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Thoth- ATU XVI-The Tower
Triple goddess Tarot-Key 16-The Tower
The Lord of the Hosts of the Mighty.
The Universal Key of renovation and restoration.
This card is often misunderstood and seen as a doom and gloom -Armageddon end of the world -OMG-symbol. However, it's more about your own man-made personality, which is static and has crystallized thought to the point where you repeat the same thoughts and expect different results. Besides the obvious futility of such action, there is insanity in such a process.
The Tower is a hallmark image of the Tower of Babel brought down by God the Destroyer ( Hindu-Shiva). The Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, respectively create, sustain, and destroy the universe. Shiva, is the God of Destruction, and he only needs to open his eye to destroy the universe. Ultimately the only reality and/or perfection is No-thing-ness. In less archaic language, this "open eye" can also be the personality de-constructed and reconstructed by the lightning strike of enlighten thought, as the radiant golden lines from the eye imply.
The fire breathing dragon-mouth at the base, besides symbolizing this card's Hebrew letter
Peh (meaning MOUTH), is also represents the destroyer god and is the Cosmic and/or purifying fire that transforms life constantly in order to keep evolving the living. Crowley called it: "The manifestation of cosmic energy in its grossest form". [The Book of Thoth-Pg. 107]
The Crone of the Triple Goddess Tarot-also represents the "Destroyer Goddess", and she is depicted as climbing up stormy rock face, accompanied by her black cat familiar. In the background, are lightning flashes. This image on the Triple Goddess card is very reminiscent of the Irish Banshee (Baneshe).
What is a Banshee? A Banshee is said to be a fairy in Irish legend and her scream is believed to be an omen of death. The scream is also called ‘caoine’ which means ‘keening’ and is a warning that there will be an imminent death in the family and as the Irish families blended over time, it is said that each family has its own Banshee. However, there is also a benevolent state of this "fairy", who has attached herself to a family as a guardian. The divine feminine has many forms, after all she is the Creatrix of all Form, and she only scares the ignorant, who think they are unfit for life and its resulting death. There isn't any real esotericism denoted on this Triple Goddess Tarot Card, for it is not Qabalistic: However, the Crone is the ancient image of the Omega of life.
The 4 figures falling out of the Thoth Tower symbolize the crystallized thought and/or personalities of the indoctrinated "wanna-be", i.e. yesterday's thought- formed- people who seek only comfort and fear change. These are thoughts that hold us back from our impeccable performance in life motion. By observation alone we can see that Evolutionary Life is all about performance rather than conformance. Thus Essential Self is progressive thought; not enslaved/indoctrinated or dogmatic thought. Therefore, in the Thoth version of THE TOWER. we see stylized lightning or energy strikes knocking off the geometric shapes of human forms which symbolize the man-made personalities that see reality as a world of straight lines; straight lines as in 'black and White" or "good and bad". The Man-Made personality, sees a reality foreign to Nature and the Universe, which is circular and/or spiral in nature, and is known for its lack of straight lines.
Now since The Thoth Tarot is also called The Egyptian Tarot, the open eye at the top can also represent the Eye of Horus, the Egyptian god of perception; the perceptive state of awakening and seeing the deeper/inner authentic self that is not humanly defined by the babble of words, but is Divinely created. Upon Awakening, personalities are required to come into alignment with the Greater Self, which is symbolized by Horus/ the Golden Child and/or Sun/Son of the Divine Creative, which is known as the 6th Sephiroth-Tiphareth.
The Lion Headed and Haloed Serpent is a possible portrayal of Xnoubis or Abraxas. Together, these serpents represent the 2 forms of desire; which Schopenhauer would have called the Will to Live and the Will to Die. They represent the feminine and masculine impulses; the nobility of the latter is possibly based upon recognition of the futility of the former. Perhaps this is why the renunciation of love, as desire in all the mundane sense of the word has been so constantly announced as the first step towards initiation. However, this is a unnecessary rigid view. For this ATU-16 Tarot Card is not the only card in the pack, nor are "Will to Live" and the "Will to Die" incompatible. Without will to begin and will to end, no measurement can be made and a cosmos without measurement is Infinite non-space without form. To make anything manifest, it has to have a beginning and an end.
