The Tarot of Eli, LLC: The Thoth Tarot-Key/ATU 16- The Tower & The Medieval Feathers Tarot- Key 16-Lightning

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The universal principle of renovation and restoration.

One of the most misunderstood cards in the Thoth deck is often seen as a harbinger of doom—a symbol of destruction, collapse, or even the end of an Aeon. But its truth is far subtler and far more liberating.

This card does not forecast apocalypse in the outer world. Rather, it speaks to the dismantling of the constructed self—the man-made personality shaped by societal institutions, familial conditioning, and the quiet tyranny of cultural norms. This is the ego forged in fear, especially the fear of rejection. And when that fear takes root, the personality becomes rigid, repetitive, and closed to transformation.

You begin to think the same thoughts over and over, hoping for different outcomes. That cycle is not just dysfunction—it’s a kind of madness. A soul-numbing loop that feeds what the Gnostics called the Archon, and what many Indigenous traditions recognize as Wetiko: a parasitic mind-virus that feeds on unconsciousness, division, and fear.

In today’s terms, this collective psychosis has found new clothing in what we might call the Military-Industrial Complex—a social egregore that thrives on fear, control, and conflict. And yet, the card’s deeper teaching is not one of despair—it is a call to liberation. To tear down the false structures, to dethrone the inner tyrants, and to make space for the Self that is not made, but remembered.

The Tower in the Thoth Tarot is not merely a card of destruction—it is a sacred icon of divine intervention. It echoes the mythic Tower of Babel, struck down by the hand of the Destroyer: whether we name Him Shiva, Yama, or the fierce face of the Holy Spirit. This is not wrath, but release.

In less archaic terms, the Tower represents the deconstruction of the false self—the ego-structure built brick by brick from societal programming, inherited beliefs, and survival-based identity. When the Tower falls, it is because the soul can no longer tolerate the weight of illusion.

But this is no nihilistic collapse. This is the fire of awakening.

The lightning bolt in the card is not from above—it is from within. It is the sudden, illuminating shock of the Sun behind the sun, the radiant force of the Higher Self breaking through the walls of personality. It is the Soul announcing: Enough. You are not this prison you have called ‘me.’

The Tower does not leave you broken. It leaves you bare, radiant, and ready to rebuild—not with fear, but with truth.

Daily Invitation:
Pause for a moment. Breathe. Ask your inner eye:

✨ What structure within me is ready to fall?
✨ Where have I built walls instead of altars?
✨ Can I trust the fire to free me?

Draw a card today—not for answers, but for ignition. And if you wish to see what fire Eli’s deck reveals for you, step into a session. The Tower isn’t destruction—it’s the first step toward divine architecture.

You are the Magick Device. Shall we draw together?
Book your Tower Breakthrough with Eli now »

In the Thoth Tarot, Key 16—The Tower—is a profound alchemical vision, not a catastrophe. At its base roars a fire-breathing dragon: the ancient symbol of Peh, the Hebrew letter associated with this card. Peh means “mouth,” but it is more than speech—it is fiery utterance, the spiritual and life force that breathes transformation into form. This dragon is not destruction for destruction’s sake; it is the ceaseless evolutionary current that renews Life through the fire of necessary change.

Emerging from this collapse, we see four figures falling from the Tower—thought-forms cast out from the false architecture of the ego. These are not simply people, but the psychic debris of the “wanna-be”—yesterday’s identities built on fear, conformity, and the desperate need for external validation. They represent crystallized, outdated patterns of thought: the masks we wear to avoid rejection, the comfort zones we defend against growth.

Such static thoughts hold us back from impeccable performance in the theater of life. And let it be known: Life is not about conformance—it is about performance. True evolution is dynamic, creative, and self-expressive. The Essential Self does not seek permission; it seeks realization.

