The Tower tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

The Tower is card XVI of the Major Arcana, the card of sudden change. Lightning strikes a tall tower, the crown falls off, and two people tumble out. It is a dramatic card and it can be hard to see. But the Tower usually breaks what was already cracked. Here is what the Tower means upright and reversed, the symbols in the 1909 card and the old names for the tower.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: sudden change, upheaval, revelation, collapse of what was false
• Reversed keywords: a delayed collapse, fear of change, avoiding the truth
• Number: XVI (16) in the Major Arcana
• Element: Fire Later tradition
• Astrology: Mars Later tradition
• Yes or no: No Modern

The element and astrology come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks, and the yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use them if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

Waite admitted that occult explanations of the card were “meager and mostly disconcerting”. It is, he said, idle to point out that it depicts ruin, “because it bears this evidence on the surface”. He read it as the fall of “a House of Falsehood”.

The lightning

A bolt of lightning hits the top of the tower. The change comes from outside and it is fast. You do not get to choose the hour.

The falling crown

The crown on top of the tower is knocked off. What was ruling your life, a belief, a plan, a false sense of safety, loses its place.

The two falling figures

Two people fall headfirst from the tower. Waite read them as “the literal word made void and the other its false interpretation”. For a reader, they are anyone caught in a sudden change.

The tongues of flame

Small drops of flame, shaped like the Hebrew letter yod, fall around the tower. Many readers see them as sparks of insight: the shock also reveals something true.

Upright meaning

Upright, the Tower means sudden change, upheaval, revelation and the collapse of something false or fragile. The lightning is not subtle. What collapses often needed to, though the timing rarely feels kind.

In a reading, tend to safety first: your body, your home, the basics and the people you trust. Then look at what the shock revealed. The Tower can mark a sudden end, a truth coming out or a plan falling apart. Shock is allowed. So is refusing to romanticize disaster. Rebuild on truer ground when you can.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, the Tower can mean a disaster delayed, fear of a collapse you know is needed, or an aftermath you are only now admitting. You may be propping up a cracked wall because the bang scares you.

If you can take something apart on purpose, do it before the lightning chooses the hour. If the strike has already come, stop pretending the old roof still holds. Fear of change does not bring back what the truth has ended.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, a sudden truth that ends a false peace, a breakup or a big argument that clears the air. Reversed, staying in a fragile arrangement to avoid the bang.

Work and money

A sudden job loss, a project collapsing, an unexpected expense. Reversed, ignoring warning signs until the failure is total.

Spirituality

A belief structure shattering under real experience, a sudden awakening. Reversed, clinging to a belief after it has already failed you.

As feelings

As feelings, the Tower shows shock, upheaval or strong, sudden emotion. Something has shaken the person deeply.

The Tower as past, present, future and advice

• Past: An upheaval that broke something false.
• Present: Sudden change. Take care of safety first.
• Future: A shake-up that clears the ground.
• Advice: Do not prop up what is cracked. Rebuild on truer ground.

A Major Arcana card names a theme, not a sentence passed on your life. When the Tower shows up among mostly Minor cards, give it extra weight: the theme of sudden change runs under the whole question. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time. Patterns like that teach you more about the card than any list of keywords.

Is the Tower a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, the Tower leans no. It means things are not going to plan, so it usually says no, at least for the plan you have now. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I face upheaval practically and rebuild on what proves true.

Reversed affirmation: I stop delaying a necessary collapse and deal with what is already broken.

Journal prompts:

• What in my life has felt cracked for a while?
• What did a past upheaval teach me?
• What is one thing I can rebuild on solid ground?

The history and art behind the card

In the Tarot de Marseille pattern the card is called La Maison Dieu, the House of God. Early Italian cards called this trump the House of the Devil, the Fire or the Arrow, and some show a tower struck by fire from heaven. Many readers connect it with the biblical Tower of Babel, though early sources do not say so.

The Marseille name is curious: La Maison Dieu, the House of God. Historians are not sure why. One suggestion is a pun on maison Dieu, an old French word for a hospital. Waite read the card through the Bible: “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it”.

The Golden Dawn gave the Tower to Mars, the planet of war and sudden force, which matches the lightning and the flames.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the card: “Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe.” Reversed, he gave: “According to one account, the same in a lesser degree; also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny.” Waite himself called the fortune-telling meanings of the trumps “artificial and arbitrary”, and on this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

In the modern teaching map called the Fool’s Journey, this card belongs to the third stage, seeing through and returning (roughly the Devil to the World): bondage, upheaval, hope, uncertainty, clarity, reckoning and completion. This map is a teaching aid made popular by twentieth-century guidebooks such as Eden Gray’s, not a medieval doctrine. Use it when it helps.

A spread for the Tower

Use this spread when something has suddenly fallen apart.

1. What has fallen? The structure that collapsed.
2. What truth did it reveal? What I can see now that I could not see before.
3. What do I build next? The first stone on firmer ground.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

Is the Tower the worst card in tarot?

It is one of the hardest, but no card is simply bad. The Tower often clears away something false to make room for something real.

What does the Tower mean in love?

A sudden change: a truth coming out, a breakup or a big conflict that clears the air.

What does the Tower reversed mean?

Avoiding a needed change, or a crisis that is coming more slowly. It asks you to deal with the cracks before they widen.

The Tower with other cards

• With The Star: a crisis followed by real hope.
• With Death: major change on every level. Go gently.
• With The Emperor: a structure or authority that falls.

Related cards

• The Devil: the card before: the chains the Tower breaks
• The Star: hope after the storm, the next card
• Death: slow change, where the Tower is sudden

Keep learning

The Tower is part of the lesson The Devil to the World in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To keep walking the Major Arcana, read the card before it, The Devil or the card after it, The Star, or go back to all the card meanings. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part II and Part III, section 3.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Eden Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (New York: Crown, 1970), epilogue “The Fool’s Journey”.
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for The Tower.