As was mentioned in the treatment of Justice [Justice –VIII], Strength is not always placed as card XI. Sometimes the two cards, are traded in position, unlike the other cards of the Major Arcana which have a more universally agreed upon order. Since Justice was treated as card VIII (8) in this etymological series, Strength will be treated as card XI (11).
"As above, so below; as below, so above," –The Kybalion.
This Principle embodies the truth that there is always a Correspondence between the laws and phenomena of various planes of Being and Life. The old Hermetic axiom ran in these words: "As above, so below; as below, so above." And the grasping of the Principle gives one the means of solving many a dark paradox, and hidden secret of Nature. There are planes beyond our knowing, but when we apply the Principle of Correspondence to them we are able to understand much that would otherwise be unknowable to us. This Principle is of universal application and manifestation, on the various planes of the material, mental, and spiritual universe–it is an Universal law. . . –The Kybalion, A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, pp.11-12
However, our universe (from Latin universum "all things, the whole world"), appears to us with so much evolved complexity that it is easy for us to get caught up in the story and not see how everything is in fact connected and just one thing (i.e., universus literally "turned into one;" uni "one"[dat.]+ versus), the true nature of reality itself being hidden. This can cause feelings of separation which allows for things like war and hate, but it also creates mystery which allows for magic and produces wonder and the wonderful (as opposed to eternal boredom or hell).
Strength comes in many forms. Often, strength is observed as physical power, energy, ability or action like a lion or bear is strong. Other times strength appears as mental strength. This may come in the the form of things like courage, endurance, and resolution, and sometimes requires the taming our inner beast. It takes mental strength both to act when it is not easy or natural to act due to fear and pain, and it also takes mental strength to withhold powerful urges or refrain from acting until the appropriate time. The possession and practice, or procurement of strength is worthwhile because it causes one to be capable, from Late Latin capabilis "able to grasp or hold," from PIE root *kap "to grasp" 👊. The strength of "man"(traditionally meaning) "mankind, human beings (both male and female)," gives us a hand in rising to the top. Man has 👊 manus "hand, strength, power over," from PIE *man-(2) "hand."
We see this association in English between man and hand with the term "hired hand," which means a [whole] "man"/person not just the hand, and "all hands on deck" which means all available persons. The very idea of man seems to be the idea of this animal that possesses certain unusual capabilities within the animal kingdom, and indeed within the whole universe. And it is the case that our hands (the hands of man) make us very dextrous compared to the other animals and enable us, combined with our mental (from Latin mens "mind, understanding, reason") ability, to accomplish extraordinary things, even things as far out as traveling to other celestial bodies. A lot of our strength is exhibited in the form of things we accomplish with our hands; our handiwork.
In Hebrew, one word, besides the word adam "man"[one made from the adamah "ground," akin to the english word human], meaning "man" is geber. This word shows this same connection between man[every one] and might. Geber גבר (such as in the name Gabriel), is from gabar / gavar גבר "to be strong, mighty, be stronger, prevail." Man (Geber) is THE creature that is strong/mighty par excellence, capable of being a hero (from Greek hērōs "demi-god"). It is man who is made in the image of God and who, after eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was made to be like God, knowing "good" [טוב towb/tov "beautiful, pleasant, agreeable, good"] and "evil" [רע, ra' "evil, adversity, affliction, bad"Gen. 3:5]. And no one has more capability and therefore manus (in Hebrew, ׳ד yad "hand; power, strength") than God, so to be like God is to be strong in all ways.
Man/Men are able to be not only physically strong, they are also capable of rising above their animal nature, and so, acting with virtue, which word comes from the Latin word for "man," vir.
from Anglo-French and Old French vertu "force, strength, vigor; moral strength; qualities, abilities" (10c. in Old French), from Latin virtutem (nominative virtus) "moral strength, high character, goodness; manliness; valor, bravery, courage (in war); excellence, worth," from vir "man" (from PIE root *wi-ro- "man").
As is apparent with the lion tamer, it is not always raw physical force that prevails. Human power of mind is capable of ruling over the strongest of beasts.
Generally maintaining or growing strength, both physical and mental, requires dedication and hard work. It is a type of excellence (virtutem) of man. It is man at his best and most powerful. This is why it is considered to be a virtue.
