Red flag on the SUN card

Corvinus

Any ideas on the red flag hes holding?
 

lark

It's usually called a Banner so if you look it up that would be a good place to start.
It can mean energy, action, and freedom from the material world.
He carries it easily, it's no burden to him.
The banner is in his left hand so that usually means that his level of awareness has passed from his conscious self to his subconscious self, and it has become automatic for him to think this way now.
He is super conscious..like when you become enlightened....
and he has realised that happiness, joy, harmony and beauty are within, and That gives him the freedom to move past the wall in the card...and bring those feelings with him where ever he goes.
I like to think of the banner as a team flag, it shows others, HEY I GOT IT!
I look at the world in a whole new way.
 

Abrac

Waite seems to have gotten the idea from Levi, who in turn got it from older tarot cards.

In Dogma et Rituel de la Haute Magie, Levi wrote "Other Tarots substitute a spinner unwinding destinies, and yet others a naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet standard." The only color example of this type of Sun card that I've seen is from the Vieville and its banner is red and black (or dark blue). Waite specifically mentions Levi's quote in the PK so that's probably where he got the idea for a red standard.

Paul Huson writes in Mystical Origins of the Tarot, "An interesting design for the Sun that appears on seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries tarots of the Belgian pattern depicts a single boy, sometimes naked, riding a horse and carrying a banner."

I think to Waite it may have symbolized "the restored world" (he uses this phrase in his comment in the PK), and may have Christian implications. This is also the card that has the famous word "Love" in tiny letters below Smith's monogram. :)
 

KariRoad

I'd say, look at all the RED on some of the other cards, mostly authoritarian types (at least when they're on the job) and then, here's the Sun-child with a "free as the breeze" red banner, whilst the bairns wearing nay a thing. XIX The Sun (Pisces) and the full-circle completion of the Tarot's circuit of the Zodiac.
 

Abrac

I think Waite may have had Isaiah 11 in mind when designing this card. It describes a future time of restoration and peace under the Messiah. Isaiah 11:6 is a well-known and frequently quoted verse: "In that day, the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all." Compare this to Waite's comment in the PK: "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.

In Christian art, the resurrected Christ is often depicted with a banner symbolizing victory over death and similar in appearance to the ones on older Sun cards. The Waite-Smith Sun card also symbolizes a resurrection of sorts, the resurrection of humanity, Waite's "restored world" typified by the child. The red color may symbolize fire. Oftentimes red symbolizes the heart and love. Or it could be a nod to the Rosy Cross.
 

Bernice

Abrac:I think Waite may have had Isaiah 11 in mind when designing this card. It describes a future time of restoration and peace under the Messiah..................
Or...... maybe Waite 'translated' the Vieville image in that light?


Bee :)
 

euripides

I think the Vieville has a very different meaning - noting that the card preceeds Judgement; for me it's the Rider on the White Horse.


Revelation 19:11 (King James Version)

11And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

In naval tradition the red banner signifies no quarter will be given (I think I read that right). But with the happy nature of the RWS card, you'll need to find a new interpretation of the flag, I think.
 

Parzival

Red Flag On The Sun Card

I appreciate Abrac's specifics about this. It's not about end-time judgment, but about world/humanity transformation from weighed-down experience to wise innocence, with ultimate freedom and joy. It's a three-fold symbol of horse, flag, and child, together'd. Or: body (horse),soul (blood carries the soul, thus Mephisto has Faust sign with a drop of blood), and spirit (newborn child), in unity and harmony. It all has a weightlessness and freedom and joy about it -- as if the whole universe with humanity has a great laugh of relief.
 

ragman

To me the banner shows the flow of 'energy in motion' coming from the sun down to Earth.

Love all
ragman
 

lucifall

The Banner and the veil of justice.

Abrac said:
Waite seems to have gotten the idea from Levi, who in turn got it from older tarot cards.
In Dogma et Rituel de la Haute Magie, Levi wrote "Other Tarots substitute a spinner unwinding destinies, and yet others a naked child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet standard."

This great, in his time, misunderstood, Mr Constant, speaks of a scarlet banner. Eliphas Levi was a great visionair. He predicted everything we only know now,by scientific research, what seems to make us more sure than thousands of years hermetic research, onehundred and fifty years later. Quantum Theory is based on sayings of Levi for example. He predicted Light in Night, Warmth in Cold, Cold in Warmth long before it existed. He predicted the one side of the world could communicate with the other site.
When Levi, (And Case, and Waite, And Crowley), and, and, should live in this time Levi predicted, they should be able, grasp info in a Eye-blink. What should these great minds than would be able to, i wonder......

The flag of the SunChild of the RWS is Red. I think the flag should be as scarlet as the veil of Lady Justice or to put it better, this veil should be as scarlet as the flag of the Sun. The Veil is torned away. Nothing is veiled anymore. The SunCild is showing this victory of unveiling the mysteries of life and death by his banner, which should be scarlet as Mr Levi says.....

Light Lucifall