The fall of our idols—and all of our constructs—is built into the nature of reality. The Tower warns us about taking our sacred constructions, ideologies, and idols—our theories of everything—as absolutes. The totalitarian desire for one father God, one State, One-World government, and one integral model—our need to fit everything in a narrow, vertical, and hierarchical perspective—leads to the tower of Babel, which is doomed to fall.
The tower represents verticality and transcendence; it is our totem, our badge of personal or tribal identity. Its positive meaning is a constructive mentality, an uplifting vision—a panoramic view; its negative side is hubris. The tower signifies being out of touch with earthly realities; it represents big ideological projects that collapse when confronted with natural chaos and inertia—the natural world constantly destroys rigid and ill-adaptive forms. Our ideology fails when we become monomaniacal—a sudden shock can quickly bring down our great metaphysical towers of abstraction. This is what religious people mean when they talk about “the wrath of God”.
The being plummeting from the tower symbolises the perennial fall from Eden—the big cosmic divorce. On a mundane level, we might be stuck in a toxic relationship, have a lousy job, or feel generally alienated—we might need a significant crisis to wake us out of our sleepwalking state. This divorce could be excruciatingly painful but could also lead to a new relationship with reality, a quantum leap of understanding. The falling tower might be both the best and the worst thing that ever happened to us—the passage into ‘the dark night of the soul’ that could lead to a new dawn. Something must be broken—the old has to die to make room for the new. In Jordorowski’s Tower, there is something celebratory. It is as if the fallen people are dancing on their hands, and there is a fireworks display.
The tower indicates an apocalypse, a word which means ’to uncover and ‘to reveal’ the new paradigm. When things can’t be fixed, sometimes the best thing—even though it never feels that way at the time—is the annihilation of the present system. A radical shift—a lightning bolt—might be necessary to move us into a new realm. This is true of our personal lives and the world. If we get too high and mighty and lose our connection to the ground, we become vulnerable. We can think of September 11th in New York and the twin towers, a symbol of massive titanic wealth and power that seemed invulnerable but came crashing down.
The tower reminds us of impermanence—that our greatest monuments will be destroyed eventually—by fire and flood. A tower might appear strong and lord over the landscape but is vulnerable to destruction because of its visibility. Like towers, human beings are upright animals; however, we can be knocked down flat at any time, by a sudden illness, for example. Although we try to transcend ourselves by building even taller towers and going into space, the falling tower represents a limit. Eventually, we must come down to earthly realities—there is no escape to Mars.
Evolution tells us that a system that is no longer adaptive gets destroyed so that new life can emerge. In other words, destruction is necessary and natural—integral to growth. This is why some architectural monstrosities, while they might seem fantastic and functional at the time, are now eyesores and should be torn down; other architecture remains beautiful and survives the fashion of the day. In other words, we must periodically destroy ugly and dysfunctional systems and make room for new life. Wisdom knows what to preserve and what to destroy.
But sometimes, we have no wisdom and control. Sometimes even our most sacred and eternal towers fall. A few years ago, the great Cathedral in Paris, Notre Dame, burned down. Watching its spires crumble was traumatic—the phallic spire crashing into a firestorm looked uncannily like the image of the Tower in the Tarot. Of course, Notre Dame is being rebuilt because it is a sacred monument. Sacred forms tend to renew themselves, whereas our more utilitarian buildings and monuments become quickly obsolete. But both secular and sacred towers are subject to the same laws of inertia and impermanence. The fallen crown on the card symbolises that empires rise and fall. The poet Shelly best expresses this lesson in his poem Ozymandias.
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
This article is part of a consideration of our study group on symbolism and Psychomagic. If you want to become a member and join one of our study groups, please write to me at andrewpgsweeny@gmail.com or check out the events calendar below for more details.
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