Let's consider the undertow that exists in all earthy signs: that of fire.  And let's remember that this undertow often shows itself in a strange kind of religious fervor or fanaticism.  Here you have the Taurean shadow, completely hidden in many Taureans and unleashed in full force in others.  Nobody, but nobody, is as good at founding ersatz religions as a Taurus. 

Notice the quality of the religions.  Let's take Karl Marx, a Taurus.  Now, dialectic materialism is supposed to be a political philosophy.  It's meant to explain the forces operating in history - all explained in true Taurean fashion, with regard for the economic motivations but with complete unawareness of other currents and motives.  The importance of spiritual needs, for example, is grossly ignored.  The impact of powerful personalities is missed.  And the substrata of myth, the basic patterns and structures of the human psyche, is sadly missed.  Dialectic materialism is an anti-religious religion.  Witness the religiosity with which its partisans attempt to convert the world.  Instead of the old Inquisition hunting heretics, it hunts capitalists.  And the impetus is Taurean:  fixed, persistent, determined, obsessive, and fanatical. 

Let's take another Taurean:  Sigmund Freud.  Now, modern psychology owes an immeasurable debt to Dr. Freud for he was the first to postulate the existence of what we call the unconscious, the hidden side of man.  However anachronistic Freud's theories seem to us now, it is worth remembering that he was the real founder, the builder, of a new outlook of man.  Since Freud's time, man has become much more aware that he is a complex creature with many facets not apparent to the ordinary eye.  Freud was a true Taurean in that he was an empiricist, non-mystical, pragmatic, thorough, scientific, and a builder.  He was also Taurean on the shadow side, for Freudian psychology is like a religion.  When you read Freud, you realize that he is offering us a new Bible, a new face of God, a new expulsion from the Garden.  The sexual drive, to Freud, is a god; it has the power and absoluteness of God.  Freud's own religious propensities found their way into his psychology.  It's dogmatic, fixed and orthodox.  Its adherents, when strict, are so closely akin to those of the Church that it is amusing to see them such arch antagonists.  Freud's work is banned in Ireland, stronghold of the Church.  Yet they bear strange similarities. 

This religious fanaticism often permeates Taurus' endeavours.  The list is very long, and ranges from the very light - Buddha was said to have been a Taurus - to the very dark - Hitler was also a Taurus.  What do they have in common?  Well, it's an unfair comparison.  But the story of Siddhartha is a Taurean story - all or nothing.  So is Hitler's.  And in Hitler's you can see the Taurean shadow run so rampant that we have not yet recovered from it:  a religious fanaticism so intense that the western world is still reeling under the impact of atrocities unleashed in the twentieth century. 

In ordinary life, this fanaticism can peep out in lots of different places.  The most typical form is intolerance.  Taurus is not known for his easy acceptance of others' viewpoints.  He simply negates the existence of anything that doesn't fit in with his scheme of reality.  For a realistic sign, Taurus is prone to the strangest sorts of gullible fervours.  Often his pragmatism has the undercurrent of