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The Sun as Head: Resh and the Awakening of Solar Consciousness

In Western Hermetic Qabalah, The Sun Tarot card is assigned the Hebrew letter Resh, meaning Head. This attribution is central to understanding Thoth ATU XIX – The Sun, for the Head is rightly understood as the Sun of the body. It is the Head-Sun that rises above the Earth of the physical form and governs what we commonly recognize as rational, waking consciousness.

In the Thoth system, the Solar Deity is not merely a celestial object above us, but a plasmic intelligence within us—a living center of awareness, radiance, and ordering power. Dr. Paul Foster Case, in The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom, identifies the Sun as the Thirtieth Path, calling it the Collective Intelligence. This Solar Intelligence exercises control over the twelve signs of the zodiac, understood not merely as astrological markers, but as twelve guideposts of personality.

This doctrine is visually encoded in the Sun card itself: the twelve rays radiating outward from the central orb signify the unifying power of the Solar Self, integrating multiple personality expressions—some of which may have been lived through different incarnations—into a coherent and radiant whole.

The Sun thus reminds us of the Inner Sun—the Son of God within—which is no less powerful than the visible star in our sky. When we are truly present, our presence alone becomes transformative. It illuminates confusion, warms coldness, and shines even on the darkest days of the psyche.

The familiar brick or stone wall depicted in the Rider–Waite–Smith Sun card is a sober reminder of incarnation: the enclosure of the material body, the boundary condition through which Solar consciousness must express itself in the world of form.

All Is Mind: The Solar Self and the Collective Unconscious

All collectives of atoms eventually become intelligent, just as all celestial beings float within the Great Dark Ocean of the Great Mother—what modern science calls outer space, and what Carl Jung identified as the nonlocal Universal Collective Unconscious. In truth, all is Mind.

In this sense, Qabalah can be understood—without irony—as Sun/Son worship, for its goal is the elevation of the personality into conscious union with the Solar Deity of the Soul. On the Tree of Life—sometimes aptly called the God Molecule—this Solar center is the sixth Sephirah, Tiphareth (Beauty).

Resh and the Personality Triad

The Path of Resh (The Sun) is the first of the Personality Triad paths, rising on the Tree of Life between Yesod (Foundation) and Hod (Splendor). On this path, the aspirant encounters the intellectual-formative dimension of Solar consciousness, where personality becomes an active instrument of the Higher Self.

Here, the Spiritual Self emerges as a composite of:

• Yod – the masculine, intuitive, initiatory spark

• Heh – the feminine, intellectual, formative principle

When these opposing forces are harmonized, they generate Vav/Vau, the equilibrated current of manifestation within the Divine Name YHVH.

The Twins of the Sun: Union of Opposites

With the appearance of the Sun, the mythic twins—Apollo and Diana—are reunited. Light and dark, movement and repose, day and night are reconciled. Because the Sun corresponds to the Head, this union also signifies the integration of conscious and subconscious awareness, or the harmonization of the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

According to Jung, this state represents the ideal condition of Mind.

These principles are explored in far greater technical detail in The Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang, a foundational text for serious students of Western Hermetic Tarot.

For now, it is enough to recognize that The Sun assembles the components of the personality found on the lower paths of the Tree, infusing them with Light and Warmth—qualities traditionally associated with higher intellect.

Thus:

• The Sun (Resh) is the highest expression of human intellect

• The Star (ATU XVII) is the highest expression of human emotion

The Paradox of Balance: Sun, Star, and Tower

Curiously, when the high intellect of the Sun is united with the high emotion of the Star, the resulting equilibrium is represented by The Tower (ATU XVI)—a card often mistaken for chaos alone. In the Thoth Tarot, the visual continuity between these three cards reveals a deeper truth: true balance shatters false structures.

Spirit, Mind, Body: The Immortal Ternary Being

The lower paths—Tau (The Universe), Shin (The Aeon), and Resh (The Sun)—symbolize the Personality as Spirit’s experience-collecting vehicle. Spirit must function through the Higher Self, and the Higher Self through the personality, to influence the physical plane.

What appears as separation between Spirit, Mind, and Body is an illusion of perception. These are aspects of a single Being in infinite connectivity, what modern physics calls quantum entanglement. The Tree of Life depicts apparent separation through Sephiroth, but the Paths reveal continuous unity.

We are, in truth, an Immortal Celestial Ternary Being:

• Spirit – original willed energy

• Mind – womb of perception and formation

• Body – organic sensuality, the instrument of experience

When these are unified, we become a Whole Sun.

