Kaph · X Wheel of Fortune

Correspondences

Letter

כ Kaph (כף), “Palm of the hand”

Value

20

Kind

Double letter (one of the seven Doubles: Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Peh, Resh, Tav)

Attribution

♃︎ Jupiter

Joins

Chesed (4) and Netzach (7)

Tarot trump

X · Waite: Wheel of Fortune · Thoth: Fortune · Marseille: La Roue de Fortune

Golden Dawn title (Book T)

The Lord of the Forces of Life

Lévi’s attribution (1855)

XI La Force

Case’s key word

Rotation

Colours

King: Violet · Queen: Blue

Gods (777)

Egyptian: Amoun-Ra · Greek: Zeus · Roman: Jupiter, Pluto · Hindu: Brahma, Indra

Animals

Eagle

Plants

Hyssop; oak; poplar; fig

Precious stones

Amethyst; lapis lazuli

Perfumes

Saffron; all generous odours

Magical weapon

The sceptre

The letter

Kaph, the palm of the hand, is the open hand that receives and grasps; palmistry reads destiny in it. It is a Double letter with a final form (ך, value 500); its ordinary value is 20. In Kaplan’s Sepher Yetzirah its opposites are Life and Death.

On the Tree

The 21st path descends from Chesed to Netzach on the Pillar of Mercy, joining Jupiter to Venus, the Greater and Lesser Benefics. It is the path of fortune and reward, of the “Lord of the Forces of Life”.

The Wheel in the Waite deck

Smith’s Wheel floats in the clouds, inscribed with the letters TARO (read also ROTA, TORA, ATOR) and with the Hebrew letters of YHVH alternating, and with the alchemical symbols of Mercury, Sulphur, Salt and Water. A sphinx with a sword sits on top, a serpent (Typhon) descends on the left, and the jackal-headed Hermanubis rises on the right. The four winged creatures of Ezekiel read their books in the corners. Case’s key word is rotation: the cycle of involution and evolution.

Fortune in the Thoth deck

Crowley’s Wheel has ten spokes, for the sephiroth and for Jupiter, and spins in a sky of violet and blue cut by lightning. On it ride the three alchemical principles as beasts: the Sphinx (Sulphur), Hermanubis (Mercury) and Typhon (Salt), the three gunas of Hindu philosophy (sattva, rajas and tamas). Crowley calls it “the universe in its aspect of continual change”, and adds that the only stable point is the centre.

Where this path leads

• חסד Chesed (4)
• נצח Netzach (7)

Read further

• Wheel of Fortune on Wikipediahistory and iconography of the card
• Sepher Yetzirah and the 32 Paths of WisdomW. Wynn Westcott, trans., 1887
• The Kabbalah UnveiledS. L. MacGregor Mathers, from Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata, 1887
• Liber 777 RevisedAleister Crowley, 1909/1955
• The Book of ThothAleister Crowley, 1944
• The Golden DawnIsrael Regardie, ed., 1937–40
• A Garden of PomegranatesIsrael Regardie, 1932
• The Mystical QabalahDion Fortune, 1935
• The Pictorial Key to the TarotA. E. Waite, 1910
• The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the AgesPaul Foster Case, 1947
• A Practical Guide to Qabalistic SymbolismGareth Knight, 1965

Also in the background throughout: Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (1974) and Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941), for the Jewish tradition as historians understand it; Aryeh Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah (1990); Kenneth Grant, Nightside of Eden (1977), for the Qliphoth; Robert Wang, The Qabalistic Tarot (1983).