The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder   1563 (Source The Yorck Project)

The Tower depicted in the 16^th Tarot card is the Biblical Tower of Babel. According to Genesis 11: 1-9, the people of Babylon desired to make a name for themselves by building a mighty city and a magnificent tower “with its top in the heavens”. This was offensive to God and he disrupted the work by so confusing the language of the workers that suddenly they could no longer understand one another. As a result, work on the city and the tower was abandoned, and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth. This is the Bible’s explanation of the existence of diverse human languages. Prior to the Babylonians’ attempt to build a mighty tower, there was only one language; now, there is a confusion of tongues.

The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Dore 1865

Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky at World Social Forum – 2003 – Photo by Marcello Casal Jr. Agencia Brasil)

Noted linguist (Avram) Noam Chomsky was born with 16 letters in his birth name and in 1957 he proposed a theory of grammar that rejects the notion that every language is unique. He, so to speak, takes us back to pre-Babylon times with its one universal language by showing us that all languages have some basic structural principles in common.

Noah Webster

Title : Noah Webster. Born October 16  1758-died 1843. “The schoolmaster of the republic” Print created by Bradley, Milton  c1891 Dec. 19  Courtesy Library of Congress LC-USZC4-1586

American lexicographer and philologist Noah Webster was born on October 16, 1758. He wrote on the relationship of European and Asian languages, but his greatest achievement was his The American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), which included definitions of 70,00 words, of which 12,000 words had not appeared in such a work before. He helped standardize American pronunciation. To this day Webster’s dictionaries remain popular – and remain a valuable tool towards the elimination of the confusion of the tongues.

Marshall McLuhan

In the 1960s, (Herbert) Marshall McLuhan with his 16 expression told us that electronic mass media were collapsing space and time barriers in human communication to enable people to communicate on a global scale. He coined the term global village to describe this change.  Many people, though, thought that he was either a genius or a bit off the wall in his thinking. History, though, has proven McLuhan to be a true prophet.

In his Understanding Media (1964), McLuhan says that in the future many people would no longer want to get into their cars to go shopping, but would shop instead by TV, a prophecy that doesn’t seem so strange at all now. He also foretold the day when languages could be instantly translated by computers, now a daily occurrence for representatives at the United Nations and for Internet users who use the Google Search engine (press the magic key and instantly that page in German is translated into English). He goes on to say) that language itself with its powers of division and separation may have been the Tower of Babel by which man sought to scale the highest heavens. (Note, there are 22 rows of brick masonry in the Tower depicted on the 16^th Tarot Card, which occultist Paul Foster Case equates with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.)

In the words of McLuhan: “The computer, in short, promises by technology a Pentecostal condition of universal understanding and unity. The next logical step would seem to be, not to translate, but to bypass languages in favor of a general cosmic consciousness…”  (See page 84 Understanding Media, New American Library.)

McLuhan summarized his vision of the global village well before the Internet even existed. Today, many people would argue that the Internet, more than any other medium, has helped bring the global village closer to fruition. Marshall McLuhan in teaching us how to understand media has certainly done his part to pave the way for that day when a true global consciousness of community will exist, one that reflects the ultimate harmony of all being and the end of mankind’s confusion of tongues.

Marshall McLuhan at Cambridge University. ca. 1940      Credit: McLuhan, Marshall/Library and Archives Canada/PA-172790          Photographer Unknown Copyright expired Restrictions on use:  NIL