So a virtue is a kind of strength (geburah), and it is a kind of strength which goes beyond the purely physical or instinctual ability of the other animals. Virtue (vir "man" + tue) is proper to geber "man."
Fortitude has the meaning of strength, from Latin fortitudo "strength, force, firmness, manliness," from fortis "strong, brave," and meaning generally "moral strength." Fortitude is one of the four cardinal virtues, therefore one of the main "strengths," i.e., virtues, is itself strength which is a word of Germanic (*staingitho, from PIE *strenk- "tight, narrow"), rather than Latin (fortitudo "firmness") origin. Classically there are four cardinal (i.e., principal) virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance).
The virtue of fortitude (sometimes called courage) is a translation of the ancient Greek άνδρεία andreía witch is, again, related to the word "man," άνήρ (άνδρός) anēr (genitive andros) "a man, a male,"so we could say that it is a quality pertaining to man or manliness.
Fortitude (άνδρεία, andreía; Latin; fortitudo): also termed courage: forbearance, strength, endurance, and the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, and intimidation. Notably, άνδρεία [andreía], being closely related to άνήρ [anēr], άνδρός [andros], could also be translated "manliness". wikipedia, Cardinal Virtues
The earliest surviving tarot cards were made in Italy during the 15th century. The cards were later introduced to Southern France around the end of that century where they became popular. Here we see the card named Forteza with symbolism pertaining to raw physical strength (the lion, broken pillar) meeting moral strength (the finely robed/armored woman with lion pelt mantle holding a scepter[dominating/ruling]).
Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. The Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done. Judges 14:5-6
Samson said to the servant who held his hand, "Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them." Judges 16:26
"fortified place, stronghold," from Old French fort "fort, fortress; strong man," noun use of an adjective meaning "strong, stout, sturdy; hard, severe, difficult; hard to understand; dreadful, terrible; fortified," from Latin fortis "strong, mighty; firm, steadfast; brave, spirited," from Old Latin forctus (fork-tus), which is of unknown etymology. [OE]
from Old French force "force, strength; courage, fortitude; violence, power, compulsion" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *fortia (n.), noun use of neuter plural Latin fortis "strong, mighty; firm, steadfast; brave, bold." [OE]
Old English forca, force "pitchfork, forked instrument, forked weapon," from Germanic borrowing (Old Frisian forke, . . . Danish fork) of Latin furca "two-pronged fork; pitchfork; fork used for cooking," a word of uncertain origin. Old English also has forcel "pitchfork." From c.1200 as "forked stake or post" (as a gallows or prop). [OE]
So a devil might force a person into hell with a force[fork] after being put to death on a fork[gallows] at a furca[place of execution].
No amount of physical strength can save a soul from death. When the time comes you're forked! However, presumably exercising strength or fortitude in the form virtue can help to save a person from hell. Fortitude makes a person capable of avoiding eternal damnation.
Below is an image of the ancient Egyptian god Set/Seth. At times Set was seen as a negative force not unlike the devil.
Originally Seth was a sky god, lord of the desert, master of storms, disorder, and warfare–in general, a trickster. Seth embodied the necessary and creative element of violence and disorder within the ordered world. Encycolpedia Brittanica
He is carrying a forked [forced] scepter in his hand.
The name of the staff/scepter/rod is commonly transliterated from ancient Egyptian to English as Was. This type of scepter was made with what appears to be the head of the "set animal" on top, and forked at the bottom end. The word transliterated into Latin alphabet is pronounced something like was / uas, which, given the specific pronunciation, can sound very close to the word force, or even vis a Latin word meaning "force"; "power." Furthermore, the meaning of the was-scepter as a hieroglyph (written word/concept) was "power, dominion," and was often shown in the hands of gods and pharaohs to denote their power and authority. So this makes an intriguing correlation between the word "force" [similar in sound and meaning to was "power, dominion"] and "fork" [the shape of the was]. We could say here that the fork (the was) means "power, dominion[able to force];" therefore it could loosely be translated as the force scepter, and could easily be called the fork(ed) scepter.
Some people like to speculate that the Was was a sort of stylized resonance/tuning fork. If we entertain that idea it would be easy to see it as a representation of strength in the form of vibration. The power of vibration can force bridges and buildings to collapse and shatter glass. It can be used as a weapon to dominate people through inflicted discomfort and pain, such as with acoustic/sonic weapons.
Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. 1 Samuel 16:23
You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." Psalms 2:9 ESV
But of course, not everyone is in agreement on what virtue is and its value. Sometimes when a deck is made the particular titles of the trumps are renamed to correspond to the theme of the deck, or they are purposely evolved to untraditional, but related concepts by the author. One somewhat unusual example is Alistair Crowley's treatment of this trump (called by him Atu) XI in his "Book of Thoth (Egyptian Tarot)." In this deck this card is named Lust and is meant to take the place of Strength. This is definitely an odd treatment of Strength, given that lust is not generally thought to be a virtue or even a strength. It is more often thought of as a weakness or vice.
Crowley was in fact, actively intending to rebel against what he viewed as the imposition of Christian ideas of virtue in his reimagining of the tarot.
But the cardinal virtues could have no place in the New Aeon. Whilst Crowley's renaming of the trumps VIII, XI, XIV, and XX brought to a logical conclusion the process of adoption of the tarot by occultists that had been ongoing since the mid-eighteenth century, his agenda was far more ambitious: his dual purpose was to expunge Christian values from the deck and, in what constitutes a deliberate act of "cultural reprograming", encode therein the key tenets of Thelema, the religion-magical philosophy of the New Aeon. The Cardinal Importance of Names, by Matthew Fletcher
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries."
Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery: Babylon the Great Mother of Prostitutes and the Abominations of the Earth. Revelation 17:1-5
The Christian interpretation is not favorable, with descriptors associated with the woman and the beast she rides on, such as prostitute [porné πόρνη], adultery [porneia πορνεία], blasphemous [blasphémia βλασφημιας], abominable [bdelugma βδέλυγμα], and filth /unclean [akathartos ακάθαρτος]. So we can see there is a lot of available provocative energy bound up with this image and, indeed with the whole Book of Revelation, which Crowley is intending to tap into for his Lust card.
However, without getting sucked into this particular drama of whether or not sexual freedom without religious constraints and judgments is good or evil, what does it even mean to attempt to see lust as strength?
Lust is a cause of heated action for sure. There is a lot of energy and drive bound up with lust which would make it a type of strength.
Lust is from Old English lust "desire, appetite; inclination, pleasure; sensuous appetite," from the same PIE root as the Latin lascivius "wanton, playful, lustful," *las- "to be eager, wanton, or unruly." These things (desire, appetite, pleasure, playfulness, etc.) are not sins in and of themselves, however, they can easily lead to "sin" or shall we say, a fall, ruin or negative consequence (adversity "evil") because they are fun and enjoyable (feel good), and therefore can easily be done to excess and lead to imbalance.
"Go in through the narrow gate, because the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it. But the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it. Mat.7:13-14
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Mt. 5:6,"
This trump was formerly called Strength. But it implies far more than strength in the ordinary sense of the word. Technical analysis shows that the Path corresponding to the card is not the Strength of Geburah, but the influence from Chesed upon Geburah . . . Lust implies not only strength, but the joy of strength exercised. It is vigour, and the rapture of vigour . . .
. . . It represents the original marriage as it occurs in nature, as opposed to the more artificial form portrayed in Atu VI; there is in this card no attempt to direct the course of the operation . . .
. . . There is in this card a divine drunkenness or ecstasy. The woman shown is more than a little drunk, and more than a little mad; and the lion also is aflame with lust. This signifies that the type of energy described is of the primitive, creative order; it is completely independent of the criticism of reason. —The Book of Thoth, excerpts pp. 91-95
It is not easy to understand what is supposed to be meant by this given the esoteric origins of the purposed explanation. However, it is clear that it is meant to deviate from the standard notion of Strength as a virtue, instead focusing on the power of this innate drive and the experience it elicits when openly engaging with it.
If we look to the end purpose, how does Lust function as a step on the Fool's Journey?
