Observations placeholder
Wirth, Oswald – 19 The Sun
Identifier
028337
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The Sun is an archetype for the masculine, rather than a specific stage of the spiritual path or helper. It is a column in the Sephirot, there is a masculine column and a feminine column, the two split at Yesod, but rejoin at Keter, unless thereis perfect balance when the central column [androgyny masculine and feminine] march together.
The archetype used in Greek myth to represent this column is Apollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: Ἀπόλλων, ; Latin: Apollō). He is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun, Light, poetry, and many more.
Other names include Sol and Apulu, all synonyms. Symbolically the Sun represents the masculine and the Moon the feminine. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis - goddess of the Moon,also known as Luna or Diana.
The jester's three pointed hat is a reflection of these three paths.
A description of the experience
The Tarot of the Magicians – Oswald Wirth English translation 1985 Samuel Weiser.
First published in Paris in 1927 under the original title: Le Tarot, des lmagiers du Moyen Age
The vicissitudes which the Moon affords us are the indispensable trials which lead us to the light of the Sun. We only reach the light after languishing in the darkness and going astray through error. We do perforce make mistakes in a painful way in order to learn at our own expense the art of discerning the false from the true and finding our bearings towards the point on the horizon from which the light will burst forth. The trials of earthly life have no other object but that of our instruction; let us learn how to take advantage of their lessons, and initiation will be our reward.
To reach this the traditional purifications are essential. They aim at making our opaque layers, which enclose us, transparent, so that the true light of our world, that of the Sun, may penetrate us.
It is not a question now of a deceptive light like that of the Moon, which lends itself to errors and does not allow us to distinguish objects with complete certainty. The Sun reveals the reality of things and shows them as they really are without the veil of any illusion. The fog clears and the ghosts vanish in its presence. It is in this sense that the incarnated soul finds in the Sun its promised Redeemer. The soul is not condemned to struggle in the heart of matter except with a view of purifying itself in order to make possible the union of the spiritual, imprisoned in the flesh, with universal spirituality.
Now let us consider arcana 19 whose symbolism is clear. The young couple holding each other tenderly entwined in the centre of a circle of green dotted with flowers. They represent the individual soul in harmony with the spirit whose feelings are married to reason; that is to say agreement and harmony realized on a small scale within the sphere of human personality, straining to be realized on a large scale in humanity as a whole, universal regeneration.
When men become reasonable, when the redeeming light of the Sun has freed them from their errors, then they will find Paradise again, not the Paradise of man's early and innocent idleness, but the laborious Eden of civilization today, in which complete peace through mutual help will lighten all tasks.
Its realization must be sought through individuals. Let each of us begin by self-regeneration before dreaming of a social and widely human one. While stones are cut without a set square, no solid wall could be constructed. Now, before building the great Temple in which all men will commune, we must erect ramparts against the remaining barbarity, which is brutal and opposed to man's brotherhood....................
May the Tarot enable the lost to return to wisdom, the lost who anticipate a golden age achieved through force. Blind hatred nurtured by the fanatics of class struggle can only increase human misery. Only the spirit of enlightened intelligence (by the Sun) will bring about earthly happiness by the harmonious working together of opposing social groups reconciled by reciprocal understanding. Arguments which are addressed only to the intelligence do not have the gift of moving men's hearts to bring them closely together. What binds is truly religious and proceeds by good feeling from the heart, much more than from the brain….
……………wise men not happy at being enlightened in a cold manner, are filled with a great warmth which inspires acts of constant moral beauty.
The double action of the Sun's rays, that of giving light and heat, is shown by the alternating beams, straight or flamboyant, golden or red from the great life giving star. The number of these beams relates them to the number twelve of the zodiac, hence to the cyclical work which regulates the seasons and all earthly life.
............................The Sun enriches its children spiritually. The gold which it lavishes upon them is not the metal which tempts the avaricious, it is the Philosopher's Gold of the true disciples of Hermes. The initiated create no illusion about the value of things and yet they possess all because they covet nothing. They desire only what they need with a view to accomplishing their task.......................
......................The happiness which they enjoy could not be taken away from them, for it is they who create it. Far from any selfish bliss, as anists they admire the work of God and associate their whole being with it, vibrating with all that is within them. As appreciators of beauty they bear the redeeming light into the heart of the tumultuous confusion which is born out of the strife of blind human passions. As participants in the Great Work of universal Redemption, they help to raise man from his first fall (arcana 16) and they work to restore him to his dignity as a divine being.