The Book of the INTJ Lifter
Art by Tanzanian Wojak
…Who stood with King Leonidas in the Battle of Thermoplyae? …Who stormed the beaches of Normandy? …Who spilled their blood in the halls of Montezuma, on the shores of Tripoli, in the snow of far-off Northern lands? Many have marveled at these disparate historical events, but nearly all have failed to understand the unifying force which animated these great feats throughout all time. This failure is understandable: through a mixture of denial and suppression, the truth has been whitewashed from history—until very recently.
I write these pages, friends, to tell you of a mysterious group that has emerged in every age: a group who turn chaos into order, darkness into light, fat into muscle. I have studied the ancient manuscripts and what I say is true. These men are known as the INTJ Lifters.
If you are at all attuned into the Lifter Instaverse—the zone on Instagram where weightlifters gather round memes—beginning late last year, you’d have perceived an immense psychic ripple emanating outward, like a portal under the ocean had opened, and a new class of memes came clambering out. Wherever you scrolled, a character named ‘INTJ Lifter’ would be peering at you with what is known as the ‘INTJ Death Stare’: a slight sardonic smile coupled with a look of pure analyzing. (Not for the faint of the heart!) Little did you know this event was the herald of a new, yet ancient, order. It was the dawn of the INTJ Lifter.
What is an INTJ?
To understand the INTJ Lifter, you must first understand the INTJ. INTJ is an acronym for one of the sixteen personality types determined by the infamous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. According to this test, each personality type is made up of four categories: introversion or extraversion; sensing or intuition; thinking or feeling; judging or perceiving. One letter from each category is taken to determine your personality type: ISTJ (introversion, sensing, thinking, judging), ENFP (extraversion, intuition, feeling, and perceiving), and so on.
INTJ is a rare personality type, comprising roughly 5% of the population. An INTJ is dominant in introversion, intuition, thinking, and judging. He is a man—I use ‘man’ in these pages because 75% of INTJs are men, though INTJ women do exist—who could be described as a “ruthlessly analytical introvert.” On average, INTJs have a higher IQ than the rest of the population. 16Personalities, the most popular Briggs-Meyers-derived online personality test, refers to the INTJ as “The Architect.” Others call him “Mastermind” or “Evil Genius.”
An INTJ is sexy. History is shaped by INTJs. Plutarch wrote of Alexander the Great’s INTJ “melting glance” (his Death Stare!). Nietzsche was a verified INTJ. Martin Luther was an INTJ. The Unabomber was an INTJ. Tesla was an INTJ—he even designed an INTJ gym before he died.
Source: @Sumogondala
Due to their raw power, independence, and pure analytical prowess, everybody wants to be an INTJ. For every real INTJ, there are twenty people who wish they were an INTJ. And so as time went on, the world became infested with people claiming to be INTJs. In the 17th century, Sabbatai Zevi traipsed through the Ottoman Empire, falsely claiming to be an INTJ. His followers were reported to have burned their homes in preparation to ascend to his “INTJ Paradise”—only for Zevi to convert to Islam when the Sultan demanded his conversion or impalement! His “Dönmeh” following still number in the hundreds of thousands in Turkey.
In recent times, fake INTJs have clustered online, and constantly said things that were un-INTJ like, for example “I went [to the gym once] and i hated it…it was a horrible experience.” First of all, most “communities” are cringe to the individualistic INTJ, no less an online one! Data shows that INTJs form one of the biggest subreddit communities, in total disproportion to their actual population percentage. These “online peoples” were clearly not INTJs—in fact I have my suspicions that they were not even people at all. They were astrologers!
This 2015 chart demonstrates how INTJs online communities far exceed their real-life representation. Although the communities have all gotten bigger since, INTJs remain the third-largest subreddit. Source: Reddit
This was a great affront to nature. Beware of fake INTJ’s. Jesus—the archetypal INTJ—said of INTJs, “You will know them by their fruits.” He excoriated fake INTJs with nothing but his small group of followers, his words, and his INTJ death stare. Fake INTJ’s on Reddit and elsewhere expose themselves with every sinful post they write. Nothing is more offensive to the spirit of a true INTJ than an INTJ LARPer. Many of these fake INTJs, in their delusional mania, have tried to stifle the real INTJs born in this age.
But all was not lost.
The Rise of the INTJ Lifter
“Theater kids, nothing against them, but that’s where it started. They all wanted to be INTJs,” says fellow INTJ Dark Iron Gains over the phone. Dark Iron Gains is a lifter who runs an influential Instagram meme account. He, too, noticed the infestation of INTJs online, and he intuited the root of the problem: “Theater kids wanted to signal they were INTJs—‘Look at me, I’m cold and calculated, but I’m also an intellectual figurehead’—but they’re all just Dr. Who fans. They’re gaming the system while real INTJs are being suppressed.”