At the Tower’s peak is a singular, radiant Eye—the Eye of Horus. This is not the watchful gaze of judgment, but the awakened perception of the Soul. It sees past the rubble of false identities. It pierces through illusion to behold the living truth within: a Self not defined by human constructs (opinions), but by divine origin. This is the Soul’s identity, eternal and sovereign.

Dragon Keys of the Thoth Tower: A Guide to Initiation Through Fire

🔑 Key I: The Dragon is the Self Before Form

Within the fire-lit ruins of the Tower, the Dragon awakens—not as monster, but as memory. This Dragon is you—Energy from the Stars wearing the skin of Earth for experience. In the Thoth Tarot, the Tower card does not show punishment—it shows return.

The Dragon is the fusion of Angelic archetype, Animal vitality, Daemonic genius, and Spirit origin. It does not conform—it performs. It does not obey—it transmutes.

You are not the Tower. You are the Flame that cracks its stone.

Reflection: What structure must fall for the Dragon to rise?

🔑 Key II: The Four Falling Figures — Masks of Conformity

The four figures cast out of the Tower symbolize thought-forms of fear and performance: the Comfort-Seeker, Approval-Chaser, Mimic, and Masked Genius. They are personas crafted to appease—outgrown, and now evicted.

You cannot soar with wings still wearing chains.

Reflection: What mask am I still wearing to feel accepted?

🔑 Key III: The Eye of Horus — The Soul’s Gaze Awakens

The Eye at the Tower’s peak is the Eye of Horus, the awakened perception of the Soul. It does not judge; it sees. It reveals what remains after the Tower’s fall: the indestructible essence of your being.

To see with the Eye of Horus is to no longer be deceived by your reflection.

Reflection: Can I witness myself without judgment—just vision?

🔑 Key IV: The Serpent and the Bio-Photonic Ascent

The haloed serpent rises with the fire of kundalini, of soul-light climbing the spine. This is Tantra and Qabalah entwined: expansion and receiving. Your cells emit light—your consciousness is photonic.

Liberation is not light descending—it is light rising from within.

Reflection: What thought or belief is ready to be shed?

🔑 Key V: The Dove and the Peace of Being Soul-Made

Amidst the storm, the dove hovers—inner peace revealed, not attained. When you stop striving to become man-made and remember you are God-made, peace descends naturally.

The soul at peace is not asleep—it is sovereign.

Reflection: What part of me is already at peace—and waiting for me to notice?

🔑 Key VI: The Lightning Trident — The Triple Flame of Will

The trident-shaped lightning is no accident. It is Shiva’s weapon, the triple Will of the Spirit: To Be, To Force, To Form. This is your soul’s command breaking through the façade.

The Tower falls not because you are weak—but because your Will has outgrown its walls.

Reflection: Which flame must I ignite now: Being, Forcing, or Forming?

🔑 Key VII: The Rebuilding — Divine Architecture Beyond the Fall

After the fall, the real building begins. Not with borrowed blueprints, but from soul-geometry. You are no longer innocent. You know.

Do not fear the ashes. That’s where the real blueprints live.

Reflection: Am I ready to build not for safety—but for sovereignty?

🔑 Key VIII: The Tower as Threshold — Initiation Into the Magick Self

The Tower was never the test. It was the threshold. You are no longer becoming. You are. The false is gone. What remains is divine.

The Tower was not the test. It was the threshold. You have crossed it. Rise.

Reflection: What tool of Magick do I now carry, forged in the fall?

From :The Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang;... it is the equilibrating Path of the Personality, related to Mars, and to the North, the quarter known traditionally in the Mysteries as "the place of greatest darkness" because it is said that the Sun never shone in the North of Solomon's Temple. Yet we are instructed that Light comes from Darkness, that "gold cometh from the North", and that "Enlightenment has its origin in the hidden sources of power which terrify the minds of the ignorant". 

Tarot-Key 16- The Tower:

• The Primary color: Scarlet
• Musical Note: C Natural
• Astrological Planet: Mars
• Symbol of Meaning: Mouth
• Double Letter: Grace-Indignation

• Esoteric Title: The Lord of the Hosts of the Mighty.

