Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo

16. The Tower

Number: 16
Card Title: The Tower
Esoteric Title: Lord of the Hosts of the Mighty
Astrological Atttribution: Mars
Elemental Attribution: Fire (hot, dry)
Dates & Timing: 2 years
Hebrew Letter: Peh Mouth Iron
Color: Red
Intelligence: Active or Exciting Intelligence
Esoteric Function: Indignation & Grace
Qabalistic Path: Path 27: 7 Netzach to 8 Hod
Translation of Path: The Victory of Splendor

Keywords: Major shakeup, Feeling Unsafe, Conflicts, Separation, Unexpected, Breakthrough. Devastating Conditions. Financial Problems, Divorce, Release. Downfall, Catalyst, Sudden Change, Catastrophe, Unexpected shock, Shattered Illusions.

Ill-Dignified:Dust settling. Paradigm shift.

Interpretation: Imbalances of form and function. Need to achieve equilibrium through proper creative energy. Bizarre Encounter. Situation will change rapidly. Destruction of old forms. Karmic clearing. Release old way, old life. A change for the better after a sudden loss or disappointment. Sudden truth. Flash of enlightenment. Changing a basic core belief. Spiritual renewal. Everything in life happens for the best. Things can not continue as they were before. Lightning of spiritual comprehension destroys error and ignorance.

Reversed Interpretation: Accident out of the blue. Change process has started, donâ€™t resist it. See the writing on the wall. Clear rubble and start over. Downfall of selfish destroyed ambition. Broken partnership. High costs to gain freedom of mind, body and spirit. Self-knowledge brings traumatic but satisfying change. Gain of freedom of body/mind at great cost. False accusations. False imprisonment. Acceptance of collapse
Rider-Waite Imagery

Rider-Waite Imagery

The sky is dark and stormy. Lightening flashes and strikes the tower causing destruction an ruin. A man and a woman fall from an isolated, ivory tower.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

Part I: The Veil and its Symbols

16. The Tower struck by Lightning. Its alternative titles are: Castle of Plutus, Godâ€™s House and the Tower of Babel. In the last case, the figures falling therefrom are held to be Nimrod and his minister. It is assuredly a card of confusion, and the design corresponds, broadly speaking, to any of the designations except Maison Dieu, unless we are to understand that the House of God has been abandoned and the veil of the temple rent. It is a little surprising that the device has not so far been allocated to the destruction Of Solomonâ€™s Temple, when the lightning would symbolize the fire and sword with which that edifice was visited by the King of the Chaldees.

Part II: The Doctrine Behind the Veil

Occult explanations attached to this card are meagre and mostly disconcerting. It is idle to indicate that it depicts min in all its aspects, because it bears this evidence on the surface. It is said further that it contains the first allusion to a material building, but I do not conceive that the Tower is more or less material than the pillars which we have met with in three previous cases. I see nothing to warrant Papus in supposing that it is literally the fall of Adam, but there is more in favour of his alternativeâ€“that it signifies the materialization of the spiritual word. The bibliographer Christian imagines that it is the downfall of the mind, seeking to penetrate the mystery of God. I agree rather with Grand Orient that it is the ruin of the House of We, when evil has prevailed therein, and above all that it is the rending of a House of Doctrine. I understand that the reference is, however, to a House of Falsehood. It illustrates also in the most comprehensive way the old truth that “except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.”

There is a sense in which the catastrophe is a reflection from the previous card, but not on the side of the symbolism which I have tried to indicate therein. It is more correctly a question of analogy; one is concerned with the fall into the material and animal state, while the other signifies destruction on the intellectual side. The Tower has been spoken of as the chastisement of pride and the intellect overwhelmed in the attempt to penetrate the Mystery of God; but in neither case do these explanations account for the two persons who are the living sufferers. The one is the literal word made void and the other its false interpretation. In yet a deeper sense, it may signify also the end of a dispensation, but there is no possibility here for the consideration of this involved question.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Chapter X. The Symbolical Tarot

16. 16th Hebrew letter (Ayin).

ORIGIN OF THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SIXTEENTH CARD OF THE TAROT.

The Ayin expresses the same hieroglyphic as the Vau (6), but materialized. It is the sign of Material sense. Again degenerated, it expresses all that is crooked, false, perverse, and bad.

Astronomically this letter corresponds with the zodiacal sign of Capricornus.

SIXTEENTH CARD OF THE TAROT. The Lightning-struck Tower.

This card bears the picture of a tower, with its battlements struck by lightning; two men, one crowned, the other uncrowned, are falling with the fragments of broken masonry; the attitude of the former recalls the shape of the letter Ayin.

This card contains the first allusion to a material building in our pack, but we shall find the same symbol reproduced in the 18th and 19th arcana.

Here it signifies the invisible or spiritual world, incarnated in the visible and material world.

The 16th card represents the material fall of Adam. He will gradually become more materialized until the 18th arcanum, in which he attains the maximum of his materialization.

The significations of this figure are all derived from this idea of fall, of the materialization of the spiritual letter (Vau).

Materialization of God the Holy Spirit. (See 3rd arcanum.) Entrance of the Holy Spirit into the visible World. The Holy Spirit acting like the God of matter.DIVINE DESTRUCTION.

The materialization of the Adam-Eve, who have been spiritualized until now. Entrance of the Adam-Eve into the visible World THE FALL.

Materialization of the Universe-principle THE VISIBLE WORLD.

16. The Lightning-struck Tower.

Affinities

Primitive Hieroglyphic: Link (Vau) materialized
Astronomy: Capricornus
Month: December
Hebrew letter: Ayin (simple)

Significations

DIVINE DESTRUCTION
THE FALL
THE VISIBLE WORLD

Major Arcana Signification from the Divining Point of View

16. The Lightning-struck Tower signifies RUIN. DECEPTION.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Symbolism of Each Key

16. The Lightning-struck Tower. A Tower whose Upper part is like a crown, struck by a lightning-flash. (Two men fall headlong from it, One of whom is in such an attitude as to form a Hebrew letter Ayin.) Sparks and debris are falling. It shows Ruin, Disruption.

Meanings of the Cards

16. The Lightning-struck Tower.Ruin, Disruption, Over-throw, Loss, Bankruptcy; R. These in a more or less partial degree.

The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]

What is the Tarot? Card XVI.”The Tower”.

Sectarianism. Tower of Babel. Exoterism. Confusion of tongues. Fall of exoterism. The force of Nature re-establishing the truth distorted by men.

CARD XVI. THE TOWER.

I saw a lofty tower extending from earth to heaven; its golden crowned summit reached beyond the clouds. All round it black night reigned and thunder rumbled.

Suddenly the heavens opened, a thunder-clap shook the whole earth, and lightning struck the summit of the tower and felled the golden crown. A tongue of fire shot from heaven and the whole tower became filled with fire and smoke. Then I beheld the builders of the tower fall headlong to the ground.

And the voice said:

“The building of the tower was begun by the disciples of the great Master in order to have a constant reminder of the Masterâ€™s teaching that the true tower must be built in oneâ€™s own soul, that in the tower built by hands there can be no mysteries, that no one can ascend to Heaven by treading stone steps.

“The tower should warn the people not to believe in it. It should serve as a reminder of the inner Temple and as a protection against the outer; it should be as a lighthouse, in a dangerous place where men have often been wrecked and where ships should not go.

“But by and by the disciples forgot the true covenant of the Master and what the tower symbolized, and began to believe in the tower of stone, they had built, and to teach others to so believe. They began to say that in this tower there is power, mystery and the spirit of the Master, that the tower itself is holy and that it is built for the coming Master according to His covenant and His will. And so they waited in the tower for the Master. Others did not believe this, or interpreted it differently. Then began disputes about the rights of the summit. Quarrels started, â€˜Our Master, your Master,â€™ was said; â€˜our tower, your tower.â€™ And the disciples ceased to understand each other. Their tongues had become confused.

“You understand the meaning here? They had begun to think that this is the tower of the Master, that He builds it through them, and that it must and, indeed, can be built right up to Heaven.

“And you see how Heaven responded?”

The Tarot Trumps by G. H. Soror, Q.L.

XVI. THE TOWER
As always red remains persistent throughout the four planes, although modified in tone. Thus we find vivid scarlet shading into deep somber red and vermillion shot with amber. The contrasting shades of green serve to throw the red into relief. The tremendous destructive influence of the lightning, rending asunder established forms to make way for new forms to emerge, revolution as distinguished from transmutation or sublimation, the destructive as opposed to the conservative, energy attacking inertia, the impetuous ejection of those who would enclose themselves in the walls of ease and tradition.