Tarot Of The Day July 8, 2018 - Day 20: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Tower
I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the twentieth session follows.
Another notorious card that many people fear seeing in their readings, The Tower is a herald of major, even catastrophic, change. In the Rider-Waite deck, it is shown as a tall, grey, square tower whose top is a domed crown. It stands alone on the peak of a mountain or perhaps simply on the edge of a cliff, and it is being struck by lightning. The top of the tower has been knocked off by the strike, and smoke and flames can be seen in the windows and bursting forth from the hole in the roof. Two figures fall from the tower, surrounded by glowing embers, their faces pictures of distress and fear. If you look closely, you will note that the lightning strike itself is an arrow, bent into a very stylized zig-zag shape. This is meant to represent the path of the Fool on the Tree of Life.
The Tree Of Life is a glyph illustrating the workings of the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. There are mystics who devote their entire lives to the study of The Kabbalah. Its lessons can be profound, to the point of making very positive changes in one’s life in following the paths downward in the Pathways of Creation, from the Crown - Kether - signifying the Great Creator, to the Kingdom - Malkuth - which signifies the material world. However, there is a whole other way to use the Tree of Life: in reverse. This consists of climbing the Pathways upwards in a mystical quest to return to The One. If you've heard the term "path-working" this is what it refers to. The Fool card of the tarot is the first step on the ‘Fool’s Journey’; which is climbing the Sephiroth from the material world, or Kingdom, along the path of enlightenment to reach the Crown. This path, or The Fool’s Journey, is a story told within the Major Arcana of the tarot, with each of the 22 cards found there - The Fool (0) to the World (21). I’ve spoken of this before, and we will address it further in other cards and later in a different series of lessons, but the Tower card itself is a card that lends itself to the topic. For your curiosity, below are the 22 steps on the path, as defined by Gary Meister in the blog, Tarot Reflections. This is his interpretation, but for the purpose of a simple introduction it is a good list to begin with:
In the Rider-Waite booklet, it lists the following keywords for The Tower: misery, distress, ruin, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception (upright,) according to one account, the same in a lesser degree, also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny (reversed.)
Maggie Stiefvater chose to show The Tower as a figure standing very close to a bonfire at the peak of consuming the fuel laid out for it. Embers are flying into the air from the heat. She writes: “in a dreadful way, seeing this card always excites me. Is it terrible to admit that? Most people find the Tower quite terrifying. The Tower is something that you have come to rely on, a truth you believe utterly, or a way of life that you have grown accustomed to. And in this card, it is entirely destroyed in a roaring, starving fire, leaving a blackened and unfamiliar territory on the other side of it. Sometimes it comes by surprise, this ravaging force that destroys something you thought was immutable. But usually it makes sense in retrospect. This is change that has been agitating for a long time, wisdom that has been battering at your mind, a truth that you've been refusing to admit. You’ve held it back, consciously or subconsciously, and now the fire explodes through your defenses, all the more savage for having been blocked up for so long.“
Maggie’s keywords for The Tower are betrayal, dissolution, and revelation.
Tomorrow - The Star
***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***
I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the twentieth session follows.
Another notorious card that many people fear seeing in their readings, The Tower is a herald of major, even catastrophic, change. In the Rider-Waite deck, it is shown as a tall, grey, square tower whose top is a domed crown. It stands alone on the peak of a mountain or perhaps simply on the edge of a cliff, and it is being struck by lightning. The top of the tower has been knocked off by the strike, and smoke and flames can be seen in the windows and bursting forth from the hole in the roof. Two figures fall from the tower, surrounded by glowing embers, their faces pictures of distress and fear. If you look closely, you will note that the lightning strike itself is an arrow, bent into a very stylized zig-zag shape. This is meant to represent the path of the Fool on the Tree of Life.
The Tree Of Life is a glyph illustrating the workings of the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. There are mystics who devote their entire lives to the study of The Kabbalah. Its lessons can be profound, to the point of making very positive changes in one’s life in following the paths downward in the Pathways of Creation, from the Crown - Kether - signifying the Great Creator, to the Kingdom - Malkuth - which signifies the material world. However, there is a whole other way to use the Tree of Life: in reverse. This consists of climbing the Pathways upwards in a mystical quest to return to The One. If you've heard the term "path-working" this is what it refers to. The Fool card of the tarot is the first step on the ‘Fool’s Journey’; which is climbing the Sephiroth from the material world, or Kingdom, along the path of enlightenment to reach the Crown. This path, or The Fool’s Journey, is a story told within the Major Arcana of the tarot, with each of the 22 cards found there - The Fool (0) to the World (21). I’ve spoken of this before, and we will address it further in other cards and later in a different series of lessons, but the Tower card itself is a card that lends itself to the topic. For your curiosity, below are the 22 steps on the path, as defined by Gary Meister in the blog, Tarot Reflections. This is his interpretation, but for the purpose of a simple introduction it is a good list to begin with:
0. The Fool - Awareness
1. The Magician - Attention
2. High Priestess - Remember
3. The Empress - Imagine
4. The Emperor - Reason
5. The Hierophant - Intuition
6. The Lovers - Discrimination, Choice
7. The Chariot - Receptivity
8. Strength - Courage
9. The Hermit - Example
10. The Wheel - Cyclicity
11. Justice - Unfailingly Just
12. Hanged Man - Change Thinking
13. Death - Change Behavior
14. Temperance - Verify
15. The Devil - Materialism
16. The Tower - Awakening
17. The Star - Meditate
18. The Moon - Deception
19. The Sun - Expansion
20. Judgement - Realization
21. The World - Completion
 |
| The Sephiroth, or Tree of Life, with Major Arcana correspondences. |
 |
| The path in lightning form showing the bends of the path. |
In the Rider-Waite booklet, it lists the following keywords for The Tower: misery, distress, ruin, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception (upright,) according to one account, the same in a lesser degree, also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny (reversed.)
Maggie Stiefvater chose to show The Tower as a figure standing very close to a bonfire at the peak of consuming the fuel laid out for it. Embers are flying into the air from the heat. She writes: “in a dreadful way, seeing this card always excites me. Is it terrible to admit that? Most people find the Tower quite terrifying. The Tower is something that you have come to rely on, a truth you believe utterly, or a way of life that you have grown accustomed to. And in this card, it is entirely destroyed in a roaring, starving fire, leaving a blackened and unfamiliar territory on the other side of it. Sometimes it comes by surprise, this ravaging force that destroys something you thought was immutable. But usually it makes sense in retrospect. This is change that has been agitating for a long time, wisdom that has been battering at your mind, a truth that you've been refusing to admit. You’ve held it back, consciously or subconsciously, and now the fire explodes through your defenses, all the more savage for having been blocked up for so long.“
Maggie’s keywords for The Tower are betrayal, dissolution, and revelation.
Tomorrow - The Star
***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***
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