The Hidden Work: Dissolution of the False Ego

What is not overtly depicted on the Sun card—but is silently enacted—is the destruction of the unworthy elements of the man-made personality, the false ego constructed through fear, indoctrination, and word hypnosis. This clearing allows the Solar Personality to rise freely toward its Source through plasmic Kundalini awakening.

None of the Tarot cards stand alone. All 78 cards are intellectual paths of the One Macrocosmic Mind, and you are the Sun/Son at their convergence. This archetype is known as Adam Khadmon, the Heavenly Human, formed from the Tree of Life itself.

We are all Stars and Suns of the Divine Creative, regardless of gender.

The Living Path of Resh

The Path of Resh (the Head) is essential in developing one’s individual Qabalah—one’s personal Receiving. Along this Path of Collective Intelligence, the student encounters Inner Teachers and guiding intelligences, those angelic aspects of consciousness that dwell beyond linear time.

As Aleister Crowley writes in The Book of Thoth, the winged children dancing in the Sun card represent humanity’s next stage of evolution—free, innocent, and radiant—heralding the Solar Aeon.

On the Path of Resh, candidacy for Tiphareth (Beauty) begins. It is here that intellect learns both its power and its limitations, as the Moon of Yesod—governing astral light, sexuality, and vital force—enters conscious union with the Sun.

This is the Path of awakening, where the tremendous Spiritual–Sexual–Vital Force is no longer unconsciously discharged, but consciously integrated. Known variously as Kundalini, Serpent Force, or Life Force, it must be experienced, not merely defined.

The Sun does not merely illuminate—it initiates.

And when the Head-Sun rises within, the Soul remembers itself as Light.

Oh radiant orb, celestial sphere divine, In golden robes, your majesty does shine. A sun priest's heart, with reverence aglow, Sings praises to you, as the ancients bestow.

Bathed in luminescence, a deity unveiled, Your fiery gaze upon the world has sailed. A cosmic dance, a celestial hymn, In your brilliance, our souls do swim.

From dawn's first light to twilight's embrace, Your warmth and light, a sacred grace. A charioteer in the vast sky's sea, Guiding all with divine decree.

O Sun, source of life, eternal flame, In your presence, we invoke your name. Bless us with your golden kiss, Ignite our spirits in celestial bliss.

As shadows yield to your radiant might, A sun priest bows in reverent light. To you, we offer prayers and praise, In ancient hymns, our voices raise.

Oh, solar deity, in splendor enthroned, In your cosmic temple, our spirits are honed. A timeless bond, our souls align, In worship of the sun, forever entwined.

The Arcane Tarot – Key 19: The Sun departs from traditional Solar Child imagery found in many Tarot decks and instead presents a fully embodied vision of Solar vitality. At the center of the card is a large golden Sun with sixteen radiant arms, resembling the petals of a sunflower—an ancient emblem of life turning naturally toward light.

Beneath the Sun, on the left side of the card, a naked woman sunbathes, relaxed and unapologetically present in her body. She wears sunglasses, suggesting conscious enjoyment rather than naïve innocence. This image grounds the Solar principle firmly in lived, physical experience—joy that is felt, not idealized.

On the right side of the card hangs a red, jewel-like heart, suspended from a fruitful vine. The heart symbolizes love, vitality, and emotional warmth, while the vine speaks to abundance, growth, and the generative power of nature. A butterfly flutters beneath the heart, quietly signaling transformation, renewal, and the soul’s capacity to emerge from previous limitations.

The background is filled with stars and winding vines, merging cosmic and organic imagery. Here, the Sun is not isolated in the heavens but shown as fecund, alive, and interwoven with both Earth and sky. This is Solar consciousness expressed through pleasure, optimism, sensuality, and creative life-force.

Upright Meaning

The warm rays of the Sun bring happiness, confidence, and abundance. This card encourages you to channel your natural vitality, allowing your authentic energy to radiate outward. When you are aligned with joy and presence, others are naturally drawn to you.

Relationships

Relationships are invigorated with passion, warmth, and mutual enjoyment. This is a time to celebrate connection, express affection freely, and strengthen bonds through shared happiness rather than obligation.

Career

A surge of enthusiasm or inspiration may be moving through your work environment. Your positive attitude can open doors, attract recognition, and create new opportunities. Let your confidence be visible.

Reversed Meaning

When reversed, the Sun suggests difficulty seeing the brighter side of a situation. You may be overlooking small blessings while focusing too heavily on what has not yet manifested. Alternatively, expectations may have become unrealistic, dimming genuine joy. The remedy is not force—but gratitude and recalibration.

Hermetic Reflection

Where the Thoth Sun emphasizes Solar intellect and collective integration, the Arcane Sun emphasizes Solar embodiment—the joy of inhabiting the body, the pleasure of being alive, and the natural flowering that occurs when consciousness is at ease within itself.