But it wasn’t just theater kids who, through stolen valor and extravert aggression, attempted to kill the INTJ Lifter spirit. It was also writers. “I think the history of literature can be best understood as a kind of INTJ Lifter suppression by fake INTJ extraverts,” says Jordan Castro, author of The Novelist, a forthcoming novel written from what he claims is the perspective of an INTJ Lifter. “You have these brief moments where true brilliance shines through, but those are usually followed by decades or even centuries of bullshit. Plato was best known in his time as an athlete. The Sumerians, who invented literature, had to chisel their work into stone and clay tablets, and they would get a sick arm pump in the process, so writing and lifting have always been integrally related. Kierkegaard’s nickname as a youth was ‘The Fork,’ because he could discern peoples’ weakness and stab them with it—presumably by means of his Death Stare. We have been in a period of extraverted, non-lifter dominance for the past couple of decades, but I think that as more INTJ Lifters become aware of their true power, this will change in the coming years, especially with the help of memes and novels.”
Late last year, Dark Iron Gains posted the first INTJ Lifter meme. He intended to reclaim the rightful title of INTJ from the heretics, and quickly realized he was onto something big. “Lifters from around the world started tagging me in their personality tests,” he said. “I got an overwhelming response of followers sending their screenshots and all of them were INTJs. I was like, ‘How does this happen? I think it’s for real.’
Every single lifter appeared to be an INTJ. Many reported feeling shocked: it was both a great loss—so many years in ignorance!—and yet the greatest gain. In retrospect, Dark Iron Gains understood: “I feel like if you ever meet a guy who’s an actual lifter or bodybuilder, they’re weird people. They’re antisocial, strict, and disciplined. Those are all qualities of a true INTJ.”
The return of the INTJ Lifter meant that it was time for true INTJs to ascend into INTJ Lifters.
…but what of an INTJ Lifter? He is a master of both his mind and body. “The INTJ Lifter takes a calculated approach to lifting…he isn’t so superficial,” reflected Dark Iron Gains. “He’s not lifting for chicks, he’s lifting to conquer himself. INTJ Lifters have self-esteem. If you’re a fake INTJ you probably don’t have self-esteem, but INTJ Lifters are pretty much pillars of society. They’re role models. They’re focused on building themselves up and the people around them.”
Many Instagram accounts, heartened by the return of the INTJ Lifter to our society, began pressing memes immediately. Some of the greatest are INTJ Moments & Sumogondala. A dedicated INTJ Lifter podcast, 8pl8s, arose. The movement quickly identified various INTJ Lifters, including Arnold Schwarzenegger (of course!), Kai Greene, Tom Boyden, Jeff Cavaliere, Larry Wheels, Rich Piana, Eric Bugenhagen, Zack Telander, Mike Ma, Wecking Ball, Raw Egg Nationalist, Ben Braddock, and the Honorable Bloat Lord Kyriakos Grizzly.
Chris Haley, an admin for @INTJ_Moments, and a verified INTJ Lifter.
This was a powerful re-emergence of hidden, ancient forces. History swells with waves of INTJ LARPers, which are invariably quelled by INTJ Lifters. The INTJ Lifter does not come to purge, he comes to uplift—but through this process he purges the fake INTJs. He is a man of repute. He is Marcus Aurelius, not Caligula. A philosopher-king. He is most concerned with honor (timê) and glory (kudos). Though he could crush his enemies with a mere flex, he prefers to keep the peace. He helps the elderly and sacrifices for the young. He imposes order through example.
The walls of history are inscribed with the deeds of INTJ Lifters. Confucius wrote of a time in which bandits stole the sacred seal of the 神秘的山人 (translation: INTJs) and built barbaric cities inside the mountains. Their features twisted from torture and heat and they abducted children. It took an order of INTJ warrior-monks, lifting heavy weights every day in preparation, to cleanse the Earth of such foul beasts.
Ancient Chinese art depicting the training of INTJ Lifters. The text reads: “When INTJs lift heavy weight, nation grow stronger.”
In Ancient Egypt, a pharaoh had lost his mind. He regularly ordered guests of the court to be fed to crocodiles; he made his family slaves and his magicians into INTJ advisors. He ordered backbreaking taxes on the people. It took a multiracial coalition of aristocratic lifters—INTJ Lifters, whose known regimen of lifting heavy weights inspired youth for centuries—to surround the pharaoh at court and clonk him to death with weights.
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics depicting aristocratic INTJs swinging sacks of flour.
Those were not Annunaki on the walls of the pyramid; they were INTJ Lifters, bestowing the gifts of civilization—teaching writing, making fire—unto the populace. Those aren’t UFOs—that’s advanced INTJ Lifter technology!
The INTJ Lifter Death Stare
Every one of the 16 personality types has a superpower. The highly intuitive INFJ has Precognition. The sensitive INFP can Mind-read. The warmhearted ENFJ is capable of crude Telepathy. The INTJ Lifter, in addition to having a strength and intelligence boost, has the ‘INTJ Death Stare.’ A look of blinding analysis. A withering stare that bores into your soul and—Oh God no, please! I cannot even think of it for one more second.
