Valentine Tomberg tells us that the sun arcana represents ‘intuition’, which seems counterintuitive, as we usually associate intuition with the moon. His reasoning begins to make sense when we study the cards' order: the sun is the culmination of the ‘three lights’ following the star and the moon. The star gives us an inkling of a divine possibility (like the star of Bethlehem); the moon describes fragmentation and reflection—finally, the sun is the full expression of spontaneous wisdom and energy.
The sun shines beyond hope (the star) or doubt (the moon). Furthermore, Alejandro Jodorowsky says that the sun is a ‘great father’ archetype—as the moon is the great mother. The star is our innocence, the moon’s our experience, and the sun is the full integration of innocence and experience. According to Carl Jung, the child archetype represents the self with a capital S—meaning our heroic nature. We intuited this greater Self in the Star Arcana and developed depth and fearlessness in the shadowlands of the moon—the full-on spontaneous expression of the Self now occurs in bright open sunlight.
In the Marseilles arcana, the Sun shines on two childlike humanoids. One has a tail and stands on the water—symbolising the liminal space between animal and human nature; the other is on solid ground and seems to embrace him, perhaps pulling him onto dry land. These two beings represent a dual nature—the alien and human, the familiar and unfamiliar, the celestial and earthly, innocence and experience. In the Sun Arcana, these two sides are no longer alienated—they are dual but, at the same time, complimentary. Mystically speaking, the sun represents the non-duality (the all-pervasive light) of duality (the individuated human) and non-duality (the undifferentiated animal).
Interestingly, a wall is protecting the two children. This is like a circle of protection in magic or the walled garden of paradise—the etymology of paradise is literally a walled garden. In a protected space, we are free from negative influences and can let our spirits fly. We can directly experience the bright sun of reality without speculation, naive hope, wishful thinking, alienation, fear, and loathing. We can throw our reference books away, in a manner of speaking.
It is important to remember the sequential nature of the Tarot arcana, the quality of a journey from one station to another—even if all the cards are interconnected. The two humanoids are represented in earlier cards, in The Devil and The Tower, and later in Judgement. They move from being chained to the devil, falling from a Tower, or being wolves or dogs to being solar beings. There is a dynamic process of separation, unification, and illumination (which isn’t the end of the story—as we will find out when we look at Judgement).
We would also look at Nietzsche’s metamorphoses in Thus Spake Zarathustra, where the camel becomes the lion, who finally becomes the child—the Sun being the child card. The camel is the long, unhurried journey guided by the star; the moon, the lion-like maw of biological evolution; the sun, the overman who creates his own values. The sun child no longer imitates to learn. As the dancing child, he discovers a ‘second eternity’ in the noonday sun. Nietzsche learned how to hear his writing voice after he stopped reading.
Importantly, when Jesus said, ‘You must be a child to enter the kingdom of heaven’, he did not suggest we become childish imps. Instead, the realised Self—no longer needs to rely on second-hand book knowledge—he knows reality directly and spontaneously like a child. In the East, they call this kind of spontaneous expression crazy wisdom. Becoming a sun child means fully realising who we are beyond hope and fear, self-consciousness, anxiety, and self-loathing. The sun child is entirely himself; he has no timidity, doubt, or hesitation—he lives in exuberant celebration.
The sun child is, however, not Rousseau's ‘child of nature’ but a child of transcendence—this is why he comes later in the series—as a more mature expression. One can see this child in happy old people—a certain youthful gleam in the eye. The fully realised person never loses his childlike wonder and curiosity; he is entirely at home in the world. When the sun child laughs, he laughs; when he cries, he cries; when he is angry, he is infuriated. He has transcended the modern Hamlet in perpetual doubt; he doesn’t ask asking, ‘To be or not to be’ or whether to drink coffee or commit suicide as Albert Camus did. The sun child knows that he is.
From Tomberg's perspective, real intuition is not a mere second sense or feeling. It is a kind of clairvoyance: the ability to see what is beyond the horizon—a fluid intelligence or knowing that illuminates everything, like the sun. A wise person has this kind of intelligence—he may be wrong about the specifics, but he is connected to the whole picture. The sun child sees the whole and not just the part. He is the future and the source of being.
This article is part of a consideration of our study group on symbolism and Psychomagic. If you want to become a member and join one of our study groups, please write to me at andrewpgsweeny@gmail.com or check out the events calendar below for more details.
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