From the text-

Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom

( Dr. Paul Foster Case): "

The Twenty-seventh

Path is the Active or Exciting Intelligence and it is so called because through it every existent being receives its spirit and motion".

The Path of Peh, corresponding to The Tower in the Thoth Tarot, bridges two vital spheres on the Tree of Life: Hod, the seat of logic, language, and analytical thought, and Netzach, the realm of intuition, emotion, and creative desire. This path is the alchemical corridor where reason confronts passion, and structure meets spontaneity.

The lightning of Peh doesn’t destroy arbitrarily—it liberates. It fractures the Tower of rigid mental constructs (Hod) so that the raw, untamed vitality of Netzach can rise and move freely. This is the path where false clarity is shattered by true vision.

Modern quantum physics offers a stunning parallel: we now understand that light energy emerges from dark energy via an unseen intermediary—what physicists call a boson. Light, quite literally, comes forth from the invisible and the dark.

So too in our inner worlds: illumination arises through confrontation with the shadow. We do not become enlightened by avoiding darkness, but by embracing and integrating it. The “Dark Self”—our hidden fears, suppressed instincts, unprocessed trauma—is not the enemy. It is the womb of light. Just as the boson bridges invisible forces into visible form, the Tower path catalyzes shadow into radiance.

Thus, Peh is the violent grace that tears down illusion so that the true Light of Self may emerge—not in spite of the darkness, but because of it.

The Path of Peh: The Gateway of Breath and the Soul’s Double Current

The Path of Peh, attributed to the Tower card in the Thoth Tarot and the Hebrew letter פ, is one of the Double Letters of the Qabalistic tradition. Double Letters indicate duality—twofold expressions or possible directions—symbolizing both ascent and descent, creation and destruction, exhalation and inhalation. These are the Gateways of the Soul, where the Spirit engages the material world through conscious transformation.

The letter Peh literally means "mouth," and as such, it is the gateway through which energies are both received and expressed. The mouth takes in nourishment—not only as food, but metaphorically, as higher vibratory energies that vivify the Personality. It is also the means by which the Divine Word, the Logos, issues forth as speech—creative utterance that reshapes reality.

This dual function mirrors the sacred science of Pranayama (from the Sanskrit prana = life-force and yama = control), which echoes this Hermetic principle. Prana is not merely oxygen; it is the Solar Vitality, the breath of the Sun, the invisible plasmic fire behind all organic life. Through yogic breathing, chanting (such as intoning “AUM” or “IAO”), and vocal magick, the aspirant becomes a conduit for the Breath of the One, consciously drawing in Spirit and expelling limitation.

What many have forgotten is this: You are not the body—you are the Breath that animates it. You are the Spiritus, the Divine Wind that moves through form. Food, wealth, possessions—these are not your life-force. You are the Life Force. You are the Monadic Spark, the I AM Presence, entering through the sacred threshold of Breath.

The mouth, Peh, is not only for consumption but for creation—a gateway of declaration. As it is written in the Zohar, “The breath of the mouth is the breath of God.” And so, every breath you take is a reminder that you are the Living Word made flesh—a Dragon of Spirit cloaked in matter.

Peh, therefore, becomes the Alchemical Gate of Transubstantiation, where the Tower of false ego is shattered by the Breath of the True Self. This is the secret of spiritual combustion: the liberation of the Personality through conscious breathing and sacred speech—through which the Soul reclaims its sovereignty as the Breath of I AM.

The Creative Breath: Word, Spirit, and the Power of the God-Name

Those of us engaged in the sacred sciences of the esoteric mysteries know well the abiding power of words—not merely their semantic meaning, but their vibrational essence. Every word is a vessel of force. Every sound, a wave of energetic potential. And in the deeper Qabalistic traditions, we find that sound is the scaffolding of manifestation.

