La Torre

Risposta rapida

Il significato principale di La Torre è Un risveglio improvviso. Al dritto, solitamente indica Cambiamento improvviso, collasso, risveglio, disastro. Simboleggia una struttura; rovesciata, potrebbe suggerire Disastro evitato, paura del cambiamento, resistenza a malapena, un lento collass.

Immagini della carta

Una torre che svetta tra le nuvole viene colpita da un fulmine sulla sommità, che crolla dall'alto. La torre brucia quando due figure (che rappresentano lo status e la ricchezza) cadono a capofitto. Lo sfondo è un cielo notturno nero in cui piovono scintille.

Significato al dritto

Cambiamento improvviso, collasso, risveglio, disastro. Simboleggia una struttura costruita su false fondamenta che viene distrutta con la forza, dolorosa ma che fornisce la verità nuda.

Significato invertito

Disastro evitato, paura del cambiamento, resistenza a malapena, un lento collasso. Può indicare tumulto interiore o il tentativo di nascondere problemi che si sono già verificati.

Amore, carriera, denaro e crescita

Amore

Innamorato, La Torre indica Un risveglio improvviso. Rileggilo confrontandolo con il modo in cui si comporta effettivamente la relazione e con ciò che scegliete entrambi.

Carriera

In materia di carriera, La Torre indica Un risveglio improvviso. Inizia individuando quali risorse controlli e quale sarà la tua prossima mossa.

Soldi

In materia di soldi, La Torre indica Un risveglio improvviso. Non considerare una lettura simbolica come una conclusione di investimento: segui i fatti, il budget e la tua tolleranza al rischio.

Crescita personale

Per la crescita personale, La Torre indica Un risveglio improvviso. Annota la domanda che solleva, quindi trasformala in un'azione che puoi effettivamente verificare.

Sì o no

Diritto

No

Rovesciata

Forse

Questa è la nostra lettura veloce, basata sulla direzione in cui tende il significato della carta. Le tradizioni non sono d'accordo sulle singole carte, e un "Forse" deve essere valutato rispetto alla posizione nello spread e alla situazione reale piuttosto che essere preso come una risposta di una sola parola.

Testo originale di Waite (1911)

Simbolismo interiore (originale)

Occult explanations attached to this card are meager and mostly disconcerting. It is idle to indicate that it depicts ruin in all its aspects, because it bears this evidence on the surface. It is said further that it contains the first allusion to a material building, but I do not conceive that the Tower is more or less material than the pillars which we have met with in three previous cases. I see nothing to warrant Papus in supposing that it is literally the fall of Adam, but there is more in favor of his alternative—that it signifies the materialization of the spiritual word. The bibliographer Christian imagines that it is the downfall of the mind, seeking to penetrate the mystery of God (Nature). I agree rather with Grand Orient that it is the ruin of the House of Life, when evil has prevailed therein, and above all that it is the rending of a House of Doctrine. I understand that the reference is, however, to a House of Falsehood. It illustrates also in the most comprehensive way the old truth that "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."

There is a sense in which the catastrophe is a reflection from the previous card, but not on the side of the symbolism which I have tried to indicate therein. It is more correctly a question of analogy; one is concerned with the fall into the material and animal state, while the other signifies destruction on the intellectual side. The Tower has been spoken of as the chastisement of pride and the intellect overwhelmed in the attempt to penetrate the Mystery of God (Nature); but in neither case do these explanations account for the two persons who are the living sufferers. The one is the literal word made void and the other its false interpretation. In yet a deeper sense, it may signify also the end of a dispensation, but there is no possibility here for the consideration of this involved question.

Significato originale al dritto

Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe.

Significato originale invertito

According to one account, the same in a lesser degree; also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny.

Citato da A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911), illustrato da Pamela Colman Smith. Il testo è di pubblico dominio.

Origini del mito e dei simboli

The old name is the House of God, and in this entry Waite knocks down three readings one after another.

Documented imagery

Attested by surviving objects or texts

Its old name was the House of God

In the Marseille tradition the card is La Maison Dieu, the House of God; Italian decks also call it the Tower, or the Fire of Hell. A lightning-struck tower in medieval imagery usually points to the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) — people building together to reach heaven, interrupted, their language confounded. The words "House of God" in the card name tell you that what is shattered is not an ordinary building but a structure that claimed a way up to heaven.

Fonte The Marseille card name La Maison Dieu; the Tower of Babel is Genesis 11:1–9

Esoteric correspondence

A sourced traditional claim, but constructed inside an occult system

Three readings, knocked down one by one

Waite does something unusual here and rejects three writers in a row. He says he sees no reason to accept Papus' reading of the card as the fall of Adam; he does not take up the bibliographer Paul Christian's account of it as the mind attempting to penetrate the mystery of God and being overthrown; and he prefers Grand Orient's reading — the ruin of the House of Life, and above all the rending of a House of Doctrine — adding Psalm 127:1: "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."

Fonte Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1911, The Tower; Psalm 127:1

Mars: the force doing the demolition

The Golden Dawn assigns the Tower to Mars (Hebrew letter Peh, literally "mouth"). Mars is the Roman god answering to Greek Ares. Sudden, external, not open to negotiation — that is what this correspondence supplies.

Fonte Golden Dawn Book T planetary attributions

Modern reading

Popular only since the twentieth century; unrelated to where the card came from

"Breakthrough" and thunderbolt-hurling Zeus: two modern additions

Softening the Tower into "sudden insight, breakthrough, old structures loosening" is a consoling modern reading. Others attach the lightning falling on the tower to Zeus hurling thunderbolts or to the Norse Ragnarök, which is purely visual association. The card's image lineage is the Tower of Babel and the House of God; neither modern addition sits anywhere on that line.

Fonte Modern popular reading, no historical basis

Scritto da BESTAROT, non citato da fonti storiche. Ogni affermazione è contrassegnata da quanto bene è dimostrata; gli strati interpretativi moderni sono utili per la lettura, ma non costituiscono l’origine storica della carta.

Studia il tema: Mito e origini dei simboli (Accademia capitolo 6)