The Magical Ritual of The Sanctum Regnum
Eliphas Levi
XVI. The Tower - La Maison De Dieu
Do you know why the Fiery Sword of Samael is stretched over the Garden of Delight, which was the cradle of our race?
Do you know why the Deluge was ordered to efface from the earth every vestige of the race of the giants?
Do you know why the Temple of Solomon was destroyed?
These events have been necessary because the Great Arcanum of the Knowledge of Good and of Evil has been revealed.
Angels have fallen because they have attempted to divulge this Great Secret. It is the secret of Life, and when its first word is betrayed, that word becomes fatal. If the Devil himself were to utter that Word, he would die.
This Word will destroy each one who speaks it, and every one who hears it spoken. If it were spoken aloud in the hearing of the people of a town, that town would be given over to Anathema. If that Word were to be whispered beneath the dome of a Temple, then within three days the Temple doors would fly open, a Voice would utter a cry, the divine indweller would depart, and the building would fall in ruins. No refugee could be found for one who revealed it; if he mounted to the topmost part of a tower the lightning-flash would strike him, if he tried to hide himself in the caverns of the earth, a torrent would whirl him away; if he sought refuge in the house of a friend he would be betrayed; if in the arms of the wife of his bosom, she would desert him in affright.
In his passion of despair he would renounce his science and knowledge, and, condemning himself to the same blindness as did OEdipus, would shriek out - "I have profaned the bed of my mother."
Happy is the man who solves the Enigma of the Sphynx, but wretched is he who retails the answer to another.
He who has solved the secret and guards its secrecy is as the "King of Earth"; he disdains mere riches, is inaccessible to any suffering or fear from destiny, he could await with a smile the crash of worlds. This secret is, moreover, profaned and falsified by its mere revelation, and never yet has a just or true idea came from its betrayal. Those who possess it have found it. Those who pronounce it for others to hear have lost it - already.
Notes
The Tarot Trump numbered 16, and called Le Maison de Dieu upon cards made on the Continent, is commonly known in this country as the Tower of Babel. It represents a tower struck by lightning; two men are seen falling headlong; these are said to be intended for Nimrod and his chief minister.
Levi assigns several meanings to this card; weakness, changes, subversions, and the heaven of Luna.
Christian explains this card as meaning the punishment of pride, the ruin of such as impiously attempt to penetrate the secrets of divinity, and on the human plane, the occasional reverses of fortune.