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V MEPHISTO’S HAMMER

Questions

Let us just suppose that we are sad, depressed, and distressed. Nothing succeeds and we are blocked in everything we do. This is the appropriate precondition for this spread because depression is the key to clearer understanding (What is this crisis trying to tell me?). The cards point to an insight we require in order to recognize the meaning of our failure (What unconscious meaning is at the root of my failure?). Perceiving the unknown motivation, and not overcoming the crisis as quickly and painlessly as possible but without gaining in experience, is the meaning behind every failure.

In short: We do not perceive because we enjoy understanding, but perception is frequently the only experience that help us become acquainted with the conditions and basis of our self-deception. As a result, it becomes the precondition for eliminating it. If we do not willingly accept what wants to achieve realization within ourselves, it will be forced upon us. This way of fulfilling our destiny is naturally not particularly pleasant. Yet, it always also initiates healing, a process of development so that we can find our own center. Because they are the results of our own actions, personal catastrophes not only force us to be honest: They also make us complete because they bring into the world that very part of ourselves to which we are most blind. The cards therefore permit greater consciousness: through them we perceive the circumstances that make “sense” of our failure.

Allegory (The End of Creation)

John Faust looked intently through the ocular of his telescope and furrowed his brow. He did not like what he saw there at all. Not far from Pluto, the most distant planet from the sun, he had discovered a comet, one of those unfathomable wanderers in the universe forced by the gravitational pull of the distant planets into an orbital path around the sun. This in itself was nothing remarkable, but in this particular case it was such a titanic size as to present a danger, for it steered a direct path toward the earth. “I tell you, it’s going to cause problems. And why, I ask myself, has no one already sighted this stray from the depths of nothingness?” He pointed to the cosmic monster as it plowed through the night sky outside.

His colleague, M.E. Phisto, lit up a cigarette pleasurably and merely said: “Yes, yes … humanity has its little secrets that it likes to hide from itself What will it do now that everything is about to dissolve? Do you want to hear the truth, brother, without the inherited genetic blindness, which is such a mark of the human brain?”

He laughed: “They will do nothing at all. First they will panic, and then repress it all once again. They will become slower and slower and stop, just like the mechanism of a broken clock! The spirit, a quasi-conscious being, grown weary of the Earth and is preparing to abandon this tumbling spaceship. For it is already written in the Bible: ‘and the stars will fall from the heavens.’”

Faust turned towards him and slowly nodded with strangely void eyes: “Yes, this comet out there is like the divine spark that destroys everything. Like the final crescendo of a Devils symphony calling itself human development. We cannot stop it. It would be blasphemy to try! But perhaps our essence will survive the doomsday if our souls strive to reach God again. Who knows!”

Faust and M.E. Phisto announced their discovery. Their scientific calculations proved to be correct – that the cosmic messenger of the Devil would not elegantly slither past the inner planets and the Sun, but rather, that it would crash directly into the Earth. Then the world was seized by great fear and the bringer of death was called “Mephisto’s Hammer.” But horror soon gave way to stubborn despair, and the closer this tool of the Devil drew to Earth, the madder the party became. The nearer the sword of Damocles descended upon the heads of the human beings, the more they felt compelled to repress their fears. But the “Hammer” did not miss its target! With the enormous force of countless atomic bombs, it went down in the Caribbean Sea south of the Greater Antilles, annihilating all life on Earth in a single inferno.

Interpretation

1 The Impact (The Theme of the Crisis)

The impact means suddenly being torn from a harmonious state. It is the destruction of a stable system of balance. It therefore represents the subject of the crisis.

2 The Deluge (The Consequence of the Crisis)

The impact of a comet striking the ocean triggers off enormous tidal waves all over the world; they roll towards the coasts with deathly force. The second card therefore symbolizes the aggressive destructive power of the crisis because it “surges above” its own barriers and forces its way from inner seclusion into outer, manifested experience.

3 The Darkening of Light (Sexual Chill)

The sun’s light is eclipsed for decades by matter stirred into the atmosphere by as a result of the impact. Temperatures plummet throughout the whole world and most animals and plants do not have the right conditions for survival because they cannot adapt quickly enough to the altered circumstances. The third card is therefore life becoming extinct or the emotional nadir: the spiritual center of the crisis.

4 The Greenhouse Effect (Emotional Overheating)

With the settling of the stirred-up matter, temperatures quickly begin to increase again due to the enormous quantities of carbon monoxide released through the firestorm caused by the impact of the comet. This releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide that have a greenhouse effect. The heat consumes whatever life that remains. This card is therefore an allegory for overheating within the soul or the pressure of pent-up feelings.

5 End and Beginning (Human Beings)

The fifth card symbolizes the renewal that is fulfilled in the resurrection of human beings. Because the light reaching us today from distant galaxies was radiated millions of years ago, each look into the universe is a view into the past. Those human beings existing a million years from now will probably have emerged from the life forms surviving the present catastrophe. Consequently, this card does not show us the steps to take to overcome the present crisis on the psychological level. Instead, it depicts the goal towards which our development will lead us after the crisis is overcome.