Because it is action oriented it exposes a person to experience which is good for learning and creativity, so in this sense it would be helpful, but of course not all experience ends up being pleasurable even when it is desirable, sometimes there are undesirable consequences to acting upon our desires. For example a child may find a flame to be beautiful and desire to touch it, there is nothing wrong with wanting to touch something that looks beautiful, but then when they touch it, in the next moment they experience pain from being burned. The consequences of this are not too dire, but if a child instead runs into a whole campfire the consequences are much greater and perhaps even deadly. Therefore it is beneficial to have some experience with fire instead of just simply be prohibited from engaging with it without knowing why. When people are restricted from learning for themselves they run the risk of deciding to run headlong into the fire and not realize that it is too much for them until it is too late. And this too is the danger with engaging with lust or desire when it is driven from a place of rebellion against imposed restriction (such as religious and cultural), even if engaging with our primal desires is necessary and helpful to a certain extent.
In the extreme, think of practitioners of so called "back magic," such as the character Nancy from the movie "The Craft," a rebellious Catholic School girl, who gains supernatural abilities from the deity known as Manon by following her lust for magical power without proper caution or reserve, but in the end, she is disempowered, as she is locked up in a mental institution. Her engagement with the supernatural magical energies proving to be too much for her. Or the Puritan girl, Thomasin, from "The Witch." She does indeed gain powers, but she must first give herself to the Devil (she rides the beast). A famous line from the movie is when the Devil in the form of Black Philip poses the question to her, "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" She lustily accepts his offer.
Now alone, Thomasin enters the goat house and urges Black Phillip to speak to her. The goat responds in a human voice and materializes into a handsome, black-clad man. He tells Thomasin to remove her cloths and sign her name in a book, promising the life she has always wanted. Thomasin, accompanied by Black Phillip as a goat, then enters the forest nude, where she finds a coven holding a Witches' Sabbath around a bonfire. The witches begin to levitate, and Thomasin joins them, laughing or possibly crying as she ascends above the trees. wikipedia, The Witch, plot
So, Thomasin gains amazing abilities (strength), but at what final cost? We don't ever find out. The movie ends in this moment of ecstasy. However, the witches are undoubtedly subjugated (they signed the book) to this dominant supernatural male authority figure who is imparting magical powers to them. It's not their power free and clear. It's given or perhaps loaned at a price. And since no one lives forever, it will have to be repaid at some point. What power will they have then?
What goes up, must come down. What are the consequences of wielding this kind of atomic energy that is unbound lust?
If we liken lust to the strength of a bomb, it is an awesome force, but creates a lot of unintended consequences in its wake as well. If you blow up your enemy, you are also blowing up the habitat, the animals, the trees, things that you yourself need to survive. There is burning, smoke and destruction that gets carried back to you. If its a nuclear bomb there is the aftermath of radiation poisoning your own the environment. So there are significant consequences to using and unleashing these kinds of potently stored energies. If you are engaging in partying and drunkenness there are health ramifications (if not also social ramifications) when the body must process all the alcohol and drugs, if engaging with lust as sex or sex magic there are potent consequences such as the conception of babies (either of the physical or metaphysical nature) needing to gestate (depletes energy), give birth to (dangerous) and raise (time/resource consuming), the possibility of STDs, loss of autonomy, FEELINGS (that may be difficult), or even the opposite, depleted feelings and ennui. It can be very fun, and satisfying in the moment and very productive to a certain end, but then you do end up paying a price for the use of those energies, shall we say, by force of Ma'at (truth, justice, balance)? So, let's be honest about this.
We know what happened to Jack Parsons who was a proponent of Crowley. He himself went out with a lusty bang!🧪💥😵 When you play with fire, you might get burned. . . and I'd say, when you play with fire for long enough, you will certainly get burned. So it's not that you cannot act with lust because it is evil, but, rather, you need to be careful because of the consequences of acting with lust, which are sometimes hard or adverse. "Do what thou wilt," but it is all too easy to delve into the pleasurable and perhaps create a debt that is too big pay back.
