Misfortune Teller: The Tower

The Tower

Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck

US Games Systems, Inc. 

No tarot cards evoke "shock and awe" like the Tower. Overall, it can go either positive or negative for me, but it's the WAY that the Tower says the events will happen that scares many clients.

Some of the meanings for the Tower for me include:

• Any shocking or unexpected event that upsets the status quo
• A revelation that seems unreal or incredible
• A huge reality slap
• Someone getting taken down a peg--"How the mighty have fallen" or "the bigger they are, the harder they fall"

Whatever it turns out to be, the Tower's appearance means that it will something that shakes us to our very foundations. I like to think of the card as "The Great Equalizer" because every single person goes through events such as this in life.

I have two examples, both of them times when I was receiving a reading instead of giving them for a change. Some years ago, my wife Jen Wells did a card reading for me about my job. I was working for a company that was doing well and had recently expanded, opening an office in England and hiring a whole bunch of new people. She pulled the Tower and called it right on: "Layoffs." I couldn't believe it. Everything was going fantastically...at least, that's what I thought, until the first of three rounds of layoffs came. It was a bloodbath. I didn't lose my job, but I lost 1/3 of my staff and as such my position as a manager was no longer needed. I was lucky enough to go back to my old job; I had only been in management for six months anyway, but the whole thing was still very unexpected.

The second time was many years after the first. I had an acquaintance do a reading for me for the next week, and the Tower came up. I must admit that while I was cavalier about the first reading and didn't believe it, this one I took a little too seriously. I came home that night and started wondering what might be going on. Should I take the car in to be looked at? Was there a problem in my checking account? I started freaking out a little bit. Jen finally got tired of it and said, "There is a surprise birthday party for you tomorrow!!" Whoops. It would have truly been a shock since I was totally unaware. Surprising a Scorp is hard enough, and she had succeeded. So I could understand her being angry about it.

One other possible meaning that has been coming up a lot in my practice lately is one I call "Chicken Little Syndrome". It's what happened in the second example above. Sometimes we're so afraid that the world is going to screw us over that we're seeing the potential for it to happen at any second, and then when it does it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I will often tell clients "You have a tremendous sense of the awful." And to an extent, as human beings we all do. We want to see the worst. But the Tower doesn't necessarily represent something bad. Think about the couple who is told they will likely never conceive, and then they do. Or the boss that you hate gets canned out of the blue and all of his employees are given the raises they were denied. Or you fall in love with someone you didn't expect when you are still moping from your last breakup.

Make sure that anyone you read for knows that they are in for a turbulent time. Use the cards around it to figure out what may happen and how things will end up, but don't you dare pull punches with the Tower; your client needs to hear the message.

Misfortune Teller: The Moon

"The Moon"

Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot

US Games Systems, Inc.

"There's something rotten in Denmark." That sentence from Shakespeare should be going your mind whenever you draw this major arcana card. 

I'm not going to say there's nothing good about this card, but I'll say there's very little to like when you turn this one over, folks, and the watchword for it is BEWARE. Nothing here is as it seems.

Some of the standard meanings for this card for me include:

• Deception and self-deception (including "wishful thinking")
• Confusion
• Bewilderment and/or illusion
• Uncertainty and doubt
• "Spin" of any kind
• CAVEAT EMPTOR [Let the buyer beware!]

Some of us are good at lying to others. While I'm not one of those--I truly SUCK at falsehoods!--I'll bet I'm as good as anyone else in lying to myself. That's where we as human beings truly excel. When the Moon comes up, it's imperative to take a hard, honest look at a situation and start asking questions.Whatever the Moon's light hits should be called into question. 

The Moon can often alert us to a potentially dangerous situation. You know exactly what I mean. You're in a new relationship and you're on your best behavior and your date starts going off on his/her ex. You do your best to be polite and listen, but as you do so you hear some things that make you want to run in the other direction. Your gut is agreeing, and you find yourself making excuses why you can't go out again. Or you go in to sign what was supposed to be a sweet job contract, only the salary isn't as high as they said it would be and the percentage of time you will be traveling is much higher than what you discussed. 

