House of God - literally?

[Thirteen]

Thirteen, yes, I am.

I think there are some people here of the Jewish faith who might take exception to that comparison.

 

[Debra]

Like me.

I don't think Christianity conceived of old testament "God the Father" as the Devil, either.

I imagine that if the card was supposed to signify the downfall of the devil Himself, it would.

My husband's parents died a few months ago. After we came back from the funeral, we each independently developed a strong fear that the parents' house would burn down. I just saw it in flames. My husband felt that his sister, the daughter still living at home, would set the house on fire.

Instead, the siblings started arguing, hard. The house already had fallen, and with the death of the parents came the end of the "family."

In some sense the whole Cosmos is the house of God.

 

[Rosanne]

((((Debra and Husband))))

That is a very apt description of the Tower, and a Tower event.
It is also sadly like historic Italian Tower events.

~Rosanne

 

[Sophie]

Are you equating the Old Testament god with the Devil?

Thirteen, yes, I am.

I think there are some people here of the Jewish faith who might take exception to that comparison.

Too right, Thirteen! What a farcical misrepresentation! I can only put it down to crass ignorance of the Hebrew Bible.

Like me.

I don't think Christianity conceived of old testament "God the Father" as the Devil, either.

I imagine that if the card was supposed to signify the downfall of the devil Himself, it would.

My husband's parents died a few months ago. After we came back from the funeral, we each independently developed a strong fear that the parents' house would burn down. I just saw it in flames. My husband felt that his sister, the daughter still living at home, would set the house on fire.

Instead, the siblings started arguing, hard. The house already had fallen, and with the death of the parents came the end of the "family."

In some sense the whole Cosmos is the house of God.

That's a very eloquent (if sad) example of the Tower struck by lightning and its inhabitants ejected . The same exactly happened in the family of my cousin's wife when their father died (their mother had died many years before). They tore each other apart not for money, but for family memorabilia... in trying to hold onto the family for themselves, they actually destroyed it....

...but 10 years on, it has been rebuilt along loving and honest lines: all four siblings were able to use that destruction to build a new structure, one not centered around the dead parents. I wish your husband well, Debra. It's a painful situation for him (and you!)



In the Marseille deck, the tower is not destroyed: it is decapitated of its crown. The rest of the structure stays up. Two people are ejected from it.

La Maison-Dieu - the name of the Tower card in the Marseille deck - refers to both the physical and the spiritual "houses of god" that had been erected by the Catholic Church in France. They were generally hospitals, but quite often, the funds for them - money given by private benefactors - were diverted by the upper clergy into other works, less beneficial to the common good. Or else the clergy would - like Debra's husband's family - fall out among themselves for the allocation of funds. As Thirteen said, this card is a way of showing disapproval for such shenanigans. The house of god is decapitated - loses its upper tier. The remaining structure is sound and can be rebuilt along more just principles, freed from graft. God preserves his own house from false servants - sometimes with a strong action. Ultimately, it is freeing, but often it comes with pain.

 

[BrightEye]

In regards to BrightEyes question - there is speculation that the Tower was on the Carthusian Monastery at the Certosa of Pavia in the Visconti deck.
It is also related to the Knights Templar and the Cathars perhaps. (the words Maison Dieu) In Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades- the area held by the Christians was called Acre and the Crusaders had a scriptorium- a large round tower as their headquaters and in slang with derision it was called God's House- meaning "Their God".
~Rosanne

This is the kind of information I was looking for. And the following, I guess, is something I should keep in mind:

La Maison-Dieu - the name of the Tower card in the Marseille deck - refers to both the physical and the spiritual "houses of god" that had been erected by the Catholic Church in France. They were generally hospitals, but quite often, the funds for them - money given by private benefactors - were diverted by the upper clergy into other works, less beneficial to the common good. Or else the clergy would - like Debra's husband's family - fall out among themselves for the allocation of funds. As Thirteen said, this card is a way of showing disapproval for such shenanigans. The house of god is decapitated - loses its upper tier. The remaining structure is sound and can be rebuilt along more just principles, freed from graft. God preserves his own house from false servants - sometimes with a strong action. Ultimately, it is freeing, but often it comes with pain.

 

[Debra]

For reading, I usually find this card means "authority gets its butt kicked" or "the Emperor has no clothes and someone just said so" or "no shelter in that structure for you any more."

 

[BrightEye]

I never thought about that, thanks! Yes, it could mean "house of 'god'" ie "house of the devil", since he's the creator god of our physical world; the god of the Old Testament.

I don't understand this, but it sounds anti-semitic to me. The Old Testament God created the physical world alright, but that doesn't make him the devil.

 

[BrightEye]

For reading, I usually find this card means "authority gets its butt kicked" or "the Emperor has no clothes and someone just said so" or "no shelter in that structure for you any more."

I wasn't looking for the metaphorical meaning so much although it obviosuly applies, especially "no shelter in that structure for you any more." The reading was very literally about the church, monasteries, a monastic way of life etc., and the parallel between the Tower as House of God and the monastery or church as a physical building kind of struck me.

 

[Debra]

I see.

The crown on the top of those Marseille towers doesn't seem so monastic to me, though. Those towers look more like castles to my eye.

How the heck DID the "house of God" label get put on those cards, I wonder.

eta: oh crud, sorry, I just saw Rosanne's post about the Cathars. That's the kind of answer we need, eh?

 

[BrightEye]

Well, it was a pie-in-the-sky kind of reading. But maybe it was leading me to something else, which has to do with Rosanne's Templar reference.