Tarot Reading – The Tower Tarot Card and the Promise of Freedom

Perhaps considered one of the most negative cards in the Tarot deck, The Tower is the card of chaos and turmoil. Contemporary tarot card meanings often refer to disruption, instability, transformation, and inevitable truth. When the Tower card appears in a tarot reading, one can anticipate the total deconstruction of one’s belief system. The Tower brings an unrecognized truth. It is an indicator that one’s faulty perceptions have caused the creation of an unreliable foundation. It is a warning that one’s thought processes are not aligned with a higher truth. It always means the beginning of an emotional purge.

However, there is much more to the Tower card than the concept of destruction. In truth, the Tower is a card of liberation and freedom. It is there to assure you that if you choose to get rid of your faulty beliefs; you will experience an inner freedom. In its place comes a new level of consciousness. This heightened awareness is the direct result of new channels of communication with the higher mind or divine spirit. In a Tarot reading, the Tower clarifies the parts of our own inner selves that we have been reluctant to examine. It is this denial that causes our actions or behaviors to conflict with our personal truths. In the end, when we find the courage to look at our misconceptions, we are set free.

What is so terrifying about the Tower Tarot card is the feeling of inevitability. During a Tarot reading, the Tower informs us that disorder and confusion cannot be avoided. There is a need to go into the unknown. The unknown represents our greatest fears. It is here that we must surrender to uncertainty. However, true freedom lies in the act of surrender. Instead of trying to steer our lives in certain directions, we have the opportunity to merge with our higher consciousness and let the Universe guide us. There is nothing more liberating than relinquishing our concept of control. At some level, we must come to terms with our powerlessness and finite nature.

Symbolically, the Tower represents the power of the Divine. This is represented by the piercing lightning that brings down the top of the Tower. Here he reminds us that we do not have the ultimate authority. Our concept of power comes from our ego. In Tarot reading, The Tower suggests that there is something much bigger than ourselves. There is a Universal law that we must honor and respect. Taking this into consideration, we are humbled. Our old ideas no longer work for us. In the end, we must be willing to accept the fact that our concept of self-control and power is unreliable, self-centered, and flawed.

Finally, the Tower card refers to narrow-mindedness. The Tower informs us that we have outgrown our old ideas. Our past perceptions and value systems have become too petty. We are, at last, ready to expand our perspectives. As we begin this process, we realize that we were prisoners of our own creation. The Tower frees us from self-imposed imprisonment and assures us that a false self-image will be replaced by self-knowledge. Although with his arrival there is much fear and chaos, in the end we always discover a new freedom.

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