Lee
Here's something I noticed about this card when I was doing a reading with the II last night.
The Qabalistic Tree of Life is usually pictured as a diagram of ten spheres or sephiroth. The Golden Dawn, whose ideas served as at least one of the inspirations for the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, upon which the II deck is based, made extensive use of the Tree of Life diagram both as a pathworking tool and as a structure upon which they based the grades of initiation that their members had to ascend. You can see a diagram of the Tree of Life here.
Pathworking on the Tree of Life involves ascending or descending the Tree along what is sometimes referred to as the Lightning Path, which connects the spheres in a continuous path.
On the Tower card, directly beneath the lightning strike at the top, we see ten flaming drops or yods. The ten drops seem like they could be a Tree of Life lying on its side. Although it's not quite the same pattern as the Golden Dawn's diagram of the Tree of Life, it's very close, particularly when you look at the single bottom drop (or rather the drop on the left, since the Tree is on its side).
So, where I'm going with all of this is, if one were to take the lightning bolt on the card and move it down so that it lies on top of the ten flaming drops, you would end up with something which comes close (but not exactly) to duplicating the Lightning Path as it moves down the Tree of Life.
You can see the same thing on the original RWS Tower card, but it's less obvious because the ten drops or yods aren't arranged as neatly as they are on the II card.
-- Lee
The Qabalistic Tree of Life is usually pictured as a diagram of ten spheres or sephiroth. The Golden Dawn, whose ideas served as at least one of the inspirations for the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, upon which the II deck is based, made extensive use of the Tree of Life diagram both as a pathworking tool and as a structure upon which they based the grades of initiation that their members had to ascend. You can see a diagram of the Tree of Life here.
Pathworking on the Tree of Life involves ascending or descending the Tree along what is sometimes referred to as the Lightning Path, which connects the spheres in a continuous path.
On the Tower card, directly beneath the lightning strike at the top, we see ten flaming drops or yods. The ten drops seem like they could be a Tree of Life lying on its side. Although it's not quite the same pattern as the Golden Dawn's diagram of the Tree of Life, it's very close, particularly when you look at the single bottom drop (or rather the drop on the left, since the Tree is on its side).
So, where I'm going with all of this is, if one were to take the lightning bolt on the card and move it down so that it lies on top of the ten flaming drops, you would end up with something which comes close (but not exactly) to duplicating the Lightning Path as it moves down the Tree of Life.
You can see the same thing on the original RWS Tower card, but it's less obvious because the ten drops or yods aren't arranged as neatly as they are on the II card.
-- Lee
