Eris Blog Post 5: ERIS & THE TOWER CARD

 Eris Blog Post 5:

Eris & The Tower Card

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

~ Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10 v. 34 (KJV)

I pulled the Tower Card today and, since it’s the tarot card associated with Eris, I took it as a signal to write this. The astrological significance of Eris is still in its infancy, so I feel that it’s beneficial to explore associated archetypes that already exist, in order to try and establish a more significant and meaningful understanding of what Eris means; both from a macro and micro-cosmic perspective. 

You don’t have to know anything about tarot to guess that, from the imagery, The Tower is not heralding good news. A bolt of lightning has hit the tower in the image, set fire to it, and the people in the picture look like they’ve thrown themselves out of the windows. The history of tarot reaches back at least as far as the 15th century but, obviously, since 9/11, its symbolism has an additional, visceral gravitas which needs no further explanation. The Tower is probably the most feared, dreaded card in the entire deck, and with good reason. Benebell Wen interprets the meaning of the card as relating to “downfall as a result of one’s selfish, egotistical ambition. It is a sudden change, a jolting event that will shake the Seeker to his or her foundation…The falling crown symbolizes toppling materialism; thwarted materialistic ambitions.” She goes on to say that “The Tower often appears in readings for the cutthroat ambitious, for those who embody the combination of ambition, ego, pride, and talent…the Seeker’s ego will be struck down to humility… it is a warning that the ascent to the top must be paired with spiritual understanding and humility. Otherwise, the ascent will end with a crash downward.” 

In A. E. Waite’s (the ‘Waite’ part of the ‘Rider-Waite-Smith’ deck - probably the most commonly used of all tarot decks) book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot he gives a more ambiguous explanation of the card’s meaning, saying that “it signifies the materialization of the spiritual word. The bibliographer Christian imagines that it is the downfall of the mind, seeking to penetrate the mystery of God… the reference is, however, to a House of Falsehood.”. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot is, understandably, difficult to understand. It has the same terse, slightly irritated, deliberately obscure tone as the annotations that T. S. Eliot made to accompany later publications of The Wasteland; a kind of “for fuck’s sake, do I have to point out how clever I am to you?” vibe. However, the section where Waite describes the two figures in the image is worth mentioning:

“The Tower has been spoken of as the chastisement of pride and the intellect overwhelmed in the attempt to penetrate the Mystery of God; but in neither case do these explanations account for the two persons who are the living sufferers. The one is the literal word made void and the other its false interpretation. In yet a deeper sense, it may signify also the end of a dispensation, but there is no possibility here for the consideration of this involved question.”

Michelle Tea, in her book Modern Tarot, presents a much clearer and easily digestible interpretation of The Tower, when she says that: “Few people love change, and the Tower is nothing but change. Even fewer people like sudden change, and it is true that the type of upheaval this card brings is the kind that strikes out of nowhere. You didn’t see it coming. You should have seen it coming, but you didn’t. When you stay cocooned in denial, when you refuse to face reality, when you shy away from making the life changes you need to make in order to grow, the Tower will show up for you. How painful this card is will depend on how tightly you cling to the walls that are falling down. This card demands complete letting go — a tough order for anyone, but especially for one taken by surprise, or one who has been consciously or unconsciously resisting change for quite a while.”

Returning to Benebell Wen (whose vast, encyclopedic ‘Holistic Tarot’ is a must have) for a minute, she goes on to say that “The Tower card could also indicate that there will be a sudden game-changer, one that will feel out of the Seeker’s control; it may make him or her feel helpless. The sudden change will not be easy for the Seeker to deal with. There will be difficulties. What seemed stable and solid to the Seeker is not so; it is in fact destructible and will come to destruction if the Seeker does not make drastic changes.”

Jessa Crispin (I know I mention her in pretty much everything I write - you’re just going to have to get used to it), in her excellent book The Creative Tarot, digs a little deeper into the questions that The Tower asks of the querent/seeker, as well as highlighting the associations with Eris (in her Tarot Tuesdays video she explicitly links the two archetypes), stating: “The Tower is ruthless; it is the card of destruction and chaos… Rather than the self-destruction of the Devil, the Tower is destruction that comes from the outside. It is a shaking, a tumult, a calamity. What you have built up, the Tower takes down… all is lost, and you will have to start over from the beginning… Then you have to decide—do you try again? Or do you cut your losses and start on something new? If you do try again, do you do it in the same way, or was there something wrong about it that caused the finger of God to come down and smite it? The Tower requires a lot of soul-searching, because it can be difficult to find the courage and the energy to carry on.”

