Wheel of Fortune

  • Arcana Major
  • Number X
  • Figure on this site The norns' loom
Historical evidence

In the earliest decks

The Wheel of Fortune is one of the oldest trumps. Wikipedia’s article on the card says its design has followed the medieval Rota Fortunae, the wheel of the goddess Fortuna, since the 15th century. That older picture shows a wheel with figures that climb, sit at the top, fall and lie at the bottom. The same four labels appear on the wheel in the Carmina Burana manuscript.

The card survives in two of the best-known Visconti-Sforza sets: the Pierpont Morgan Bergamo deck, made around 1451, and the Brera-Brambilla deck, said to have been commissioned from Bonifacio Bembo by Francesco Sforza in 1463. In the Brera set it is one of only two surviving trumps. The Morgan page itself could not be read, so treat that picture as provisional.

In the Marseille pattern the card is numbered X and titled “La Roue de Fortune” (the spelling varies on old decks). It appears among the trumps of Dodal’s Lyon deck from the early 1700s. Descriptions of the figures on Marseille wheels disagree in the sources found, so this page does not describe them.

Historical evidence

The Rider-Waite-Smith card

The Rider-Waite deck was published by William Rider & Son in 1909, with Pamela Colman Smith as illustrator working from A. E. Waite’s instructions. Wikipedia notes that its designs differ a good deal from earlier decks, and that Lévi’s writings and Golden Dawn teaching shaped the imagery.

For the Wheel, Waite says in the Pictorial Key that he followed Éliphas Lévi’s reconstruction. Typhon in serpent form descends on the left and Anubis rises on the right. The four winged creatures of Ezekiel’s vision, which Christian tradition later tied to the four evangelists, sit in the corners, and a sphinx sits on top. Waite objects to older versions that set the sphinx on a pedestal above the wheel. The wheel carries the letters T-A-R-O, which can be read as the Latin rota, alternating with the four Hebrew letters of the divine name, together with alchemical signs for the four elements.

So the medieval figures labelled regno and sum sine regno are gone. Smith’s card replaces them with a symbolic scene drawn from Lévi and the Golden Dawn.

Myth and literature · Quotation

Waite’s description

In this symbol I have again followed the reconstruction of Éliphas Lévi, who has furnished several variants. It is legitimate—as I have intimated—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 Lévi in respect of Ezekiel’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 Name—to shew that Providence is implied 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.

Myth and literature · Context

Later meanings

None of the following is in the 15th-century decks. Antoine Court de Gébelin and, in the same publication, the Comte de Mellet claimed the tarot came from ancient Egypt, a claim with no basis in evidence. Etteilla was the first to assign divinatory meanings to the cards, devising a method in 1783. Éliphas Lévi, inspired by Court de Gébelin, tied the 22 trumps to the Hebrew alphabet, and the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, built this into a system linking trumps to the paths of the Tree of Life, and to planets and signs. In a correspondence table on Wikipedia’s tarot reading page, the Wheel of Fortune is paired with the letter Kaph and the planet Jupiter.

Waite, in the Pictorial Key, calls the occult explanations of this card “singularly fatuous” and says the symbol stands against the idea of chance and fatality. The medieval Rota Fortunae, by contrast, was all about fortune’s turning.

Modern interpretation

As read on this site

This is the meaning used for readings here. Using the tarot to divine is a modern practice, and the Norse figure shown for each card is this site’s own association; the tarot began as an Italian card game. A short history is on the Tarot page.

Upright

Keywords: cycles, fate, change, fortune, timing

The norns weave at the base of Yggdrasil, and even the gods don't get to argue with the pattern once it's set. This card is fortune turning, not because you've earned it or failed to, but because that's simply what fortune does. The skill here isn't control; it's timing — knowing when to push and when to let the cycle carry you. Things are moving in your favor, or about to. Don't fight the current; use it.

In general: A cycle is turning in your favor. Move with it rather than trying to outmaneuver something larger than you.

In love: A relationship entering a more favorable phase after a difficult one — the wheel turns both ways, and right now it's turning up.

In work: A shift in circumstances, opportunity, or recognition arriving through timing as much as effort. Be ready to take it when it comes.

Reversed

Keywords: resistance to change, bad timing, feeling stuck, fighting the inevitable

Fighting a turn that's already happening is exhausting and, more to the point, pointless — the wheel doesn't care how hard you brace against it. What goes around keeps going around whether you accept it or not; resistance just costs you the energy you'll need for the next turn. This isn't a card about giving up. It's a card about recognizing which battles are actually winnable and which ones are just friction against an outcome that's already decided.

In general: Something is changing whether you consent to it or not. Spend your energy adapting rather than resisting.

In love: A relationship's natural shift, ending, distance, change, is being resisted rather than accepted. Resistance doesn't stop the tide.

In work: A reorganization, market shift, or change in fortune that's happening regardless of your preference. Adapt your strategy rather than your stance.

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