The tower

Can this card ever be good? If so in what context?

It is the dispeller of illusions... that is a good thing.

It can be the bright light of illumination... a light bulb going off, sudden comprehension and insight.

It could be the shakedown, working the bugs out, figuring out what works and what doesn't in a project or situation.

It can be the thing that breaks you out of the prision you have created for yourself or breaking down the barriers.

Some say it can be a monumental sexual experience... also a good thing, one might suppose.

It maybe sudden, it maybe what you don't expect, but it will liberate you and change the way you look at everything.

Last fall, when I was starting my new employment, the Tower turned up seven times in six weeks of daily draws. It came to mean an experience that pushes me out of my comfort zone. While the experience was positive, it was definately uncomfortable. But then making a change is usually uncomfortable. When we are comfortable, I don't beleive we change.

I got The Tower this past spring just before going to a new chiropractor for the first time. It turned out that I had a misalignment in my spine that most probably stemmed from a car accident 20 years ago and that had never been addressed. I started on a program to correct my alignment, and I feel much better now. The Tower was a good metaphor for the accident and subsequent misalignment it caused, the problem finally coming to light, and the adjustments that have improved my health.

I suffer from clinical depression. Most of the time it is okay, managed well, but then there are those periods in which I sink into my boots without any apparent trigger events. The Tower, for me, then represents a shake-up and breakdown of whatever the psychic (as in psyche) forces which have plunged me into this state. It, in these circumstances, indicates that I am going through a profound inner change from which I will emerge with greater understanding, and peacefulness. To reverse an old saying ... it is the storm before the calm. So ... in those circumstances, I see it as a positive ... and end to psychic pain, and thus, a new beginning. It is a release.

mythos

For me, the Tower represents an unexpected change that one experiences as being a disaster at the time. It usually is the breakdown of something one thought was secure in your life. There is a period of insecurity that follows, wondering if other things you thought were secure could fall apart also. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. One usually moves on to a much better place that wouldn't have happened if you had stayed in that secure structure.

Could be a relationship that that you have outgrown, but would never have voluntarily left, a partner that you never would have dreamed would abandon you who suddenly walks away leaving you feeling very vulnerable. Eventually, though, you find a more fulfilling relationship that you wouldn't have been free to enter into if the old relationship hadn't broken up.

Could be a boring, but secure job that you perceived as being worth staying in for the insurance benefits, sick days, stability, etc. Then, unexpectedly you are layed off or fired. Again, lot of insecure feelings, but then you move on to a much better, more fulfilling job that you never would have considered taking if you hadn't lost the previous job.

The Tower is a good card, it just takes going through a dark patch before you receive the rewards this card offers.

Sometimes the Tower has shown up in my readings to show a very surprising event, not necessarily a devastating one. It's like something coming out of the blue, like lightning. Totally unexpected. It usually causes you to rethink how you viewed things before this surprising thing happened.

~Mercy

Depends upon what is around it. Let's say you've got a 2 of Cups and a 4 of Wands on either side... An unexpected marriage proposal, or you suddenly will realize that someone you didn't think you loved is absolutely the love of your life... Whatever is coming with the Tower, it will clarify the situation, and it will be unexpected. But clarification is generally a good thing (though simetimes painful -- but it doesn't have to be), and unexpected events can be a whole lot of fun, actually.

Julien

U.k

I have had the Tower come up several times for me lately, and i'am really Glad to see it. I have been waiting for a House move to a new area for some time now and having the Tower signifies a new house move is possible for me very soon.

The Tower was the very first card I ever drew, and at the time it meant, chuck the Tarot, this is all evil shit, I am going back to that "old-time religion"! lol

I still love it, but lately it has become particularly associated with my beloved locked up as a chronic paranoid schizophrenic in Norway... in the Secret Dakini Oracle, this card looks spookily like his hospital precincts, down to the "Virgin Mary" imagery and all...

These days, when I see this card, I think the Mike Scott song, *edinburgh castle /hugging the sky/ one of these days/ I'm going to blow you down!!* lol
(edinburgh castle representing in this case the whole psychiatric establishment...whatever happened to the R.D.Laing revolution???)