"The Tower card is often regarded by people who see the Tarot card deck for the first time as one of the "scariest" cards. Like the Death card and The Devil card, two other "scary" cards, it has a lot of black in the dark image; while all the other cards have brighter colors, or colored or light backgrounds, in the popular and most familiar of all Tarot decks: "the Rider deck" or "Rider-Waite" Tarot deck.
In most Tarot decks the image on The Tower card is of a tall tower, somewhat like a modern lighthouse. But this "light-house" is being "lit up" by a lightning bolt and flames of fire! Two people are falling head-first to the hard rocks below, as if they had been blasted out of the doorless room at the top of the tower. It certainly does look like a scary sight, and one can only wonder or fear what might happen to those two poor people when they "hit rock-bottom".
But we are only seeing an instant frozen in time, and have no idea what will happen to those hapless souls in the next instant. All we know is that they have suddenly been sent tumbling down to earth from a high place, as a result of forces beyond their control that have struck them down like "a bolt from the blue". No warning. No idea why. No time to even think about what is happening or what to do about it. One moment they are comfortably perched high in their room at the top, and the next moment they are "taking a fall". And they don't even know if they will survive the fall as they hurtle headlong from the top to the bottom.
What is even more "scary" is that the occult meaning of The Tower card is "Destruction"! It surely looks like a card you would not want to see coming up in YOUR reading, doesn't it? By the way, the word "occult" simply means "hidden", and the phrase "the Occult" simply means "a body of esoteric knowledge and wisdom hidden from those who are not ready, willing, or able to understand it". What we do not understand, we often fear; and this is why some people seem to fear things which are "occult" or hidden from their understanding.
The full name of this card is "The Lightning-Struck Tower", and that adds an electrifying element of sudden "shock" to the scene, or at least an element of suprise. They couldn't see this coming, and then suddenly their whole world was turned upside-down. Who wouldn't be "in shock" when something like this suddenly shattered the reality they had been accustomed to?"
Interpretation by Michael
Star ©1997
STAR SIGNS Astrology Zine