Therefore the haloed lion- serpent, also reminds us that by shedding old ways of thinking we become expanded and liberated from the past. Expanded consciousness requires expanded definitions of self and the arising of the Kundalini, a serpentine force, all coiled up at the base of the Spine. This could also be why the art of Lady Frieda Harris shows the fire at the base of the Tower rather than the Traditional Tarot image of a lightning strike on top of the Tower of Babble. Also besides the haloed serpent, on one side of the card is the dove, representing one of the two forms of desire, “The will to die". On the other side of the card, is the Sacred Serpent, which represents the other form of desire, "The Will to Live". These are ancient symbols of Life and death, as the serpent sheds its skin, as a kind of resurrection and the dove flies towards the heavens as a "Holy Spirit". The Dove is also considered to be a Feminine symbol and the Serpent a Masculine one, as she is balanced peace of magnetism and he is the serpentine-lightning-electric force that is the "motion in all movement".
The dove, because of the olive branch in its beak, can also represent the inner peace that we have when we become the authentic Divine -made being/Ego which comes from shedding the outer definition of man-made being and/or institutionalized false ego. We are a Being of Light made of photons, who came to the world of matter, made of bio-protons, so that we could be intimate with the All of Creation. Flesh has many senses, to touch, taste, smell, hear and see manifestation: According to medical science, 33 of them to be exact. Therefore, in the material world, information becomes in-form-action.
In Kashmir Shaivism, a nondualist tradition of Shaiva-Shakta Tantra , the organs of the senses are part of the 36 principles of reality which create this reality. Specifically they are called jñānendriyas (sense organs) are ghrana (nose), rasana (tongue), caksu (eye), tvak (skin), and srotra (ear).
“Each sense has the capacity to offer us Satori – spiritual awakening. Behind every sense, is a hidden sense, which is revealed to us as we dive deeply into that sensorial experience with awareness. Behind the outer eyes is the third eye, through which clairvoyance is awakened.
Hidden inside the two ears, is the third ear, through which we can awaken clairaudience. And deep inside the sense of feeling and touch, is hidden clairsentience. If we explore the sense of smell and taste, our olfactory ability is awakened to such an extent, that we can begin experiencing the ability to smell truth or untruth, and our discernment as to what is good for us or what is not serving our best interests becomes very pronounced. When all senses are vividly aware, we discover the phenomenon of ‘omnipresence.’ ”
-Mahasatvva Sarita
The Tower Card-ATU/Key 16, is the Path of Peh, a Hebrew letter meaning Mouth. Dr. Paul Foster Case calls the Path of Peh," The Exciting Intelligence", as vibrations excite matter and the Mouth sends forth vibrations as sound or words.Hod (Splendor), the 8th Sephiroth and the center of the reasoning process is connected to the center of the intuition-desire nature, the 7th Sephiroth- Netzach (Victory) by the Path of Peh (Pé)-THE TOWER. This Path of the Personality brings into balance what is out of balance and is related to Mars, the Roman god of War and the North.
Traditionally the North was the quarter seen as the "greatest place of darkness", for when the Mysteries where initiated, the North side of King Solomon's temple was the darkest side. But all is not doom and gloom here, as any initiate in the Mysteries knows, it is from the darkest night that comes Light and that "enlightenment has its origin in the hidden sources of power which terrify the minds of the ignorant". To us moderns who are familiar with Quantum Physics Theory, it is said that from the Invisible Dark Energy and Dark Matter are the birthplaces of Visible Light energy and visible matter.
Peh, the Hebrew letter, is called a double letter(double letters refer to the Soul), for it not only means Mouth but also Grace/Indignation, a union of opposites. Double letters, are considered "gateways of the Soul", that have 2 possible directions of passage (Life-Death). It is also a fact that the mouth has two passages as well. One passage takes in nourishment into the organic system and another expresses speech. Thus, we can see the similarity between the two actions of the Path of Peh. For it not only is a devastating Path of the Higher Vibrations that burn away the dross of our Personalities, it is also the entrance that nourishes the consciousness with Spiritual knowledge, (enlightenment) from the Real Personality and/or the Greater Ego.
