Sign: Scorpio | Sign Ruler: Mars | Decan Ruler: Sun | Element: Water | Mode: Fixed
Mars rules Scorpio by domicile, while the Sun rules this decan by face. The Sun has no major dignity in Scorpio and must operate within Mars’s hidden and penetrating realm. Solar authority therefore becomes inward, emphasising insight, influence, hidden knowledge, and command exercised through understanding rather than visibility.
Core Principle: Authority through knowledge.

Liber Hermetis
“The second decan of Scorpio has the face of the Sun. Its name is Turmantis. It causes the affliction of buboes. It is a man standing with his feet joined on the back of a scorpion, holding a great serpent with both feet on either side of his breast.”

Picatrix-Ibn Ezra
“In the second face of Scorpio ascends a man riding a camel, holding a scorpion in his hand. This is the face of knowledge, modesty, power, and of one speaking ill of another. This is its form.”

In the second decan of Scorpio, the Sun illuminates the nocturnal domicile of Mars, bringing authority to a realm more accustomed to concealment, intensity and guarded power. Far from his home ground in Leo where he expresses authority through visibility and recognition, the Sun in Scorpio develops new ways of exercising influence. Here, knowledge becomes a form of power. Following the confrontational struggle of Scorpio I, where Mars establishes strength through resistance, this face suggests a change in our relationship with danger. What was previously experienced as an adversary may now become something familiar, understood and even capable of being held. The threat may not have diminished, but our capacity to comprehend it has increased.

The ancient images speak of this transformation through extraordinary and dangerous looking creatures. Turmantis of the Liber Hermetis stands upon the back of a scorpion, holding a great serpent against his breast. The scorpion remains beneath his feet, while the serpent is close to the body, suggests that danger is all around, but under conscious control. The Picatrix similarly depicts a figure carrying a scorpion, associating the face with knowledge, modesty and power. Both traditions place the threatening creature in direct relationship with the human figure, rather than presenting it as an external enemy to be defeated; the potential for harm is still present, yet familiarity has altered the balance of power. The scorpion and the serpent are now emblems of knowledge gained through engaging with what was feared; the mastery gained when fear has not been allowed to govern our actions.

The Golden Dawn assigns this decan to the Six of Cups, traditionally entitled Pleasure. At first sight, the correspondence does not reconcile with the ancient imagery, which emphasises dangerous creatures, concealed knowledge and the controlled exercise of power. In Scorpio I we confronted danger through resistance and conflict, leaving behind the sadness represented by the Five of Cups. In Scorpio II we do not recover emotional ease by returning to innocence, but by changing our relationship with fear. Pleasure becomes possible because the threat no longer demands constant resistance. The Six of Cups therefore suggests a quieter form of enjoyment, arising from familiarity, confidence and the discovery that our suffering does not need to dominate our experience.

We arrive here having learned something about the nature of our loss. The initial struggle against what has happened may have exhausted itself, leaving a more intimate acquaintance with grief and its unpredictable movements. We begin to recognise the circumstances that awaken sorrow, the memories that carry particular weight, and the ways in which absence continues to inhabit ordinary life, and we learn to live alongside the pain. The scorpion can remain beneath our feet without requiring every moment of our attention, while the serpent may be held close without overwhelming us. Gradually, small pleasures become available again, our experiences can coexist with grief; a familiar place, a shared memory, or an unexpected moment of happiness may be enjoyed without denying what has been lost.

The shadow of this face lies in the temptation to confuse understanding with mastery; the Sun seeks authority, and in Scorpio knowledge may become a means of controlling what feels uncertain or dangerous. We may believe that if grief can be sufficiently examined, explained or contained, it can be prevented from disturbing us, but the ancient figures instruct us differently. The scorpion remains a scorpion, and the serpent has not surrendered its nature, but their proximity demands awareness. Understanding this helps us to form a different relationship with suffering, rather than immunity from it; there is a delicate distinction between carrying grief with confidence and attempting to keep it permanently under control.

The Keeper of Secrets teaches that knowledge can transform our relationship with suffering without requiring its disappearance. What was once an adversary becomes something we have learned to recognise, and the strength previously devoted to resistance may gradually become available for living. The pleasure of the Six of Cups is not the recovery of an untouched past, but the discovery that happiness can return to a life permanently altered by loss. We no longer need to defeat the scorpion or release the serpent in order to find peace; we need only recognise that their presence does not constitute the whole of our existence. Grief remains part of what we know, but it is no longer the only truth we carry.