The Dismal Tide

The path of the Devil warns of bondage and illusion. Hunger and strife are not abstract, but the binding chains of politics and spectacle, of violence passed from hand to hand. The air-powered gun which fires a bolt used to slaughter cattle, a people forced into a corner, the machinery of history aimed at their forehead.

Here reason (Hod) and beauty (Tiphareth) are held apart, trapped in repetition, glamour, and fear. Ayin, the eye of the world, watches over — but the devil on the devil’s shoulder casts its illusion, deceiving those who refuse to dispel the fog of war. To see clearly the machinery of suffering, even for a moment, is already to loosen its grip.