X-The Wheel of Fortune (RWS)

[Joan Marie]

"Round and round it goes and where it stops, nobody knows."

Wheel of Fortune

In my humble opinion, this is probably the most cliche' of all the cards in the Tarot deck. Sorry.

It reminds us that we never know what will happen, things change all the time, one minute you're on top and the next, well look out!

Even Mr. Waite seems to have no real love for this card or the imagery shown. Symbol-wise it is kind of all over the place. The letters spelling TARO(T) & ROTA(R). (yawn)

Waite says,

..."The occult explanations for this card are - even for occultism itself- of a singularly fatuous kind....The findings of common fortune telling are better than this on their own plane."

Not a huge vote of confidence in this card by him. I truly believe that The Wheel of Fortune challenges deck creators of all kinds to come up with something, some imagery that pulls this card up somehow from the level of the bored broadcast of a roulette wheel spinner in a casino ( a bad casino at that) and imbue it with some depth, something we can get hold of that will add meaning to our readings.

But I do see something in Pixie's representation here that I think isn't often mentioned. It has to do with the characters in each corner. Of course we see them again in slightly different form in The World card. On that card they appear fully realised in some way. But on this card, The Wheel of Fortune, they are all still in the act of forming themselves, as shown through the device of study. (I don't know what to make of the fact they are all winged and am interested in anyone's reading of that.)

These four figures take the "message" of the card, the general fickleness of fate, and gives the querent some degree of control by saying you can prepare yourself to be ready to face life's changes as they unfold. With study and knowledge we increase our options in every situation. And maybe The Wheel of Fortune is also a call to surround ourselves with others doing the same, in other words people in active pursuit of personal growth.

We cannot control all the ups and downs of life but we can try to face them with intelligence and discipline and a deeper understanding of the lessons life is constantly teaching us. I don't see this card as simply a passive message on the uncontrollable nature of fortune. I see this card as a call for self-improvement in order to face changes (good and bad, lucky or unlucky) with a better set of tools.

Your thoughts and criticisms? Ideas about the wings? Karma?

[2curious]

From https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-m ... f-fortune/

“The Wheel of Fortune card shows a giant wheel, with three figures on the outer edges. Four Hebrew letters – YHVH (Yod Heh Vau Heh), the unpronounceable name of God – are inscribed on the wheel’s face. There are also the letters TORA, thought to be a version of the word Torah, meaning ‘law’, or TAROT, or even ROTA (Latin for ‘wheel’). The middle wheel has the alchemical symbols for mercury, sulphur, water and salt – the building blocks of life and the four elements – and represents formative power.

On the outer circle is a snake, the Egyptian god Typhon (the god of evil), descending on the left side. The snake also represents the life force plunging into the material world. On the right side rises the Anubis, the Egyptian God of the dead who welcomes souls to the underworld. And on top of the wheel sits the Sphinx, representing knowledge and strength.

In the corners of the Wheel of Fortune card are four winged creatures, each associated with the four fixed signs of the Zodiac: the angel is Aquarius, the eagle is Scorpio, the lion is Leo, and the bull is Taurus. Their wings signify stability amidst movement and change, and each holds the Torah, representing wisdom.”

I have seen the above echoed in other books as well.

To me, it looks like the inner wheel turns clockwise if you use the words Taro and Rota (meaning wheel in Latin, in English a list detailing the order in which different people have a particular job to do). However, if you use the word Tora, which also appears on the High Priestess scroll, this would turn the wheel counterclockwise, which better fits with the figures of Typhon and Anubis as they appear to be riding on the wheel in a counterclockwise direction.

What really bothers me is the idea that the WOF might represent inevitable fate, which would be the ultimate bondage. IOW, we are always at the mercy of whatever ride the wheel decides to give us - good and bad - and there is nothing we can do about it. We are bound to it’s cycle forever - no escape - no freedom - no choice.

[Tomatosauce]

The four winged figures in the corners also correspond to the four Evangelists, symbolized in the book of Revelation:
- St. Matthew's symbol is an angel
- St. Mark's symbol is a lion
- St. Luke's symbol is an ox
- St. John's symbol is an eagle

https://www.christianiconography.info/evangelists.html

[Diana]

The four winged figures in the corners also correspond to the four Evangelists, symbolized in the book of Revelation:
- St. Matthew's symbol is an angel
- St. Mark's symbol is a lion
- St. Luke's symbol is an ox
- St. John's symbol is an eagle

https://www.christianiconography.info/evangelists.html

This is what is represented in the World card of the Tarot of Marseilles.