I had a boss who epitomizes the Moon for me, a real scumbag whose didn't care what anyone's agenda was except his own. He asked me to lie for him to customers, which I hated. He held me to a standard that was totally unreachable, but he didn't tell me what that was, either. When you had a conversation with him, you had to be careful because he was an excellent wordsmith; try to hold him to a promise and inevitably he would say, "Well, that's not exactly what we discussed." When I transferred out of his department after a year or so, he continued to expect me to perform duties that weren't a part of my job description anymore. It took my new boss to instruct him to re-assign those duties to one of his own people. I think you get the idea. 

The Moon represents the entire idea of spinning any event or story to show what you wanted it to rather than the actual facts. We used to joke in the software industry that when problems with the software were reported--"bugs"--they were actually "unintended features". Any euphemism falls into this category, those words we use to soften the blow. Ever notice how the term "problem" has disappeared in favor of the term "issue"? I HATE that word because it's spinning something to be better than it is.

If a situation is confusing, the Moon will often appear. At that point, take everything that you see or hear with a grain of salt. It might not be what's really going on. You know sometimes how you hear noises at night and they sound like someone may be in your home when there's no one there? That's one of the few good points of the Moon: When something looks better than it was at first glance. But the opposite could just as equally be true when you "ding" your car door and brush it off, only to realize that it's going to need some body work when you look at it in the light of day the next morning.

One other example: When this card comes up in love, there is a lot that you don't know about that person you're with, OR you've decided to settle for this person and not see their flaws. Either way, it's a problem. What about that guy you met online who neglected to mention that he's in prison, married, or in serious financial difficulty?

With this card, nothing is as it seems. So blindly rush ahead at your own peril. Make sure that you're telling any client this as well if you're reading for others. You might not know exactly what's wrong, but there is definitely something off. This one may be easier for you to tell people about, simply because you can say, "Something in this situation doesn't feel right to me."

The Moon can also represent Pisces or Neptune-ruled people. It won't surprise you to know that Neptune is known as "The Great Deceiver". 

Misfortune Teller: The Devil

Hello everyone...today we're going to look at one of the worst of the major arcana of the tarot to draw, and one that has almost no positive meanings: The Devil. 

The Devil

Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot

US Games Systems, Inc. 

 

This is truly a card no one wants to see. Some of the possible meanings include:

• Deliberate (chosen) ignorance or xenophobia
• Anything we are chained to by choice that hurts us, including:
• Crappy job
• Any person--romantic or otherwise--who takes advantage of us in any way
• Addiction
• Negative patterns in our lives that we refuse to acknowledge 

Here a few examples of what I'm talking about. This is the controlling, abusive boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse. This is the boss who never leaves the office and has no life, and expects the same from you. This is the person who is intolerant of people of other races, creeds, religions, or sexual preferences, simply because those people are different from him or her. This is your best friend who "crashes" with you for a few weeks after she leaves her boyfriend, but she also quits her job...and then stays with you rent-free without offering to help with the household expenses. 

 

We all know people like this; the Devil doesn't play favorites. And sometimes the Devil is ourselves, when we don't rise to the occasion and allow our "animal" natures--notice the bottom half of the Devil is furry--to control our lives. 

In a reading, it can often come up in a central location as an obstacle to be overcome. But no matter what form it takes, it's essential for you to understand that the client's choices made this situation. 

 

As gently as you can, it's important for you to tell a client that their choices can also set them free. The chains around the necks of the two people on the card are big enough so they may be easily removed, but it must be a deliberate CHOICE to remove them. 

 

This is a challenging card to receive, but it can be even more difficult if you're the reader. And when something like this comes up, especially if your client is your best friend in a new relationship, you're not going to want to tell that person, "So...looks like this new guy is a major asshole." But you can't leave it alone, either; when you pick up those cards, you tell the truth, or you put them down. 

 

So how do you handle it? Be direct and compassionate. That's the best way to deal with it. Remember how you would feel if you were sitting in that chair. But don't you dare sugarcoat it. 

 

The one positive meaning for me for this card is an astrological one: I often see Capricorn people with this card appearing.