XVI — The Tower
The sudden collapse of something that was already unstable.
- Arcana
- Major
- Number
- XVI
- Traditional element
- Fire
- Traditional astrology
- Mars
- Paired Solfeggio tone
- 417 Hz
The Tower upright
Keywords: Upheaval, Sudden change, Exposed pretence, Collapse.
The Tower is the deck's most alarming image and its plainest reading: a structure fails, quickly, and the failure was usually available to be seen beforehand. Traditionally it is upheaval; more precisely, it is the end of a pretence.
The Tower reversed
Keywords: Deferred collapse, Surviving it, Averted crisis.
Reversed can read as a collapse deferred, or as one being survived. Ask what you are currently holding up that is asking to be put down.
Sit with this
What in your life is unstable that you have been treating as permanent?
The paired tone
417 Hz is traditionally the tone of change and of clearing what a shock leaves behind — which is the work that actually follows this card.
Common questions
What does The Tower mean in tarot?
The sudden collapse of something that was already unstable. The Tower is the deck's most alarming image and its plainest reading: a structure fails, quickly, and the failure was usually available to be seen beforehand. Traditionally it is upheaval; more precisely, it is the end of a pretence.
What does The Tower reversed mean?
Reversed can read as a collapse deferred, or as one being survived. Ask what you are currently holding up that is asking to be put down.
Is The Tower a good card?
Neither. On this site no card is read as good or bad luck — The Tower is a frame for looking at a situation, and whether that frame is welcome depends entirely on what you are looking at.
This card is a reflection prompt, not a prediction.