Crowley's religion was named Thelema (from Greek θέλημα theléma meaning "desire, pleasure, will," however Crowley himself, was addicted to heroin, and to be addicted is to be at odds with one's own will. Addiction takes away one's power. It is a weakness. What does a person do when they desire something like heroin (or cigarettes, alcohol, sex) but also don't desire the negative consequences of taking heroin? They have to restrict themselves which takes strength (fortitude) to accomplish. Fortitude is exercising a certain strength of the will specifically because what is done is not immediately pleasurable or easy (like abstaining from taking heroin when you desire to), but reaps long term positive consequences. You are in fact being your own protector or fort when you choose to (and are able to) follow through with restricting yourself for good cause. This is why fortitude and all the virtues as concepts are not solely Christian ideas, but are pretty much universally valued and understood to be good. The long term good is valued above the short term. The Greeks, such as Plato[Protagoras, Republic] and Aristotle[Ethics] were talking about these things long before Christianity came along, whereas lust is just a little wanky as a value. Crowley may take issue with certain religious or cultural expositions of what the terms "fortitude" and "strength" mean, but he can't say that there is anything wrong with fortitude and strength in and of themselves, any more than someone can say there is something wrong with lust in and of itself.
As was seen in Crowley's Lust card, the traditional "Woman with Lion" symbolism of the Strength card is replaced with the provocative biblical imagery of the "Whore of Babylon riding the beast." But where did this biblical imagery come from originally? If we take the Judeo-Christian judgment out of the narrative and travel back in time to compare the imagery, we do have a very good fit with the Mesopotamian Goddess Ishtar who was worshipped (among other places) in Babylon. So she was the "whore," aka the Goddess of Babylon.
She is both the goddess of prostitutes and the goddess of marital sexuality, but above all she embodies the (divine) essence of pure desire, she is the goddess of passion that leads unrestrainedly to sexual union and ecstasy, detached from any link with any socially recognized value. Metaxu. Le blog de Philippe Quéau, Inanna. Her Decent into Hell, Death and Resurrection
The main entrance to the city of Babylon was the Ishtar Gate which was the processional way prominently decorated with many lion reliefs, the lion being one of her sacred symbols. Here she is shown, we could say, "riding a beast."
Ishtar was conflated with the Sumerian goddess Inana, a love, war and fertility goddess,
In the ancient world, it is difficult to overstate the importance of Inanna / Ishtar. As the most famous Mesopotamian goddess, her substantial influence was embedded in many aspects of her worshippers' lives, and she was revered across the broad geographical reach of the Ancient Near East for a period of history spanning thousands of years. Ishtar comes from a very early time in the history of complex civilizations, with her cult attested at Uruk as early as the late 4th Millennium BCE. . .
Ishtar had a significant impact on the images and cults of many later goddesses, including the famous Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, and other well-known goddesses such as Astarte. . .
Ishtar in portraiture may be accompanied by her emblematic animal, the lion, and she often carries weapons. Sumerian Inanna, in particular, is often represented with a lion or standing on top of a lion. Ishtar, Wold History Encyclopedia
So it is clear from these pictures, that the15th century Italian tarot card, Forteza, picturing the woman near a lion, wearing cloak, breastplate, headdress and holding a scepter, is a very good middle progression between the imagery of the love and war goddess of Babylon, Ishtar /Inanna, who is described in her decent into the underworld as a very "fort" woman being, "a maid as tall as heaven, as wide as the earth, as strong as the foundations of the city wall . . . her body is wrapped in the royal robe . . . around her chest she wears the breastplate . . . ," and the woman of the more modern tarot decks (from 18th century on), who is popularly shown crowned (of some sort) and standing with and subduing a lion. However, in the modern decks the woman has lost her overt warrior symbolism and is instead actively engaged with the lion.
The imagery in the Crowley tarot Lust card (1944) then, brings us back full circle to Babylon (therefore Ishtar) with the imagery of the woman riding the beast, reminiscent of the Whore of Babylon, who, of course, is just a negative caricature of the pagan goddess. To worship this goddess of Babylon (Ishtar /Inanna /Asherah /Astarte /Ashtoreth) was labeled as idolatry in the Bible.
You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim . . .
lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, Ex. 34:13, 15 ESV
In this sense, to engage in idolatry is to be unfaithful to the God of Israel, therefore to be a fornicator, or a whore / harlot, in Hebrew זנה zanah, which notion given in the Book of Revelation in Greek is πόρνη porné "woman indulging in unlawful sexual intercourse, whether for gain or for lust; Hebraistically metaphorically an idolatress," and comes down to us in English with the translation "whore" or "harlot." So Crowley's point in reappropriating such negative concepts taken from Judaism and Christianity makes some sense. There isn't anything intrisically evil about this goddess, or sex or the sexual impulse. So, taking this kind of confrontational and provocative approach can be effective in aiming to expose such religious and moral prejudices, however, it doesn't really directly aid in abolishing the overall "Babel" or confusion regarding the good, so to speak. Instead we just have two oposing groups using the same words to mean similar but oposing things and placing a lot of judgment upon each other and calling each other bad names. But the question still remains, regardless of whether you lable the goddess a whore or not, how is lust strength?
