Myers-Brigs and Pagan Studies.

I wasn't 100% sure where to put this but as I'm seeking to study and learn more about the way the human mind works as it pertains to pagans and God-Touched I thought this was a good place. Its also a great way to learn more about yourself if your interested in Psychology and Personality Types.

For the past 6 years or so I have been studying Carl Jung and Myers-Brigs personality types. There are 16 types altogether and if you haven't heard of it before you can find a good test here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

I am specifically interested in the second letter, Intuition or Sensing. This letter represents how one takes in information, (the third letter, Feeling or Thinking, represents how one processes information.) I am trying to find a correlation between, S & N and how people experience the Gods. As I understand it some people can hear and/or see the Gods, assuming they are using the Sensing portion of their personality while some people feel what the Gods are saying threw Intuition.

If you would like to aid me in this academic pursuit you can take the test above and the best sight to read of the different types are here: http://www.personalitypage.com/html/portraits.html the information I need is the second letter, and the number that comes with it, and how you experience/communicate with the Gods most easily and often. You don't have to tell me your full Type if you are unconformable sharing that information (though the studies as far as what people different Gods are attracted to, or different “Hats” they were with different people would be fascinating as well.)

If you are interested in the different types and finding out more about yourself threw this particular branch of Psychology, then I would recommend taking the test, keeping track of the numbers that go with each letter, and reading each type that is one letter away from your tested letter too compare the accuracy and to see how each of the letters interact and affect each-other within each type.

Thank you in advance too any of you who choose to help.

ISFP type here - and thank for this discovery. I'm always interested by that kind of things.

My main way to deal with Gods is art.

Inspiration strikes with a few words when it comes to poetry, an obsession with those few words until I write them down and allow the rest to flow, sometimes it's ... almost like a litany that's not totally in my mind. But it's here. And it's loud. It's so different from the other types of writing works I do, because I know how to differentiate now the "fictional universe", the voices that came with the characters I write about, and this ... this litany that's always very meaningful when I write down the whole thing. I'm not very sure if I'm clear. Well. I try to be

When it comes to visual art, sometimes I just don't have any idea of what I'm doing. But sometimes, most of the time, actually, I've a picture in my mind I must draw. It's like a very short snapshot I must got at the moment it appear. Fortunately, I never missed one of those moments and I always had a pen and a paper with me to draw.

Well, I hope it helped you. And thank for the opportunity to think about this a little deeper than usual (it's like breathing for me - I have the habit of doing this without thinking. When inspiration strikes, it strikes, especially when it's from a God or a Goddess ...)

Okay so I took the test it says I'm a INFJ type the number is gave were 22, 75, 69, 22. How do I experience Loki well usually in one of two ways as a sort of voice in my head, or in dreams/ while I'm meditating. I only actually see him in the dreams/meditative state. I do feel his presence when he's around like I could tell you where he is in the room and an impression of what he's doing, but I'm not actually seeing it it's a gut feeling or intuition. I have felt his touch a couple times while wide awake a tap or hand placed on my shoulder, a hug or him holding my hand that is kind of hard to explain there is a tingly sort of pressure accompanied by a mental picture of him

I got INFJ - the Protector, on the humanmetrics test.
Introverted 22% Intuitive 62% Feeling 50% Judging 67%

# slightly expressed introvert
# distinctively expressed intuitive personality
# moderately expressed feeling personality
# distinctively expressed judging personality


I communicate with my deity, Loki, in dreams, and when I'm in that between awake and asleep state - that's when we talk.
When I'm awake I once in a blue moon get a feeling that Loki wants something, or is near - but I can't hear or see Him.

This is fascinating!

Leikkona as an S I find the Art to make perfect sense. As a Sensing type you take in information and sometimes express that information using your exterior senses such as sight (which I associate with art.) also you describe your poetry as something that you MUST right, almost like you have to get it onto paper so you can SEE and experience it. These may seem like I’m jumping to some conclusions but that is just my theory so far. Also you mention your art and poetry being unplanned, which coincides with the P at the end of your type. I’m very glad that I could introduce you to a system you find interest in, and thank you for telling me!

Admin (sorry hun I don’t remember your name) and Darkamber, I have to say it’s nice to see more INFJ’s, they say that this type is only 1% of the population but both my husband and I are INFJ. My numbers: I=33 N=100 F=75 J=22.

