Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo

10. The Wheel of Fortune

Number: 10
Card Title: The Wheel of Fortune
Esoteric Title: The Lord of the Forces of Life
Astrological Atttribution: Jupiter
Elemental Attribution: Fire (hot, dry)
Dates & Timing: 12 years
Hebrew Letter: Kalph Palm of Hand 20
Color: Violet
Intelligence: Rewarding Intelligence
Esoteric Function: Riches & Poverty
Qabalistic Path: Path 21: 4 Chesed to 7 Netzach
Translation of Path: The Mercy of Victory

Keywords: Movement, Destiny, Big Change, New Adventures, Karma, Fortune, Creativity, Turning Point, Personal Vision, New Life, Patterns, Fate, Self-Realization, Luck, Destiny, Turning Point. Rotation.

Ill-Dignified: Bad Luck, Minor Setbacks, Difficult Change, Neglecting Talents, Failed Enterprise.

Interpretation: Change is Stability. Major Breakthroughs. Ups and downs of fate. Canâ€™t predict cycles. Go with the natural flow. Let things go the way they will. Look for new opportunities. Examine new ideas. Prepare to adapt to new circumstances. Wisdom form experience. Endless cycle of life. What comes around goes around. Whole cycle of cosmic expression.

Reversed Interpretation: Runaway train. Out of sync with timing & cycle. Conflicts of interest. Feeling irritable and depressed. Evaluate abilities. Analyze what benefits can come from this experience. Consider other options. Past waste of talents and energy effects future. Excessive love of possessions and comfort. It is possible that the person resists change that he/she is trying to stop events from running their course. Luck has deserted you for now. Setbacks will occur. You will reap what you sow.

Rider-Waite Imagery

The Wheel Spins… The Wheel of Fortune shows changing cycles. It is fortune good and bad. It spans the range of riches to poverty. Anchoring the four corners are 4 mythic creatures. The 4 Keribum, 4 Archanges, 4 Elements, 4 Living Creatures of Ezekiel, 4 Fixed Signs of the Zodiac.

Fire – Lion – Leo
Earth – Bull – Taurus
Water – Eagle – Scorpio
Air – Human – Aquarius

The symbol in the center was borrowed from Ã‰liphas LÃ©vi. In the center are alchemical symbols of sulphur, mercury, salt, disolution. The outer wheel has TARO, ROTA, ORAT, ATOR, and the 4 letter name of god – the tetragramaton: yod, heh, vau, heh.

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite (1911)

Part I: The Veil and its Symbols

10. The Wheel of Fortune. There is a current Manual of Cartomancy which has obtained a considerable vogue in England, and amidst a great scatter meal of curious things to no purpose has intersected a few serious subjects. In its last and largest edition it treats in one section of the Tarot; whichâ€“if I interpret the author rightlyâ€“it regards from beginning to end as the Wheel of Fortune, this expression being understood in my own sense. I have no objection to such an inclusive though conventional description; it obtains in all the worlds, and I wonder that it has not been adopted previously as the most appropriate name on the side of common fortune-telling. It is also the title of one of the Trumps Majorâ€“that indeed of our concern at the moment, as my sub-title shews. Of recent years this has suffered many fantastic presentations and one hypothetical reconstruction which is suggestive in its symbolism. The wheel has seven radii; in the eighteenth century the ascending and descending animals were really of nondescript character, one of them having a human head. At the summit was another monster with the body of an indeterminate beast, wings on shoulders and a crown on head. It carried two wands in its claws. These are replaced in the reconstruction by a Hermanubis rising with the wheel, a Sphinx couchant at the summit and a Typhon on the descending side. Here is another instance of an invention in support of a hypothesis; but if the latter be set aside the grouping is symbolically correct and can pass as such.
Part II: The Doctrine Behind the Veil

In this symbol I have again followed the reconstruction of Ã‰liphas LÃ©vi, who has furnished several variants. It is legitimateâ€“as I have intimatedâ€“to use Egyptian symbolism when this serves our purpose, provided that no theory of origin is implied therein. I have, however, presented Typhon in his serpent form. The symbolism is, of course, not exclusively Egyptian, as the four Living Creatures of Ezekiel occupy the angles of the card, and the wheel itself follows other indications of LÃ©vi in respect of Ezekielâ€™s vision, as illustrative of the particular Tarot Key. With the French occultist, and in the design itself, the symbolic picture stands for the perpetual motion of a fluidic universe and for the flux of human life. The Sphinx is the equilibrium therein. The transliteration of Taro as Rota is inscribed on the wheel, counterchanged with the letters of the Divine Nameâ€“to shew that Providence is imphed through all. But this is the Divine intention within, and the similar intention without is exemplified by the four Living Creatures. Sometimes the sphinx is represented couchant on a pedestal above, which defrauds the symbolism by stultifying the essential idea of stability amidst movement.

Behind the general notion expressed in the symbol there lies the denial of chance and the fatality which is implied therein. It may be added that, from the days of LÃ©vi onward, the occult explanations of this card areâ€“even for occultism itselfâ€“of a singularly fatuous kind. It has been said to mean principle, fecundity, virile honour, ruling authority, etc. The findings of common fortune-telling are better than this on their own plane.

The Tarot of the Bohemians by Papus; tr. A. P Morton, [1896]

Chapter X. The Symbolical Tarot

10. 10th Hebrew letter (Yod).

ORIGIN OF THE SYMBOLISM OF THE TENTH CARD OF THE TAROT.

The hieroglyphic meaning of the Yod is the finger of man; the forefinger extended as a sign of command. This letter has therefore become the image of potential manifestation, of spiritual duration; lastly of the eternity of time, with all the ideas relating to it. The Yod is a simple letter; astronomically it corresponds with the zodiacal sign of the Virgin.

