Fortuna occupies a distinctive position in the depth-psychology corpus: she is neither a marginal mythological curiosity nor a mere allegory of chance, but a persistent archetypal presence through which thinkers from von Franz to Hillman, Greene to Place, interrogate the relationship between psyche and fate. The corpus treats her along two principal axes. The first is cosmological-theological: as a synthesis of Tyche, Nemesis, and Necessity, Fortuna crystallizes the ancient problem of whether events befall the soul from without or arise from within — the wheel being her supreme emblem of blind, cyclical compulsion. The second is psychological: her wheel functions as a mirror for consciousness, exposing the ego’s fantasy of control and inviting reflection on the rhythm of ascent and descent that governs both outer circumstance and inner transformation. Von Franz situates her among numinous time-gods — alongside Kairos and Nike — as that ‘blind force which in the course of time carries some people upward to luck and success.’ Hillman, reading the Renaissance, sees her wheel as the containing image for the soul’s inherent polyvalence, its capacity to hold multiple directions simultaneously. Greene, working through the astrological tradition, links Fortuna’s ‘bad house’ (Mala Fortuna) to fate’s pathological dimension. The Tarot commentators — Place, Nichols, Pollack, Jodorowsky — transform her into a card-image confronting the self with alternation, inevitability, and the necessity of surrender. Together these voices articulate Fortuna not as determinism but as a call to a more conscious relation to the uncontrollable.
And Fortuna, with her wheel! She is actually an old mother goddess but later became the symbol of that blind force which in the course of time carries some people upward to luck and suc
Von Franz identifies Fortuna as an ancient mother-goddess archetype who evolved into the symbol of impersonal temporal force elevating and crushing human beings by turns, placing her among a pantheon of numinous time-deities.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014thesis
All of these goddesses were combined to form the Roman Fortuna. As we saw in Plato’s myth of the afterlife and soul’s journey toward reincarnation that he included in The Republic, Necessity-Fortuna’s wheel is
Place traces the genealogy of Fortuna from Tyche, Nemesis, and Necessity, establishing her as a composite figure whose wheel connects Platonic mythology of the soul’s journey to Renaissance iconography.
, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, 2005thesis
It was like another favorite image, Fortuna, on whose great wheel were innumerably different directions, which multip
Hillman reads Fortuna’s wheel as a Renaissance psychological image of the soul’s inherent polyvalence, functioning like Proteus as a containing presence for the psyche’s multiple and contradictory directions.
, Re-Visioning Psychology, 1975thesis
can the arbitrary spontaneity of Tyche (luck) who became Lady Fortuna in the Renaissance be managed by any strategy at all? Whether we use magical means or ones more Athenian (predictions based on statistical probabilities), each individual event is essentially anomalous
Hillman poses Fortuna/Tyche as the archetypal challenge to every rational strategy, arguing that her domain of anomalous spontaneity resists both magical and statistical mastery.
, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis
The Moon was associated in medieval times with the goddess Fortuna, whom some of you will recognise in the card of the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot deck.
Greene links Fortuna directly to the Moon as an astrological archetype, citing the Carmina Burana’s invocation of Fortune’s lunar changeability to illuminate the Moon’s psychological meaning as cyclical, capricious fate.
, The Luminaries: The Psychology of the Sun and Moon in the Horoscope, 1992thesis
This house is called Mala Fortuna [Bad Fortune] because it is the house of Mars.
Greene documents the astrological tradition’s literalization of Fortuna through the concept of Mala Fortuna, showing how fate’s malefic dimension was architecturally embedded in the horoscope’s sixth house.
, The Astrology of Fate, 1984supporting
In this card we see two odd-looking animals revolving helplessly on Fortune’s ever turning Wheel. The animals wear human dress. Is the Tarot trying to tell us that we, like these animals, are trapped in the endless predestined round of Fortune’s Wheel?
Nichols frames the Wheel of Fortune card as a Jungian question about human bondage to fate versus the possibility of conscious transcendence, reading its iconography through the opposition of fate and free will.
, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, 1980supporting
The Wheel of Fortune invites reflection upon inevitable alternations of ascents and falls, of prosperity and austerity, of joy and sorrow. It orients us toward change, whether positive or negative, and acceptance of the constant transformation of reality.
Jodorowsky interprets the Wheel of Fortune as a spiritual teacher of impermanence, orienting consciousness toward acceptance of cyclical change rather than resistance to fate.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
the sphinx has risen above the wheel. If we allow the unconscious to speak we will sense some great secret to life, more import
Pollack reads the Wheel of Fortune as a psychological image in which the sphinx’s elevation above Fortune’s mechanism represents the possibility of the unconscious revealing a truth that transcends cyclical fate.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting
These three monkeys are related to the three Fates in that they represent the past, the presen
Place identifies the Marseilles Wheel’s monkey figures with the three Fates, connecting Fortuna’s iconography to the Parcae and the tripartite structure of time as past, present, and future.
, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, 2005supporting
The situation of the Hindu despot forsaken by Fortune (śrī), crushed by Fate (daivam), engulfed by Time (kāla), is like that of Napoleon on the rocks at Saint Helena.
Zimmer draws a cross-cultural comparison between the Hindu goddess Śrī (fortune) and Fortuna, using the figure of Napoleon to illustrate the universal archetype of the hero abandoned by fortune and overcome by cyclical time.
, Philosophies of India, 1951supporting
we may, therefore, hope to find some evidence connecting the Triumpho di Fortuna’s wheels, each with twenty-one divisions, with the twenty-one trumps
Place investigates the structural homology between Fanti’s Triumpho di Fortuna and the twenty-one Tarot trumps, situating Fortuna’s wheel within the Renaissance tradition of astrological and divinatory iconography.
, The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, 2005supporting
Fortuna, 203, 256n
An index entry confirming Fortuna’s presence in Re-Visioning Psychology, cross-referencing the page on which Hillman develops her significance as a Renaissance image of the soul’s polyvalence.
, Re-Visioning Psychology, 1975aside