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<strong>The</strong> Two <strong>Pillar</strong>s of the Temple 15<br />
planet Venus. As we know from mythology, Venus is the deity con-<br />
cerned with love, feeling, and emotion. We would surmise therefore<br />
that in the event that the love or emotional life of an individual has<br />
been frustrated or repressed to such a point where the psyche finally<br />
refused to continue living wlrulst hampered by such a neurosis, some<br />
expression of that frustration could be transferred to the neighbor-<br />
hood of the kidneys. Were the frustration complete and devastating<br />
to the psyche, it is not impossible that we should find a cancer-the<br />
symptom par excellence of the death-wish, the so-called suicide<br />
complex indicative of a division in the psyche's integrity.<br />
Moreover, we could proceed a step further. We might enquire<br />
as to whether the affliction were on the right or left, remembering<br />
the Qabalistic definition of the Left <strong>Pillar</strong> as the side of Mercy, and<br />
that on the Right as the <strong>Pillar</strong> of Severity.23 "Unbalanced mercy is<br />
weakness and the fading out of the will. Unbalanced severity is<br />
cruelty and the barrenness of mind."24<br />
Enquiry might elicit the fact that an afflicted left kidney was<br />
symptomatic of one who had been afraid to taste life to the full. Or<br />
on the other hand, out of sheer compensation, had lived, so com-<br />
pletely as to have over-indulged. <strong>The</strong> right kidney would indicate<br />
symptoms of severe and violent repression on principle-where the<br />
entire emotional life had been so subjected to continuous frustration<br />
because of an ethical standard that the outraged eros reacted upon<br />
the body either with acute nephritis or it may be with cancer.<br />
Where there is trouble with the legs, the patient being unable to<br />
stand and confined to the bed, some psychological thmkers proffer<br />
some such explanation as this. <strong>The</strong> legs are the things we stand on,<br />
that whch gives support to the body. In the symbolic pageantry uti-<br />
lized by the unconscious-and it must be understood that the activ-<br />
ity of the unconscious proceeds almost exclusively through what are<br />
to us symbols-the instinctual life is our mental support. It is that<br />
which we tend to rely upon, our stability and foundation, during<br />
life. Should therefore our understanding of life fall short of what it<br />
should be for us-and obviously that standard varies with different<br />
people-so that we unduly repress our instincts to the point when<br />
the resulting sense of insecurity and anxiety become intolerable, the<br />
psyche achieves a revenge through an affliction of the supports of
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