“The Tower shows a tall tower pitched atop a craggy mountain. Lightning strikes and flames burst from the building’s windows.
People are seen to be leaping from the tower in desperation, wanting to flee such destruction and turmoil.
The Tower signifies darkness and destruction on a physical scale, as opposed to a spiritual scale. The Tower itself represents ambitions built on false premises.
The lightning bolt breaks down existing forms in order to make room for new ones. It represents a sudden, momentary glimpse of truth, a flash of inspiration that breaks down structures of ignorance and false reasoning.
Notice the lightning bolt is oriented left to right (from the perspective of the card), from heaven to earth, and from Spirit to material.
The falling figures correspond to the chained prisoners in the Devil card. They fall headfirst, because the sudden influx of spiritual consciousness represented by the lightning flash completely upsets all our old notions about the relations between subconsciousness and self-consciousness.”
http://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/tower/