[katrinka]

Regardless of Waite's ideas (or lack of), it's one of my favorite Majors.
Oswald Wirth (whose Wheel images share quite a bit with PCS's) draws parallels with Ezekiel's wheels, as does Eliphas Levi.
It's everything transitory, but it's repetition. It's the planets orbiting the sun, it's the Eastern wheel of death and rebirth. It's PACKED with levels.
It's an idea that inspires poets. I've quoted a few, but they're the tip of the iceberg - there's reams of great work that relates to the Wheel. I'm sure everyone is familiar with these:

"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
- Ozymandias, Percy Blysse Shelley

"Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."
- Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost

"The wheel of the quivering meat conception
Turns in the void expelling human beings,
Pigs, turtles, frogs, insects, nits,
Mice, lice, lizards, rats, roan
Racinghorses, poxy bubolic pigtics,
Horrible, unnameable lice of vultures,
Murderous attacking dog-armies
Of Africa, Rhinos roaming in the jungle,

"Vast boars and huge gigantic bull
Elephants, rams, eagles, condors,
Pones and Porcupines and Pills-
All the endless conception of living beings
Gnashing everywhere in Consciousness
Throughout the ten directions of space
Occupying all the quarters in & out,
From super-microscopic no-bug
To huge Galaxy Lightyear Bowell
Illuminating the sky of one Mind-
Poor! I wish I was free
of that slaving meat wheel
and safe in heaven dead"
- 211th Chorus, Jack Kerouac

I've mentioned here before, I think, that the song The Wheel by Robert Hunter always reminded me of this card. (Hunter is actually a top tier poet, not simply a lyricist for an above-average jam band with a huge following of burnouts. Meaningless but interesting factoid: his name at birth was Robert Burns.) If you go to this lyrics link and scroll down, they talk about the card. There's some quotes from Crowley, too: http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/wheel.html#title

It's interesting to compare PCS's Wheel to Wirth's:

Anubis appears on both. Wirth's appears to be riding up the Wheel and tipping at the shelf - he's going to upend that shelf that the smug Sphinx is on. The Sphinx thinks it's impervious to the turnings of the Wheel, above it all, but the Jackal Man always gets his.

Colman Smith's Anubis, on the other hand, is putting his back against the Wheel, like he's applying friction to slow it down. Sometimes it happens like that. Not everything is a 27 days, 7 hours, and 43 minute moon orbit. Some things take longer than we'd expect.

(I'm also reminded of the expression "It's like wiping your a** on a wagon wheel: same sh** over and over." )

But in both, Anubis interferes. Food for thought.

Even the "Round and round she goes" carnival metaphor has layers. Wirth again: "A starting handle sets this fateful wheel in motion, rapid at first, but slowing down till its stop marks death. After the precipitation of the strong rhythms of youth comes the calm regularity of maturity then the decline into old age which ends in a fatal and complete standstill." (Wirth didn't like commas very much, did he?) And the midway is a great metaphor for life. The carousel, the brass ring, the sideshows, the fortuneteller's tent *waves*, the rigged games - you know you're going to lose. But you play anyway, for fun. Because the carnival will pack up and be gone tomorrow.

I could yammer on about this card, but well, you get the idea.

[chongjasmine]

For me, the wheel means destiny, which can derived itself as good or bad fortune.
It is the ups and downs of life.
That is what the wheel means to me.

[devin]

Maybe it's helpful for us readers to remember that in all the traditional depictions of the Wheel of Fortune it's never a human hand that turns the crank, it's Lady Luck. So, in a reading, I see this as a strong sign that the Wheel represents what happens to us (good or bad) as opposed to changes we make happen ourselves.

Amazingly, many think the very idea and design of the wheel (not fortune, a literal, basic wheel) was developed as a mathematical model for plotting the movements of the heavens - this lead to a spinning top and then to the wheel (that's the idea anyway). If true, this is another link with fate, cycles, blah, isn't it?

The only old depictions of the Wheel I can find with animals on them represent the downfall of feckless or unworthy rulers, and some illustrating the story of Reynard the fox. I don't know what implications this has for us as readers, but I thought I'd bung it in anyway.

As to if the change she she brings is good or bad, I look to the surrounding cards to determine this - generally a good card to the left and a bad to the right shows a worsening of luck, bad to the left, good to the right shows improvement and similar cards to either side show going round in circles or repeating patterns. That's a simplification, but you get the idea.

Also, Katrinka's right on about all the cool wordsmithing the Wheel has inspired. Here's one of my favourites:

And we came at last to the park where the city opened
Round an emblazoned zone and the light, liquescent
And shimmering, seemed a golden-roseate intensity,
Seemed as a fountain ascending, whose returning flow
Made the sunfire’s cascade, swirling and vaporing.
And in the midst was the great wheel rising, turning
In music and light, where the people rode in their
Separateness all together, ascending and equally
Descending in the light, instructed at each place
Of the wheel’s endlessness.

– Hayden Carruth, Ignis.

EDIT: Oh, and, if you lay out the majors (leave out the fool for now), then Fortune mirrors the Hanged Man - change/movement and stasis. Cool, hey?

