Ok so studying the ancient Greek myths can be very interesting and sometimes even amusing. But I am completely flabbergasted at this concept! I was looking over the tarot meanings as per the Greek myth and found the story of the card -The Tower - to be hilarious and what more can i say! Hilarious!
Tarot story: The Tower.
Here we see the famous Labyrinth of King Minos, which was struck by an earth quake when the angry God Poseidon rose from the waters to topple the kingdom. In myth, Minos was the wealthy and powerful king of Crete. He was given this power by Poseidon, God of earthquakes and the ocean depths, who agreed to make Minos Sovereign of the seas if the king offered a beautiful white bull in sacrifice to the god. But king Minos did not want to give up the bull, and hid it in his herd, substituting a lesser animal in its place. In fury at this act of arrogance and repudiation of the pact, Poseidon called upon the love-goddess Aphrodite for aid. She afflicted Minos’ wife Pasiphae with a consuming passion for the white bull. The queen bribed the palace artisan Daedalus to build her a wooden cow. Pasiphae entered the cow and the cow entered Pasiphae, and from this union of queen and beast was born the Minotaur, the shame of Minos, a horrible creature with a mans body and a bulls head which fed on human flesh. In terror the king hid this creature at the heart of a great stone Labyrinth, which he ordered Daedalus to build.
But the kingdom could not remain forever in such a stagnant state, with such a shameful secret hidden at its core. With the help of Minos’ daughter Adriane, the here Theseus, son of Poseidon, came and slew the Minatour, and god at the same time, rose up in anger from his bed beneath the sea and struck at the Labyrinth. The building was reduced to rubble by the earthquake burying both king Minos and the corpse of the Minatour beneath it, while slaves who had been held in bondage by Minos’ power was set free. Theseus was proclaimed king of Crete, a new era was inaugurated, and the labyrinth was never raised again.
On an inner level, the god struck Tower is the only man-made structure in the Major Arcana, and thus a representation of structures inner and outer, which we ourselves build, like Minos, as defenses against life and as concealment to hide our less agreeable sides from others. In many ways the tower is an image of the socially acceptable facades we adapt to hide the beast with in. Then we use our professions, our good credentials, our affiliations with respectable intuitions and companies, our carefully mannered social roles, our politest smiles and most diplomatic exchanges, our magazine-inspired appearances, and family-instilled morals, to hide that shameful secret which in the card of the devil awaits the Fool in the underworld. The tower is a structure of false or outgrown values, those attitudes towards life which do not spring from the whole self but are ‘put on’ like costumes in a play to impress the audience. Likewise, the tower also represents the structures we build in the outside world to embody our incomplete selves.
Thus, when the fool confronts the great god Pan at the heart of the Labyrinth with in. He is changed by the encounter. He is humble, more complete, and more real. Inevitability, this change will result in changes to outer life. Just as our attitudes are altered by any encounter with what lies in the unconscious, so too are our unconscious, so too are our chosen lifestyle. One of the reasons people fear this in ward looking process, it is that they are dimly aware that, not having discovered one’s real nature, one can no longer pretend in the eyes of the world. Honest encounter with the devil invokes a profound inner integrity, and thus the tower, the ed five which he has betrayed his essential self, and this shock is like the trident of Poseidon striking the Labyrinth: It cracks open the defenses and releases those parts of ourselves which have been enslaved. In many ways the Minotaur is like the devil both represent a bestial secret. Connected with shameful sexual feelings which must be concealed. Even from ourselves if we are to appear blameless and ‘nice’ in the eyes of society.
Does anyone else find this story strange or is it just me?!!!
Moderators: eye_of_tiger, shalimar123
Does anyone else find this story strange or is it just me?!!!
Last edited by Kyla on Thu May 01, 2008 12:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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