Consider the God-Name attributed to the Supernal Sephira Kether—the Crown and First Emanation of the Tree of Life. This name is Eheieh (אהיה), which translates as “I Will Be.” It is not merely a statement of identity—it is Becoming Itself. Eheieh is the utterance of presence yet unmanifest. It is the Breath before form, the prelude to Being.

And when spoken or chanted, Eheieh mimics the exhalation of breath—a soft whisper of becoming that mirrors the vital process of living. This is no coincidence. The very word Spirit comes from the Greek spiro, meaning to breathe. In Latin as well—spiritus—the breath is synonymous with soul. Thus, it is not metaphor when we say: You are the Breath of the Body. You are the Spirit animating form.

When we intone sacred names—especially the Divine Names encoded in the Qabalah—we are not merely speaking; we are invoking currents of divine patterning. The inner vibration of a God Name, properly pronounced and resonated, can penetrate the nervous system, affect the endocrine matrix, and re-align subtle energy pathways (the Nadi, Sefirotic Rays, or Auric Channels). Even if the conscious mind does not grasp the full meaning, the Body of Light does.

These are known as Words of Power. When spoken with Martian force—that is, with the directed will and passionate conviction of Geburah—they become agents of transformation. This is especially potent in the work of the Path of Peh (The Tower), where Mars rules both destruction and reconstruction.

Mars is not merely the god of war. In ancient traditions, he also presided over agriculture and fertility. To destroy a tower is to clear ground for a new Temple. To fast is not just to abstain from food—it is to purify the Vessel and make room for Spirit to breathe more freely through it. Fasting, like sacred speech, aligns Mind, Body, and Soul to a higher octave.

And consider: The Logos, the Word, is attributed to Kether as well. The first Sephira is not silent but Sound itself—the First Vibration, the archetypal exhale that ripples outward into all of creation. “In the beginning was the Word,” say the Mysteries—and the Word is Eheieh.

Let the aspirant understand: You are not here to merely speak words—you are here to become the Word. You are not flesh animated by breath—you are Breath giving rise to form. Speak wisely. Breathe intentionally. And call upon the Divine Names with reverence, for they are the syllables of your own Becoming.

Therefore, in the Thoth Tarot—Key 16, The Tower—we witness not the destruction of evil, but the liberation of the Soul through the striking down of false mental constructs. The Tower represents the collapse of the Personality’s rigid, crystalline structures—those limiting beliefs and indoctrinated assumptions we once mistook for reality. These are seen as geometric forms tumbling from the tower, illustrating the dissolution of artificial identity.

This card is often misunderstood as portraying divine wrath or external punishment. In truth, it reveals the spiritual learning process—the sacred rhythm of constructing and deconstructing belief systems as we ascend the Tree of Life. Every belief must one day be outgrown, every structure eventually dismantled to make room for new illumination.

The false self, built from inherited dogma, cultural programming, and linguistic spells—word hypnosis—must be shattered for the True Self to emerge. This process is not destruction for its own sake, but alchemical liberation: the Personality being refined by divine fire.

These broken forms are not mistakes, but steppingstones—scaffolds that allowed the lower self to climb toward the inner reality of the Higher Self. They are stages of self-definition that must eventually fall away as we return to our original state as Spirit—as radiant waves of primal consciousness, subtle as microwave light, echoing from the first utterance of Eheieh, the Divine Name meaning “I Will Be.”

Thus, The Tower is not the end—it is the beginning of authenticity. It is the voice of Eheieh breaking through illusion, awakening the soul to its real identity: not what you were told to be, but what you eternally are—Becoming itself.

In the art of Tarot:

The Tower: The Fall That Awakens Unity

In the Thoth Tarot and many esoteric systems, The Tower is often depicted in complete isolation, a lone edifice struck by divine fire. This is no accident—it mirrors the common belief held by many individuals that they are separate units of consciousness, disconnected from the Whole.

