Table of Contents
When I was a kid, I loved Guy Fawkes Night. The smell of smoke in the air. The fireworks lighting up the sky. The cold on your face and the heat from the fire on your hands. It felt dangerous in a way adults said was fine. That mix of fear and excitement stayed with me.
Now I read tarot for people, and I see that same feeling in certain cards. Tarot is not all calm wisdom and gentle messages. Some cards land like gunpowder. They shake you. They strip you. They tell you a truth you cannot unhear. Those are the cards I am talking about here. The explosive tarot cards.
We are going to talk about why that explosive energy matters. How it links to Guy Fawkes Night. How it shows up in real life. And how tarot can help you make sense of chaos instead of drowning in it.
Fire, Rebellion, and Transformation
Tarot and Guy Fawkes Night
Guy Fawkes Night is framed as tradition. You get the bonfire. You get the fireworks. You get kids waving sparklers like tiny wands. But underneath it, the story is about an attempted act of political violence. Someone tried to blow up the seat of power.
That part gets softened when you are young. Adults turn it into a history lesson. But the energy is still there. Rage. Risk. Refusal to accept the system as it is. That is why the story lasts.
Tarot speaks to that same part of you. The part that says, I cannot live like this anymore. I cannot keep pretending this is fine. Tarot does not always show you comfort. Sometimes it shows you the fuse.
The Fire That Transforms
In tarot, fire lives in the suit of Wands. Wands is action. Wands is will. Wands is the part of you that wants to move instead of sit and overthink. Fire destroys, yes. But fire also clears what is dead and stuck, so something living can come through.
Bonfire Night is a release ritual disguised as entertainment. You burn the old figure. You watch it fall. You cheer. You tell the story again so you do not forget what power looks like when somebody tries to challenge it.
Tarot helps you see your own bonfire points. The job you have outgrown. The relationship that keeps you small. The version of you that was only built to survive. Wands energy asks, what needs to go on the fire so you can move forward.
Rebellion as Growth
Rebellion gets painted as dramatic. Smash the system. Burn it all down. But most rebellion in real life is quieter. It sounds like no. No I am not doing that anymore. No I am not pretending that does not hurt me. No I am not living the version of myself you prefer.
Tarot gives language to that no. It lets you see the shape of the trap, which makes it easier to walk out of it. That is why people call tarot scary. It is not because of devils or ghosts. It is because once you see the pattern, you cannot unsee it.
For me, that is the link to Guy Fawkes Night. The story gets turned into fireworks, but at its core it is about resistance. Tarot is also about resistance. Resistance to staying asleep in your own life.
Tarot as Processing, Not Prediction
People come to tarot thinking they are going to get told the future. I do not work like that. I am not interested in fixed fate. I am interested in what is burning in you right now. I am interested in where the pressure is.
Tarot is a tool for processing transformation. It is a mirror that says, this part of your life is already on fire whether you admit it or not. You can run from that, or you can work with it. When you work with it, the fire becomes creative instead of purely destructive.
This is why I call these explosive tarot cards. They shake the structure, but if you stay with them, they also give you a way through.
The 5 Most Explosive Tarot Cards
The Tower: The Moment Everything Falls Apart
The Tower is sudden collapse. No warning. No polite build up. You thought something was solid, and then you find out it was rotten at the core. The Tower is that moment.
In the story of Guy Fawkes Night, this is the discovery of the plot. All the hidden planning. All the careful secrecy. All the hope that one strike would change everything. Then someone opens a door, finds the barrels, and it is over. The structure survives, but nothing is the same.
When The Tower shows up in a reading, people panic. They think it means disaster. I see it as honesty. The Tower does not create the problem. It exposes it. You already knew the thing was cracked. The card shows you how cracked. It rips off the cover story.
The hard part is that The Tower does not save face. It does not let you keep pretending. But after the fall, you get to build something real. That is the gift. The mess is real, but so is the freedom.
The Devil: The Weight of Control
The Devil is about power that has curdled into control. Sometimes that control comes from outside. A job that owns you. A relationship that drains you. A belief system that tells you who you are allowed to be. Sometimes that control is internal. Your guilt. Your shame. Your fear of being seen.
The link to Guy Fawkes is obvious. He rebelled against what he saw as corruption and oppression. You can argue with his method. You can argue with his politics. But the impulse to say this system is choking me is Devil energy.
When The Devil comes up in a spread, I am not here to tell you you are cursed or doomed. I am here to ask you where you are still saying yes when your whole body wants to say no. I am here to ask who benefits from you staying quiet and controlled.
This card can feel explosive because it calls out the lie that you are powerless. Most of the time the chains are loose enough to slip. The Devil asks whether you are ready to reach for the lock.
Death: The Fire That Clears the Way
Death is one of the most hated cards and one of the most relieving. People see Death and think literal ending. What it is actually saying is this chapter cannot keep going in its current form. Trying to drag it forward will only rot it.
This is Bonfire Night energy. You build the fire. You feed it. You watch the old figure burn. You release what is finished. You do it publicly, together. There is grief in that. There is also relief. You do not have to carry it anymore.
In real life, Death shows up when you already know something is done. A friendship you kept alive out of duty. A version of yourself that helped you survive five years ago but is hurting you now. An identity you have outgrown.
The card is not telling you to love the ending. It is telling you to allow it. Death clears space. Space is what lets the next version of you exist. No space, no growth.
The Wheel of Fortune: When Fate Spins Out
The Wheel of Fortune is motion. You are up, then you are down, then you are sideways, and none of it asked for your approval. It is the feeling that life is bigger than your plan.
Guy Fawkes Night exists because an outcome shifted. The plot did not land. The timeline flipped. Power stayed where it was, but history got a new story to tell every year. That is Wheel energy. No one person controls the wheel. Everyone is still affected by where it stops.
In a reading, this card shows where life is moving with or without your consent. That can feel terrifying. You can fight the turn and get dragged. Or you can accept that you are in a turning point and ask, how do I want to meet this.
The Wheel is explosive because it messes with your illusion of control. You are reminded that your timeline is not the only timeline in play. Some people hate that. Some people find that freeing.
Ace of Wands: The Spark That Starts It All
The Ace of Wands is ignition. Raw will. Raw desire. The instant you go from idea to action. It is the match being struck.
This is the part of Guy Fawkes Night I loved most as a kid. That second of silence before the firework takes off. You hear the hiss. You feel your whole body tense. Then the sky opens.
In tarot, the Ace of Wands is that same first crack of energy. It can feel reckless. It can feel urgent. It can feel like you are about to do something you cannot undo. That is why it scares people. Once you light it, you cannot un light it.
But this card is also hope. It is creative force. It is the part of you that says, I cannot keep sitting in the ashes. I am ready to start something alive. You do not need the full plan yet. You only need the first strike.
Fire, Chaos, and Truth
Guy Fawkes Night teaches us something we do not like to admit. Destruction and creation sit right next to each other. You get fear and beauty in the same moment. You get danger and celebration at once. That is why it sticks in the body.
Tarot shows you the same thing. The cards people call scary are usually the cards that tell the truth about what is already happening. The Tower says, this is falling. The Devil says, this is control. Death says, this is ending. The Wheel says, this is turning. The Ace of Wands says, this is starting.
The point is not to panic. The point is to recognise the stage you are in. If you can name it, you can work with it. That is where the power is. That is why I read. That is why I trust tarot as a tool for transformation.
If you are in your own Tower moment, if something in your life feels like it is about to go off, you do not have to hold that on your own. Book a tarot reading in Manchester or online. I will sit in it with you. We will work out what needs to burn, and what needs to rise.
