This safety, is merely a reflection of inner insecurities, not outward dangers, tho the builders of towers and walls conjure these fears, luring them from the secret chambers of our hearts, with more skill and seduction than a witch her dearest familiar. The Emperor’s impetus for security taken to its nth degree the desire for safety realized and compounded it is not a coincidence that this Tower is in the mode of a castle’s keep, for it is the foundation laid by card 4, the Emperor, built upward and outward in the long for perfect security, the desire for ultimate safety whose final end is a lonely, quiet death. The Tower is card 16 or 4 2, a square of the square. Though normally I dislike numerology, gematria and like sciences, since, as with facts, we can make numbers say whatever we want them to, in this case our numerology is quite simple, quite restrained and quite symbolic. So let us, even for a moment, discard this ideas of punishment and retribution from our oracular vocabulary and look inward, which is where the real story is anyway. This risk-reward relationship seems much healthier in the long run than the risk of divine wrath should we arrogantly rise above our station and attempt to reach for the stars. This meaning, the moment before the fall (a weighted phrase if ever there was one), to me implies that with great vision comes great risk that to do large things in life we risk the destruction of the very thing we meant to create, and perhaps even ourselves. One of my favorite reinterpretations is of Sergio Toppi’s, in whose Tarot of Origins the Tower is retitled “Menhir” or standing stone, and shows a lone figure atop a giant rock, staring off into the distance. Like the misshapen myth of the Garden of Eden straightened out and retold in the Lovers card, there are other ways in which we might interpret the lesson told by the Tower. ![]() The Tower depicts the dark night of the soul that precedes grace, liberation, and enlightenment.Historically the Tower is most easily associated with the christian Tower of Babel, symbolic of man’s heretical attempt to reach heaven through physical means rather than divine ones, and Yahweh’s punishment of this mortal hubris. This placement demonstrates shake ups, such as those depicted in the Tower, are necessary for the growth of every soul. However, after the cataclysm of the Tower begins a series of celestial cards starting with the star that depict new beginnings and a renewed focus based on higher spiritual principles. ![]() ![]()
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