I WILL BE WORKING USING THE RIDER WAITE TAROT DECK AS A BASIS FOR THIS EXPLORATION.

Rounding off the ‘Big 3’ is The Tower. An image of chaos and destruction greets whoever meets The Tower in a reading. Again, this is a card that fills the querent with dread and fear, but this is unfounded. The Tower reveals some deep truths and can put many many things into perspective for us. This is a very helpful card for us to receive.

When I look at this card the first thing I notice is how dark it is. It gives the reader a sense of something amiss and clouds the background so that we can’t see what’s really going on. Central to the card is The Tower itself, in turmoil. A bolt of lightening crashes into the top of The Tower, causing it to lose it’s crown. This represents a loss of authority. At the end of the lightening is the glyph of Mars, a planet associated with conflict and war. This lightening also represents a sudden flash of insight.

Falling from The Tower is two anonymous figures. It is not known who these figures are, although some speculate it may be the two chained figures from the previous card, The Devil. Others have speculated they are the masculine and feminine aspects of ourselves. Some people may sees these figures as the devil on our one shoulder and angel on our other, or internal parents that give us set values. The Tower is built on uneven rocks, suggesting that the base is unsteady.

When The Tower appears in a reading, it is representing massive, massive changes. The structure of The Tower is being attacked and there is not a base strong enough to support this structure any longer. This is not necessarily change for the worse, it is just something so different than what we have experienced before. While the change is not necessarily bad, many of us are scared of change and hang onto preset ideas that we have (the two figures falling represent this) and we need to remember that sometimes the ideas that we have held for years, possibly even our lifetimes, are not always good for us. This card represents a sort of spiritual evolution.

The change is likely to have been foreseeable but you may have been ignoring the signs. For example, a change could be a break up of a romantic relationship. You may not have foreseen this if you had an image in your head of the relationship rather than looking at the state of things honestly and objectively. In this sense, we are reminded to stay present in the moment.

When we meet The Tower reversed, it means that you are avoiding change. You know it needs to happen, and you know it is going to, but you are doing absolutely everything in your power to stop it from happening. You must remember that The Tower is not as strong as it seems, one flash of insight can cause it to crumble and it’s best to be ready for when that happens.