het Rad van Fortuin, a study in…
by Ivy Lieberman
“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all”. ~Oscar Wilde
I was examining the Thoth deck’s Wheel of fortune card in a quandary as how to begin this essay on the tenth card of any tarot deck. What more could be said? The wheel is presented as a 10 spoke, yellow circle, set on a purple shaded background. Lightning flashes from the sky where a pentacle lays flat and stars shine in brilliant gold. On the wheel is three, (or four, depending how you look at it) figures. Judgment resides at the pinnacle, the beast who presides.
On top of the wheel is the sphinx with a sword, greeting her questioners proudly and with every slice of the sword she judges all and promises to cut out those things unpleasant or unworthy. With the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird and the face of a homely woman, this beast is merciless, ravenous and quick to play adjudicator. However, this beast has a story to tell, a legend from ancient times often relevant to modern man.
The tale begins with fear, the fear of a king whose throne is threatened by a son still in his cradle. The city’s Oracle predicts the boy would be the king’s destruction. So in this fear, the king condemns the boy to hang upside down until he would die. (Remind you of Odin? Hanged Man?) The boy is saved by a foster family, but is told by the same oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Not knowing his parentage, the boy, in circumstance made for drama, kills his father and sleeps with his mother. And so this perverse tale is brought to the moment when the boy, now a grown man and past the moment of redemption for his crimes, is in earnest trying to save the city of Thebes that has been afflicted by a monster, (Sphinx) sent by a wrathful god.