TENTH CARD OF THE TAROT.The Wheel of Fortune.

Two principal ideas are expressed by this symbolâ€“

The idea of Command, of Supremacy.
The idea of the duration, of the eternal action of time.
The wheel of fortune suspended upon its axis. To the right Anubis, the genius of good ascending; to the left Typhon, the genius of evil descending, the Sphinx is balanced upon the centre of the wheel, holding a sword in its lion claws.

The first idea is expressed by the ternary, Anubis or positive, Typhon or negative, the balanced Sphinx the ruler.
The second idea is expressed by the wheel, a line without beginning or end, the symbol of eternity.

The 10th arcanum is midway between the 7th and 13th arcana. 7 + 13 = 20 20/2 = 10. It expresses the incessant equilibrium, which modifies the creative realizations of the septenary by the necessary destruction by Death (arcanum 13). The three arcana, 7, 10, 13, correspond exactly with the Hindu trinity or Trimurti.

Brahma = Creator = Arcanum 7.
Siva = Destroyer = Arcanum 13.
Vishnu = Preserver = Arcanum 10.

It represents the course of things according to the ternary law, which directs all the divine manifestations. The tenth card of the Tarot commences the negative portion of the 2nd septenary, and expresses the notion of the septenary considered in its reflections. It will therefore representâ€“

Reflex of will (see 4th arcanum). NECESSITY. The Karma of the Hindus.
Reflex of power and of realization. MAGIC POWER. Fortune. (To will.)
Reflex of the universal soul. FORCE POTENTIAL IN ITS MANIFESTATION.

10 The Wheel of Fortune.

The absolute creative force has varied successively in the universal vivifying Fluid (4), and the astral Light (7); now it is represented by force potential in its manifestation. We shall see this force fully displayed in the following arcanum.

Affinities

Primitive Hieroglyphic: The Forefinger
Kabbalah: MALCHUT
Astronomy: The Virgin
Month: August
Hebrew Letter: Yod (simple)

Significations

Reflection of the universal soul FORCE POTENTIAL IN ITS MANIFESTATIONS
NECESSITY The Karma of the Hindus
MAGIC POWER Fortune To Will
Major Arcana Signification from the Divining Point of View

10. The Wheel of Fortune signifies FORTUNE. DESTINY.

The Tarot by S.L. MacGregor Mathers [1888]

Symbolism of Each Key

10. The Wheel of Fortune. A wheel of seven spokes (the two halves of the double-headed cards make it eight spokes, which is incorrect) revolving (between two uprights), On the ascending side is an animal ascending, and on the descending side is a sort of monkey descending; both forms are bound to the wheel. Above it is the form of an angel (or a sphinx in some) holding a sword in one hand and a crown in the other. This very complicated symbol is much disfigured, and has been well restored by Levi. It symbolizes Fortune, good or bad.

Meanings of the Cards

10. The Wheel of Fortune.â€“Good Fortune, Success, Unexpected Luck; R. Ill-Fortune, Failure, Unexpected Ill-Luck.

Occult Significance of the Tarot Cards

10. The Wheel of Fortune.â€“A wheel of seven spokes, the cosmological wheel of Ezekiel, with a dog-headed figure ascending on one side (Anubis, the Egyptian Mercury); and a demon descending on the other (the Egyptian evil deity, Typhon); the former of these bears a caduceus, the latter a trident; both figures are bound to the wheel. Above them is a sphinx at the balance-point of the wheel, holding a drawn sword between its lionâ€™s claws.

The Symbolism of the Tarot by P. D. Ouspensky [1913]

What is the Tarot? Card X.â€“”The Wheel of Chance”.

The Wheel of Life. The life ever changing and ever remaining the same. The Circle of Time and the four elements. The idea of the circle.

CARD. X. THE WHEEL OF CHANCE.

I walked along, absorbed in deep thought, trying to understand the vision of the Angel. And suddenly, as I lifted my head, I saw midway in the sky a huge, revolving circle covered with Kabalistic letters and symbols. The circle turned with terrible velocity, and around it, falling down and flying up, symbolic figures of the serpent and the dog revolved; above it sat an immovable sphinx.

In clouds, on the four quarters of heaven, I saw the four apocalyptical beings, one with the face of a lion, another with the face of a bull, the third with a face of an eagle, and the fourth with the face of a bull. And each of them read an open book.

And I heard the voices of Zarathustraâ€™s beasts:â€“

“All go, all return,”â€“the wheel of life ever turns. All die, all flourish again,â€“the year of existence runs eternally.

“All perish, all live again, the same house of existence is ever building. All separate, all meet again, the ring of existence is ever true to itself.

“Existence begins at every moment. Round each “here” rolls “there”. The middle is everywhere. The way of eternity is a curve”.

The Tarot Trumps by G. H. Soror, Q.L.

X. WHEEL OF FORTUNE

In the Etz Chayim, or the Tree of Life, the Wheel is placed on the Pillar of Mercy, where it forms the principal column linking Netzach to Chesed, Victory to Mercy. It is the revolution of experience and progress, the steps of the Zodiac, the revolving staircase, held in place by the counterchanging influence of Light and Darkness, Time and Eternity â€“ presided over by the Plutonian cynocephalus below, and the Sphinx of Egypt above, the eternal Riddle which can only be solved when we attain liberation. The basic colors of this Trump are blue, violet, deep purple, and blue irradiated by yellow. But the zodiacal spokes of the wheel should be in the colors of the spectrum, while the Ape is in those of Malkuth, and the Sphinx in the primary colors and black.