by Sasha Graham
Waite’s statement reveals Tarot’s greatest secret. Tarot’s mysteries will unfold before you only when you are ready. Mystery continues to unfold before you every day of your life if you are paying attention. With each card, revelations appear. Waite acts as Hermit, holding his shining light—or, in Waite’s case, the shining tarot—up for all the world to see. Here is the true nature of tarot as well as the divine mysteries of nature, reality, and time. Two people gaze at a garden. One person sees veggies and flowers. The other sees the entire universe.
Symbolic
Esoteric Function: Sexuality (Touch)
Hebrew Letter: Yod
Astrological Association: Virgo
The Hermit’s lantern contains a six-pointed star, two triangles representing the intersection of heaven and earth. Virgo, the astrological association of the Hermit, is the sixth sign of the zodiac. Waite wrote a book titled Lamps of Western Mysticism: Essays on the Life of the Soul in God. The lamp, a powerful symbol for Waite, suggests the guiding light of spiritual truth. The Hermit’s star shines a bright yellow in contrast to the other colors on the card, suggesting the appearance of warmth in coldness. The star glows like a Sephiroth of the Tree of Life.
Like the Hermit, the Fool and the Eight of Cups carry a staff. The Eight of Cups may be the Hermit embarking on his journey up the mountain. The mountain peak on which the Hermit stands reflects spiritual ascension and great heights. Snow-covered mountain peaks further convey the high altitude, heightened awareness, and clarity. The clear whiteness of the snow reflects a blank page and fresh start. The Hermit’s shaggy gray beard denotes wisdom. The same beard is found on the grandfatherly gentleman in the Ten of Pentacles. The Hermit’s cloak-covered head is a sign of devotion and respect of spiritual power residing above.
The first ten cards of the RWS deck describe the process by which we become at home in ourselves. Each card marks the evolution of humanity and unfolding psyche and self. Standing on his high mountain peak, the Hermit uses his shining lamp of wisdom to guide us home.
Profane
Withdrawal from the outer world. Avoiding the fray. Quality time spent alone. Reflection leading to wisdom. The spiritual practice of silence. Cultivating personal energy. Spending time alone in nature. Reordering personal boundaries. Shining the light of hope to the world around you. Introspection. Self-knowledge. Meditation. Spiritual heights. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes, but quietly.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption.
Reversed: Concealment, disguise, policy, fear, unreasoned caution.
Asana
The Hermit aligns with yoga’s plow pose, or halasana. The yogi lies on her back and swings her legs over her head, keeping her legs straight while the top of her feet rest on the floor behind her. Plow pose brings the practitioner directly to the heart chakra. There is no avoiding it. What happens when you are confronted by the nature of your own heart’s attitude toward itself? Can you love yourself as you love another? Can you offer and speak kindness to yourself as you would to a child?
The Hermit sequesters himself to confront himself. It is only when one accepts, loves, and integrates every aspect of the self that he can then begin the cultivation of ancient wisdom. The doorway to infinity lies within the body, your dwelling place and portal of experience. To love and accept the world, you must first love and accept yourself. You are the world and the world is you. Plow pose’s internal gaze is often held for long periods of time. It is ultimate introspection unlatching the gate to the infinite possibilities of the soul’s integration with the universe.
Wheel of Fortune
Once in a long-before time…
Pamela Colman Smith43
Sacred
The Wheel of Fortune is the symbol of cosmic momentum. The Wheel of Fortune echoes the cycles in our life—our sunrises, lunch breaks, evening twilights, and slumbering dreams. We sleep, wake, eat, socialize, and move through our day to the tick-tock of our rhythmic time-keeping clocks. Our bodies are made of circular cells; we live on a circular planet traveling a circular path around the sun. Cyclical time is made of decades, years, months, days, hours, and seconds. Time keeps coming at us, one new moment after the next. The question is, how do we surf waves of time? Each second, like a snowflake, is different from the last. Every moment carries the opportunity of newness embedded inside. How do we access this opportunity once we recognize it?
The wheel, like ancient Chronos, is the personification of quantifiable time. Time is linear and countable, yet time exists on multiple levels and is pliable. The individual bends time every day. All of us experience inner and outer time. Outer time is calendar and clock time. Inner time is reflected by the creative imagination. A businessman sits in a meeting at noon. He nods along with the boss, his eyes on the speaker, yet inside he’s reliving last night’s date. He’s thinking how foxy Stacy looked sitting across from him at dinner and how her breasts shifted when she crossed her legs. He thrills at how soft and inviting her lips felt when he kissed her goodnight. He is halfway inside the meeting he sits in. Last night and his present moment exist together. Inner and outer time coexist.
The experience of deep time, exemplified by the World card, is the state where all time disappears and the individual engages in complete immersion. Einstein proved time is relative. It slows down and speeds up. This is why humans can’t travel at the speed of light. The closer you are to a center of gravity, the faster time will pass. If you have a twin who lives high in the mountains while you live at sea level, at the end of your lives, she will be a few milliseconds older than you.
Buddhist mandalas, chakra wheels, and meditative labyrinths are examples of sacred circles. The sacred circle offers wisdom about the nature of life and acts as a powerful learning and healing tool. Contemplation of the circle provides deep insight regarding the nature of time, life, and reality. The Wheel of Fortune is an excellent contemplation tool. The reader can look deeply into the card and imagine the self in the center point of the circle. The wheel spins, the scaly snake slithers down, the jackal heads up. Clouds blow through the sky. The entire solar system revolves in a single card.
Waite admits he doesn’t use Golden Dawn inspiration for the wheel. He looks to an older occultist. “I have again followed the reconstruction of Éliphas Lévi.” Lévi was the first occultist to place the tarot at the center of all occult science. Lévi’s Wheel of Fortune expresses the tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God in Hebrew. The four letters are woven into Waite’s image. The letters represent the divinity’s name, four elements, four alchemical symbols, four angels, and the word ROTA, which is arranged around the wheel.
ROTA
Tetragrammaton
Element
Alchemy
Corner Angel
R
Yod
Water
Azoth
Man
O
Heh
Earth
Salt
Ox
T
Vau
Air
Mercury
Eagle
A
Heh
Fire
Sulfur
Lion
Waite explains his use of Egyptian symbols inside this card and others: “Use Egyptian symbolism when this serves our purpose, provided that no theory of
origin is implied therein.” Europe’s obsession with Egyptology reached a fever pitch at the turn of the nineteenth century, after Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. Expeditions raiding Egyptian tombs brought new treasures back to Europe. Occultists and the general public were entranced by Egypt’s dazzling mysteries. King Tut’s tomb was unearthed thirteen years after the RWS was published. Antoine Court de Gébelin, a earlier occultist who popularized tarot by seizing upon public ignorance, falsely claimed tarot was Egyptian in origin. He asserted the deck contained Egyptian secrets to life. Waite reassures his reader that his Egyptian figures are purely metaphorical.
Waite is clear about the meaning of this card: “The symbolic picture stands for the perpetual motion of a fluid universe and for the flux of human life.” He claims, “The Sphinx is the equilibrium therein.” All symbols of the card, including the above chart, express “Divine Providence,” the mark of divinity in the material world. The Wheel records traces of the deity at every level of life, from sips of coffee to the cries of a newborn child. Waite suggests occult explanations including “principle, fecundity, virile honour, ruling authority, etc.” are silly and ridiculous due to the holy nature of the card. He advises these meanings are better left to the “findings of common fortune-telling.” Once again, Waite makes a case for the dual meanings, sliding fortunetelling interpretations next to his occult interpretations. A wise reader will adopt a wide and ever-expanding system of meanings to their tarot repertoire.
Symbolic
Esoteric Functions: Riches and Poverty
Hebrew Letter: Kaph
Astrological Association: Jupiter
Symbolic representations of the Wheel of Fortune icon are found worldwide, especially in Europe, and predate tarot. The wheel as an allegory of life’s ups and downs struck a deep chord for the medieval general public. They lived in a highly stratified social class with little mobility. Those born into a peasant life with no chance of escaping it make fate, fortune, and destiny a viable trinity.
The wheel’s circle reflects the nature of the physical and spiritual universe. A material circle, or sphere, is detected in the quality and shape of the sun, planets, moons, molecules, eyeballs, wheels, dinner plates, clocks, and a million other objects. The spiritual wheel is detected in humanity’s evolution, the span of human life from infant to geriatric, the energetic body, emanations of love, and the aura of the human body.
Clouds billow in the corners of the card, echoing divinity and manifestation. Like tarot’s aces, something appears out of nothing. The mystery appears and traces of divinity are made manifest, as exemplified by the creatures in the corners representing the tetramorph. The tetramorph is based on the four biblical tetramorphs found in the first chapter of Ezekiel who have the heads of a man (Mathew the Apostle), lion (Mark the Evangelist), ox (Luke the Evangelist), and eagle (John the Evangelist). The creatures each hold an open book, a symbolic representation of history, religion, and destiny.
The Wheel of Fortune’s astrological association is Jupiter, god of the sky. Kabbalistically, Jupiter connects to the number four, which is echoed in the fourfold nature of the card as seen in the previous chart. The wheel has eight spokes, twice the number four. Upon the spokes are three alchemical symbols and one astrological symbol. Starting at the top and moving clockwise, find mercury, sulfur, Aquarius, and salt. The word rota is Latin for “wheel.”
Profane
Fate, fortune, and destiny. Past, present, and future. Hindsight, insight, and foresight. Go with the flow. Make every effort to stay centered. The nature of life is change. Release attachment to past behaviors and habits. Embrace each moment as it arrives. A change in your luck for the better. If a yes-no question, the answer is yes, and quickly.
Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity.
Reversed: Increase, abundance, superfluity.
