26:8 · The circle with a point at its center is ancient. This ideogram seems to have been used in every cultural sphere on earth. Wherever it appears, it has the same meaning: the sun or something that is closely associated with the sun, such as hydrogen (in Dalton's nineteenth-century chemistry). It can mean sunshine in a meteorological system, gold in alchemy, plant with a one year life cycle (one sun cycle) in botany, driving wheel on locomotives as a railway ideogram, and here live bad-tempered people in both the British and the US systems of hobo signs. On nautical charts is used for chimneys, towers, and high structures in general, visible from the sea.
    The sun sign is one of the oldest gestalts in Western ideography. See "Basic western ideographic structures" in the Appendices. The scholars of the Middle Ages, who with their narrowminded authoritarian beliefsystem confused the roles of the earth and the sun in the galaxy, used as a sign for the earth surrounded by the great ocean. For a sign with a similar meaning, see in Group 24.
    In Cabbalistic mysticism, the archangel Michael was related to the sun and the day of the sun, Sunday. Thus was the sign used to represent that archangel.
    When is not used in direct association with the sun or gold, in modern ideography it most often indicates a center. This is the case in cartography and blueprints of different types. In the same way the Swedish boy-scouts use it to mean I have gone home (the center for a child is home).
    Although is found in practically every type of culture and in all periods of history, there are exceptions. In Babylon, for example, the sun was represented by the ideogram , a fourpointed star with wavy radiation lines emanating from its center. In other regions the sun was represented by a disc with outstretched wings on both sides. Count d'Alviella claimed, in his famous book on the migration of symbols throughout the world, that both signs from ancient India, such as , and pre-Columbian American signs such as , the three-leg, , and the swastika, were sun symbols .
    In esoteric astrology represents the creative spark of divine consciousness that exists in every individual linking him or her to the source and origin of life, and making him or her the co-creator of the world. This spark of consciousness is the self ("I think, thus I am," as Descartes expressed it). In astrological psychology stands for the desire to live and the individual's life energy. This life energy is "coloured" by the zodiac sign in which is positioned at the moment of the individual's birth, according to astrologers.
    In the body symbolizes the heart, the blood circulation and the backbone. As a symbol for people in an individual's life in the birth chart it represents men in general, people in positions of authority, and political and religious leaders. It is also related to the image of the father. rules , the zodiac sign Leo. See Group 50 for data about that zodiac sign.
    Other sun symbols are , , , , and .