Meaning
Smith's Sun is a naked child with a wreath of flowers riding a white horse bareback and holding up a large red banner. Above, a sun with a face sends out rays both straight and wavy, and tall sunflowers lean over a grey garden wall behind. Waite reads the sun as consciousness in the spirit, the direct light as against the Moon's reflected light, and the child as simplicity that has become wisdom.
The Golden Dawn gave the card Resh, a double letter glossed as head, and the Sun itself, and titled it the Lord of the Fire of the World. On the order's tree it is path 30.
We read the card as clear light: warmth, plainness, and the ease of a person with nothing to hide. Waite's short fortune-telling list for it, material happiness and a fortunate marriage, is quoted below as his.
In the birth cards
The Sun begins the only three-card chain in Greer's method. A total of 19 gives the Sun as Personality card, then 1 + 9 = 10, the Wheel of Fortune, then 1 + 0 = 1, the Magician. Greer reads the Magician as the Soul card and the Wheel as a Teacher card; the Tarot School and most calculators count all three as birth cards. It happens on 6.2 percent of the days from 1900 to 2030.
A total of 19 occurs only for births up to 1988 and again from 2046: for everyone born in between, the Sun can be a Hidden Factor, for a 10-1, but not a Personality card. Counted that way it is a Hidden Factor on 4.9 percent of days.
The trump is not the card of any sign, but the Sun as a body gives every chart two cards: the Sun-sign card and the Sun decan card. As a year card the trump comes 10 times in the 201 years from 1900 to 2100 for a 15 June birthday.
History and names
In the Marseille decks the card is Le Soleil, numbered XVIIII in their manner, a great sun shining above figures on the ground. Smith replaced them with the single child on horseback.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Golden Dawn title (Book T)
- “The Lord of the Fire of the World” sourced
- Waite's fortune-telling list (1911), upright
- “Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment”, quoted as history; Waite called such meanings artificial and arbitrary sourced
- Greer's name for the constellation
- Will and Focused Consciousness (1987, 2021) sourced
- Our line for the birth-card chain
- 19-10-1: Will that shines through every turn our construction
- Role in 19-10-1
- Personality card; the Magician is the Soul card and the Wheel the Teacher card in Greer's chart sourced
How the schools read it
- Game decks (15th to 18th century)
- Le Soleil, numbered XVIIII: a great sun shining above figures on the ground.
- Golden Dawn, Book T
- Resh, the head, a double letter, and the Sun; path 30. Book T titles it the Lord of the Fire of the World.
- Waite and Smith (1909 to 1911)
- Consciousness in the spirit, the direct light against the Moon's reflected one; the child is simplicity that has become wisdom.
- Mary K. Greer (1984 to 2021)
- In the constellation of 1 with the Magician and the Wheel. The Personality card of 19-10-1, with the Magician as Soul card and the Wheel as Teacher; the Hidden Factor of a 10-1.
- The Tarot School and most calculators
- A total of 19 gives three equal birth cards: the Sun, the Wheel and the Magician.
- EsoTerrier
- Read here as clear light: warmth, plainness, and the ease of a person with nothing to hide.
Claims about it
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For a total of 19 the Sun, the Wheel and the Magician are three equal birth cards.
disputedWhat the record shows: So in most calculators. Greer reads the Wheel as a Teacher card between the Sun and the Magician, and our chart follows her.
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The Sun promises happiness, marriage or wealth.
falseWhat the record shows: Those are in Waite's fortune-telling list, quoted as history.
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Resh and the Sun are the card's ancient correspondences.
disputedWhat the record shows: They are the Golden Dawn's, from about 1888.
