Question: The Tower Card
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 11 Apr 2005, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| Kimahri83 |
11 Apr 2005 |
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Question...A friend of mine reads tarot and said the Tower always means death. I have read many readings and the tower has come up a few times, and I've never felt it meant death, it represented trouble and chaos, but never death. My friend is coming off like she knows everything about the tarot, and I'm an amateur (I've been reading for a year now). So I wanted to ask the forum and see what everyone else interpreted this card as. Thanks in advance!
~Kevyn
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| bleuivy |
11 Apr 2005 |
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I might be a little odd, but I like seeing the Tower in readings. It just has so much energy, and it really helps to move the reading along. I've never read it as meaning death.
I think my response to this card is a little influenced by my history with it. It seems to come up (for me) often in periods of my life when I'm having lots of ideas, be they inspiration for something to write, something to do, etc. It'll come up for a while, and then I won't see it for weeks or months, and then it'll start showing up again. So now, when I see it in readings for myself, I mostly see it as flashes of inspiration. And of course, flashes of inspiration can always lead to chaos. Mine often do. :D
So, long story short, it comes up for me when creative energies are flowing through my life. Not exactly sure why this is, but there you go...
But I'm still just a beginner myself. I'd be interested in hearing how other people read the Tower. Whenever I see it come up in readings for other people, I have to admit I'm a little stumped.
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| Thirteen |
11 Apr 2005 |
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Question...A friend of mine reads tarot and said the Tower always means death.
If your friend is saying that the card always indicates someone will, literally, die, then um, nope, sorry, wrong-o! You can tell her so from a forum full of Tarot enthiasts and scholars. In fact, the Tower rarely means a literal death. It can mean a lot of unpleasant things--shake ups, earthquakes (literal and figurative), explosions, structures that you've built up and relied on tumbling down around your ears....
But not Death. I'm not saying that it can't ever indicate death, just that it doesn't usually, let alone "always." I suppose you could say that it almost always indicates an "end" to something--is that what your friend meant? In that case, she's on the right track, just not expressing herself very well because she's missing the plus side of the card. The Tower can also mean revelations, enlightenment, the tearing down of lies, the truth discovered, a fresh start (after, of course, a tearing down of the old). The possiblity of ressurrection and new beginnings following this "end" of things.
Of course, your friend can read her cards how she likes, and if the Tower to her always means death, than that's fine (not that I'll be letting her do any readings for me!). What she can't say, however, is that the Tower doesn't mean anything else, end of discussion. That's just ridiculous. To say such a thing undermines the amazing depth and breath of interpetation to be found in this magnificent card.
If you like, you can have her check out this thread on "good tower/bad tower" to see just how rich this card can be:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9042
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| Fudugazi |
11 Apr 2005 |
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What this card always means is disruption, of some kind or another - generally sudden. As Thirteen says, it's very rich: you can have disruptions brought on by good things (falling in love, winning the lottery) or by sad things (losing a job, a boyfriend), or by mental or spiritual breakthroughs - illumination - sudden realisation of something that you had not seen before (I love this person! I believe in the Buddha! I am going to be an artist! This is the idea I was chasing all this time! He's cheating on me!).
Vast and exciting and unsettling!
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| Kimahri83 |
11 Apr 2005 |
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Thanks to everyone for their responses! I am glad that I am not the only one who sees this card as a deep and very meaningful card, instead of just saying that it means a person will die. I always interpret it as the reading flows, and it usually means chaos, something or someone will cause disruption in a person's life for a time, etc...
My friend tends to think she knows everything about reading tarot and being psychic and is constantly undermining my skills and gifts, and I just wanted to make sure that I was right in my interpretation of the card. Seeing how I've gotten the Tower and interpreted it as a disruption to the norm, and have yet to be wrong with a reading, I had to have opinions of other experienced readers.
Thanks again!
~Kevyn
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| HudsonGray |
11 Apr 2005 |
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Even the Death card doesn't mean death, I'm not sure how she can figure it stands for death every time it comes up.
