Tower

Teheuti said:

I just had the Tower come up for me in a question about what's happening with the state of the world—one of those BIG questions.

At first I wondered if it was suggesting another act of terrorism. I turned to Oswald Wirth's book, The Tarot of the Magicians, and it gave me such an important insight. Afterall, there are always cataclysms and terrorist acts, but what's behind it all?

Wirth describes the Tower as the intensive exploitation of the Earth that eventually leads to terrifying social cataclysm. At the basis of it is the instinct toward individualization, which I take as the "every man for himself" or Ayn Rand-type philosophy. We build up false towers like Wall Street and banks-gone-mad and, when lightning strikes, everyone bails, mortgages are sold off, homes foreclosed, etc. It also suggests global warming and the extinction of species.

Terrorism is just another aspect of the same thing except the ideology stands in for the individualism. And, on the metaphoric level, even the earth itself tries to shake off the concretization of the land.

Any other thoughts?

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Teheuti said:

Thank you all. Really good perspectives. I like the idea that it is the end of a paradigm. But how, then, is the Tower different from the Death/Rebirth card?

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Teheuti said:

Any other thoughts?

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Teheuti said:

Thank you all. Really good perspectives. I like the idea that it is the end of a paradigm. But how, then, is the Tower different from the Death/Rebirth card?

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BlueDragonfly said:

I see the Tower as a forced change brought about by external energies-some of our making, some not-much like nisaba's equation of the Tower to volcanoes.

To me the Death/Rebirth card speaks of a realization that things need to change, the beginnings of intentional change. A purposeful progression of actions/events.

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Teheuti said:

......The Tower seems to be violent change that happens when a powerful force becomes constricted, pressure builds and then something suddenly releases it. It is hot. If there is inevitability it is because the conditions have built up to a state of pressure or rigidity or lofty ambition that can't be sustained (an easing of the pressure, somewhere along the line, might have prevented it). Sure, it can include an enlightening insight or wake-up call but one that shakes you to your foundations. It can also be energizing.

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nisaba said:

Following on from your original comments, my mind is drawn to volcanos. I like volcanos.

Most people see volcanoes as a force of destruction, and so they can be seen: wiping out cities, agricultural land, life generally. But humans settle where there are minerals close to the crust of the earth - in, say, the upper kilometres of the earth, for a reason. Modern lives run on minerals, and even ancient ones did, too - arable land is only arable in the presence of intense quantities of minerals in soils. And the soils and rocks created or up-thrust by volcanoes bring deep subterranean minerals to the surface of the earth, where humankind and nature can access them later. Subterranean water-sources tend to follow ancient volcanic channels, too, and sometimes these are the only sources of water that there are - I'm thinking large tracts of land in various Middle-Eastern countries and Australia, just for starters.

Now think of the traditional image of a volcano: a mountain with a damaged top and fire coming out of it, and the traditional RWS and pre-RWS image of the Tower: a tower of rock (which is what a mountain is, too) with a damaged top also with fire.

Does anyone else see a relationship?

Now, think of volcano-gods - Vulcan, Hephaestos and Imma are the first three to spring to mind. What do they do? They take a plain resource, rock. They take a dangerous thing, Fire. And they make a useful thing out of it - workable metal.

What do volcanoes do? They take the same resources, rock and fire. With a little bit of short-term danger to those on their edges, they turn those resources into arable land and minerals, and landscapes that tend to accelerate the evolutions of local life-forms. (Volcanoes think in geological time-scales, so in this paragraph I am, too).

Island-volcanoes, too, create or redeem new land-masses from the sea, a true alchemy.

The Tower is the volcano of the Tarot deck. Grit your teeth and hang on, because there *will* be some kind of an explosion of lava and poisonous gases. It won't be pretty. But like any volcano, it is absolutely necessary.

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In this pairing, I see a message about how the querent cannot protect themselves from the rest of the world, no matter how hard they try. In her garden of plenty the querent may feel protected from the outside world, but that protection is only in her own mind. Along comes the Tower, and the walls that protect her come tumbling down, shaken by an earthquake, breached by a flood or a volcano, overrun by a looting mob, whatever. Self-protection is only illusory protection: sooner or later the querent will be utterly unable to prevent themselves being impacted by the larger world, and will have to deal with the aftermath. Not for nothing is the Tower called “The House of God” in some older decks: insurance companies call devastating events “acts of God” in order to avoid liability. In this sense The Tower in this pairing is the working of the Finger of God, bringing devastating change when the querent refuses to make changes after the normal rumblings of warning from their surroundings and surrounding people.

I recently discussed the Tower in terms of volcanos. Most images show a high stone structure with a damaged upper portion and fire up there: a volcano is usually a high stone structure with a damaged top and fire up there. Volcanos bring short-term devastation that force all around to have to start anew. The Tower brings short-term devastation that forces all around to have to start anew. In this pairing, the Nine Pentacles Reversed is like a particularly silly geologist assuming they can prevent a volcanic eruption by capping the normal mouth of a volcanic mountain solidly enough: the force of the geological event will just force the energy and fire to break out somewhere else, even more unpredictably. So remain in your Nine Pentacles reversed state at your own peril - something will bring you down, and it’s not going to be gentle.

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