The synchronised themes of ruthless chaos, destruction and discord shared between the archetype of Eris and that of The Tower are much easier to discern here. In previous posts I’ve described Eris as ‘chaos for the sake of chaos’ and, while this is true, every concept, every situation has its mutually-arising polarity; even the concept of polarisation itself. While there’s no avoiding the fact that Eris represents a ‘dark energy’, there are reasons and deeper meanings beyond my reductive statement of ‘chaos for the sake of chaos’. Every astronomical discovery has a correlative astrological significance. Eris was always there. I (obviously) feel it is worth exploring the ‘why’ and ‘what’ behind its significance. There’s a distinction between that which is invisible (cannot be seen), and that which we choose not to ignore. It’s my feeling that choosing to ignore Eris is, if the myths are anything to go by, unwise. 

In Keiron Le Grice’s book ‘Discovering Eris: The Symbolism and Significance of a New Planetary Archetype’ (published in 2012) he makes a number of noble, valid, and prophetic attempts at suggesting the possible archetypal significations of Eris. As I said, Eris has always been there, and part of the work of developing our understanding of its astrological significance lies in discerning the distinctions between the archetype of Eris from all the other planetary archetypes in common astrological use. Le Grice states that:

“Perhaps the planet Eris relates to a principle that can only be truly comprehended by plumbing the depths of the human psyche, to bring to the surface what lies behind the Plutonic will to power and compulsive patterns of consumption that have characterized the human attitude to nature, especially in the modern era. If, with the discovery of Pluto, human beings were called upon to consciously confront, harness, and responsibly manage the immense power of nature, perhaps now, with the discovery of Eris, we are being invited to come to terms with the discord and tension between opposites that gives rise to the accumulated Plutonic power and unconsciously determines its expression in human affairs. With the discovery of Eris, it might be that we are being called upon to address the consequences for nature, for our planet, of the course taken by human cultural and psychological evolution.

The violent reactions we are now experiencing in politics, economics, and most especially at the ecological level, point to the fact that our world, our time, has become so dangerously one-sided, out of balance, and alienated from the natural world. The processes that have given rise to modern civilization, created modern industrial society, the global economy, and our technological culture, have pulled us into a state of potentially catastrophic disharmony with the natural order of things.

We are today facing momentous counterbalancing responses from the planet, the natural world, and from the depths of the human psyche to the current state of civilization and our consciousness. We need now to urgently restore a condition of dynamic harmony by aspiring to realize our wholeness and unity, both within ourselves and with the planet at large.”

With a decade’s worth of hindsight, it’s pretty fair to say that we are, today “facing momentous counterbalancing responses from the planet, the natural world, and from the depths of the human psyche to the current state of civilization and our consciousness.” Far more urgently, and palpably in fact, than we were back in 2012. 

One of the founding fathers of Evolutionary Astrology, Steven Forrest, wrote a blog post during the Eris-Pluto square of 2020 which expands on the increasing sense of urgency in recognising Eris' significance. In the post, titled ‘Pluto, Eris, And The Evolutionary Meaning Of COVID-19’ Forrest directly associates the Eris-Pluto square with the pandemic, saying:

“The square joining Pluto and Eris is an aspect of friction. Friction can be creative, and it is often highly motivating. But with any square, we can also potentially see two planets bringing out the worst in each other. And, given the edgy natures of both Pluto and Eris, that worst case scenario is a scary prospect. Nothing in astrology happens without a higher purpose. That is true of this Pluto-Eris square. It is also true of the Covid-19 crisis which I believe this square has brought us.”

Clarifying his point, Forrest goes on to say: “The meaning of the Pluto-Eris square of 2020 and 2021? Our collective addiction to our separation from each other has reached critical mass. It is catching up with us. Humanity has manifested this disease as a mirror of that spiritual crisis… everything that happens in the sky reflects an evolutionary necessity. Nothing astrological should ever be considered as simply bad luck – or good luck, for that matter. They always have a purpose. Collectively, we need this virus. Paradoxically, it might turn out to be very good for us.”

With the collective death toll from COVID-19 now around 6,185,997 (at the time of writing), it might be hard to see just how the pandemic “might turn out to be very good for us”. But, there are unquestionably questions that we, as a species, need to be asking ourselves right now. As I said, to ignore Eris, just like trying to ignore the pandemic, won’t make it go away. 

