I mentioned in a previous entry the earliest Wheel of Fortune I have found so far was this very wheel. In the interests of showing both an historical artifact, and how divination tools can change over time, I decided to run this as a special feature. Whether you want to actually use it is of course, up to you. We have just passed Valentine’s Day at the time of this writing, and given the romantic nature of many of its fortunes, it might’ve made for a nice Valentine’s Day diversion, but there’s always next year.
A LITTLE HISTORY
It first appeared in Fontaine’s Golden Wheel Fortune Teller and Dream Book, published in 1862 by Dick & Fitzgerald, New York. Fontaine recounts, “This singular wheel was much consulted in the middle ages and is said to have been used by Cagliostro to aid him in his divinations. I have selected it from an old Latin manuscript on Astrology, and translated it into English for the benefit of my readers who cannot read the former language,” I was dubious about this claimed antecedent, but the yes-and-no stones confirmed that Fontaine indeed obtained this Wheel from a medieval manuscript, that he didn’t need to make any significant alterations to it, in order to make it relevant to his nineteenth-century readers. Also no, the eighteenth-century occultist Cagliostro didn’t use it to aid him in his divinations. Color me surprised; I assumed he’d made it all up.
Love this – such a beautiful wheel! I would interpret ” ‘should I go ahead with my plans?’ or ‘do I have any enemies?’, only to choose the answer ‘you will have a handsome, young, and wealthy man for your partner.’ ” by shifting my focus a little and looking at what a handsome, young and wealthy man symbolises. He sounds wholesome right? So it looks good, but handsome young men are often not mature enough to handle their wealth. So it’s a cautionary path to success, go ahead by all means, there’s a good chance of success, but beware the pitfalls caused by naivety and overconfidence. I used to have real problems finding these sorts of canned answer oracles useful, but since I started working with the European cartomancy decks I just seem to be able to refocus the answer to just about any question by breaking it down that way. Lots of fun!
Good point! I think you’re right about having to shift one’s focus and considering what a pre-set image in a divination tool symbolizes for oneself personally. This is particularly important if you’re dealing with an old divination tool from an earlier century, where they had a slightly-different outlook on life. It doesn’t mean the divination tool in question has nothing of value to say to us, but we may need to adapt or reinterpret the answer.