It is not surprising that the eight personality types described by the groundbreaking psychologist Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) can be attributed to the eight gua. His division into two sets, introvert and extrovert, offer an immediate correlation with the yin and yang sides of the ba gua.
The further step of assigning the four subdivisions (sensation, feeling, intuitive, and thinking) is more problematical but the following attributions seem reasonably self-evident, and they maintain the star-shaped symmetry of the Early Heaven ba gua.
It is also notable that shift from introvert to extrovert (from 3 Wind to 4 Quake) is clearly a change in attitude from thinking about oneself to thinking about the world in general.
This gua represents a person who may appear calm and self-controlled but is really rather dull and ignorant. Content to ignore the world, which they consider too banal to be of interest, they plod through life with as little active involvement in it as possible. Troubled by neither extreme happiness nor grief, their life is as stable as they are emotionally reserved.
This gua represents a person whose emotions govern their life, yet is unwilling or unable to communicate them to other people. However, their superficial calm belies the intensity with which they feel. Because they respond to inner rather than outer pressures, their actions can be unpredictable and even inscrutable.
This gua represents a person who, like a dreamer, inhabits an inner world of constant flux. Their ideas may be visionary and born of ideals, or cranky and out of touch with reality, and they may change with bewildering rapidity. In general though, these insights are communicated (when they are communicated at all) with conviction and often with genuine artistic talent.
This gua represents someone who is constantly striving to understand themselves, and discover their true identity. Their mind is a riot of often contradictory ideas that tend to race, like a dog chasing its tail, in circles. Psychology and philosophy are the ruling interests in their life and, preferring to be left alone to pursue their thoughts, they appear unapproachable, even arrogant, and have few friends.
This gua represents a person devoted to understanding the way the world and everything in it works. Theoretical formulae and natural laws hold a powerful fascination over their mind, and they are more interested in gaining knowledge for its own sake than in using their knowledge to invent anything practical or discover anything useful to anyone else. This lack of involvement in human affairs can make them seem cold, distant and impersonal.
This gua represents a person who cannot sustain mental effort but is forever moved to seek something novel and exciting. Their life is an incessant succession of new beginnings as they flit from one consuming passion to the next. They are always eager to make plans but are incapable of following them through. Although their relationships are, at least at first, full of vigour and zest such transient enthusiasm makes their friendship undependable.
This gua represents a person who is capricious because they live by their emotions, and their emotions are turbulent. Always active, often rash, they are keen to keep up to date with the latest fashions. They forge intense attachments easily but these may turn from love to hate with great rapidity.
This gua can also represent a person who is wholeheartedly involved with the world and wants nothing more than to let it keep them entertained. They are practical and objective, and are keen to explore and experience everything the world has to offer. They have no ambition to improve on what they find, simply accepting it as it is; for instance, they feel that social obligations are satisfied merely by learning how to get the most from life.
© Ken Taylor 2004-2006