Jodorowsky & Camoin: The Sun

[Rusty Neon]

With the aid of Jodorowsky's new book, we can make out features of the Sun card of the Jodo-Camoin Tarot de Marseille deck that are not evident on a casual look at the card.

In this opening post to the thread, two such features will be discussed. These features are vague or debatable in the imagery of the Bibliothèque Nationale 1760 Conver TdM.

These two features can, arguably, change aspects of the interpretation of the card.

A first feature is that there is a body of water in the card, in the blue-coloured area between the green-coloured area closest to the wall and the white area at the front of the card.

A second feature is that the figure on the left hand side of the card is blind. Arguably, we see the figure on the right supporting the figure on the left, still in the water, to reach land. I find it interesting that a blind person, who cannot see, should be depicted in the Sun card, the card of light and illumination.

 

[jmd]

Thankyou Rusty Neon.

For the sake of cross-reference, it should be noted that the Flornoys have also made a similar note in the main thread on XVIIII Le Soleil.

Therein, mention is made that perhaps the two are as upon an island, though it would seem that on the Camoin deck one (the 'sighted' one) is on land, whilst the other walks on water.

Though mention has also been made of the triple nipple in the thread linked above (though often depicted on the left-hand person), I wonder what Jodorowski also says of either this latter's tail, or the triple nipple/dots?

...or of their red collars, and whether they relate this to a liberation from imprisonment from XV.

 

[Rusty Neon]

jmd ... Jodorowsky draws a number of analogies between the Devil card and the Sun card:

• Both the devil and the sun are squinting a bit.
  
• "One could think that the devil illuminated the sun with his flame."
  
• The two figures in the Sun card can be linked to the two imps in the Devil card by the tail of the left-hand figure in the Sun card and the three dots on the side of the right-hand figure in the Sun card. "The tail is a vestige of his animal nature."
  
• "From the shackles [in the Devil card], the [figures in the Sun card] have only kept an active red collar at the neck, place of passage, and a line of demarcation oin the chest between the right and left sides of the chest, division and union between active and receptive."

"The figure on the right hand side [of the Sun card] is standing on a piece of white ground that is as if purified. Between his legs, the scenery is replaced by a pure, azure-coloured space. It seems that he has passed into another dimension, more spiritual, than the other side of this river, on whose waters the second figure walks to join him, aided by the movement of his hand. One can see in these twins a metaphor of interior work: the conscious part of the being aids the animal part, more primitive, to reach a different reality. The adult guides the inner child towards joy."

There is some other symbolism in this card explained by Jodo, which I can cover in a further post to this thread.

 

[Jewel-ry]

Hi Rusty,

Perhaps one of the messages is that you don't have to physically be able to see, in order to 'see'. That understanding, truth and light are with us whether we have eyes or not? We are what is inside. The Moon hides things from us, the Sun illuminates. It gives us clarity and illumination which come from within not from what is in the physical world.

J

 

[Rafaël]

C.-J.'s LE SOLEIL

You probably noticed that the position of the left hand side figure’s feet are identical to the position of Le Mat’s feet… They both go in the same direction. They seem the only two figures of the C-J deck that actually move (I don’t think the skeleton in arcane XIII moves, for he would cut off his foot). For me it meens the Soleil figure is moving on a spiritual path.

I have been told that the 3 spots are a sign of the initiate. The white “island” would than be Heliopolis, the city of the initiate (Greek tradition). The right hand figure guides the newly initiate to the city of Heliopolis (also Schamballa). The strange expression on his face would be more of amazemend, something like wondering how the “hell” he made it up to here =
I think the right hand side figure is indeed already in another dimension. One more stage and they will reach their destination...

 

[smleite]

When Rafaël says that “one more stage and they will reach their destination”, it reminds me of what I have written in another thread (Tarot History & Iconography > Historical Research > Card sequence: Star, Moon, Sun in the Tarot & some discussions on the Minchiate): “the fracture caused in Man by the immersion in the dual world of matter is again present in The Sun car, where the initiate, after this death and rebirth, faces his “lost part” again, in Paradise recovered – though duality is still there, and integration was not made yet. It will be, in due time”.

I also like to think about these two figures as the chained figures at the Devil’s feet, in arcane number XV, now free, but still “blinking” (or even blinded) by the Sun light. As would happen to man in Plato’s cave, once brought to the light:

“suppose once more, that he /the imprisoned man/ is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.
Not all in a moment, he said.
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
Certainly.
Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.” (Plato, Book VII of The Republic, The Allegory of the Cave)

Last of he will be able to see the sun…

Silvia

 

[Fulgour]

Coming out of the water, with yet a tail behind, and welcoming
back the weary land-dweller seems a full-circle completion.
Darwin mostly got evolution wrong, and it was nothing new.