We’re entering the final chapters of our little Tarot book. Thinking about all that I’ve learned from the previous Keys and how much they’ve changed my life, I realize that there are so many people that I have to thank. Those many that made the effort to share with the rest of us.
The “story” goes that God first taught the Cabala to the angels, before the world was created. We humans received it three times after that. The archangel Raziel gave it to Adam and Eve as they were leaving the Garden of Eden. The Cabala was given to them so that we could find our way back to Paradise – the perfect GPS system. After awhile people lost interest in Paradise and were far more interested and preoccupied with the mundane world. The directions were lost – nothing had been written down, no back up made, no Google Search! OOPS!
God didn’t give up! Abraham, as part of God’s covenant with him, got the Cabala next. Once again, not written down. He verbally passed it on, but the information was lost while his heirs were living in Egypt. Finally, Moses was contacted, and he received it. This was shortly after the time he went up the mountain and got the 10 Commandments. He had come back down and rested.
The story goes that he was called back up again. With the Cabala revealed to him, and as an old, wise man, he wrote it all down to give to his priests. All of this is the “tradition”. The exact story is lost. His priests were a bit distracted at the time. So, the downside to the story was that he hid what he had written in a cave. The good news, a few centuries later it was found. Then it was published as the Sepher Yetzirah, or Book of Formation (or Creation). In 2004 a translation by Knut Stenring was published, which I’ve found to be very helpful.
So let’s continue our exploration of the Tarot. Key 19 the Sun symbolizes the fifth stage of spiritual unfoldment called Regeneration. We’d made it almost to the top of the mountain on the last card, the Moon. Through the use of meditation, plus learning how to create correct suggestions to our subconscious mind, both our body and our mind have been reorganized. We are now prepared to enter into a new state of awareness of our true inner nature. We will also have a fuller realization that we are an integral part of the Cosmos. This we will find on Key 19.
The Sun card is the bottom card of three cards in the 5th column of the Tarot Tableau. The first card at the top is the Teacher Key 5. He is the principle of Regeneration which expresses itself through the agency, or activity, of the 2nd card in the column called the Suspended Man Key 12. The result of this activity is the Sun Key 19. Let’s see how this works.
The identity and function of the Teacher card is that of hearing our Inner Self. The word “in-tuition” means instruction from within ourselves. This isn’t reasoning, it’s not like a hunch, but instead it’s receiving information, which is accurate, by having learned how to quiet your mind. A noisy mind will never hear him.
Below him is the Suspended Man, who is a demonstration of the Law of Reversal. Because we currently only operate from our material five senses, his condition seems to be a bit odd to us. Our entire awareness of everything in our lives, up to this point, only comes to us via our five senses. So the obstacles, or gatekeepers, to our being fully aware of the Spirit of Life, within us and all around us, are all of our five bodily senses. The Suspended Man teaches us how to wake them up by creating and using silence. By doing so we are able to land on the Sun card in a regenerated state.
And by the time you arrive on the Sun card, with the skill acquired from the Suspended Man, you are at the stage of the Hermit. You can clearly hear the Teacher at all times and you have acted upon his directions in order to reach the state of Illumination. You fully get how to work with your sub-conscious mind, aka your Secret Agent. So, at this point, you’ve acquired the skill to be able to control all of the material world around you. Wow! You, both in spirit and physically, are now a true vehicle, or receptacle, for the One Force of the Cosmos to operate through. But, at this point, you still see yourself as a separate entity.
Let’s see how the symbology of the card supports and conveys these ideas. Start with the number 19. The power 9 is operating through the number 1. The activity of a number is always right to left. In other words, the Hermit Key 9 is operating through the Magician Key 1. The Hermit is Universal Will, which is the free Will Power of the All. The Magician expresses personal self-consciousness. That’s you and me.
The next step is to put this together so you can see that the free Universal Will Power of the Cosmos is operating through, or on, the stage of personal self-consciousness on this card. You can do this simple 2-step exercise with all of the Tarot Key numbers that contain 2 numbers to get an idea as to what is happening on any of these cards. You may wish to go back to the previous cards and try this out!
Besides the name and the number associated with each card at the bottom of the picture, we also have 4 other symbols, or pictures, identified with each card located in the lower right hand corner. They are supplied to help you understand what is being expressed by a particular card. For the Sun Key we have the (1) Hebrew letter Resh, and we have the (2) letter meaning, which is head or face. Then we have the (3) ruling planet of this card, which is the Sun, and we have the (4) ruling zodiacal sign for this card, which is Leo. Having these helpful hints makes it a whole lot easier to grasp what’s going on.
These Tarot lessons were created before man could read or write. They were verbally passed on. Mankind used the annual cycles of the earth, and the movements of the heavens, the planets and stars, plus the magical qualities that he learned about nature, and the cultural nature of his fellow man to create the lessons taught here. That’s also true of the underlying mathematics and the arrangement of the symbols that are used. Much of that foundational knowledge is lost because we now read and write. But that life knowledge hasn’t really changed, just our perception of it. What functional life concept is being expressed when a particular planet or sign is mentioned in the Tarot? As the Tarot reveals itself to you, it also reveals Yourself to you.
Next, let’s look at the Hebrew letter Resh. Resh means the head and face of man. So let’s think about this. Within your head is your brain through which you rule your life, including your thinking about what’s being said here! Also, there are some very important sensory centers there. If you were running a company you’d be considered the head of the company. You would be its leader. So we’re looking at power, authority, and organizing abilities. So that’s one thing going on here. The sun is assigned to Resh.
