Typhon and Anubis
Typhon, the Greek name for the Egyptian god Set, slides down the Wheel of Fortune as a snake, while Hermanubis, the jackal-headed guide of the dead, rises on the other side.
In the tradition
Plutarch’s essay On Isis and Osiris tells how Typhon, the Greek name he gives the Egyptian Set, killed his brother Osiris. Anubis, the jackal god who watched over the dead, was merged with Hermes in Greek Egypt as Hermanubis.
On the wheel, one goes down as the other goes up. Lévi had already put the two on his wheel, and Waite kept them.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris (about 100 CE). The fullest classical account of the Osiris myth, where Typhon stands for the Egyptian Set.
- Éliphas Lévi, Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1854 to 1856). The French occultist whose readings of the trumps Waite often followed or argued with.
Updated October 9, 2026.
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