Particle System: How To Control Axis?

I bought that "Cartoon FX" particle system set that was on sale recently. My project is 2D, for now. I'd like to use the spell effects that show rotating mystical circles with particles flying out of them. However, I can't get effect to rotate such that it's in the XY plane, with the circles visible from our 2D perspective. What appears is sideways, so the ground circles are invisible.

How can I set the particle system such that the whole thing is just rotated 90 degrees around the X axis, so that we're seeing the spell effect from above instead of from the side? I've tried setting the transform rotation, and setting the "Simulation Space" to World instead of the default Local. Best I've been able to do is to rotate the particles but not the circles.