Taurus is an earth sign, and the element of earth is concerned with, amongst other things, the material world, wealth and physical power.

In The Small Cards of the Tarot, we analysed the cards relating to the three decans of the sign of Capricorn – the cardinal sign of earth – as follows:

• Two of Disks – change – physical change itself;
• Three of Disks – works – the coordination of physical change; and
• Four of Disks – power – the application of such coordination to specified ends.

The term power base is illustrative, here. Mechanical work is the amount of energy transferred by a force, and physical power is the rate at which work is performed. For instance, we may consider a car engine to perform work by transferring chemical energy in the fuel out to the car itself, increasing the car’s kinetic energy. The greater the amount of this transfer that can be achieved in a given second, the faster the car can accelerate and the more powerful the engine is.

Power is therefore a measure of the rate, rather than the amount of work performed. We may cut down a large tree by scraping at it with a small file, but it will take an awful lot of time. We can perform the same task, and the amount of work, much faster by using a chainsaw which is far more powerful.

To generate power, a stable base is required. We could attempt to increase the power output of a car engine, by increasing the compression ratio in the cylinders, but doing so increases both the stress exerted on the cylinders and pistons themselves, and increases the risk of the fuel detonating under the increase temperatures. To deal with this problem, we would need to either strengthen the cylinders themselves, or to use a higher quality of fuel which detonates at a higher temperature. Thus, to contain and direct an increased amount of energy, we need a stronger and more resistant mechanism.

This idea can be applied to other realms, also. Imagine that there are 100 different corporate stocks we could invest our money in, each costing $1,000 each, and each with an independent 50% probability of increasing in value to $2,500 over the next week, and an independent 50% probability of decreasing in value to $0 over the next week. If we only have $1,000, and we invest in a single stock, then we have a 50% chance of losing the entirety of our wealth within a week. However, if we have $2,000 to invest, we can buy two stocks. To lose the entirety of our wealth, both would have to reduce in value over the next week, which is only a 25% (0.5 * 0.5) probability. With $3,000 to invest, we would only have a 12.5% (0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5) probability of losing the entirety of our wealth, with $4,000 to invest, a 6.25% probability (0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5), and with $20,000 to invest, only a 0.0001% probability. In all cases, the expected value of our investment will be ($0 + $2,500) / 2 = $1,250 after a week, a 25% return on investment, but the greater the value of our initial wealth the less uncertainty there is in this return, since that greater amount of wealth enables us to diversify away most of the specific risk in each stock. In these circumstances therefore, a greater amount of wealth is more resistant to catastrophic failure than a smaller amount of wealth, since it does not require an extended period of time in order to benefit from the law of large numbers. With an unreasonably friendly bank manager we would still expect to achieve a 25% weekly return in the long term (since on “good weeks” we would achieve a 250% return to balance out the 100% losses on the “bad weeks”), but the greater the amount of wealth we have, the more certain we can be of achieving a 25% weekly return each week. Without a friendly bank manager, without an ability to borrow infinite sums of money, and without an infinite amount of time, this distinction becomes extremely important.

In our daily lives, we all want to create change, and all else being equal, we would rather have the ability to create as much change as possible within a short period of time. We would rather move to a great big house right now than to make it there by gradually climbing the property ladder over a period of fifty years. We would rather have that house decorated all in one day than to stretch it out over six months. The rationale for this desire appears obvious; we have a limited amount of life, and the sooner we can achieve the changes that we want, the longer the period of time we will have to enjoy them. As we discussed in What’s the point of it all? the drive for action and change is created by a finite amount of life, since with an infinite amount of life we would have both an infinite amount of time to bring about any changes we may desire, and an infinite amount of time in which to enjoy them.

We can thus see how a desire for power is such a natural and understandable result of mortal life. It can, however, result in suboptimal behaviour. Physical wealth, for example, acts as a power base that can potentially enable the execution of a vast range of different desired changes, and as such building up such a base of wealth would appear to be a reasonable goal. However, the creation of such a power base in itself requires time and effort, and that time and effort cannot be directed towards actually employing the generated power to achieve the desired ends. With a finite amount of life, we can therefore see that there is a trade-off between spending time acquiring power, and spending time exercising that power. There is a risk of spending so much time acquiring the power to effect desired changes that we forget to effect the desired changes at all, if the acquisition of power becomes an end in itself. The acquisition of power affords us the stability and flexibility required to effect a large variety of changes, but spending time acquiring a degree of power that affords us more stability and flexibility than we need to effect the changes that we desire – or does not afford us the stability and flexibility that we need to effect the particular changes that we desire – is not time spent wisely.

A degree of flexibility is always required; one cannot have perfect knowledge of all the desired changes one may which to exercise in the future, and as explained above, a reserve of power over and above what is required to satisfy daily needs does help to guard against adverse movements in the environment which can greatly reduce that power below the level desired. One generally needs more power than just the bare minimum required to effect the desired changes on the moment; one also generally needs the power to maintain that bare minimum going forwards.

We need not restrict our conception of reserve power to material wealth, of course. The acquisition of knowledge and the development of skills also serve to increase power; the more we know, and the more we are able to do, the greater the variety and extent of changes we are able to effect. Social status in all of its forms would also fall under this definition; the more people we can reach, and the greater the degree of our influence over them, the greater still the extent of changes we are able to effect.

Naturally, just as effort must be expended in order to acquire power, so must effort be expended in order to maintain it. An engine will eventually wear out if not maintained. Certainly in today’s economy, money will lose value if simply left under the bed, and so must be put to work in order to generate returns sufficient to maintain its value, let alone to increase it. Skills must be practised, knowledge must be refreshed, and social networks must be nurtured.

Naturally, the loss of this reserve power can be highly disturbing. A person with, say, $50,000 in the bank will generally not be too concerned on a day-to-day basis by the absence of an additional $1,000,000 in his account. The person who has $1,050,000 in his bank account, however, will be horrified at the prospect of seeing that decline to a mere $50,000, even if his lifestyle is otherwise identical. Reserve power does have a value, but the possibilities that such power represents – as opposed to the actualities of it – can make that value appear greatly magnified, far beyond what its actually value to us is. This magnification can be a significant motivating factor that drives people towards spending too much time acquiring power – or holding onto it – as opposed to exercising it.

To simply matters, therefore, at each moment we face a trade-off between exerting effort in the acquisition and maintenance of power, and in the exercising of power. Since power ultimately only has value to the extent that it permits the exercising of change and protects the future ability to exercise that change, this trade-off must be evaluated on the basis of those changes themselves. In Thelemic terms, it must be evaluated on the basis of the will. Knowledge of the will – knowledge of the self – is necessary in order to effectively allocate effort between these two competing ends.

The lesson of the Five of Disks is therefore that concern over the base of power itself, rather than concern over the ability to implement will, is a misdirected concern. All questions related to the acquisition or maintenance of power must be done with reference to the will, rather than with reference to the power base itself. The aspirant should be alert to the possibility that he is being misdirected by the intoxicating illusion his mind presents to him about all the things he could be doing, all the time diverting him from doing what it actually is that he wants to do, for which his current level of power could well be already sufficient.