As synchronicity would have it, there was an interview published today, in The New Statesman with 93 year-old Noam Chomsky. If you don’t know who Noam Chomsky is, then I would recommend rectifying that asap, as he’s one of the wisest human beings (still) alive. The reason for the article (written by George Eaton), and the interview with Chomsky is the imminent publication of a book called ‘Chronicles of Dissent’; a collection of interviews between Chomsky and the radical journalist David Barsamian which took place between 1984 - 1996. Chomsky gives his opinion on a wide range of global affairs, from the current annihilation of Ukraine by Putain de Merde, to the blatant hypocrisy of the U.S. and U.K. governments demonising Russia, whilst conveniently forgetting our own history of aggressive imperialism, war crimes and atrocious disregard for ‘democracy’:

“Putin is as concerned with democracy as we are. If it’s possible to break out of the propaganda bubble for a few minutes, the US has a long record of undermining and destroying democracy. Do I have to run through it? Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, on and on… But we are supposed to now honour and admire Washington’s enormous commitment to sovereignty and democracy. What happened in history doesn’t matter. That’s for other people. What about Nato expansion? There was an explicit, unambiguous promise by [US secretary of state] James Baker and president George HW Bush to Gorbachev that if he agreed to allow a unified Germany to rejoin Nato, the US would ensure that there would be no move one inch to the east. There’s a good deal of lying going on about this now.” 

Chomsky, who quite rightly stated in 1990 that “if the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every postwar American president would have been hanged”, speaks witheringly of Joe Biden and Boris “Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Cake Bumboys Vampires Haircut Wall-Spaffer Spunk-Burster Fuck-Business Fuck-the-Families Get-Off-My-Fucking-Laptop Girly-Swot Big-Girl’s-Blouse Chicken-frit Hulk-Smash Noseringed-Crusties Death-Humbug Technology-Lessons Surrender-Bullshit French-Turds Dog-Whistle Get-Stuffed FactcheckUK@CCHQ 88%-lies Get-Brexit-Done Bung-a-Bob-for-Big-Ben’s-Bongs Cocaine-Event Spiritual-Worth Three-Men-and-a-Dog Whatever-It-Takes I-Shook-Hands-With-Everyone Herd-Immunity I-Want-to-Thank-Po-Ling Squash-the-Sombrero” Johnson. But, it’s in the small video excerpt from the interview included in the article where Chomsky really delivers his punch-to-the-gut summary of humanity’s current situation: 

“The Doomsday Clock, of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: under Trump they abandoned minutes, moved to seconds. 100 seconds to Midnight - that’s where it is now. Because the threats are accumulating. We’re approaching the most dangerous point in human history. Nothing like it before. We are now facing the prospect of destruction of organized human life on earth; from environmental destruction, and not in the remote future. We are approaching irreversible turning points which cannot be dealt with any longer. It doesn’t mean “everybody’s gonna die,” but it’s going to mean moving to a future in which the lucky ones will be those who die more quickly.”

If this is how one of the cleverest human beings on the planet thinks, then it raises three pressing questions:

1. How did we end up in this mess? 

2. How did homo sapiens sapiens collectively draw The Tower card and what, if anything, can we do about it? 

3. What is the “lesson” that Eris has to teach us? 

In order to address question 1, let’s return to Keiron Le Grice:

“Eris could be conceived as the principle associated with the movement of life energy between opposite poles that provides the precondition for the emergence of self-reflective consciousness. Eris might be the archetypal principle of discord relating to the movement of life energy between opposites that promotes the movement away from the primal unity of the Universal Will towards plurality, the impulse that, at the deepest level, lies behind the principium individuationis by which the individual ego comes into being. Based on this line of conjecture, I am suggesting that the Eris principle, in effect, drew out our conscious subjectivity from the unconscious, that it called forth, through sheer necessity, the development of rationality and the emergence of the autonomous ego that could orient itself to the external world and try to exert some form of control on the environment. Without this inherent discord and polarity, if our human ancestors had been able to live in uninterrupted paradisiacal bliss in their earthly home, the development of human consciousness would never have happened. Here, in its relationship to the underlying impulse that is behind the evolution of consciousness, we perhaps have a clue to the deeper value and purpose of the Eris archetype, if it is indeed to be associated with the discord inherent in existence.”

So, to summarise, we got ourselves into this mess because it was all we could do. The inevitable consequence of evolving the capacity for self-reflection; the fact that we are the only animal on the planet that can think about thinking, that has the capacity for abstract thought, the ability to evolve the way we have, because of the process of “self-ing”, is both our blessing and our curse.

In order to try and answer the second question, I want to look at an alternative interpretation of The Tower card, from the wonderfully insane film director, writer, and the person responsible for the renaissance of the Tarot de Marseille deck, Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Jodorowsky’s interpretation of The Tower (or ‘La Maison Dieu’) is radically distinct from the conventional RWS/Thoth versions. In his book The Way of Tarot, he says that:

“The message of this card is one of great spiritual comfort. However, until the restoration of the Tarot of Marseille, people generally saw Arcanum XVI as a reference to the Tower of Babel. The most common interpretations spoke of the punishment of pride, catastrophe, divorce, castration, earthquake, and ruin.

If you carefully read the passage from the Bible discussing the Tower of Babel, you will see that its destruction is far from being a catastrophe. Rather than a punishment, the destruction of the tower is a solution to a problem: the deluge now finally ended, the entire planet, abundantly irrigated, has become fertile. But very few human beings remain. Instead of dispersing to cultivate the land, they are joining forces to construct a tower that will climb into the heavens and reach God. In principle, this construction is intended as an act of love, a desire to know the kingdom of the Creator. Now the Creator, knowing this plan cannot be realized, does not strike the tower with lightning, nor does he cause any of its inhabitants to fall from it. He merely creates the diversity of languages to separate them. This is a blessing more than a punishment. Humanity starts off again to conquer the world and start tilling the fields.

In the different versions of the Tarot, the tower has no door. The restoration work not only allowed us to find the tower’s door again but also the three initiatory steps leading to it. 

The Tower (La Maison Dieu) is not the house of God; it is the House/God. The Tarot indicates quite clearly with the flesh-colored bricks that this tower is our body, and that our body contains the deity… The figures are not in the middle of falling, quite the contrary. Their hair is yellow, the color of illumination, and they are touching the plants growing out of the ground with their hands. In reality, they are honoring the potential of the Earth. They have their heads at the bottom like The Hanged Man of Arcanum XII because they are seeing the world in a new way. The intellect, the mind, is looking directly at Nature… this is not destruction but the transformation of material power into spiritual fulguration… In it we can distinguish a flesh-colored fetal shape that symbolizes the seed of a new consciousness, the human race’s contribution to the development of the universe. The creation of a new being is announced, one that will take on material form in The Star (XVII)...like The Lover, The Tower evokes the theme of union— here if we wish to accept the homophony of the original French—the union of the soul and its God. 

In sacred Indian texts it is said that knowledge is like milk, which, when beaten, eventually releases drops of oil on the surface. Similarly, these yellow, red, and blue balls floating in the air express the dance of cosmic joy, as if to say the stars are our allies and are bringing us their energy while awaiting our awakening. This cosmic explosion could represent drawings of existing constellations; just like the tower has, through its illumination, a kinship with the lighthouse, these constellation drawings would then be, if you like, a navigation tool. 

It refers, as we have seen, to a dance of joyous separation; the figures are actually acrobats flying about in a theater. This can be giving birth to something that has long been gestating and takes dual shape here—the twinship of the animus and the anima, collaborating on a long-thought-out work.”

Even the more traditional interpretations have fragments of hope and optimism in them. Benebell Wen says that “...new revelations will come after the jolt. The aftermath is truth. The gold lightning rod suggests that there will be a sudden epiphany, realization, or significant spiritual growth…There will be a lesson in humility. Wisdom will be gained in the end.” Michelle Tea adds to this idea of the destruction indicated by The Tower being necessary for spiritual growth, saying that: “a truly paradigm-shifting understanding has arrived. There is nothing to do but change in accordance with this new information, no matter how devastating it might be. When all the debris and rubble are cleared and the smoke fades from the sky, the Tower offers you a way of living that is much more in accordance with your heart and mind. The structures that the Tower brings down are always things that need to go.” 

Perhaps, in light of these ideas, if we were to collectively develop a renewed sense of humility and union (with each other and with the bio-organism we find ourselves existing as an expression of) then Steven Forrest’s idea that the pandemic could be “good for us” might start to feel a little more... “real”? 

Forrest, who (despite, or in spite of, or because of his Capricorian solar vitality) always tries to see the 'evolutionary lessons' that astrology has to teach us, goes on to say in his article that: 

“The bottom line is that, as all the wiser pundits and medical people are saying, we are all in this together. Our only defense against Covid-19 is to come together as a community. Only in caring for each other can we effectively care for ourselves. That is not philosophy; that is medical science, not to mention a pretty deep well of spirituality… Communities that pull together, communities in which people effectively care for each other by staying away from each other, washing their hands, voluntarily self-isolating if they have symptoms or think that might have – those communities are going to survive and thrive.

Do we learn the lesson? The universe has set up the question. It is pressing on us all. It will not go away. 

The answer we choose to give is our own.”

#focl #fnord