Separating common sense from nonsense.

There has been a rekindled interest in the Tarot cards with the re-emergence of the so-called 'new age movement'. Since the 1800s a small group of writers have made unsubstantiated claims regarding the Tarot having their origins in ancient Egypt or China, and fanciful pseudo-mystical assumptions about their supposed relationship with esoteric activities; astrology, numerology, ceremonial magic and the Cabbala. There is no hard evidence supporting the Tarot predating the 14-Century, nor their use for anything other than games prior to the 18-Century.

This brief article will endeavour to outline two of the Major Arcana, 'The Wheel of Fortune' and 'The Devil', with emphasis upon an umbrella perspective of poetry and prose.

- La Roue de Fortune X Arcanes Majeurs -

The Wheel is an important feature in the worlds great religious traditions. In Hinduism (or more correctly ' Sanatana Dharma '), Shiva's dance of the wheel of fire. Buddhism, the discourse, of the Buddha, set in  the 'Wheel of the Law' (' dharma-chakra '). Judaism, the wheel is first an ornamental feature of Yahweh's throne (Ezek,1:4-28;10), then the wheels of the throne (Dan.7:9), and later become Ophannin; one of the guards of the celestial throne (Enoch. 61:10,71:7).

In Christian text 'τον τροχον της γενεσεως' ( ' wheel of life ' ), translates as the ' course of nature ' NKJV, the ' course of life ' NASB, and the ' cycle of nature ' RSV; see James 3:6. This phrase has no association with the beliefs of the cult of Orpheus, and putting any meaning to this phrase would be pure conjecture. Quite clearly, these OT and NT phrases have the character of theological ornamentation, and comment regarding sociological variables of human life respectively.

The basic belief shared by both Hinduism and Buddhism is that of metempsychosis, that is to say, that all men are enchained to the 'wheel of life' and their souls migrate from one body to another until all ' karma ' ('the accumulated actions of a person's previous states of existence') is expended. Metempsychosis, although reawakened by the spread of the pantheistic, immaneistic movements of Spiritualism and Theosophy, is fundamentally at variance with Christian doctrine, especially in regard to the 'resurrection of the body'.

The theme of the Wheel in literature.

This archetype is conceptualized as limits to human aspirations as to the "point...to which men aspire", with fatalistic acceptance of both the individual and collective fall.

Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel
There is a point, to which when men aspire,
They tumble headlong down: that point I touched,
And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher,
Why should I grieve at my declining fall?

Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, act.v,sc.vi.

The Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations, 4th Ed,
Oxford University Press,
Oxford, UK, 1992. p.447:8.
© Oxford University Press.
1992. By permission of
Oxford University Press.

The following poem features the wheel motif, with dramatic flair, as a collective (societal) and cosmic archetype. Its motion is influenced by both the movement of the 'celestial spheres', and unscrupulous; and domineering 'Fate'.

Since all the world's great fortune and affairs
Forward and backward rapt and whirled are,
According to the music of the spheres; And
Chance herself her nimble feet upbears On a
round slippery wheel, that rolleth aye.

And turns all states with her imperious sway;
Learn then to dance, you that are princes born,
And lawful lords of earthly creatures all; Imitate
them, and thereof take no scorn, (For this new
art to them is natural) And imitate the stars
celestial. For when pale death your vital twist
shall sever, Your better parts must dance with
them forever.

Sir John Davies, 'Orchestra, or a Poem of
Dancing, st.lx.

op.cit . p.232:7. © Oxford
University Press 1992. By
permission of Oxford
University Press.

The wheel motif in the Dhammapada is the recurring cycle of individual existence.

Caught in the round of existence, without rest,
without break, for many births, I sought for the
Builder and took miserable birth again and again.

Dhammapada, Old Age, 8. dGe-'dun Chos-'phel. ( transl .).

Dhammapada , Copyright ©
1985 by Dharma Publishing,
Dharma Press, Oakland,
California, US. 1985. p.79.
By courtesy of the Copyright
© 1985 owner Dharma
Publishing.

In the following poem, the wheel is a fickle and merciless revolving influence on life which man is cognizant both subjectively and objectively, of his role as pawn to "Her cruel sports, to many men's decay?"

What man that see the ever-whirling
wheel Of Change, the which all mortal
things doth sway, But that thereby
doth find, and plainly feel, How Mutability
in them doth play. Her cruel sports, to
many men's decay?

Edmund Spencer, The Faerie Queen, bk.vii,can.vi,st.i.

The Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations, 4th Ed, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, UK,
1992. p.660:17. © Oxford
University Press1992. By
permission of Oxford
University Press.

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