Card of the Week: The Devil

Fear and ignorance are powerful forces that drive many people to do extreme things.  Digging through to understand hidden underlying reasons is often a vital first step to changing such situations.

The Devil is an obvious adversary, but uses overt oppression to obscure underlying motives.  The Devil may draw from private past traumas, public social taboos, or future fears, and may be trying to undermine your own power or tempt you to wield undue power over others.  When examining these influences, whether external or from within, seek to understand their deeper underlying causes.

Inverted, this card signifies a release from a force that had been .driving you, an internal inhibition or an external manipulation.  This is a strong card, suggesting a deep and important change.

In “The Devil in the Dark” the Enterprise responds to a distress call from a long-established mining colony on planet Janus VI.  An unseen alien has begun killing members of its pergium mining crew, even when armed with low-power phasers.  In the caverns, Kirk and Spock encounter the alien and repel it with their more powerful phasers.  It flees as Kirk and Spock follow.  Kirk finds a cache of round silicon nodules, which Spock urges him not to damage.  When they reach the alien, it does not attack while Kirk raises his phaser, but Kirk does not fire again.  To break the standoff, Spock tries a Vulcan telepathic technique.  The alien calls itself a Horta, and is normally peaceful but has been attacking to stop its egg nests from being destroyed.  When the miners vow to protect the silicon nodules, the Horta agrees to cooperate in their mining operations.