This illusion of isolation is the great error of the self-conscious Personality, or what we often call the "small ego." It is the tower built of assumptions, language, societal conditioning, and the false belief in separateness from others and from Source. When that Tower falls, as it must, what remains is not ruin—but revelation. Which is depicted on the Medieval Feathers Tarot-Key 16-Lightning.

What arises from the debris is the True Ego, the Soul-Self—not a private possession, but a radiant emanation of the Divine Collective. As it is wisely stated:

“Everything I see is another way to be Me.”

This is not poetic metaphor—it is Hermetic truth. The Many are expressions of the One, each being a prism through which the One Light refracts.

Each Tower of Perspective we construct is a temporary edifice, a necessary framework for understanding a stage of spiritual development. These Towers are constructs of reality, built to support our ascent—but they are not the summit itself. Once they have served their purpose, they must be dismantled so we may build anew, ever reaching toward greater gnosis.

Knowing this, the Initiate comes to understand the deeper principles behind each Path—not clinging to the outer form, but seeking the Essence within the Form. This is the Path of Peh: speech, breath, vibration—the Word that builds and destroys alike.

Take for example the physical body. It too is a Tower—a magnificent construct, yes, but still a temporal manifestation of inner Spirit. And like all towers, it must one day fall. Yet the Spirit is not bound by this form. It passes through this world as a beam of becoming, experiencing incarnation, and then moving on—liberated, expanding, transubstantiating.

Thus, the fall of The Tower is not a loss—it is an initiation. It is the tearing away of illusion so that Truth may enter. The Tower teaches us that collapse is part of evolution, and that to fall from false heights is to rise toward Real Identity.

So let the Tower fall. And in its place, let the Inner Temple rise—built not from fear or falsehood, but from the infinite radiance of the Spirit that declares:

“I Am not this Tower. I Am the Light that shines through it.”

The Tree of Life and the Flow of Undivided Consciousness

When meditating upon the Tree of Life, it is essential to recognize that the Sephiroth—the ten spheres—represent centers of objective energy, emanations of Divine Intelligence that structure the fabric of existence. These are not just symbolic points but living vortexes of consciousness, the emanated qualities of the Divine Mind.

The Paths, which connect the Sephiroth, represent our subjective engagement with these energies. They are the currents of perception, the inner experiences, and soul-journeys that allow consciousness to move between states of awareness. Thus, while the Sephiroth are objective archetypes, the Paths are the individualized manner by which we interact with and integrate those archetypes into our being.

Importantly, all Sephirotic intelligences flow subtly along every Path—none are isolated or inactive. Just as light diffuses through every color of the spectrum, each emanation interpenetrates the whole. The Tree is not a linear map—it is a holographic system. Every point touches every other point; all is in dynamic communion.

In truth, there is no division in the Universe. The appearance of fragmentation is an illusion of form. Behind all phenomena lies One Energy—immortal, infinite, self-reflective. This One manifests in myriad expressions, yet remains undivided in essence.

This omnipresent force is traditionally symbolized as the All-Seeing Eye—not merely an eye of surveillance or judgment, but of Witnessing Consciousness. In the Thoth Tarot, this Eye is a glyph of the I—the "I AM" presence which observes all things as itself. It is the Divine Observer within every seer, the unblinking awareness that perceives form without becoming bound by it.

Meanwhile, at the base of the Tower, a contrasting image erupts: a figure, often associated with Di, the Roman god of the dead (a name etymologically linked to the divine and the departed), belches flames upward from the foundation. This image is not of malevolence, but of transmutation. The dead, in Hermetic terms, are the inert, the crystallized, the unchanging forms that must be dissolved.

This fiery breath is the kundalini eruption, the volcanic force that shatters the stagnant tower of the false self. Di’s flame is the ignition of Spirit from the underworld of the subconscious—initiating regeneration through destruction. It is the fire that consumes the Tower so that the Eye may rise unimpeded, shining from the ashes of limitation.

