What does Fortune mean reversed?

The Thoth Tarot is traditionally read without reversed cards: the reader judges from the cards around it whether a card is well or ill dignified. This is its ill-dignified or blocked reading: Resistance to change, or a sense of being at the mercy of events; the wheel turns anyway, so it is better to work with its motion.

What are the Kabbalah and astrology correspondences of Fortune?

In the Golden Dawn system Fortune corresponds to the Hebrew letter Kaph, path 21 of the Tree of Life between Chesed and Netzach, the element Spirit and Jupiter in astrology.

Thoth Tarot · Major Arcana

Fortune

change · cycle · luck · destiny · movement

A reflective starting point

What is Fortune asking you to look at?

Meaning changes with the position, the surrounding cards and your question. Take what follows as a language, not a verdict.

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Upright

A cycle changes: seize the opportunity. Expansion, good luck and new possibilities are on their way.

At first sight

Changes of fortune, unforeseen events, turning points. Generally favourable, it shows that the wheel has begun to turn.

Within you

It shows your relationship with what you cannot control; it invites you to stay in the movement without clinging to either the high or the low.

On the path

Path 21 from Chesed to Netzach, the letter Kaph (the palm, 20) and Jupiter, the great benefic: the expansion that sets life in motion. The wheel turns, driven by the three qualities of nature, while at its motionless centre dwells Spirit.

The shadow

Ill-dignified, it signals instability, chaotic chance, passive reliance on luck, sudden falls.

Reversed

In the Thoth tradition a reversed card is read through its dignity with the neighbouring cards; this is its shadow side.

Resistance to change, or a sense of being at the mercy of events; the wheel turns anyway, so it is better to work with its motion.

In love, work and spirit

Love. Sudden turns, meetings that feel destined; a relationship in a phase of transformation.

Work. Opportunities, expansion, strokes of luck; beware the volatility of earnings.

Spirit. Seeking the motionless centre of the wheel, where change cannot reach.

Correspondences

Kaph כ · path 21 (Chesed – Netzach) · Spirit · Jupiter

Crowley's note

On the ten-spoked wheel Crowley places Typhon, Hermanubis and the Sphinx, corresponding to the three gunas (tamas, rajas, sattva) and to the three alchemical principles, in perpetual alternation between lightning and stars.