Embracing the Tower

How the Tower tarot card can bring inspiration rather than fear: By Courtney Wheaton

I have been struggling for a while to figure out what topic I should tackle next for this Substack project. Having done a couple of very intensive analytical projects for the team, I must admit to experiencing a bit of a brain drain. The only topic that has really inspired me and keeps niggling at the back of my head, does not relate to remote viewing at all. Although it was inspired by it. If you have been keeping up with the amazing work our remote viewing team has been doing lately, you might have noticed that things are getting pretty heavy out there. The apocalyptic bingo card seems to be filling up at a rather alarming clip. I look at the world and it feels like things are getting pretty scary out there. I think that most of us feel it, but we may not know what to do with those feelings. Wars, conflict, impending crashes, financial upheaval, or some sort of impending catastrophic event seem to be on everyones radar screen and that often leads to feelings of fear, panic, helplessness, and even apathy. What can we do when everything that we know seems to be imploding right before our eyes? Well, if you are me, you look to the timeless wisdom and guidance that can be found in the tarot; in particular card number XVI of the major arcana: The Tower.

Sandwiched between the Devil and the Star; the Tower, at number 16, is one of the most feared cards in the deck. What makes the Tower so scary? Well let’s take a peak at the basic design of the card. In most depictions, there is some type of tall structure, a tower or building of some kind. For many this card is depicting the Tower of Babel. The hallmark of the Tower is that there is some sort of destructive event taking place. Lightning from the heavens has knocked the crown off the top of the building and all hell has broken loose. Fire, destruction and people being ejected from the building, plummeting headfirst towards the ground. Alister Crowley, in his Thoth Tarot chose to depict the fiery element emanating up from the underworld, but the destructive result was the same. Carnage and catastrophe!

The implication of this card is that our efforts are about to meet a fiery end. All that we have built appears to be undergoing a sudden and unforeseen destruction that leaves us falling on our faces, and seemingly helpless to do anything about it. In short, everything that we know, is going poof.

Before I embark on my case for why the Tower can be a great card , I want to spend a little time discussing how we may find our selves in this position. In order to do that, I think that it is helpful to look at the Major Arcana of the tarot in a different way. The majors, as they are known, are a series of 22 cards that depict major archetypal events that are often described as some sort of spiritual development or hero’s journey. The cards are numbered 0-21. There is some disagreement amongst tarot enthusiasts as to the proper ordering of the cards. Today I am keeping it simple and am using the common Rider Waite Smith order and numbering. A very interesting thing happens if you take out number 0 , The Fool, and number 21, The World. These cards are all about beginnings, endings and beginning again. If you take cards 1-10 and place them in a row, and then below them line up cards 11-20, a remarkable thing is visible. The themes and in many cases, visual elements of these cards are connected. Often they show reactions, effects or even consequences. For example, the life giving fertility of the Empress card is juxtaposed with the Death card. The stability and authority of the Emperor, gone wrong, shows itself in the depiction of the Devil. By lining the cards up in this way, some pretty intense additional insights can be gleaned and what I find odd, is that I have never seen anyone pair them up like this. When we do, a deeper meaning can emerge. In the case of the Tower, it is paired with card number 5; The Hierophant. The hierophant comes first and if we look the card with an eye towards the Tower, some key visual similarities start to be observed.

In the Hierophant we have a Pope-like figure with a triple level crown or Tiera, holding a staff that is capped with a triple cross. Down the center of his cassock or ceremonial robe, there is a white stripe with three crosses down the center. At his feet there are two male disciples who have their hair shorn into a tonsure exposing the crown of their heads. He sits on an elevated position as a source of tradition, authority and spiritual focus. At his feel are the crossed keys to the kingdom. The main colors are red, gold, blue and white.

So many of these elements are duplicated in the Tower card. The white stripe with three crosses down the robe of the Hierophant, has become the white tower with three windows. The male acolytes are now plummeting toward the ground. The crown that sat at the top of the tower has been knocked off by a bolt of lightning, that contains the elements of the staff that the Hierophant held in his left hand. The same colors are prevalent. When looking at the Tower in relation to the Hierophant, it starts to make sense that putting our spiritual focus into man or his creations, might not be a recipe for lasting success! The fact that these two cards have such startlingly similar visual themes is telling and the notion that the concepts of religion, church, authority, worship and regulation are juxtaposed with destruction and chaos is worth spending some time considering.

Ok, now that I have probably bored you to tears with looking at the card image, let’s consider the themes that are present in the various interpretations of the card. This is where we start to see the potential for something positive to be at work in this image. As I mentioned, the card is sandwiched between the Devil and the Star. The Devil implies corruption, manipulation and slavery to our base desires. The Star is a symbol of hope and direction. A fresh start. But that fresh start cannot happen until some major changes are made. Stuff has got to go poof! The Tower implies that the things that we have built or perhaps have put our faith and belief in are not going to stand the test of time. They are coming down, and they are coming down because a higher power has decided to act and clear the board. What we have, is no longer working or supporting us for our highest good. The connection to the Hierophant suggests that rigid or narrow and dogmatic belief in the authority of man-made structures is playing a part in this process.

When looking at this card, I like to contemplate on the differences between destruction and transformation. I think that the Tower has both elements within it. What has been built is being destroyed, perhaps swiftly and maybe even violently. However, that destruction opens the door for transformation. It can indicate a liberation, clearing a log jam in our lives that we may not have even been aware of. It can be a sudden inspiration that changes everything. it could even be a revelation that provides us with illumination that alters our perception and drives us in new directions.

The tower elicits fear. It is a harbinger of abrupt change that we may not feel like we have any control over. It acts swiftly and can leave us devastated, humbled, and adrift. It is a spiritual pruning and a rug pull of epic proportions. These are all bad things right? What could possibly be good about having our world collapse? Well what if that world wasn’t good for us? What if we were building the wrong thing, or something that was not in our best interest? What if we need these upheavals to remind us that there are higher realms at work in the world and that we may need to shift our focus? What if that rug pull was just the spiritual medicine that we needed to realize that we were not focused on what really matters for us?

When the Tower comes up in a reading it is a call to prepare for significant change, but it is also a call to focus on foundations. That tower is coming down and we will need something solid and sturdy to rebuild with. If the foundation is well designed and constructed, you will have a stable place with which to rebuild from. In this time of insanity and tremendous uncertainty, I think that it is more relevant than ever to keep the Tower in mind. What are your foundations? What are your principles, your beliefs, your goals and dreams? What is really important to you and what needs pruning in your life? Where are you strong and what could you could rebuild from, when that swift bolt from the blue sinks your battleship? These are questions that we all must answer for ourselves. But concepts like community, friendships, skills, gifts, purpose, goals, and figuring out what is really good and true in your life can turn the Tower from a nightmare of loss and pain to one of opportunity and growth. Life might just clear away a bunch of stuff that you didn’t need anyway. Every act of destruction holds a seed for transformation and growth. We just have to ensure that our foundations are deeply rooted in something solid so that we have energy for our seed to flourish.