The struck tower
Lightning strikes a tower and throws two figures from it. The older decks called the card the House of God, and Waite reads it as the ruin of a house of doctrine.
In the tradition
The Marseille name is La Maison Dieu, the House of God, and many writers have linked the picture to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, which God undid for its builders’ pride. Waite mentions that reading and quotes Psalm 127: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it."
For him the tower is a structure of false belief, struck by a truth from above.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Various, The Bible (King James Version 1611; the Latin Vulgate, 4th century). The source of much of the Temple, Eden and Revelation imagery in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
Updated October 9, 2026.
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