INTJ Lifter Suppression
“The very idea of an INTJ Lifter inflames those who control our world. When you lift, you have to think for yourself,” Dark Iron Gains explains. “They don't want you to do that. They will parade an unstable juice head all over a reality television show and act as if that is the majority of lifters. They want to stain the mental image we have of superior physiques. They want you to think that achieving a Godlike physique is “toxic” because they want you to be fat and stupid so you can fall in line with whatever agenda or product they’re pushing. They don’t want you to be educated and strong—they want you to consume their social commentary. They fear what Lifters represent. They fear the rise of the INTJ Lifters.”
Dark Iron Gains pointed out the most obvious tools of INTJ Lifter suppression. “Planet Fitness is an INTJ suppressor,” Dark Iron Gains says. “They don’t let you lift heavy—if you can bench two plates you automatically set off the lunk alarm. Internet censorship…the gym closings..the COVID lockdown…these are all examples of INTJ Lifter suppression.”
Jordan Castro also weighed in: “The fact that most people haven’t even heard of INTJ Lifters proves that there is massive suppression taking place. In literature, it’s the bleakest thing, because what was once a space for powerful, aesthetically-interesting INTJ Lifter language has become an INTJ Lifter suppression machine. The decayed zombie physiques of most writers is more proof. Photographs and paintings of major INTJ figures like Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, and so on, have been essentially faked, to make them look like non-lifters. Even still though, in some of them, you can see the Death Stare…”
I wanted to intuit the MBTI personality type that is pulling the strings against the INTJ. The natural conclusion would be his personality opposite, the EFSP (extraversion, feeling, sensing, and perception). 16Personalities calls the ESFP “The Entertainer.” In other words…a joker! One can just picture a dwarven jester milling about, blabbering in riddles, pinging his eyes around the party for approval…only to be met by the INTJ Death Stare. The jester feels himself shrinking into himself, the walls closing above him…that stare that has followed him his whole life…deep down he knows that he is merely a performer…
Source: Dark Iron Gains and Based Archives
…But he is not the true enemy of the INTJ. Dark Iron Gains, in fact, is friends with some ESFPs. And many ESFPs have taken the courageous step of outing themselves as fake INTJs, including one recent poster on the INTJ subreddit who actually wrote: “I am no longer an INTJ…after a lot of work and personal growth it turns out I was a traumatized ESFP that was behaving very similarly to an INTJ.” (Can’t make this stuff up!)
Nay, the nemesis of the INTJ is none other than what 16Personalities calls “The Campaigner.” “That’s probably the mortal enemy of the INTJ Lifters,” Dark Iron Gains warns. “The moralist posing as a journalist. The far-left social commentator. I’m not against people on the Left, but far-left social commentators are the worst of the worst because they manifest insecurities through these pieces they write: “Why you shouldn’t eat eggs or lift,” “Protein is bad for you.”
[It Is Time to Practice Raw Egg Nationalism]
Our intuition was proved right. When I emailed 16Personalities themselves, they offered a verified INTJ Lifter employee, Kyle Champion for comment. Champion checked the database and confirmed that the natural enemy of the INTJ was the ENFP, saying that INTJs “might find it hardest to relate to...Campaigners (ENFPs)...Entertainers (ESFPs),” and a few others.
ENFPs were responsible, I believe, when Dark Iron Gains himself took the 16Personalities test and received—wait for it—ISTJ. A “Logistician”. He might as well have been “Humbug”! A most common and banal personality type! “The 16Personalities test is another example of INTJ lifer suppression,” Dark Iron Gains asserted. “They unfairly don’t recognize lifters as INTJs. They only recognize theater kids as INTJs.” It was clear our institutions have fallen further than we imagined, when a genuine INTJ Lifter can’t even be recognized as one.
The Five Percent Theory
Towards the end of our talk, Dark Iron Gains introduced what he called the Five Percent Theory. (Such a conversation as this would have made Aristotle smile!) He said that Rich Piana, the beloved lifter who passed in 2017, always said that “only 5% of people had what it takes to be a dedicated lifter.” Dark Iron Gains also noticed that INTJs make up 1-4% of the population—essentially 5%! ““Those numbers are astonishingly close to each other,” Dark Iron Gains said. “I’m willing to bet that the same individuals that fall in-between the 1-4% number that David Keirsey estimated also fall into the 5% number that Rich Piana estimated. Those individuals are the ascended INTJ Lifters!”
As for me personally? When I take the 16Personalities test, I get INFJ. No matter—I know I am an INTJ Lifter deep down. Castro, a verified INTJ, concurred. “Our institutions are sclerotic and fake,” he reassured me. “I could tell immediately that you were a fellow INTJ. Dark Iron Gains too—an undeniable INTJ Lifter, leading the awakening which, I believe, just might bring us back from the brink.”
But I’m afraid I have said too much; now I must steal away into the night. As I finish these words, my INTJ eyes analyze the dark outside my window…I can feel the ENFPs suppressors closing in…I can feel the burn of the microwave energy weapons bubbling my brain…quick, I must leave now…
Editor’s Note: Manuscript found in abandoned car off [REDACTED] in San Mateo, CA. Please send to ‘TW’ for artwork; ask ‘RC’ to publish with expedience.
Follow Countere Magazine on Instagram.