Asana
The Wheel of Fortune aligns with yoga’s upward bow (wheel) pose, or urdhva dhanurasana. Wheel pose is a standing backbend challenging the yogi to emulate the shape of an archer’s bow or a wheel. It connects to the symbolic shape of the Wheel of Fortune while aligning with the wild energy of universal forces. Backbends work the nervous system, the network connecting the brain, spinal cord, and nerves, and can feel like a roller coaster. Upward bow can seem intense, scary, even terrifying. This is precisely why it aligns with Wheel of Fortune energy. Anything shaking our presumed stability can rattle us to our core while offering valuable lessons.
Yoga’s physical challenges gift practitioners with the ability to stay focused no matter what life throws their way. The Wheel of Fortune card asks the reader to do the same. The yogic gaze, or drishti, is the specific place a yogi is taught to focus her attention. No matter the emotional or physical experience inside the body, a soft yogic gaze will give the yogi a focus point so her greater concentration remains inside her body and her experience. The drishti aligns with the center point on the Wheel of Fortune. Staying centered inside the present moment without escaping to the past or future, simply staying put in the experience of whatever is happening to the body or in your life, is the ultimate lesson of upward bow and the Wheel of Fortune card.
Justice
First make sure in your own mind
you know what end you wish to work for. Do you know?
Pamela Colman Smith44
Sacred
Justice reflects the material world’s inherent logic and all the trappings attached to it. Justice represents courts, laws, and public systems of justice used to keep order and control chaos. Determinations of “good” or “bad” mark the quality of efforts made. Justice reflects the societal rules of all cultures. Interior justice is where we measure personal actions. We each carry a Justice card within us, acting as our moral code. It is the place we cultivate personal right or wrong, our moral system and inner compass. We explore personal limits of justice in early childhood to discover what we can get away with. We discover how it feels to lie, cheat, or steal by comparing the experience to kinder, gentler actions. Exploration continues during teen years as we test different behaviors. Eventually justice matures and reflects the place where we hold ourselves accountable. This is where we answer to ourselves.
Justice is where we make value judgments about other people. Justice’s scales can be used as a weapon when we compare ourselves to another person or group of people. We cultivate a false sense of satisfaction when putting down other people to inflate our own ego. Speaking ill of others, judging their actions, decisions, and lives, is a slippery slope of negativity turning to bitterness and even hatred. Conversely, we use Judgement’s scales against ourselves to support a negative self-image. We might compare ourselves to others to make us feel insecure and unworthy. We can say to ourselves, “I’ll never look like her” or “He’ll never love someone like me” or “I’ll never be as brilliant and successful as them.” Justice can be used as an unattainable ideal to perpetually hold the self back and therefore never suffer the failure that is attached to risk. No matter how Justice is wielded, if you use the scales as a weapon, put them down and begin practicing the art of compassion, both toward yourself and others. Empower the scales of Justice by placing yourself on one side of the scale and your High Priestess on the other side. Weigh yourself against yourself. Check in and discover if you are being honest and true to who you really are.
Waite tells us “the figure is seated between pillars, like the High Priestess.” Waite becomes poetic. He speeds past the traditional interpretations of Justice as it pertains to fairness and rules
of law. He tells us, “It seems desirable to indicate that the moral principle which deals unto every man according to his works—while, of course, it is in strict analogy with higher things.” It appears that Justice is intertwined with the High Priestess and the card contains a moral imperative of right and wrong. However, it “differs in its essence from the spiritual j
ustice,” which would be the High Priestess. He states, “The operation of this is like the breathing of the Spirit where it wills.” The “breathing of the Spirit” is direct divine intention, and “where it wills” is the Divine’s choice of where it arrives. This suggests the natural talents and sensitivities we are born with. Everyone carries special and unique talents. These traits are found in the authenticity of the High Priestess, who holds your inner blueprint.
Waite explains divine mystery: “We have no canon of criticism or ground of explanation concerning it.” According to Waite, it is impossible to explain divine mystery and its appearance or absence in anyone. Waite says the best analogy is “the possession of the fairy gifts,” meaning supernatural powers or the “high gifts” and “gracious gifts of the poet.” These are the natural gifts a person is born with. The High Priestess is the place where the gift reveals itself in the individual. Waite claims of personal gifts “we have them or have not,” meaning to him there is no rhyme or reason to the supernatural talents operating within us. He says “their presence is as much a mystery as their absence,” meaning there is no explanation for how or where they appear or are absent in people.
Waite states “the pillars of Justice open” like a door into the material world. The High Priestess’s pillars open to the invisible world. Justice is the moral principle the individual enacts in his or her life. It dictates personal action or inaction in the material world. The High Priestess is the spiritual. This knowledge offers opportunity. The Justice card reminds us, regardless of our natural talents, if we practice and devote ourselves to any pursuit with diligence, we will find results in the material world.
At this point Waite has identified three doorways or gates between worlds. The High Priestess is the essence of the soul in relation to the divine and spiritual world. The Empress is the physical door through which the physical body is manifest in the material world. Justice is the doorway to the logic, high or low action, and activity of talent we make use of in the material world.