Together, these Suns reveal a complete teaching:
illumined mind and radiant body are not separate—both are expressions of the same living Light.

A Unified Solar Teaching: One Sun, Two Expressions

Taken together, the Thoth Sun and the Arcane Sun reveal a complete Solar doctrine within Western Hermetic Tarot. The Thoth Sun, through Resh, illuminates the Head-Sun—the awakening of Solar intellect, collective integration, and the ascent of personality toward Tiphareth, the Soul’s radiant center.

The Arcane Sun, by contrast, brings that same Solar intelligence down into the body, celebrating vitality, pleasure, emotional warmth, and the joy of conscious embodiment. One Sun teaches us how the mind becomes light; the other shows how light becomes life. When united, these two Suns dissolve the false divide between intellect and sensuality, spirit and flesh, heaven and earth. They affirm a single Hermetic truth: illumination is not an escape from the world, but the ability to inhabit it fully, joyfully, and awake—as a living Sun expressing itself through mind, heart, and body as one.

The Hexagram is the emblem of the composite Thirtieth Path of Resh, for it compresses within itself the four Elements, the twelve Zodiacal forces, and the planetary intelligences, all harmonized under the rulership of the Sun. As such, the Hexagram becomes the primary symbol of perfect integration between the Personality and the Solar Self, whose seat is Tiphareth—Beauty. It is the geometry of balance made conscious, where opposing forces interpenetrate without conflict and individuality is illuminated rather than erased.

The Sun is therefore rightly called the “Splendor of the Material World,” for it represents intellect acting upon the dual human condition: unconscious instinct and awakened awareness within the physical body. Through the Solar Path, intellect no longer fragments experience but unifies it, becoming a living bridge between the finite mind and the Greater Life that animates all forms. When human intellect is balanced with the **Higher Intellect—the inner Sun or Son of God—**consciousness no longer oscillates between light and shadow, but radiates as a single, coherent Presence. In this state, the individual does not merely think or perceive truth—they embody it, standing as a living expression of Solar Beauty in the world.

For the initiate, experiencing the Path of Resh is profoundly transformative, for it marks the first conscious encounter with the Inner Sun—the light of the personality—just as the outer Sun is the light of the physical world. Yet what is often forgotten in the warmth and radiance of this inner solar fire (commonly called Kundalini) is that the false, man-made personality cannot look directly into Solar Intelligence any more than the physical eyes can stare into the blazing Sun without injury. What is damaged is not the true Self, but the faux ego, the false “I” constructed from fear, conditioning, and social hypnosis.

This truth is powerfully illustrated by The Tower. Equilibrium is achieved not through comfort, but through the burning away of what is unworthy of the Higher Personality. This Solar burning—long sought by those who hunger for Self-Truth—can feel catastrophic to those unaware of what must be surrendered. It does not punish; it vaporizes illusion. The false self, having no true substance, cannot survive sustained contact with Solar consciousness.

For this reason, Kundalini must never be prematurely invoked. The Inner Christ / Inner Buddha / Solar Self alone knows when the aspirant is prepared to withstand its fire. When readiness is complete, the ignition occurs naturally, intelligently, and with purpose. This is the sacred fire longed for by mystics across traditions, beautifully voiced by the 12th-century Sufi master Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, who cried out to the Higher Self in surrender and devotion:

“Give me the burning.”

For the initiate of Resh, this burning is not destruction—it is illumination through purification, the necessary passage by which the personality is made worthy to carry the Su

As has been stated before, working consciously upon the Paths of the Tree of Life produces definite psycho-chemical and physiological changes within the human organism. This is not metaphor, nor merely symbolic language, but a precise Hermetic assertion. One of the most respected teachers of Western Hermetic Qabalah, Paul Foster Case, addresses this directly in his study course The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom.

He writes:

“…marked inner differences from the average person are due to psychological contrasts in the mental state of ordinary human beings, but they are also the outer signs of organic changes inside the skin of the new creature. He is chemically and structurally unlike genus homo. There are different constituents in his bloodstream. Through his nervous system pass currents of force not present in most human bodies, because in his organism channels are open which are closed in the physical vehicle of most persons. Centers in the nervous system and in the brain, and glands related to them, function differently in the body of an adept from the way they do in the bodies of the greater number of his contemporaries.”

(Bracketed gender inclusions are my own, reflecting modern understanding.)

What Case is describing here is nothing less than the emergence of a new mode of human functioning (Homo Luminous), brought about through sustained contact with higher orders of consciousness. The initiate who works the Paths does not merely think differently—they become different, organically and energetically. The nervous system, endocrine centers, and subtle channels of the body reorganize to accommodate currents of force previously inaccessible. In Hermetic terms, this marks the transition from ordinary personality to Solar-capable vehicle, one able to sustain the Light of the Inner Sun without fragmentation.