I'm with the others--the Tower is about things out of your control that you have to adapt to or somehow work your life around. It can be as benign as finding out your way to work is under construction, or as big as having your vacation fall completely apart. Not a death moment, just a bad circumstances one.
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| Moonbow* |
12 Apr 2005 |
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I think one of the important aspects of the Tower card is that it can mean a release of restrictions. I'm sure we all have a situaton in our lives where we are caught up in something that we just go along with and sometimes if given the push would like to change this situation. The Tower card can be that push. I don't often see it as a negative card but perhaps an anxious situation. It can be a card of incentive, telling us to go ahead and make that move instead of dithering in a decision.
Having said that, it is a card to sit up and take notice of, because it indicates that something will happen, I haven't seen it as death yet, although I suppose that could be an aspect, and as has been said before, many people now relate it to September 11th. I don't, I see it as a shake up card but one that is often necessary in a stagnant situation.
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| Fudugazi |
12 Apr 2005 |
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Not a death moment, just a bad circumstances one. Not even that every time. It can show very GOOD circumstances - only defintely disruptive (you try falling in love passionately again to see what I mean }). It can also stand for a big aha! moment - illumination, as the Buddhists call it. As such, the Tower signals liberation in some way or another, altough, if the news is unpleasant, it'll take you a while to figure it out. Why? Because, as Moonbow wrote, something that was imprisoned is released. That's the image we see. The tighter you held on to that something the greater the disruption. Very evolved people do not feel it that strongly. Very unevolved people fall apart. Most of us are somewhere in between.
In the Tarot de Marseille, the Tower (La Maison-Dieu) show the people ambiguously falling and rejoicing - this emphasises the liberation element.
Are the people leaping or were they thrown? It is worth pondering on that question.
Was that Tower their prison or their home?
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| jmd |
12 Apr 2005 |
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In various other threads too, mention has been made of the liberation or release that one may feel in contemplating this card.
Just for the sake of linking a few other discussions on the card, another four threads are:
You may also be interested in having a look at what has been created and written about for the three Aeclectic Tarot Projects on this card (the second by myself, hence my recalling of the card):[indent]for the First Aeclectic Community Project - by bec;
for the Second Aeclectic Community Project - by jmd; &
for the Third Aeclectic Community Project - by Le_Corsair.[/indent]
Each of these are quite different, and add to our collective reflections.
For myself, I still, on the whole, see it in two principal ways, the first of which reflects the consequences of engaging fully into taking one's own path, making those important and at times difficult decisions, and meeting one's 'destiny'... and this is, as far as I am concerned, a breaking of the shackles which may have bound one, as depicted on the previous card.
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| stars |
12 Apr 2005 |
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Hi Kevyn,
For me the Tower (maison de Dieu) is an abondance card. One that talks about rejoicing, energy (chakra of the head), money, plenitude, children, fathers house, family.
I don't consider it to be negative in anyway except when it is up-side-down showing there is a problem.
Stars
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| Thirteen |
12 Apr 2005 |
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Seeing how I've gotten the Tower and interpreted it as a disruption to the norm, and have yet to be wrong with a reading, I had to have opinions of other experienced readers.
Maybe the Tower relates to your friend? Her trying to undermine your tower? Or better yet, you, with a flash of insight, undermining hers. She seems intent on trying to undermine you for fear of you striking her down first?
The lightening reveals the truth, and the truth seems to be that your friend isn't so good of a friend. Friends don't "undermine" each other constantly, they don't make their friends feel bad so they can feel superior and good.
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| Kimahri83 |
12 Apr 2005 |
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You know Thirteen,
What you said makes sense. I never would have thought that the card may actually relate to our relationship so strongly...It does make sense, perfect sense actually! I need to do a reading concerning she and I and see if that card comes up later! Very insightful of you!
