INFJs report the lowest amount of satisfaction in a married relationship of all the 16 types.
On the other hand, INFJs tend to excel academically, especially at the higher levels of education, at college and university level.
INFJs are people-oriented but prefer to have great independence in work environment.
So, one could take all that data and make a list of categories:
– Marital status
– Marital satisfaction
– Academic performance
– Academic inclination
– Level of need for people interaction
– Level of need for independence
You could have a ranking from 1 to 10 for each of those categories based on actual behavior and self-reporting.
If INFJs as a group or population of people show or report that they have relatively high levels of need for independence (however that is being defined) then, it becomes likely that that you could say that the category of “INFJ” and “independence” are highly correlated.
What do atheists tend to eat for breakfast?
What are the favorite sexual positions of Catholic girls?
What is the favorite color of people that have blond hair?
Is it true that blonds have more fun?
What is the Myers-Briggs type that spends the most time online reading about Myers-Briggs types?
What are other activities that people of this Myers-Briggs type enjoy to do?
Do these people tend to be single, divorced, or married?
What is the dominant age range of these online fanatics of Myers-Briggs information?
Are they millenials? Are they baby boomers?
What do they spend money on? (marketers love just this type of information)
Get the gist?
Ti Aquarius is people information? It thinks about people and how they fit into different categories. An INFJ might use this information to create very realistic characters in novels that they might write, for example.
Or it might use Ti Aquarius to make deductions about characters it has read about in novels? Character analysis. What is this character doing? What is s/he trying to achieve? What is his class? Is he poor? Is he rich? Is he from a broken home? Is he an intellectual? Does he spend a lot of time by himself? What is he doing when he is spending a lot of time by himself? What preoccupies him? What does he think about? Politics? Sex? Horse racing?
You see, those are categories that a person could either fit into or not. Profiles can be built out of this information.
I’m a white male. I am a recent divorcee. I come from a broken home. My father was a sailor. He wasn’t around most of the time. My mother was a patient woman. She spent a lot of time cooking and knitting. I have two siblings. I am the eldest child. I was a good student. I liked school. I was popular. Everyone liked me. My favorite color is green. My favorite activity is racing dirt bikes. I test repeatedly as an ENFP.
People information. Could be used in many different ways. I think that INFJs often just enjoy to collect this type of data as a matter of course. They naturally think in those terms in one way or another.
An INFJ mainly will use this Ti Aquarian data with their dominant Ni (and F of the Fi and Fe varieties) to ask why these people do the things that they do. In other words, they don’t want to use this data to market to people (more Se), they want to know those things so they can figure people out.
An INFJ just has a natural interest in people and what they do and what makes them tick. They are natural observers of people. And they naturally categorize them in a plethora of ways. It’s just interesting to them.