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 implied 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.
the plate, in waite's words · the painted card will hang here in time
At the sequence's midpoint, the Wheel is Waite's most openly borrowed design, built on "the reconstruction of Éliphas Lévi," the four Living Creatures of Ezekiel fixed at its corners and a sphinx astride its rim. TARO and ROTA, the same six letters read two ways, circle the wheel with the letters of the Divine Name between them. Waite is unusually dismissive of the card's occult literature, calling most of it, even for occultism itself, "of a singularly fatuous kind." What the design argues, against chance, is that the wheel's turning is never random: a sphinx sits at dead center, the still point the picture insists on.
a young page · the keeper's voice pass on the note is still to come