We could say that Samson's naturally robust and strong physique gave him access to abundant reserves of vital energy in order to engage with lust in the form of desire, Eros ([erotic]Love), from eron "to desire," however this also led to his initial downfall and caused him dire consequences. Having physical strength and vitality can make a person feel invincible and set them up for a fall like Phaeton the "shining" one. Yet there is also a certain admiration for such actions as is written into Phaeton's epitaph which reads:
"Here Phaeton lies who in the sun god's chariot fared. And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared."
Phaetons strong desire, we could say his "lust" to attempt to drive the chariot of the sun was admirable. The first step towards being capable is exercising the will toward action, because if you don't even try, you most certainly won't ever succeed, and lust provides energy toward action. Phaeton finally did not prove to have all the necessary strength to finish what he set out to do, but he did dare to try. There is a beauty in testing man's limits. We only begin to know what the limits are when we fail.
So, of Samson we could say that acting with lust was indirectly the cause of his final attainment of mental strength, which we could call fortitude, because of the consequences he had to endure after being betrayed by the women he "loved" (namely his Philistine bride from Timnah, and then, Delilah). Therefore in this sense we might say that engaging with lust was a legitimate step on the path. It just seems to be a really fraught and dangerous step, not unlike the journey of the Prodigal Son who squandered his inheritance living asótós άσώτως "wastefully, prodigally, dissolutely, loose," which is asótia άσωτια "wantonness, debauchery," and ended up destitute before returning to his father.
The woman from Timnah and Delilah both enticed or, shall we say, attempted to debauch ("to entice, seduce, lead astray [uncertain origin]) Samson due to his "love" for them.
First Timnah his Philistine bride, because he gave in to her and told her the secret answer to his riddle about the דנש debash "honey, honeycomb"[from an unused root meaning to be gummy; honey (from its stickiness); a sticky mass"], that he found in the lion carcass.
He replied, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet." For three days they could not give the answer. Judges 14:14
Before sunset on the seventh day the men of the town said to him, "What is sweeter than honey [debash]? What is stronger than a lion? . . . Judges 14:18
Later he was lured in by Delilah to give over the secret to his great strength.
The lords of the Philistines went to her and said, "Entice him and find out the source of his great strength and how we can overpower him to tie him up and subdue him. Then each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver." Judges 16:5 BSB
So at first Samson is strong like the lion. He has dynamism (from Greek δύναμις dynamis "power, might, strength," from dynasthai "to be able, to have power, be strong enough," yet he is able to be subdued by the women, or we could say he becomes stuck in their "honey", and his physical power is taken away. This is the problem with indulging our instinctual animal desires, sometimes they get us into trouble or get us stuck (like addiction). The free will to choose to engage differently, or more smartly with our desire (using our mens "mind"/ mental ability) is what makes us virtuous, or "men," and indicates a kind of strength.
One pitfall with lust is that people don't always immediately come around and learn their lessons when they engage with it, or sometimes it is taken too far, but at least they are doing something. They are engaging with their evolution in a powerful way. They aren't sitting at home judging others with false righteousness like the brother of the Prodigal Son (who was with his father, but not with his father). Are they foolish? Perhaps. But we are looking at the "Fool's Journey / "Hero's Journey" here, not the "play it safe / hide the talents under your bed" journey. Samson did some foolish things, but he is also considered to be a hero. Just as muscles are built by using them and breaking them down, a person grows from engaging with their vital strength, depleting it, and experiencing the consequences.
So, is true that experience is a good teacher, and the experience of suffering adverse consequence is a good teacher of mental strength, and it appears that Lust can provide this lesson. However choosing to suffer or delay satisfaction and reward for the sake of the good takes practicing courage/mental strength, or zeal up front, and can be equally effective toward personal growth. This type of strength is especially manifest when one is not counted as "strong" to begin with, such as the female pictured in the Strength card subduing the lion, rather than the figure being a physically robust male figure.