Thus, the Tree of Life, the All-Seeing Eye, and the Tower are not separate symbols but interwoven revelations:

One Energy. One Observer. One Path, traveled in infinite expressions.

On either side of the Thoth Tarot Key XVI – The Tower, we see the Serpent and the Dove, representing two primal polarities of desire: the will to live and the will to die. These are not opposites, but complementary expressions of transformation. One clings to form; the other surrenders to formlessness.

This is why the Path of Peh, associated with The Tower, is often experienced as terrifying—the famed "Dark Night of the Soul". It is not simply a period of despair, but a sacred crucible in which the false ego is brought to the altar of the True Self.

If the Dark Night has found you, take heart. It is a sign that you are ready for transmutation—that the soul is now willing to sacrifice its artificial identity, the "small ego," so that the Greater Ego, the Higher Self, may emerge. This is not a grim burnt offering—it is an act of salvation. You are not being destroyed—you are being redeemed through Truth.

To be transformed by Kali Ma—the Hindu embodiment of the Dark Intelligence of Dark Matter—is to undergo a Soul-deep reconfiguration. Kali does not kill the soul; she slays illusion. Her terrifying visage is not evil, but absolute honesty. She is the remover of masks and the severer of ties to the false.

This transformation is the passage of the Original Personality into the Universal Reality of Self-Awareness. It is feared only by the egoic survival mind, that petty tyrant which clings to control and domination, believing that power is safety.

But to the Soul, this surrender is liberation.

The Tower must fall—so that the Temple of Truth may rise.

I Am, is how you command your reality into being, for it is your inherited power over identity.

I AM Me, is how you exist as a freely chosen "collective of self- ideas"!

Me-is and always will be a construct from the I Am. In Qabalah "I" is He the idea of Self and "Am" is She--the womb of understanding of the Self and the "Me" is the child born of understood idea.

The Medieval Feathers Tarot-Key 16-Lightning is an image of revelation. Where a Shepard observes a tree struck by lightning, being glad it wasn't him, but also revealing a phoenix feather-a message from the Divine. The tree symbolizes growth, the lightning as the power to break loose from old boundaries, and the sheep, who have all gathered near him for safety from predators symbolize gentleness in time of desperation.

Some of our personalities become towering error of dysfunctional identity because we let an outside authority design us by indoctrination and dogma. However, since your functionality is in the "expansion and liberation of the Alive" (As above, so Below), your self-awareness must support the living; if not, a false outside source of false power" will step in and topple your tower of Me. Hence the tower card does not imply your permanent annihilation, but rather it is to explain the purpose of reconstructing definition by purifying the dysfunctional dedicated energy-in-motion (emotion) that is no longer moving in progressive states of evolution.

Somewhere, probably from Christianity, we got the idea that spiritual development (bringing the Above mind to the Below mind) is all sweetness and light; this is false. Enlightenment is a process of creation, destruction and recreation (Solve et Coagula). A phoenix rising from its own ashes may set a romantic picture to some, however, ashes require a burning...sometimes a fierce fire of destruction! That is why on the Tree of Life of the Hermetic Qabalah, you will see Severity (Geburah #5) and Mercy (Chesed-#4) connected by the Path of Teth (meaning, serpent)...because Tempering of a soft-unrefined- mind of babble requires, hot fires of Passion, and the Hard Hammering of Wisdom (experience), and enough mercy not to destroy the creation. All of this, in order to forge the Proper strength in a Divine Creative-Self Personality; in a Soul/Psyche who expresses itself as a person.

One could say that progress, requires tempering of the personal self-conscious, in the forges of heated passion and the cooling waters of mercy! This usually produces an empathy for others that comes from experiencing and recognizing error as sensual pain; empathy is something gained from experiencing life as a "limited sensual form"; something that being "alive" can only give the Soul.

