Can the Tower be positive on the spot? (or always afterwards)

I agree - for me it's always mostly been about "sudden change" and the negative part is more of a reaction. I read an interesting article recently that talked about something similar - that the author's reaction to a negative situation is always, "Good". As in, "Good, I didn't get the job - now I know what to do differently next time." So, it sounds like it really is just the sudden change in life that comes along with having a baby!

tarot_quest said:

Hi guys!

After someone told me on the exchange forum the Tower can mean a ''breakthrough'' or ''sudden communication'', we both agreed that a Tower event is nearly always negative when it happens.

I read past replies on AT saying that a Tower moment is often positive in retrospect. For example, when I did not get a job that I wanted, I realized that it was for my best interest since I would probably not have been happy in this field.

So my question is, can the Tower be felt as positive when a ''tower event'' happens, or is it always an unpleasant experience, on the spot?

Thanks for sharing your experience

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I see the Tower as the final stage of a necessary transformation in your life. In a sense it represents your ego...perhaps a facade, or a persona, you are hiding behind that needs to come down. It indicates an event that precipitates this transformation. It feels like a "freeing up" of a situation that has one entrapped....emotionally and psychologically. Whether it is positive or negative depends on your attitude and wisdom. I see the Tower card as the last stage of the Dark Night...you may still have the Moon card to get through, but that is all that stands between you and the Sun....which is great happiness, and affirmation of your transformation. The thing of it is not to judge it good or bad, but to roll with it.

I think the tendency is to see it as negative because it's about sudden change and we tend to fear that.

It helped me to deal with it when I read somewhere about looking at where it is in the Major Arcana sequence, coming after the Devil and before the Star, this helped me to see it as an event that suddenly releases us from something we are clinging on to that is really not good for us (even if we don't realise that) so that we can start afresh.

It's sudden change but it is a necessary change - and that is a good thing, even if it doesn't feel like it until after the event.

I think of the Tower as the thunderstorm card. There may be lightning and noise and things blown all over but when it ends the air is fresh and despite the clutter of storm litter things seem somehow cleared out.

I was reading tonight about the Tower in "Keywords for the Crowley Tarot" by Hajo Banzhaf and Brigette Theler. I won't give the entire entry but just a short quote from page 103 where it talks about the Tower as the card of the year for a person.

"The year ahead may be the year of your liberation, if you have the necessary courage. That is why you should drop the bombshell and burst the framework that has become too small for you. Risk breaking out of constrictive concepts, structures, and lifestyles that keep you imprisoned. Whenever you resist change, run after set ideas, or cling to old habits, it might be necessary to rethink things. You should examine what you may see too one-sidedly or too narrowly. Do you cling to superficial security? If you notice areas of conflict, it is better to let go, because the more you fight for things, the more external circumstances may force you to give them up. These changes are not senseless blows of fate but necessary for your further growth."

A personal tower moment happened for me with tarot. For about thirty-five years, give or take a memory cell or two, I have read with the Rider-Waite-Smith. I have dabbled in other decks for a short time but always come back to the old reliable RWS when I read for others.

The Tabula Mundi changed all of that in an instant.

The book I bought with it for this deck, "Book M: Liber Mundi" adds another flavor to the Tower. On page 52 M. M. Meleen, the author, writes, "Sudden and unforeseen, the lightening strikes, destroying outward structures. What has been built up over time now crumbles into rubble. Yet we are enlightened, and freed from the prisons of our own making. The ground is cleared for new building."

I have a philosophy about life that things work out for the best in the long run as long as you do the best you can the best you know how, with a loving heart. Sometimes it isn't obvious how things will work out, but they will.

The Tower reminds me to always keep this philosophy in mind.

I can't say that I have ever had The Tower stand for something that was truly out of the blue.

What I mean is that while it is a radical change (and as such it necessarily destroys what was before) looking back it was never for something that was truly unforeseeable. I have seen it more in situations you could call the straw the broke the camel's back. It'a culmination and it comes with a bang, but a culmination it is (in my experience).

Like say X is treating Y very poorly and (s)he has for a very long time and Y doesn't really ever protest much but takes and takes. Y might "suddenly" send X to hell and/or disappear from X's life altogether.

Or say that someone is a struggling writer and for year-maybe decades- can't even get an short story published then "all of sudden" gets a book deal that goes on to become a bestseller (JK Rowling).

This is most of the time as it's come up in my readings.

Other times it can actually be sudden and unforeseeable.

But as for the change being for the worse I don't know. I think I never have it come up like that (luckily perhaps). Even when it wasn't the best change ever it wasn't really very bad either.

The Tower always have positive aspects for me, but it always comes across in a painful or seemingly negative situation. I had it show up once when I was working on getting rid of some negative beliefs and emotions. In that instance, I saw it as a very good sign.