One of my favorite academic pastimes is tinkering with the cherished set of esoteric correspondences that was handed down to us by the Hermetic Order of the Golden. Its chief architect, Samuel Liddell “MacGregor” Mathers, was by all accounts an accomplished scholar, occultist and metaphysical innovator but I don’t think he was infallible, and some of his assumptions don’t pass muster with an experienced astrologer. One of my friends once said “Some guys made a bunch of stuff up,” and there was inevitably a need to “force-fit” some of the attributions. In the past I’ve taken issue with a number of the choices, and wrote more than one essay on the subject; here I want to explore one that stands out from the pack as crying for a serious rethinking.

The assignment of Cancer to The Chariot has never made much sense to me despite the fact that Paul Foster Case practically hyperventilated in trying to come up with a convincing justification for it. The Charioteer is a “man on a mission” and moving toward a goal, while Cancer – even though it is a Cardinal or “action-oriented” sign – is more cyclical, more about ebb-and-flow (as befits its Lunar nature) than about a linear projection of Will. I often think of the Chariot as depicting the Emperor on the field of battle, commanding from his “mobile throne,” so I felt the need to dislodge Cancer and put Jupiter there instead as an expression of “triumph.” That left me with the decision of what to do with the Wheel of Fortune, Jupiter’s erstwhile home.

In the past, The Wheel was always considered a positive card, most likely due to Jupiter’s astrological influence as the “Greater Benefic.” Although he was uncharacteristically circumspect about it, Aleister Crowley described it as “Change of fortune. (This generally means good fortune because the fact of consultation implies anxiety or discontent.)” In other words, the querent wouldn’t be seeking a reading if the situation wasn’t dire and could only get better. Modern thinking considers it more of a mixed omen, in that it could mean an unfavorable reversal of fortune as easily as an improvement. My personal opinion is that, on balance, it is still more positive than negative. However, the flux suggested by the image had me thinking that Cancer would be a perfect fit for the up-and-down “light” and “dark” oscillations of the Wheel.

Here is a somewhat fanciful view of the situation as I see it. (Thanks to Shell David for the “reconstructed” Noblet Wheel of Fortune image.) If you’re interested, the link below will take you to some of my other unpopular “revisionist” ideas,

Astrologically Rethinking the Major Arcana