The Tower card

Earthquake and rebuilding.

Supporting / Blocking Tarot Card

support

The Tower card is a delaying card, urging the querent to stop and examine all the details of the question asked. The tower collapses because it is built without a solid foundation or on shaky foundations. This is the time to pause, review, and correct. In situations related to spiritual development, the card indicates that there is a need to develop something new that will improve the querent’s sense of self.

Relationships

Career

Finances

Relationships

Career

Finances

The Meaning of The Card

The Tower card represents a stage in life where things end suddenly. While the Death card signifies a natural end, a conclusion of a process due to the person’s developmental journey, the Tower card involves a rupture, trauma, external disaster, or unexpected collapse. The destruction arises because the emotional, material, and spiritual foundations were unstable and shaky. The lightning striking the tower, causing its collapse, is a necessary reality to bring about change. The Tower symbolizes assets, family, physical and mental health, work, and livelihood. When it collapses, the ground loses its stability. The insecurity the person feels due to the collapse of everything familiar and known forces them into a situation where what was not understood through awareness is imposed upon them in a moment of lightning strike by an external force. It strips away the false and the fake, creating space for healing and restoration. The person experiences a sudden crisis—such as the death of a loved one, illness, job loss, or financial loss—that triggers an internal awakening, leading to the release of patterns, incorrect ways of thinking, and purification. This entire process happens quickly, like a lightning strike.

The Tower card: The Meaning of The Symbols

Card Symbols	Symbol Meaning
Lightning	Lightning is a symbol of ideas, thoughts, or events that strike a person suddenly. It was the weapon of Zeus, used to punish humans who sinned. It also symbolizes a burst of energy, a divine weapon, and destruction.
Crown	Control, glory, perfection, continuity.
Rain	Fertility, vitality, cleansing, renewal, growth.
Fire	Fire symbolizes destruction but also purification. It warms but can also burn and consume.
Clouds	Power, transience, acting as a barrier, renewal.
Tower	The tower symbolizes security and the stability of material life. It is a reminder of the Tower of Babel, which collapsed because it threatened the boundary between humanity and divinity. It also symbolizes protection, observation, and spiritual aspiration. The sin of the tower builders is hubris, pride that inevitably leads to the tower’s destruction. The divine punishment in the Tower of Babel is the lack of communication among humans, and in the card, it symbolizes the lack of communication within oneself.
Two Falling People	The falling people are in the position of the Hanged Man, but unlike the Hanged Man, who experiences peace because he willingly chose the pain of change, these people are thrown from the tower and are terrified. It also symbolizes distress, fear, lack of choice, and an opportunity for change.
Black Background	The black background symbolizes the absence of hope and lack of awareness. Fear, danger, threat, negative traits, dark instincts, but also sophistication, authority, power, and learning. It expresses an atmosphere of mystery related to the cycle of death and rebirth.
Red Veil	Protection, covering, enabling action and doing.
Blue Robe	Sky, innocence, security.
Mountain	Challenges, power, mystery, obstacle.
Gold Drops	From the tower, 22 drops of gold fall, symbolizing God since their shape resembles the letter “Yod,” the first letter of the Tetragrammaton. They represent completeness, like the 22 Major Arcana cards, and their number matches the Hebrew letters, which are the tools used to create the world.

Mythology

The Tower card is represented by the god Mars, the deity of war. Aggression and violence are his methods of action and symbolize the catastrophic state represented by The Tower card. Mars represents the survival instinct within a person. Despite culture, education, and restraint, this instinct erupts suddenly in situations of threat. Like all wars, it destroys without consideration everything that limits and obstructs, including thought patterns, customs, relationships, and work environments.

Representation of the Card in a Reading

J. M. Barrie, who wrote the play Peter Pan, said: ‘The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.

It is important to remember that this is a Major Arcana card, representing the realm of spirit. The querent’s soul is in a place of testing, facing turmoil. The person must examine and strengthen their inner integrity.