The way you two experience Loki, describing him as a feeling of knowing where he is or what he wants but not being able to solidly explain WHY you know it, that is very intuitive (at least as far as this system.) Also as N and S are often differentiated between S experiencing the world threw their physical body and N threw their internal world and mind, it makes since that you would experience the Gods threw dreams and meditation.

Personally I have yet to have a dream concerning the Gods. I experience them threw meditation, mindfully paying attention (a kind of light meditation) and in the case of Loki in the same way Admin explains “I do feel his presence when he's around like I could tell you where he is in the room and an impression of what he's doing, but I'm not actually seeing it it's a gut feeling or intuition.” Also the way you explain the feeling of a touch being a tingling feeling. It reminds me of when I was first learning energy work in martial arts and placed my hand into different energy balls.

If anyone else wants to help me out by adding more types to the list to be studied that would be awesome. It’s also a fun test to have loved ones take, it’s really amazing to get a general idea of how their minds work.

ENFP - The Champion
Coincidentally, my girlfriend actually just showed me a great description of our type it yesterday. She's also ENFP, and it describes us both extremely well. She's an activist in women's rights. I'm a therapist. We're both kinda out to save the world.

My communication with the gods is often through suddenly becoming passionate about doing something that I wouldn't normally be interested in... even though I'm interested in a bunch of stuff. I seldom remember dreams.

When more active in ADF, I was training in the Bardic Guild, to offer praise through song to the gods, and in the Seer's Guild, to talk to the gods and let them speak through me by mediumship / horsing and visions. I'm not a very good horse though, hard to silence the chatter in my head and get out of the way. When it works best, it's sensations first, then words. Even though I primarily communicate auditorily, I still See who I'm talking to, though it's seldom very clear. On rare occasions, I start drifting into trance without meaning to, and one of Them starts talking to me. I get a visual of Them in my head then, but it's not located in space, more like a video phone call. The mermaids though, were clearly located in space when I saw Them. Talking to gods in prayer, it's mostly verbal, with some fuzzy visual some of the time, otherwise just a presence.

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No Jalkr no one thinks any less of you for the low score in the feeling department me personally I can relate, really I can. My thing is I'm what he Meyers-Briggs test call a counselor which mean I'm pretty much hardwired to want to help people. It's only really problematic for me in terms of suppressing the urge to slap some sense into some people, or maybe being a little too blunt in the hitting them over the head with a clue by four. Right now I'm dealing with a neighbor who comes to me almost daily for rides to the store to buy cigarettes because she can set boundaries with her emotionally abusive mom and instead of having a not too pleasant heart to heart with mommy dearest has decided it's better to pick up a two pack a day habit and hope the lung cancer takes her young. I'm also dealing with a young friend who is in an abusive relationship and nothing I say about how badly she needs to get out (even though I've been there done that and thankfully burnt the t-shirt) seems to sink in. She keeps running back to the @$$hole. I can't seem to not try to help or offer advice even when I repeatedly tell people I'm washing my hands of the situation. Loki gets a good laugh at me sometimes for it when I rant to Him about how much I'd like to run into her boyfriend when he's walking and I'm driving. He seems to not mind that I care about people He just tries to advise me to learn to have some sense of detachment so that I don't worry myself silly over other people's messes, good advice really since I'm going to college to be a psychiatrist. It's cool though that occasionally Loki will just sit back and let me vent, all the while watching me with a rather amused look on His face.

And I totally get the part about children seeming to find it easier to communicate with Them my oldest and my youngest both experience Loki and a few others rather vividly. My son who is almost fifteen seems to have a much easier time communicating with them. My youngest who just turned five often "plays" with the "red haired man". I never told my oldest not to trust his intuition or that seeing/hearing spirits was unusual so maybe he never learned to doubt it, and my youngest is still in that age range where they just easily accept what they experience. I think the Gods and well spirits in general have an easier time communicating with kids because of the innocence and unquestioning acceptance.

INFP

Introverted 78
Intuitive 50
Feeling 75
Perceiving 44

Sometimes I talk to Them, silently or out loud, and They answer me in complete sentences (which I "hear" in my head.) Sometimes Their communication to me consists of mental images, impressions, feelings, or sudden knowledge that I didn't have before. Often it's a combination of two or more of these things, which is hard for me to describe.