[Amoroso]

In the corners of the Wheel of Fortune card are four winged creatures, each associated with the four fixed signs of the Zodiac: the angel is Aquarius, the eagle is Scorpio, the lion is Leo, and the bull is Taurus. Their wings signify stability amidst movement and change, and each holds the Torah, representing wisdom.”

If you notice, these are also the four Fixed signs of the zodiac, occuring at the middle of each season between the Cardinal and the Mutable. They're usually resolute, stubborn, focused, and wed to their plans. This shows the inexorability and fixity of purpose attributed to Arcanum X itself.

I remember reading that while minors and courts stand for the more mundane and practical events in your life that you may have a hand in changing, the trumps represent major events over which you have little control, since these show the instances in which the hands of Fate have taken over. In the Wheel of Fortune this is doubly so, since right smack in the middle of the procession of the Major Arcana we can see Destiny at work. Its astrological correspondent is Jupiter, the planet that rules over luck, good fortune, and bounty.

That's why I interpret this card as a herald of good luck and great opportunities when upright. When reversed, with the evil serpent-footed god Typhon on the ascent, it can only bring bad tidings.

[Symph]

Nice thread! Lots of cool insights into this card. I'm pretty new to the world of Tarot but I'm also finding myself with a budding interest in astrology and I find that the wheel hits me a lot harder when I relate it to that. I understand the misgivings about it showing us as "we are slaves to destiny" as one person expressed, and the boringness of the imagery in the rider waite I suppose I can kinda see that too. But it's got the symbols of different zodiac animals on it, and in a simple way to me it's like saying "there is a plan that is bigger than you, it's written in the stars, it's written in the fabric of existence, you need not try so hard, life will ebb and it will flow, but ultimately you will wind up where you are meant to be, as you let go of control and stop fighting what was set into motion long before you came into this world for this lifetime"

And so for me it's a reminder to stop fretting, stop looking for what I can do, and to know that the universe has me in it's capable hands. This may still signify a low period, but never without a purpose, it's letting me know that whatever is happening is happening for my own evolution and ultimate growth as a person. And I think that is expressed pretty nicely in the rider waite, though drawn a bit crudely, as every rider waite card is in my opinion. Yet I find that there is a sort of charm in that crudeness, and I dig it in a "Old things are fascinating" kinda way hehe

[TheLoracular]

The RWS Wheel of Fortune was the first time I was introduced to the Kerubic angels and the Tetragrammaton. I'd never seen the Hebrew alphabet before and the middle of the wheel seemed so arcane and "ooooh" to my inquisitive teen mind. Holding this card in my hand as a young reader might very well have been what got me started on the path of ceremonial magick vs. the Wicca I had discovered so recently before.

And holding the Wheel of Fortune in your hand and finding an authentic path among all the options through investigation of the symbols thrown our way feels like such an apt metaphor for the card itself. There's something in the Wheel of Fortune for everyone. The universe is a multiverse but there are truths to it all. Four elements, four directions, four archangels, four suits.

But when it comes up in a reading, especially upright? I have to sigh a little. Because it hardly ever gives me a definitive answer to the question I seek. I feel like its the Schrödinger's thought experiment with the box and the cat. "What is going to happen? X or Y?" I had asked myself via tarot. "You will just have to get there and find out," the tarot says back. "Actions have consequences but sometimes you have to act first, then discover what they are because there are too many variables in play. So just trust yourself."

Sometimes though, that is all the answer you need. That there are too many forces at work in the here and now for there so make your next choice carefully, paying attention to everything going on.

[mandymk]

But when it comes up in a reading, especially upright? I have to sigh a little. Because it hardly ever gives me a definitive answer to the question I seek. I feel like its the Schrödinger's thought experiment with the box and the cat. "What is going to happen? X or Y?" I had asked myself via tarot. "You will just have to get there and find out," the tarot says back. "Actions have consequences but sometimes you have to act first, then discover what they are because there are too many variables in play. So just trust yourself."

Sometimes though, that is all the answer you need. That there are too many forces at work in the here and now for there so make your next choice carefully, paying attention to everything going on.

In my tarot class I took this year, the teacher gave affirmations for each of the major arcana cards. The Wheel of Fortune is "I am able to move with the flow of the universe." I think this fits in very nicely with your interpretation. When I pull this card, I take it as "I know what I need to do, and I trust myself to face whatever is coming up."

[Parzival]

Yes, get in with the flow of the universe-- don't impede it with your/my ego-centered self. Not so easy as it sounds! But the imagery shows three flows, or two with a fixed flow: the down-snake, the up-annubis, and the still'd sphinx. Are all these three the flow? or is it the rim of the wheel? There is much to know about this flow. Sometimes I wonder if simple affirmations do justice to the profound complexity of the card- imagery. Visualization with silence may be as inspiring as verbalization aiming at distillation. Both methods are good in my view. What do you think about these two ways and more?

Those poems in prior blogs were/are inspiring, especially Shelley with Frost on change!--another way to look at the Wheel.