A Tarot de Marseille Wheel of Fortune cardA Rider-Waite-Smith Wheel of Fortune card
In tarot, the Wheel of Fortune is the tenth of the 21 trump cards, which are called "Major Arcana" in esoteric usage. The imagery originates from Italian tarocchi decks. It is based on the common medieval image of the Wheel of Fortune, an allegory for the randomness of fate. The wheel features people attached to it, showing that people's fate can change at the turn of the wheel. Some decks show Fortune herself turning the wheel whilst blindfolded. The people attached to the wheel are often depicted with animalistic attributes, especially in later decks.
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck, inspired by Éliphas Lévi, contains Egyptian and biblical symbolism in the Wheel of Fortune card: the four living creatures of Ezekiel are present in the card's corners, and the Tetragrammaton is inscribed upon the wheel "to shew that Providence is implied through all".[1] The figures on the wheel are replaced with a sphinx, Hermanubis, and Typhon[2] (represented as a serpent).[1]
Arthur Edward Waite lists the following divinatory meanings in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot: "Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity. Reversed: Increase, abundance, superfluity."[3]
↑ 1.01.1The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1922), Arthur Edward Waite. Published by William Rider & Son Limited. (2nd ed.) pp. 108-111.
↑The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1922), Arthur Edward Waite. Published by William Rider & Son Limited. (2nd ed.) p. 21.
↑"The Greater Arcana and Their Divinatory Meanings", The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1922), Arthur Edward Waite. Published by William Rider & Son Limited. (2nd ed.) pp. 284-285.
Megami Ibunroku Persona
Ryoji Mochizuki
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