Many of us are familiar with chanting and the effects of the power of vibration on the physical body. Many Mysteries propound on the use of "god names" or "Words of Power" to effect the destruction of "negative energies”, in body and environment. (Relative to speech, we know that the Logos, is also called the Word,) These "negative energies" that The Tower card represents the destruction of, are our own personal towers of false concepts and institutions that are commonly believed to be reality. By tearing down, room is made for something new and tearing down the false ego, is like pulling off a mask which hides the true "Face".
Now I know that Mars, the planet applied to this card, is the symbol of the war god of destruction but few remember that the war god Mars is also attributed with the power of crop fertility. Again the process of destruction to build anew is seen here as the peace and calm of the soil is distributed by a plow, in order to plant healthy crops. This really is the core of the message of The Tower-ATU/Key 16.
The Tarot Tower symbolizes the construct that most people call "I" or self/ego, where the false perspectives of the Personality are being shattered by the influx of the Ideals of the High Self/Ego and/or Original Self; here destruction is a construction as place is being made in the self- consciousness for higher Knowledge. The toppling Tower also represents the destruction of manmade institutions, government, religions, or any accepted cultural values. Yet this striking down, is not to be construed as the destruction of evil, rather it is a process of change, as "stepping stones" of perspective are built that contributes to the continual building up and striking down of concepts that lead into the Inner Realms of Higher Self; kind of like the building up and striking down of miles as one travels. Another way to understand THE TOWER'S process, is that upon first approach to these "Higher Planes" of reality, many people anthropomorphize the States of Conscious Energy, as Archangels or "Spiritual Beings”, as that is how they "realize" them; However, these Creative Forces are formless, so in order to incorporate these forces into our own anthropomorphized "reality", we must deconstruct the previous false concepts of these angelic beings and know them as states of I Am. This is a necessary process of progressive and expanding Self-Awareness as we mentally journey on the "Above all things, know thyself" Paths of the Tree of Life. Just to travel to greater destinations in the present, we must deconstruct the hold of perspectives of our past!
The Higher Self, is our True Ego, which is not ours alone, so The Tower's solitary destruction also represents the eradication of the personal false ego and its divisionism, a concept made by the survival consciousness of the animal body. The lightning flashes are representative of sudden inspiration, or flashes of perception, that occur when we realize our Real Identities are a Universal I AM that is a collective. This inner conflict is why A. Crowley subtitled THE TOWER as WAR. But this is not a new perspective on the inner conflict of survival persona and the Higher Self, as throughout esoteric literature there are depicted these moments of "inner-war". For instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, there is described symbolic battle of self-perspectives, and/or component parts of Self: The Higher Ego is portrayed as Krishna (Solar Logos), guiding Arjuna (lower personality/false ego) onto his inner, and personal field of conflict.
In Western literature, we have Christ, going through his days in the desert, solitary and alone, while being continually tempted by the lower personality of Satan, which relates to the survival based false-ego trying to usurp the Will of the True Ego(The Soul).
I mentioned that this card is about the destruction of the old order. In the Thoth Tower card, the all seeing eye (I) observes and directs the destruction of the Tower, representing the old order, while Dis, the Roman god of the dead, belches flames against the tower base. These illustrations reinstate that the path of the Tower, is often considered to be an affirmation of the Primal Will; that it alone is the True Crown that brings into balance the pure positive or male Chokma and the pure negative or female Binah. Although we define by words, words are not truth as they are merely propaganda and/or definitions made by rulers. So the words, Chokmah and Binah define that which we truly don't understand, as the Will to Force (Chokma) and the Will to Form (Binah) are of the Primal Will of Eheieh/Kether who is known as "I Will Be" all of which is before being and language. One "I AM" and many "selves"or one I making copies of itself as many "I's", makes a Universal Collective Identity of I AM Me-The Heavenly Human. Much like a Prism creates colors out of pure white light, Self reflects upon self.
