A Psychological Interpretation

Pontius Pilate = Super Ego
Jesus = Ego
Water-Bearer = Id

There has always been debate about the number of Stations…
Is it fourteen or is it fifteen?
And what is a station anyway: a stationary point in the journey or a passage from one point to another?

Sensibly, The Condemnation, and the Receipt of the Cross must start the sequence, in that order, and also sensibly the Nailing, Death, Deposition and Entombment, in that order, must end the sequence unless one wishes to posit the un-canonical episodes as visions on the cross which we do not…

Which leaves eight icons and eight is the ‘Jesus number’.
It is difficult not to have the Stripping before the Nailing…
…which leaves seven icons.

Meeting the mother must come after the receipt for the cross is the symbol of the mother or of what she gives and the first fall follows for who wouldn’t stumble under the burden of such a weight?

Next come the women and Jesus’ injunction may simply be a statement which is followed by another fall for who could be so bold without being brought back down to earth?

Next comes Veronica who really provides the key and she is followed by another fall but by this time it no longer really matters which is where Simon comes in…

Simon stands in the same relation to Jesus…
…as Jesus stands in relation to Joseph.

Joseph = Higher Self

Simon = Lower Self

Strangely enough Jesus’ garment at the Condemnation more closely resembles the winding sheet of the tomb than the robe of the stations…

‘…And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time…’
– T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets