Wheel Of Antipathies In The Minor Arcana Of The Tarot

The Wheel of Antipathies in the Minor Arcana of the Tarot By Frater Pyramidatus A great deal of fuss has been made about the ‘Alphabet of Desire’ amongst circles of magicians, principally because of the work of Chaos Magician Peter Carroll. I do not reproduce the diagram here, but suffice to say it is a super symbol, or as Carroll would say a ‘psychocosm’. Arranged as a wheel with different emotional states lying as opposites not only reflected via an axle, but as opposing states. Supposedly this sort of arrangement, with its unique sigils, is a suitably simple device for anyone. I do not use the Alphabet of Desire but its concept of a wheel, with antipathies of human states, inspired me to look for something similar in a far older oracle, that of the conventional Tarot deck. I did not find anything as concise and tidy as the Alphabet of Desire, and rather than finding a ‘wheel’ that reflected different opposing states, I found a progression of triads that balanced and polarised each other as one took a journey along the circumference. The defining element was simply the names printed on the bottom of each card, eg. ‘Strife’, ‘Success’, ‘Gain’ etc. This essay is not securely founded on any Qabalistic proof as such, it is rather just another fugitive tool in the arsenal of the tarotologist. Unlike my previous essay ‘A Geomantic Curiosity’ it is not based on hard math, rather only the general emotional archetype personified by the title of each Lesser Mystery. The Aces are not used. The remaining 36 cards are arranged as 12 triangles around a circle (although a line would make just as much sense); the uppermost card in each triad reconciles two extremes of the other cards. Also the basal members of each triad form an emotional opposite to the basal card of the adjacent triad. I did consider trying to allocate Zodiac signs to each triad, or some other device of Qabalistic reasoning, but decided that this wheel of antipathies could stand on its own merits without having to be ‘squeezed in’ to the Tree of Life. So this device is more poetic than Qabalistic; yet I still make the defiant gesture that no more cogent arrangement of these 36 cards, for the purposes of polarisation, is possible. Triad One Triad Two Triad Three Triad Four Triad Five Triad Six Triad Seven Triad Eight Triad Nine Triad Ten Triad Eleven Triad Twelve

– Strife – Dominion – Peace – Oppression – Strength – Gain – Debauch – Swiftness – Virtue – Cruelty – Power – Pleasure – Disappointment – Wealth – Happiness – Ruin – Works – Abundance – Indolence – Prudence – Luxury – Worry – Satiety – Valour – Sorrow – Change – Love – Interference – Science – Completion – Defeat – Truce – Victory – Failure – Futility – Success