09-05-2010, 10:41 AM
Quote:Minerva was the owl, though, and Moloch something else, I guess. The Bohemian Club got it wrong or intentionally mixed it up.
Oddly enough Helen, I looked at this a couple of months ago when I was looking into the Grove - because I also had always associated the owl symbolism with wisdom etc.
I think confusion arises because symbols often, if not usually have both a negative and a positive aspect to them. Arthur's sword can be used to "hack or to heal" as John Boorman wrote for utterance by the Merlin his film Excalibur.
The owl symbol associated with Moloch seems to me to symbolize the dark/negative aspect, whereas the "wisdom" symbolism of the owl associated with Minerva has a more positive rhythm, I think.
The whole Rhodes thing has been a sort of splinter in my side for decades and I do find it interesting what Keith had to say about it. For some while now I have concluded that Freemasonry has a similar structure to it that Rhodes had adopted for his secret society, namely three levels or concentric circles of power. The outer court of the multitude, a middle court of selected individuals who may be forgiven for thinking that they are really in-the-loop and finally the inner court of half a dozen or so real movers and shakers. I know (and have known many Freemasons) and they are all good, honest people, no different from you or me. But this does not seems to tally with some of the things that can be attributed to Masonry. Thus I have concluded that there is a filtering system to suck likely masons out of the outer court and into the middle court for more nefarious purposes.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14