How many times have we been asked “who would you throw off the tower?” — today none of us would hesitate in our answer. Arcanum No. XVI, “The Tower”, is a warning against human presumption and unbridled ambition. It indicates the collapse of a situation that was based on our presumed intellectual or material ability. The bricks that make it up are flesh-coloured, to indicate its sensitivity. As a whole it represents human society, and each single brick the individual body of each one of us.
The “crowned” tower, from which one contemplates the sky, is struck by lightning, which, besides sending people plunging into the void, also knocks down the crown. Rising too high is too dangerous: when we pursue ambitious undertakings, catastrophe becomes fatal. Arcanum XVI invites us to elevate ourselves in the most spiritual sense of the term, not to build; and the more the ambitious man has striven to climb high — without thinking that peaks attract lightning — the more painful his fall into the void will be.
“The tallest fir is the one most shaken by the winds, the highest towers fall the heaviest, and lightning strikes by preference the mountain peaks”, so sings Horace.
My personal pairing among the Arcana of Faul is the “Torre Damiata”. Adjoining the monastery of San Bernardino we find this tower, among the oldest in the city, belonging to the Cocco family, which was dismantled and rebuilt several times. Today, walking through Piazza San Carluccio, only the base of this colossal tower is visible.
The idea of the tower that collapses is an ancient symbol of human pride being brought down. In this connection, the biblical episode of the Tower of Babel has been cited. My own thinking, rather than following the common interpretations that speak of punishment, pride, catastrophe and ruin, aligns with that of A. Jodorowsky.
Reading the Bible carefully in the passage devoted to the Tower of Babel, it seems clear that the destruction of the tower looks more like a solution than a problem.
The flood, having recently ended, had made all the land fertile, and the few surviving beings, instead of dedicating themselves to farming the earth, poured their energy into building a tower so tall it would reach God. But the Creator, knowing this to be an unrealisable act, does not destroy the tower and strikes no one; he simply creates a diversity of languages to separate them. Men then set off again to conquer the earth and return to work.
This tragic event, which strikes us all, instead of separating us — even though we do not speak the same language — makes us feel like every single brick of the same tower, “uncrowned”, ready to set off again to reclaim our lives.
