The reddest red Sun in our hearts

And Satan came among them, saying: I am also a son of God

-- Moses 5:13

There's a bad Sun on the rise

The red sun is the evil sun. I've already discussed how Superman derives his powers from the "yellow" sun of Earth and is rendered helpless by the red sun of Krypton.

Superman's home world, with its red sun, takes its name from the element krypton -- atomic number 36.

A longstanding occult tradition associates each of the astrological "planets" with a particular magic square. The planets are put in their Ptolemaic order (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) and assigned magic squares accordingly, with the smallest square being assigned to the most distant planet. Thus, a 3-by-3 magic square (the smallest possible, excluding the trivial case of 1) is associated with Saturn and a 9-by-9 square with the Moon. The 6-by-6 magic square, then, belongs to the Sun.

This magic square contains the first 36 natural numbers -- the atomic number of krypton -- the sum of which is 666, the biblical number of the beast. Thus is Krypton associated with the idea of an evil sun. And, as we know from Superman, this evil sun is red.

While the best known characters in Rudolf Steiner's demonology are Lucifer and Ahriman, he also wrote of a "Sun-Demon" called Sorath -- a name so created as to add up to 666 in Hebrew (samekh vau resh tau = 60 + 6 + 200 + 400 = 666).

One describes the Christ-Being as the genius of the sun who unites himself with the earth and becomes also the genius of the earth. . . . But there is also an opposing principle to the Lamb, there is also a Sun-Demon, the so-called Demon of the Sun, that which works in the evil forces of man, thrusting back the force of the Lamb . . . Sorath is the name of the Sun-Demon, the adversary of the Lamb. . . .  and this, if we convert the several letters into their numbers [in Hebrew gematria] is a very veiled way of expressing 666.

The passage I have quoted is interesting because it introduces two opposing solar beings. Christ is "the genius of the sun who unites himself with the earth and becomes also the genius of the earth" -- i.e., he is specifically the Sun of Earth. In opposition to this good genius is Sorath, the evil "Demon of the Sun," whose number is 666. This is the sum of all the natural numbers from 1 to 36, and 36 is the number of krypton. Thus, in opposition to the Sun of Earth, the Sun of Krypton.

There is a good Sun, then, and an evil one, and the Tarot card called the Sun embraces both in its symbolism. This post will look at what might be called, if the expression can be permitted, the dark side of the Sun -- its aspect as the Red Sun of Krypton.

⁂

The East Is Red

A red sun . . . a demonic red sun . . . hmm, what does that remind me of? 'Tis the east, and Chairman Mao is the sun! Yes, when he wasn't busy earning his Nobel Prize in Killing People, the Chairman pursued a second career as a sun-god.

毛主席是我們心中的紅太陽
Chairman Mao is a red sun in our hearts

Comparing the ruler to the Sun is nothing new, of course -- what else is a crown than a representation of the Sun's "golden" rays? -- but Mao (whose surname means "hair"; Samson again!) stands out as a red Sun -- you know, the evil kind. And not just red, super-duper-red. For the title of this post, I've loosely translated a common Maoist slogan as "the reddest red sun in our hearts" -- but the original Chinese actually calls him "the reddest reddest red sun" (最紅最紅的紅太陽) -- and that, my friends, is pretty damn red. It’s like, how much more red could Chairman Mao be? And the answer is none. None more red. This is a guy who clearly didn't want anyone mistaking him for the Yellow Sun of Earth. (Yellow, incidentally, was the traditional color of the Sons of Heaven who ruled before the revolution, the words for yellow and emperor being homophones.)

The Tarot shows the Sun as yellow -- or, occasionally, green -- never as red. However, other aspects of Red Sun propaganda are echoed in the Rider-Waite card. It is scarcely surprising that the Reddest Red Sun tends to shine down on the red flag of revolution, as seen above. Sunflowers were also a popular theme, the idea being that the people follow Chairman Mao just as faithfully as sunflowers follow the Yellow Sun of Earth. The example below is one of many I could have chosen.

敬愛的毛主席，我們永遠忠於您！
Dear Chairman Mao, we will always be loyal to you!

The Sun card also features a wall, and I thought perhaps I could find a few propaganda posters of the Reddest Red Sun shining down on the Great Wall of China -- but no such luck. The Great Wall was, it turns out, seen as a symbol of feudalism and -- despite Mao's obvious respect for Qin Shi Huang's pioneering work in "burning books and burying scholars" -- was ignored by the Reds. White horses are for similar reasons conspicuous by their absence.

⁂

You say you want a revolution

This whole deep dive into the symbolism of the Sun card was precipitated by Richard Arrowsmith's observation that the Rider-Waite card -- despite being published when the Qing dynasty still ruled -- alludes to the bloody flag of the People's Republic of China.

The large star is the Sun, the four small stars are the sunflowers, and the red flag is the red flag.

Before the People's Republic of China, though, there was the common-or-garden Republic of China -- in exile in Taiwan since Mao took power -- and their flag is also alluded to by the Rider-Waite card.

Red flag, blue sky, Sun -- check, check, and check. It is interesting to note that this flag, called the "Blue Sky, White Sun, Wholly Red Earth," recognizes the true color of the "Yellow" Sun of Earth.

And before that, there was the Wuhan Battle Flag -- also red with a sun-like design.

The original Wuhan flag was the "Iron Blood 18-Star Flag," from the 18 provinces of China proper. Later one more star was added to appease the Manchurians -- bringing the total to 19, the number of the Sun card and also of another famous Wuhan product.

And before that there was the Qing Dynasty, whose flag actually looks Chinese and has nothing to do with the Tarot. It is only the revolutionary flags of China that are prefigured by the Sun card. More generally, a red banner is a universally understood symbol of revolution, and the crowned baby on a white horse represents the "Year Zero" mentality of all such movements.

In addition to its political meaning, revolution refers to the motion of the Earth around the Sun -- or, before the Copernican Revolution, of the Sun around the Earth.

The Beatles' White Album contains two songs called "Revolution" -- "Revolution 1" and "Revolution 9" -- 1 and 9 -- 19. "Revolution 9" is just a collage of noise, but "Revolution 1" has lyrics. And when the lyrics need to cite the name of some particular revolutionary, who do they choose as an example? Ho Chi Minh? Robespierre? Hitler? Lenin? Che Guevara? George Washington? No, you all know the line.

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow