Exploring The Waste Land - Show supplementary textThe Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)
X, Wheel of Fortune
A.E. Waite
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 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 Lévi onward, the occult explanations
of this card are--even for occultism itself--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.
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Source:
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http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pktar10.htm
December 24, 2001
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Exploring The Waste Land
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File date: Sunday, September 29, 2002