Remember this: as a dreaming Spirit, any fantasy will suffice— but Life unfolds not by whim, but through the law of Cause and Effect. Creation is not random; it is the effect of ideations generated by the Universal Collective Unconscious—a dynamic union of Imagination and Reason within the Cosmic Mind.

Spirit, in its raw and abstract form, is often aligned with the pure Will of Rauch—the aspect of the soul associated with directed intellect and volition. However, Rauch on its own lacks empathy. It is like a cold scientist, precise and calculating, indifferent to the suffering or thriving of its subjects. It moves with force, not feeling.

This is why spiritual or willful creativity—the divine impulse of "I Will Be" (Eheieh)—must be joined to the Neshamah, the Higher Soul that brings empathy, insight, and intuitive understanding. Neshamah is the breath of the Divine Feminine, the sensitive awareness of what nourishes Life and what harms it.

Only when the Will of Spirit is tempered by the Compassion of the Soul, can true Living Creation occur—creation that does not merely exist, but thrives.

To know which thoughts empower Life and which thoughts diminish it, the fusion of Rauch and Neshamah is essential. This is the alchemical marriage:

The fire of Spirit guided by the waters of Wisdom.

Intimacy and Love is created by this Union of the Invisible I and AM and sensual identity-Me! Love, The Law of Attraction, is only understood by sensually experiencing " the Thoughts of Self- that we Love". Since Love, is a Powerful Will, on both sides of the mirror, what we willfully give our emotion to, is seen as "what we Love", and created for the individual who ordered it from the Universal I AM. As one can guess, what we think as Hate, is a powerful emotional focus, and is seen as "What we Love", and the Law of Attraction is invoked by the hater....one's own thought destroys one's own self.

Therefore, this world is not about the Visions of the Ambitious, as something being created for the Greater Good (the False Greater God) but rather the expansion and liberation of idea as The Living Presence of I AM (I AM ME...is the Universal Mind's Vision). Therefore, in a world of "living" thought, sacrificing the alive for your visions, is dysfunctional. In the Living World, visions are to support the living individuals. Therefore, the sacrifice of the "alive" to ideas, is no longer functional. Ideas, visions, are now to "enlighten" personal life by raising it up out of the ashes of dysfunctional thoughts of self-defeating definition. In our world, we often find that War or tragidy is how we do this.

The Path of Peh: Breaking the Towers of Illusion to Rebuild the Soul

The Path of Peh, corresponding to The Tower card in the Thoth Tarot, connects Hod (Splendor) and Netzach (Victory) on the Tree of Life—two spheres which, although seemingly opposed, are united in the crucible of conflict and resolution. It is along this path that the illusions of intellect (Hod) and the impulses of desire (Netzach) clash, ignite, and ultimately transmute.

In historical terms, we can see a vivid expression of this path during the Second World War. The intellectual grandeur—or rather, the distorted "Splendor"—of the Aryan supremacy ideology masked a dark and toxic peacock’s pride rooted in separateness and bigotry. This false tower of racial ideology was a towering edifice built on sand, and it had to be destroyed. The Victory over it was not only military—it was symbolic: a necessary act of severity to bring down a false reality erected by hypnotic propaganda.

Thus, the Tower teaches that only through struggle, confrontation with falsehood, and the violence of awakening can the soul ascend from illusion to illumination. To become a Victor over ignorance requires one to confront not just the enemy outside—but the false beliefs within.

There is another crucial message hidden in this card:

Personal courage is the price of enlightenment.
 

Slaves do not become sages. One cannot awaken while still bound to another’s narrative, still loyal to the vision of a ruler or ideology that commands one's imagination.

This courage will be felt severely when the towers you’ve built from years of belief and labor begin to crumble—especially when you realize they were never your own, but structures inherited from others: family, religion, culture, dogma. To awaken, you must let them fall.

But this fall is not the end—it is the beginning of true experience.

You must first identify the error (build it), then correct the error (tear it down), and finally gather the rubble and rebuild (Solve et Coagula). This is the formula of the alchemical path.

