The Sun Tarot definitions

Quite simply, the Sun indicates wealth, success, and happiness in the family. Look to the surrounding cards for where that wealth and success might come from. When weak, the Sun indicates the reversal of fortunes and problems in the family.

• Rider-Waite: The Sun

  The naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a red standard has been mentioned already as the better symbolism connected with this card. It is the destiny of the Supernatural East and the great and holy light which goes before the endless procession of humanity, coming out from the walled garden of the sensitive life and passing on the journey home. The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come, which goes before aspiration and is typified by the heart of a child.

  But the last allusion is again the key to a different form or aspect of the symbolism. The sun is that of consciousness in the spirit - the direct as the antithesis of the reflected light. The characteristic type of humanity has become a little child therein - a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom. In that simplicity, he bears the seal of Nature and of Art; in that innocence, he signifies the restored world. When the self-knowing spirit has dawned in the consciousness above the natural mind, that mind in its renewal leads forth the animal nature in a state of perfect conformity.

  Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment.

  Reversed Card meanings

  The same in a lesser sense.

• Book of Thoth: The Sun

  Give forth thy light to all without doubt;
  the clouds and shadows are no matter for thee.
  Make Speech and Silence, Energy and Stillness,
  twin forms of thy play.

  Glory, gain, riches, triumph, pleasure, frankness, truth, shamelessness, arrogance, vanity, manifestation, recovery from sickness, but sometimes sudden death.

  The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent. Note that even when reversed, there is only a diminution of the interpretation, not necessarily the reverse. This is a good card to see.

  More information

• Golden Dawn - Lord of the Fire of the World

  Glory, gain, riches. Arrogance, display, vanity.

• Mathers: The Sun

  Happiness, Content, Joy.

  Reversed Card meanings

  These in a minor degree.

• Etteilla: Enlightenment

  Light, Explanation. Clarity, Glory, Heaven and Earth. Philosophic Sulfur.

  Reversed Card meanings

  Fire. Heat, Glimmer. Conflagration. Flame, Passions. Meteors; Lightning Flash, Thunderbolt. Inner, Outer, and Philosophic Fire.

• Thierens: XIX. The Sun.

  "The walls indicate, that we are still in the visible, or material world." (P.) This relates to the picture which shows a child on horseback — or two children as in the older editions of the card — playing beneath the bright Sun and evidently within a walled enclosure. So far so good: we are and we remain in this world. And for the rest the Sun is the Sun and this card means everything that astrology can tell about the Sun, in every respect and on all planes. It means the positive or masculine elements in general, the power and function of will and concentration, great benefit and mighty protection in spiritual as well as in mundane life and matters. It may signify the father of the querent and high authorities, king, president, ruler, etc. The spiritual centre of man and the centre of importance in everything is indicated by it. Physically it indicates the heart and the solar-plexus.

  The protecting power of the Sun is well illustrated by "the hieroglyphic value of the Hebrew letter Quoph, which expresses a sharp weapon, everything that is useful to man, that defends him and makes an effort for him." (P.).

  In a figure laid for divination this card indicates the centre of interest and that which is fixed, certain, assured and under protection.

• Ouspensky: Card XIX - THE SUN

  The Symbol and manifestation of the tetragrammaton. Creative power. Fire of life.

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  As soon as I perceived the Sun, I understood that It, Itself, is the expression of the Fiery Word and the sign of the Emperor.

  The great luminary shone with an intense heat upon the large golden heads of sun-flowers.

  And I saw a naked boy, whose head was wreathed with roses, galloping on a white horse and waving a bright-red banner.

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  I shut my eyes for a moment and when I opened them again I saw that each ray of the Sun is the sceptre of the Emperor and bears life. And I saw how under the concentration of these rays the mystic flowers of the waters open and receive the rays into themselves and how all Nature is constantly born from the union of two principles.