The Tower

The Tower is Major Arcanum XVI of the tarot, called La Maison Dieu (The House of God) in the Tarot de Marseille. A tower is struck at its top by a flame or a bolt of lightning while two figures fall or tumble to the ground. Upright, it evokes upheaval, sudden questioning, the bursting of a structure that has grown too narrow and sometimes liberation. Reversed, it is read as confinement, a postponed crisis or a softened shock. Its old French name also recalls the hôtel-Dieu, the hospital.