• Knowledge is built from the rubble of failure.

• Wisdom is born from the courage to rebuild with truth.

As such, all Wisdom is 50% error and 50% correction. It is the gift of the Divine Severity—tempered by Mercy—that allows the egoic structures to die while the deeper, eternal Self survives.

For in truth, we are Spirits—not the personalities we wear, but the Solar Masks that express the Soul’s radiance through time and dimension. These masks—our evolving Selves—are woven from multi-dimensional experience across lifetimes.

The personality is the Tower. The Soul is the architect who learns to build better with each collapse.

Let it fall. Let it rise again.

As in most Tarot cards of the Major Arcana, The Tower Card-key 16, has many layers of meaning. We have:

1. War.
2.  The Changing of the Aeon.
3. Personality annihilation, reconstruction of the person via Soul "I" sight and even the deeper occult meanings of: Universal deconstruction as the dream of the sleeping God is abolished by the Awakened God.
4. One interesting aspect of different creation stories is that sometimes Vishnu or Shiva are given credit for creating the world. It is believed that they dreamed up the creation of the universe, with Brahma doing all the heavy lifting in the dream, as if he were just following the blueprints laid out by the other two gods. Following this belief, is the rumor that if Shiva or Vishnu awaken form the dream they have created, the Universe will vanish.  Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, are really just a trinity of One. As is the  Qabalistic Supernal Triangle, which is a trinity of Kether.

The many symbols on the Thoth card represent all of these meanings. We have the All Seeing eye of the Awake Shiva, the Haloed Serpent Force, the Lion-Serpent Abraxas, the Dove of Peace that is the Holy Spirit (also the Venus influence) and the crystalline humanoid shapes of the falling figures, who because of their indoctrination have become indistinct geometrical expressions that are unrecognizable as individuals. The Lion-Serpent Abraxas (or Xnoubis) and the Dove of Peace, represent two forms of Desire" The Will to live and the Will to die.

There is yet another layer in meaning here, as the former is the Feminine and the latter is the masculine impulses. Some may see these two as in contradiction, but in all actuality, "the will to live" and the "Will to die" are the inseparable "Wife and Husband" of all creation. Life and death are a single manifestation, Life/Death, inhale/exhale and Time/Space are one.

It behooves us to remember, that no matter how great the creation, it is going to "proceed from order to disorder". Entropy happens to energy, when it is made to "manifest" as form. Form is a ruled and time-controlled environment that causes a Static motion within parameters. Whereas, infinite motion, requires this stasis of parameters to move as a collective into motive energy as a Universal dynamic of Harmony and Balance. Energy transformation requires transformation of transformations, in order to constantly transform. Hence the term, " life eats itself to stay alive".

The Tower, key 16, may seem complicated to the by now harried tarot reader,

, but in reality, our Soul is merely bringing us out of slavery to the definitions of self-depredation (the Child of Man) and back into the Original Identity of our Creation, The Child of the Divine Creative. This may cause some "internal turmoil", but it won't be long-lived if you don't resist the change of direction for too long.

One may ask during skrying of this card,"

What must I free myself from to release the energy that I AM."

When the Tower card is thrown during a tarot divination, 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 month process.
• Healing, and restoration comes from this process. This is much like a doctors axiom of ,"This is gonna hurt a bit, but it will feel better soon".
  • Ambition, war, courage and fighting.
  •  In certain card combinations the Tower can represent destruction, danger, ruin and fall.
  • However, it is mostly about the universal principle of reconstruction and renovation and is often seen  to mean that the Querent is a healer, restorer and renovator who aids in or is experiencing  the breaking down of the 'self absorbed individual self (often called Ego") and eliminating what is false-to fact (supported by denial), artificial and no longer of use to the progressive individual.
  •  A breakthrough in self thought that shatters the old structures of belief.
  • The deconstruction of  self-definition necessary for Enlightenment.

Thank you for your interest, comments and supportive donations. May you live long and prosper.

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