The sun in many religions is considered the symbol for God. In the cabala the “Great Work” is considered the “Operation of the Sun”. The sun is the symbol for alchemical gold. Here the sun is yellow. Yellow, according to our color chart, signifies mental equilibrium and intellect. Yellow is also alchemical Mercury, which is the superconscious mind of mental activity. On this card we have direct experience of the Solar forces. You are initiated. You have received the transmission. You are no longer looking at Nature, but seeing into It.
Since the Sun is a significant attribute of this card, let’s delve a little deeper. Like an electric current, the radiance of the Sun enters our bodies through our sympathetic nervous system, located above and behind our heart. Our blood is supercharged with this solar current, spreading it throughout our bodies. The Sun rules the zodiacal sign Leo, which rules the heart, the back and the spinal column. Key 8 Strength is ruled by Leo. Strength’s primary attribute is the Law of Suggestion. With the use of this law, controlling the sub-conscious mind through right action and thinking, allows you to overcome the wild beast of Nature.
So tying this together, the serpent power of the Kundalini moves up the spinal column, igniting the seven chakras and bringing the Illumination. This must be done under safe conditions. And those conditions can be developed by following the directions of the Tarot through right action, the modification of your physical body, and listening to your Inner Teacher. And most important, the Life Force transmission must be made through the heart, not the mind. Through the heart the connection is made to the Christ, the Sun.
The Sun is exalted in the sign Aries, and this is represented in the Tarot by the Emperor. His function is sight, classification and reason. This tells us that mental imagery, in order to be useful, has to be looked at systematically. In addition, he is the benevolent Emperor, and his connection to the Life Force is through the heart.
Regeneration is the function of this card. On the Star card the eight wavy rays were not developed. They represent the feminine aspects of the Life Power. So here we see on the Sun that the equal development of the masculine Sun and the feminine Moon forms of energy. There are 48 beams distributed about the Sun. They are in groups of three, which express solution, preservation, and dissolution, the classic three processes of alchemy. Taking place here is a physiological as well as a psychological transformation. The chemistry of your body, even your cells, have changed. You are consciously aware at all times that you and the Creator are One.
An alchemist once said, “The Great Work is performed by the Sun and Moon, with the aid of Mercury.” This refers to Chapter Three of the Book of Formation, also called Book of Creation which, in essence, says that Man uses his will power (Mercury), to master his surrounding conditions of the Sun and the Moon. Needed to complete this, though, is more than personal effort. Required is an influx of power from the super-conscious level of Creation.
At this point along the Path, you’re having conversations with the Teacher, the Inner Self. This is a two-way conversation. The Sun has a face, it’s a living force. Our experience of the Sun is now at the most intimate level.
There are 13 Hebrew Yods in the sky around the Sun. The number 13 is the value of each of the two Hebrew words Unity and Love. This is to say, your current life experience has become an expression of Unity and Love. The letter Yod means an open hand, a creative hand. It is also the letter of the Hermit card. He depicts the Law of Response, the guiding light set out to show us the Way. Now we have become that guiding light. The ruling planet on the Hermit card is Mercury, another reference to the super-conscious mind of mental activity.
There are five sunflowers along the top of the stone wall. Four of them face the two children, one faces the Sun. At the center of each is the solar color orange. They represent the five stages, or kingdoms, of the development of form since the beginning of creation. An illustration of this is on the upper side of the Pythagorean triangle. Form begins at the mineral stage, then on up to the vegetable, then on to the animal, and then up to the natural man. That’s where we are. The fifth stage, the bud facing the Sun, is spiritual humanity, a place most of us have yet to experience.
The four sunflowers, below the stage of spiritualized humanity, face the two children. The four Sunflowers are totally dependent on the two children for their life because the children represent spiritualized humanity. The fifth sunflower, in bud form, also represents spiritualized humanity. That sunflower is looking directly at the Sun, not the two children, which it is equal to. Rather, it looks above itself, in Cabala this means within, to the Sun for life support.
The sunflowers rest upon a stone wall. The term stone in Hebrew is spelled EBN. Translated it means the Father and Son are one and inseparable. So, the forms of life rest on the underlying foundation that God and His creation are one. The stone wall has five layers. The five layers are a reference to our five senses and the experiences we have through them. The sundial represents time. The two children have their backs to both the wall and the sundial. They are beyond both their physical senses for experience, and the concept of time.
The two children are nude, just like Isis on the Star card. This express that truth is reveled to us, once again, by the two children. We create the veils that hide the truth from us, as we learned on the Deceiver card. Only ignorance gets in the way. These children, spiritualized humanity, are Masters. They are clear and childlike. Their lives and words are simple. The fairy ring under their feet represents the fourth dimension. Spiritualized humanity does not express itself in the same way as natural humanity. Spiritualized humanity lives at the center of manifestation. The children have created this way of living by continuously identifying themselves with the Inner Self.
Just as the rays of the Sun are of equal length, the boy and the girl are the same height. She, representing the subconscious mind, is no longer subject to the misconceptions and ignorance directed at her from the conscious mind. The boy, the self-conscious mind, has finally realized, through correct application of the law of suggestion, that there is more than what his physical senses tell him.
His certainty is based on the experiences that go beyond his five senses. He calls that experience the Other Way. The first Tarot card is called the Fool. He appears to be the Fool to the uninitiated and the world that relies solely on the five material senses.
The girl has been trained to accept the Other Way and her left hand gestures that she is done with what is behind her. The boy’s right hand faces away from the wall in a gesture of acceptance of what lies before him. They hold hands in unity in their new life as regenerated spiritual humanity.
On a final note I’ll reference King James Version of the Bible, Mark 10: 14-15: But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.”
Gates of Light 