Think of Frodo, the hobbit, from "The Lord of the Rings," he is not the biggest or strongest person available for the task, however, he proves to be very brave, very strong, and in the end accomplishes what other physically stronger men were not able to accomplish.
I was there the day the strength of men failed! -Elrond
Or think of Mary the young mother of Jesus, and how strong she had to be to say, "Yes," to God, having to endure fearful uncertainty as a young pregnant woman, suffer the initial judgment of her husband, and the possibility of "being put away"/divorced shamefully, or even possibily being stoned to death.
It's not as easy as it looks. Often it is easier to unleash the beast when one knows he is muscle strong and capable, and shoot things up, flood the whole earth, kill a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass, than to courageously walk to your own metaphorical or probable actual physical death.
We have another good example of this type of courage or enduring strength with our goddess with the lion, Inanna, the "Queen of Heaven," in the poem the "Decent of Inanna." As the story begins:
Inanna is dressed in her finest clothes and wears the crown of heaven on her head, beads around her neck, her breastplate, golden ring and carries her scepter, the rod of power. Inanna's Decent, World History Encyclopedia
As Inanna descends lower and lower through the seven gates of the underworld she is stripped of all her garments until she arrives at the end of her journey completely naked and humbled and is then killed and hung up on a hook on the wall like a piece of meat before eventually being resurrected and finally rescued from the underworld.
She is aware before she sets out that it is a dangerous journey that she isn't certain to return from,
If I do not return, Set up a lament for me by the ruins.Beat the drum for me in the assembly places. Circle the houses of the gods,Tear at your eyes, at your mouth, at your thighs. Dress yourself in a single garment like a beggar. Decent of Inanna, Wolkstein—Kramer
So in such stories of strength we see the strength of choosing to go to ones death if need be in order to accomplish the goal, instead of doing what what is immediately pleasurable or desirable. How does this "dying to oneself" make a person capable, why is it profitable?
For one thing it breaks us out of the usual program. If something is desirable or pleasurable it certainly has been tried already, and it's precisely because it hasn't worked or there has been a problem with it that people are willing to engage with suffering, sacrifice, uncertainty, and the unknown to gain greater rewards. They will do it, or die trying! We long for heaven, not temporary or fleeting pleasure.
We, like Phaeton, dared to be like God, our father, but after eating the fruit / produce, i.e., the product, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the fruit, i.e., result of this action was a fall (from Old English feallan "to drop from a height; fail, decay, die"), man was unprepared to handle the consequences of ingesting this type of knowledge. The consequence of this "knowing" being the experience of adversity, called evil, that comes with this knowledge. Unfortunately, to touch or taste evil is to know evil, and this includes knowing death.
but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die." Genesis 3:3 NASB
We can't truly know what we don't have any experience of. We must be immersed in it. When we experience good we feel blessed and believe we are good. It is not a problem. But when we experience evil, we feel like we are being punished. We call the experience of adversity "evil" and say it is the punishment for our sin, "sin" being "an offense against God." However, the experience of adversity is simply the result of gaining the knowledge of good and evil whether or not we have committed any personal offense of our own. Every person who comes into this world experiences suffering and death and therefore we could say all suffer from this sin. If we look to the etymological root of the word sin, from Latin sum "I am" / esse "to be, that which is," we might say we all have this consequence of simply being (esse) in this state of knowledge (of evil), and therefore what I am (sum) is the sum or essence of the problem. You are what you eat. We are (sumus) "like God, knowing good and evil." Ignorance was bliss. You can say there is no such thing as sin, but this does not change the fact that we all experience what we call evil.
It would be easy to say that there is no solution to our predicament of who we are and that therefore it behoves us to seize pleasure and power when and where we can get it at any opportunity for the duration of our short lives, but that attitude isn't aiming high or pushing beyond what appears to be possible as Phaeton dared to do. That attitude doesn't break you out of the cycle. That attitude won't ever free a person, or the people they love from the inevitable bonds of suffering and death. What kind of strength is necessary to achieve heaven? It must be a strength which is willing go to the ultimate limits.
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"
Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns."
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.
"Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Matthew 16:21-28
Being card eleven, we could imagine the number, 11, as two pillars of a gate or threshold. And the threshold that X marked in card 10, The Wheel of Fortune, was the threshold between this world and the underworld. If X marks the spot of transition, then we could say I is the crux of this, XI, crossing. And the crux "stake, cross," the forca/force "forked stake or post", or σταυρός stauros "upright stake," is carried all the way to cruxifixction (which is the next step on the Fool's Journey, card XII, i.e. The Hanged Man). It takes enormous strength to commit to a task which takes you over the threshold between life and death. Not everyone has the ability, the appropriate "muscles" to willingly step over this threshold, the point of no return, with the weight of their force/cross and submit to an uncertain and painful journey toward the ultimate goal of salvation. It takes great courage.
Orpheus did not prove to have this strength and so lost his love, Eurydice, forever.
They took the upward path, through the still silence, steep and dark, with dense fog, drawing near to the threshold of the upper world. Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. In an instant she dropped back, and he, unhappy man, stretching out his arms to hold her and be held, clutched at nothing but receding air. Ovid, Metamorphoses (Kline) - Book 10:73-75
It wasn't muscle strength that tripped him up, it was the mental burden. He simply could not stop himself from looking back too soon. Just a little bit too soon! He lost his resolve. If he had been able save Eurydice by carrying her out of hell by physical muscle strength he probably would have, and most likely would have preferred to do so. But without this special kind of enduring at all cost mental strength needed, Orpheus ended up empty handed.
Orpheus did not leave Eurydice in hell over his dead body. He would have had to have rather died himself than look back at her too soon against the command of Hades and risk loosing her. He needed to have this strength of being able to endure this. He needed to hope beyond hope that what he was promised would be done without him being in control. Orpheus was actively confident with his singing talent (strength) and his ability to move others through song, and he was bold, he marched right into hell, but when it came to the uncomfortable uncertainty of keeping faith and holding space for the woman he claimed to love, he failed. Only a love as strong as death could have accomplished this task.
Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death; ardent love is as unrelenting as Sheol. Love's flames are fiery flames– the fiercest of all. Song of Solomon 8:6 Holman Christian Standard Bible
We might even say that love is the greatest strength of all because when we get to a place where we have completely given up, we can find the courage and will to continue due to our love for another. We may not even have belief in the outcome, but we will continue to try anyway because of the belief of another. Think of a child who has complete faith in their parent to bring them to safety or provide for them. How hard will that parent try to accomplish this task out of love for the child compared to just saving their own life? Sometimes through this unrelenting determination, and extra push of doing something out of love, we do, in fact, end up accomplishing the impossible. From everything like being gifted with the Herculean/Samsonian strength of lifting a car with one's bare hands in order to save someone trapped underneath, to being willing to suffer death and enter hell in order to open its gates for all mankind, love does not fail.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Cor. 13:7
Love definitely is a force of nature!
Scientifically there are the Four Fundamental Forces of nature.
For centuries, scientists have sought to describe the forces that dictate interactions on the largest and smallest scales, from planets to particles. They understand that there are four fundamental forces — gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces — that are responsible for shaping the universe we inhabit. NASA, Four Forces
These forces cause us to experience this particular experience of our universe.Without any forces we would be left hopelessly adrift in the infinite abyss without the ability to accomplish anything, because nothing and everything would both exist and not exist all at once. So perhaps this is why we could say the driving reason for force, i.e., strength, this fundamental rigidity that creates our reality, is love. God wants us to be happy! And all that God created is good. So if we abolish judgment upon ourselves for this, our experience of good and adversity, and instead have the courage to knock until the door is opened, perhaps our father in heaven won't give us a snake instead of a fish. Perhaps we just need to make room on our plate. Or room on our lap . . .
This is the card about knowing what you want and being patient enough to allow it to come to you. Not in a The Secret kind of way, but through focus and a quiet confidence.Say for some reason you would like a lion to sit on your lap. You're going to have to wait there with the idea. In the meantime, you're going to have to shoo away anything that is not the lion, if what you really want is a lion. No, kangaroo, not now. No, unicorn. Waiting for the lion. —STRENGTH, Spolia Tarot, written by Jessa Crispin
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