I am also fairly adept at divination and reading omens, and usually know the difference between a general sort of "signpost from the universe" (common) and a true message from the gods (rarer).

One side effect of having so much communication with Loki over the past eight years is that I tend to forget that other people cannot read my mind or emotions, nor can they always follow my train of thought the way He can. I end up sounding like I'm not listening to the conversation or am changing the subject or making a non sequitur when really, I've just arrived at a conclusion without bothering to explain my reasoning to anyone else :P

Of course my first response was 'Crap! the Healer!' [I'm a burned out RN] But it makes sense in many ways and not just my career- particularly with bridging different forces/views.

INFP

How I percieve Loki and other Gods? I probably have a 50/50 mix of just 'knowing' they are there versus actually seeing them. When I do see them it is usually holography in appearance at the time though my memory fills it out much more. Other times I see flashes of light where they are- sparkles and such. I hear full sentences though sometimes get pictures/images. Sometimes they are overlaid. I don't usually learn new vocabulary at this time- what happens is my mind translates the word that I don't know into two or three english words that literally overlap- I hear them at once and know that those words are, in a sense, the definition of the word that he or she used. I can physically feel them if they choose to let me- either feels like normal skin or just a bit electric- tingly.

Some of my strongest images/times have been when I'm wide awake though those are more focused- just on the God there. All bets are off when in trance- usually pretty vivid and broad re surrounding environment, etc.

Okay Salena you explained how I sense Loki and some other random beings a whole lot better than I did, but yeah I experience them in very similar ways. The sort of holographic looking image of them or the sparkles/flashes of light. I've even seen beings that seem composed of nothing but light or shadows like if you took either light or a shadow and gave it a human form with no real definition other than human shaped, no facial details or anything.

I get the sometimes full sentence accompanied by mental pictures allot, occasionally Loki seems to be searching for the right word and sometimes whatever he is trying to say doesn't seem to translate into English well or it loses something in the translation so I get pictures or the several words closets to what he means. He laughs at my really bad attempts at repeating old Norse words apparently according to Loki I butcher the language, just my luck Loki finds my southern/country accent amusing.

I like how you explained the touching or being touched by one it does feel a bit tingly like electricity. There is usually at least for me a feeling of warmth or pressure too just like when your being touched by a normal person. I think the only time it was ever any different was the one time Loki really wanted to get my attention and was tapping me on the shoulder HARD it felt kind of like getting a small electrical shock and actually made the muscles in my arm and shoulder twitch a little just like when you get a mild shock, kind of felt like the TENS machine they use in physical therapy or at the chiropractors office. I haven't had too much experience with actual touches, but I've always had at least a mental impression of what he's doing to accompany the sensation.

As a Sensing type you take in information and sometimes express that information using your exterior senses such as sight (which I associate with art.) also you describe your poetry as something that you MUST right, almost like you have to get it onto paper so you can SEE and experience it.

I ... didn't think of it that way, but you are right. I need to sense in the world what I am forming (if it's just a normal work) and hearing, or else I can't go well in the flow.

I'm an INTJ; is anyone surprised? (grin) I'm close to the line on introvert; I can fake being an extrovert if I have to, but I'm not one. I am 100% N. I'm a shaman and an activist and I am changing the world. Really.

My partner the Freysman is a ISTJ; he sees to the details, maintains the websites, etc. He refers to himself as only having "a tin can on a string" when it comes to hearing Gods.

-Raven Kaldera

I got INTP, "The Thinker".
Introverted 56 Intuitive 12 Thinking 1 Perceiving 11

I think the test had a bit of trouble because I don't overwhelmingly take one approach or the other. I temper the scientist background I have with intuition and emotion, and I understand when other people factor emotion and intuition into their decisions. I'm more flexible than how the one site describes INTP people - I don't tend to present things as absolutes, and I'm willing to consider changing firmly held beliefs and opinions if another person has some good arguments.

I'm also an empath, so I don't have trouble sensing what others are feeling and, usually, what they need. That's not a problem - the problem comes in when I have a different emotional reaction than is considered the usual, or little/no emotional reaction at all. XD

Other than that, a lot of this is pretty spot-on. http://www.personalitypage.com/html/INTP.html

I took the test and scored as an INFJ, with Introverted 22%, Intuitive 38%, Feeling 38%, and Judging 44%. Depending on what interpretation you looked at, it was "The Counselor" or "The Protector".

