The Tower
Secret whisperLightning asks no permission; it shows what was never built on rock.
Upright meaning
Upright keywordssudden change, upheaval, revelation, awakening
A sudden shake-up clears away what stood on false foundations. It can be uncomfortable, but it brings the truth to light and frees you to rebuild on solid ground.
Reversed meaning
Reversed keywordsaverted disaster, fear of change, delayed collapse, inner upheaval
You may be resisting a change that has to happen, or feeling the upheaval inwardly. Better to let a shaky structure fall than to keep propping it up.
Major Arcana
The twenty-two trumps describe the great passages of a life, the Fool’s journey from innocence to wholeness. When they appear, the matter at hand is larger than daily events.
In Waite’s own words (1910)
From A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, public domain. Original English text.
Divinatory meaning: Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe.
Reversed: According to one account, the same in a lesser degree also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny.
The picture
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 alternative--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.