I do think that she is fearful that I might be more intuned to my gifts than she is. Not to bad mouth her, because I love her to death! But everytime we get on the subject of tarot, psychics, spells, etc...she tends to act as if I'm just a kid who is playing in affairs for boredom, when in truth my entire family on my mom's side is somehow gifted in these matters. And it falls down to me fairly strongly. If that makes sense. We don't bring up these topics because we tend to argue as we are both opinionated, she's a Scorpio and I'm a Leo on the cusps of Virgo. I think that the subject needs to be avoided with her at all costs now, to spare our friendship. She has her opinions, and I have mine. So long as I know that I am on the right path, then it's all good!
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| Alice23 |
14 Apr 2005 |
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Hi. I've got to say, as we all interpret things differently and that are unique to us when we do readings, its different for everyone in some small way, but the Tower Card for me comes up rarely - but when it does its something big, a massive shock, and a life changing event - all negative. Just my interpretation of it, but I never like getting this card as the first time a death happened and the second a shock just as big. Not wishing to sound negative about it - but this is always what this card has meant for me personally. Has been interesting hearing everybody else's views on this card too!
Alice xx
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| judylea1 |
14 Apr 2005 |
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Occasionally one or two areas in ones life will go through upheaval, but there are things that continue. With the tower card it seems like EVERY AREA suddenly drastically changes. It's as if the old life one had disconnects and there you are with a new life suddenly. There is something very karmic about it. Best one can do is look to the future.
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| mike gorth |
16 Apr 2005 |
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The tower rarely means death. It really just means big changes, good/bad. It's sort of like the death card. Endings and New beginnings. The tower can also mean destruction but death is a bit extreme.
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| psychic sue |
17 Apr 2005 |
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I agree with Mike.
Death is a process - gradually clearing out the old to bring in the new.
Tower is a more sudden thing - a bolt from the blue.
Sue x
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| Rhiannon SW |
18 Apr 2005 |
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I agree Sue and I see The Tower as something to make you change your way of thinking or view of things. An illumination on a certain subject or different way of seeing situations that you didn't notice before.
Just my thoughts
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| Clau |
18 Apr 2005 |
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My friend tends to think she knows everything about reading tarot and being psychic and is constantly undermining my skills and gifts....
If you allow my advice: get rid of this "friend"!!!!
Love,
Clau
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| SunChariot |
18 Apr 2005 |
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Question...A friend of mine reads tarot and said the Tower always means death. I have read many readings and the tower has come up a few times, and I've never felt it meant death, it represented trouble and chaos, but never death. My friend is coming off like she knows everything about the tarot, and I'm an amateur (I've been reading for a year now). So I wanted to ask the forum and see what everyone else interpreted this card as. Thanks in advance!
~Kevyn
Nothing always means anything in Tarot. The meaning of any card is influenced by the reading, the question, the reader and his/her mood that day, the deck used (different decks can and do have dramatically different meanings for the same cards)......There is not card that always means death. If there were it would be the Death card, and even that card very very rarely refers to that.
I'm not even sure the Tower means "trouble" per se. More often something like of a necessary shakeup of an unhealthy situation that forces you to rethink it and rebuild the situation in a more positive way. Although it may be uncomfortable at the time, it is something necessary that leads to something good in the end. After all the next card after the Tower is the Star.
Bar
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| psychic sue |
19 Apr 2005 |
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I agree with Sun Chariot too. The Tower isn't always a bad card. For instance, you may win the lottery - that would be a bolt from the blue and a complete change in your life - many lottery winners say they have trouble adjusting to their new lifestyle, but I bet if you asked them, they would rather that the had won the jackpot than not at all.
Sue x
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| caridwen |
20 Apr 2005 |
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I agree Sue and I see The Tower as something to make you change your way of thinking or view of things. An illumination on a certain subject or different way of seeing situations that you didn't notice before.
Just my thoughts
Most definately illumination, like a flash of lightening that shows up everything around it suddenly. Sometimes you will be a lightening conductor. Restance to change and fear of change. Mental breakdown. Shock. Turnaround for the better or worse...
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The Question: The Tower Card thread was originally posted on 11 Apr 2005 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.
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