The World of Fortune: The Wheel of Fortune, The Zodiac, and the Minor Arcana
If we observe the direction of movement indicated by the positioning of the three figures who appear to be "riding" the wheel on the Wheel of Fortune card, we can discern that it seems to follow the same counterclockwise motion as the standard Zodiac:
It begins with the descent of the serpent, or Typhon, who enters the Wheel near the O in TARO/ROTA, which is the standard position of Aries. The next image we see is the Kerubic bull of Taurus, who is followed by R in the position of Cancer, and the Kerub of Leo, the next "fixed" sign in the standard zodiacal sequence. The head of the ascending Hermanubis figure is then positioned near the A, the standard place of Libra, followed by the Kerubic eagle of Scorpio. The sword-bearing Sphinx then surmounts the Wheel at the position of T/Capricorn, the mountain-climbing goat of worldly attainment, and is followed by the Kerub of Aquarius. Furthermore, the four letters of T-A-R-O, the four letters of the divine name י-ה-ו-ה, and the four alchemical symbols (Salt, Sulphur, Mercury, & dissolution) depicted on the Wheel add up to 12. As we can see, though the entire Zodiac isn't overtly depicted on this Trump, it is quite demonstrably represented.
We can take this a step further, and ask ourselves which part of the Tarot is not only linked directly to the wheel of the Zodiac but also depicts the experiences and lessons we all must encounter in the mundane sphere of life?
You guessed it — the 36 cards of the Minor Arcana that are linked to the astrological decans.¹
In The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Arthur Waite explains that, while there were vague rumours concerning the higher meanings of the Minor Arcana in his time, he personally believed that they had not yet been translated into a language that transcended fortune telling — but he certainly implies much more a few sentences later, when he suggests that Papus, in his Tarot of the Bohemians, "[recognized] the elements of the Divine Immanence in the Trumps Major, and he [sought] to follow them through the long series of the lesser cards, as if these represented filtrations of the World of Grace through the World of Fortune."
There are two key phrases that are of especial interest to us here:
‐The elements of the Divine Immanence — the elements attributed to the letters of the Divine Name (יהוה) and the four Kerubim, all of which are depicted on The Wheel of Fortune.
- Filtrations of the World of Grace through the World of Fortune — the World of Grace (the Major Arcana/Greater Mysteries) experienced through the World of Fortune (the Minor Arcana/Lesser Mysteries.) Taking this a step further, the Majors represent pure, distinct cosmic forces — the signs, the planets, and the elements — while the Minors represent what Agrippa called a "mixation of virtues," since each represents a combination of forces, such as a planet, a sign, an element, and a sphere on the Tree of Life in the case of the Minors², or an element, a sub-element, and a 30° portion of the Zodiac in that of the Court Cards (except for the Pages, which are either not assigned any portion of the Zodiac, since there are only room for 12., or are assigned an entire seasonal quarter, along with the Aces.)
The vital keyword here, however, is Fortune. The Wheel of Fortune is often said to symbolize the soul's descent into matter to fulfill its karmic obligations — but how does one learn the lessons necessary to fulfill these obligations if not through the trials of mundane life? Without the influence of the Minors to ground them in daily life, the Major Arcana are little more than vague spiritual intimations with little practical value to the modern student. Anyone who puzzled over the appearance of Judgment or The Hanged Man in a spread as a beginner can attest to this. We often don't truly understand a card until we have "lived" it ourselves.
With that being said, however, in the first section of his Pictorial Key, Waite suggests that the Majors and Minors are likely two separate and unrelated decks of cards that were simply linked together at an early point in the Tarot's history, the former a philosophical tool and the latter a game — but that notion falls pretty flat when we look at the Qabalistic framework of the Tree of Life on which the Tarot was likely based, with its ten spheres, twenty-two paths, and four worlds. Without the backbone of the Sephiroth and the Four Worlds, the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana would be what Qabalists refer to as "Force without Form" — nebulous forces resting in a state of potentiality in the realm of ideas and archetypes without a means of manifestation.
In Qabalistic thought, Spirit is shaped by the influence of the elements, from the subtlest (Fire) to the most fixed (Earth), in its descent through the worlds and spheres before attaining its completion in Malkuth of Assiah — the World of Form in which we live and act — as the 10 of Pentacles³, just as we ourselves must ascend the Tree in reversed sequence on our Path of Return. In order to complete the "circuit," both sets of cards must be present in the Tarot pack, just as both must be woven into the spiritual make-up of the aspirant through study and practice.
Footnotes:
1. Recall that the four Aces, as the so-called "root powers" of each element, are left out in this arrangement.
2. Again, the Aces are slightly different since they are not assigned a decan, and thus are simply a mixture of an element and the first sphere of Kether. As mentioned above, they are sometimes linked to the seasonal quarters along with the Pages.
3. As a Kabbalistic scholar, Waite must have been well-aware of all this, or he likely wouldn't have instructed Ms. Colman-Smith to include the Tree of Life on that particular card, so perhaps this is another example of a "blind" to confound the so-called uninitiated — an unfortunate, but standard practice of that time.