There are obvious sexual and Tantric connotations to this card, in the past, these were broadly suggested so that "polite society" would not be offended. However, "God is Sex", the Tower itself is a phallic symbol, the Mouth, is the opening of the male reproductive male organ from which the Yod (seed of life), ejaculates. In Crowley's 1923 diary, he states that,"...the Blasted Tower which is really a Phallus shooting forth lightning’s of seed". The forced transmutation of energy from one form to another is done by Fire's destructive nature. This initial activation of transformation ultimately leads to fruition as energy is released to be restructured into another form of Self. As a practicing Tantric and Qabalist, I know the Physical Male body is a type of capacitor of Positive electric force and the Physical Female body is a crucible (womb) of Negative Magnetic Energy (female Shakti), that captures the electric discharge of the Solar Logos (Male-Shiva), eventually producing active form. As in Tantra, Qabalah understands that the Tree of All Life, is a balancing of opposites; a balancing of Force and Form; therefore, the Tantric Tree of Life can also be seen as the United Masculine and Feminine in a Miathuna position.
In the Tower card, the Mars force is presented as the sexual energy of the Microcosm (Microprosopus), and the image of the Tower is in some ways the phallus. The theory of which points to the all-important understanding that, it is the Higher Sexual Energy (that at first flows from Chokma to Binah, in the Upper Trinity of Kether), of Chokma/ Binah that is called the Supernal Triangle that destroys the perception of the culturally sponsored Personality and the false hoods about the nature of sexual function. There is a kind of destruction of the male sex organ itself in orgasm which relates to the destruction of the Singularity in the "Big Bang" (no pun intended)! Hence, the I is deconstructed as an individual and reconstructed as I AM, a collective of self-perspectives, that become understood as another way to be Self, give birth to I Am Me, which is in itself, Father=I, Mother=Am and Child=Me. Although The Path of Peh, The Tower, may be symbolically phallic, but this does not make it a "male only Path" as this Path exists prior to the differentiation of the sexes that are necessary for multiple and diverse incarnation. This Tower path is an amalgamation of both male electric and female magnetic force, dancing in a spiral rhythm of I AM. However, on the path of Peh, one must focus on the male electric force, sexual expressive force, that resides in all of us, as on other paths one must deal with female receptive components. Only in working in groups are the different polarities of the physical male and female bodies considered as they both experience the Path differently, according to their polarities.
There is an interpretation here that the fall from the Tower, enables the sacrifice of one's culturally profaned perception of the sexual function that is continually required by human kind, in order to maintain the given Path by which one may return to the Source of All. However, the Path is initiatory as it prepares us for the Knowledge and Conversion of the Solar Logos of Tiphareth. What should be noted here, is that when you "ejaculate" electric energy into the magnetic crucible, you get electromagnetic energy; a place where the,"... male the male and the female are one and the same..." ...a partial quote from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas:
Here's the whole quote: when asked by the disciples when they shall enter the Kingdom of God (The Whole Tree of Life/Adam Khadmond), : (22) "Jesus said to them,' When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then you will enter the Kingdom." This "becoming" the Divine Hermaphrodite, where" the two become One" is illustrated in the Art Card, ATU 14 of the Thoth Tarot and the Birth of Horus, (Heavenly Human) is totally represented in the Aeon-ATU 20.
This completely explains the Qabalistic Tree of Life and will require in depth study, skrying of the Tower card, and Self Knowledge to understand, However, I'll give you some clues, "eyes into an eye" refers to changing perspective of the reality of sight, from the separatism of eyes, to the All seeing eye (I)......the turning of a hand into a hand refers to the Hebrew word Yod--meaning Hand and also called the Seed of Spirit. The male female transformation has already been explained, in this text. It should be noted that the Higher Mysteries are sexual, but in perspectives far beyond the libido of hormone besotted bodies locked in puberty, as would our society of flesh-o-phobes dictate. To profane the sexual act is to profane the Original Communion of the Divine Creative where 0=2 and 2 become One again.
To the querent, the Tower Card means:
- Ambition, fighting, war and courage.
- Unexpected events that require us to let go.
- The necessary toppling of existing forms to make way for new life and new ways.
- It usually means that the querent will be experiencing an ego- personal process of eliminating all that is artificial, false-to-fact, and no longer useful to them; usually in a 16 week or monthly process.
- Healing, and restoration comes from this process. This is much like a doctor’s axiom of, “This is gonna’ hurt a bit, but it will feel better soon".
- Overcoming one's ego and setting the Soul free.
- Long standing activity or approach that may bring about disaster if continued.
- Burn down the destructive tendencies that no longer serve you.
If ill dignified by the cards accompanying it;
- The Tower can mean destruction of the querent’s creation.
- Blind destruction.
- A shaking up.