Thus, the Work of the Paths is not psychological ornamentation nor spiritual abstraction. It is alchemical transformation, enacted within flesh and blood, preparing the human form to serve as a conscious instrument of the Greater Life.

What is mentioned are the same physio chemical change that happens to adepts in the Tantric Arts, where balanced Divine Male and Divine Female energy opens the Divya Siddhis or magic abilities. These abilities are the stored information in the Anu Genetics that are a product of the "Sons of God, marrying the women of men" (producing the children of human and Anunnaki union called the "Nephilim" by the Hebrews,) and /or Ancient Genetic Manipulation of the Scientists of the Anunnaki ("Those who from the heavens that came to earth") that created the Homo Sapiens on this planet. 

That is right dear reader, we are a "space colony" of the "Suns of Gods". 

When the Sun, ATU/Key 19 is thrown, it implies:

• The querent shall experience gain, riches, glory and sometimes warmth of love.
• Maybe called arrogance which is often a misunderstanding of their glowing self-confidence.
• The querent might make great displays of vanity but this is only seen when accompanied by very negative cards.
• The dance of the divine twins can also be considered a meeting of the soul (solar) mates. 
• However, this most esoteric and requires a Lover’s or Love card to clarify as an exoteric event.
• Striving for the light.
• Reconciliation with the shadow side and realization of the innermost (highest) self.
• Vivacity.
• Acceptance of Life.
• Generosity.
• Warmth.
• Self-confidence.
• Rational approach.
• Sexual desire. 

If ill defined by the surrounding cards, it implies:

• Self-satisfaction.
• Personality cult.
• Delusions of grandeur.
• Loss of confidence.
• Frustration.

🌟 Thank You for Supporting the Work of Light

Your interest, thoughtful comments, and generous donations are received with gratitude and reflected back to you as blessings. In the act of giving, you affirm your own abundance — for true prosperity is a cycle of flow.

May your path be ever bright,
May your Will be radiant and sovereign,
And may you live long and prosper under the Sun of your Soul.

— Magus Eli

🔥 Thoth Master Class

Western Hermetic Qabalah & Tarot

Private One-on-One Esoteric Training with Magus Eli

This Isn’t a Tarot Class. This Is a Soul Activation.

Step into the current of Living Light.
The Thoth Master Class is a one-on-one initiatory experience that fuses Hermetic wisdom, Qabalistic structure, and the archetypal genius of the Thoth Tarot — all personally guided by Magus Eli, master teacher and Solar Self awakener.

These aren’t generic lectures. They are ritual-grade, soul-specific transmissions designed to unlock your inner Temple, align your psychic architecture to the Tree of Life, and awaken your resonance with the living language of Tarot.

🌞 What Makes This Class a True Initiation?

• 🎓 Private Apprenticeship: Just you and the Magus in a deep 2-hour Google Meet session, entirely focused on your development.

• 🔄 Flexible Rhythm: Weekly, biweekly, or monthly — you set the pace. (12 sessions recommended for full arc of mastery.)

• 📹 Recorded Sessions: Each class is recorded so you can revisit the teachings and track your spiritual evolution.

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🜂 What You'll Learn (and Embody):

• The entire architecture of the Thoth Tarot: Major Arcana, Minor Arcana, and Court Cards through a Hermetic lens

• The Western Hermetic Qabalah: 10 Sephiroth, 22 Paths, and the Four Qabalistic Worlds

• How to use Tarot as a portal to meditative pathworking and astral temple building

• Rituals, spreads, and practices that bring gnosis, guidance, and transformation

• How to build your personal mystical system, rooted in self-authority and Divine resonance

📚 What You’ll Need to Begin:

• The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy by Robert Wang

• A Thoth Tarot deck (Crowley-Harris edition preferred)

• A Book of Shadows or personal journal

• A desire to know thyself through the Solar Flame

🌟 Is This Class for You?

Yes — if you are:

• A beginner with a soul-call to the Thoth deck, but no formal training

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• Anyone craving one-on-one spiritual mentorship in the Western Esoteric Trad

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These teachings are offered on a sliding scale, because every soul ready to walk the Path deserves a guide. You are not buying a class — you are answering the call of your Soul.

If you feel the fire of this journey within, reach out. Let’s find a way that works for your means. No sincere aspirant will be turned away for lack of coin.

🕊️ The true currency of this Master Class is your will to become who you truly are.

📬 How to Begin Your Journey

Email eli@elitarotstrickingly.com
to request your resonance mapping session, check availability, and discuss the exchange that fits your path.

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