As with Refr, I had issues because I don't overwhelmingly take one approach or another either. It's a lot of 'as the situation dictates' kind of things. That said, I'd agree with the results of this test.

A lot of contact with my Gods happens through prayer or intentional communication on my part, or through Them sending me messages, sometimes totally out of the blue. Sometimes it is accompanied by imagery, sounds, sights, smells, even touch, depending on what is being communicated, and why it is being communicated.

Just a note of caution on HumanMetrics: there have been discussions on some personality type boards (including a dedicated INTJ one, if distant memory serves) that it tests differently than the regular Myers-Briggs. E.g., it has a different set of base assumptions, and will often switch P and J.

Here's a simple but useful way to check results from other tests:

http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

I tend to get INTJ. As if the jumping in with qualifications and caveats didn't sort of indicate predilections in an INTJ-direction, right?

What I think is interesting isn't just the N/S axis on this list, but the F/T axis as well. Overwhelming F's, only a couple of T's. Lots of I's, which one would expect from "mystical-types" ... but I really have to wonder how the Ts experience religion and the Gods differently from the Fs. In my experience, the people who are hardest to convince that Gods exist are not hard due to being S - there can be many good reasons why an S-type would choose to believe in Gods even if they couldn't "hear" them, especially very physical Pagan Gods, especially if there was community benefit in doing so. It's the T-types who are the hardest.

I sometimes think that there are really only two reasons why a T-type decides to believe in Gods: either they're suffering from mental illness and the rational mind that they rely on has gone wonky and they're imagining fictional deities, or the Gods have created such a concerted and overwhelming attack on them that it's overridden their stubborn left-brain dependence to such a huge extent that they have to throw up their hands and say, "All right, enough evidence already!"

I know that for myself, my problem isn't in believing in the Gods (I score as high as it's possible to score on N, I have the broadband modem constantly in my head, I have proof that they exist that is conclusive enough for me). It's believing in their benevolence, their caring, their personal affection, all of which are F-axis things. I tend to assume for the Gods being far more distant and clinical than, perhaps, they actually are ... even when they're right in front of me.

I cannot speak for any other T-types, but it's the latter for me. Get thwacked with enough evidence, you either have to believe in the gods or start believing you're crazy.

Interestingly, when I was going through my physics and math classes for my major, surrounded by other math and science people, people were overwhelmingly either atheist, agnostic, or some type of pagan. Other faiths were very poorly represented.

A lot of that is because it's OK to be a Pagan and be atheist or agnostic. About 1/3 of self-proclaimed Pagans are not theistic, but archetypist. Buddhism's another one I've seen well represented in sciences, for the same reasons.

Interesting discussion. For me, I'd say I got twacked over the head with subjective evidence, including the occasional dream. I'm very "I" and "N" and have always had a deep respect for dreams. Critically, there was also a point where I did make a mental decision to assume the Gods were real for a month, and see what happened. Worst case scenario, I'd be back to where I started, right?

Before making that choice, I used to be a general panentheist/Jungian. I'm profoundly grateful to have real Gods now. It means... everything.

I've noticed that our Gods are quite willing to provide evidence. Heathenism is a reasonable faith: our Gods are not arbitrary or capricious. We do not "test" them when we respectfully ask for evidence that we can understand.

INTJ, as always...

Introverted 67
Intuitive 62
Thinking 88
Judging 78

Like Raven, my T-struggle is in the guise of:

"I tend to assume for the Gods being far more distant and clinical than, perhaps, they actually are ... even when they're right in front of me. "

I've rarely had reason to doubt Their existence (hard to do when I've spent my life surrounded by various Presences) - my usual problem is doubting Their *involvement*...

Oh, and my interaction with the Gods is primarily auditory, with back-up visuals... depending on my signal clarity, I get at worst, impressions of speech (tone and rhythm, which allow me to interpret the general gist, but no clear words, like a TV on too low), and at best full conversations with attendant "flashed" images punctuating the exchange. Generally, the closer the relationship, the more words come with the images - for me, Loki = "running commentary", while Freyja, for example, = "occasional phrases".

There may be a minor link between T-people and "hearing" Gods/spirits, as opposed to seeing/sensing them..? (I'd like to see more data. Preferably with graphs.) /INTJ