Oh no, the Tower! Death, destruction, disaster (wow, a lot of scary words start with a D), and general woe to all who are in the vicinity!
Well, we all know that there aren’t really any truly one sided things in this universe, so let’s get to digging into what this card really represents.
The keyword for the Tower is Awakening. Case describes the Tower as an awakening to the bondage that was represented by last week’s card, the Devil. Enlightenment is also a type of awakening; realizing a truth and having it destroy your illusions is a type of awakening to reality.
The general consensus on this card is that it portends destruction, but for our purposes here, it is talking about the destruction of those illusions, and the clearing of new ground to allow us to grow. The destruction pictured on the card comes from the Sun; it is a lightning flash of super-consciousness. Case calls the disaster a “gathering of materials for a far greater structure”. He references previous names of the card to emphasize this: the House of God, the Fire of Heaven and the Lightning Struck Tower.
The shape of the lightning bolt is significant: it is the shape of the Pattern on the Trestleboard as it relates to the Qabalistic Tree of Life. You’ve probably seen the pictures of the tree with the zig-zag going through the various houses: that’s what Case is referring to here. The end of the bolt is shaped like the Hebrew letter Beth, which relates it to the Magician.
The 22 layers of bricks aligns with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and sometimes the Tower is referred to as the Tower of Babel. The crown is a symbol of willpower, but since it is being knocked off, it is assumed to be a false sense of willpower. The people falling from the Tower are our personal consciousness (conscious and subconscious; Magician and High Priestess). The 22 Yods (the little fireballs), 10 on each side of the tower, represent the Tree of Life. They float in the air to remind us that the forces we deal with have no physical foundation.
The Tower is a Mars card, and Case gives no alignment to the zodiac this week. Peh is the Hebrew letter, and reminds us that speech and language can have a destructive as well as creative power. It relates back to casting this card as the Tower of Babel, and the notion that various languages were creates as a result of the tower’s fall.
This week we examine our desires and compare them to the principles of right discrimination we’re learning here. Are all of our desires in line with what we’re trying to accomplish spiritually and metaphysically? (Mine aren’t.)
Lucina's Cauldron 