Tarot Key 19: Grandchildren of the Sun

Here Dr. Paul Foster Case presents the idea that all life, culminating in humanity, is a direct expression of solar energy. He emphasises the unbroken chain of existence connecting each person to their origins in the solar radiance. The article illustrates how the power of faith, represented by Key 19 in Tarot, can transform personal lives and enhance confidence in one’s abilities. By acknowledging historical figures as contemporaries in spiritual evolution, Case invites readers to recognise their own divine potential and the collective destiny of humanity. The piece ultimately encourages individuals to embrace their role in the regeneration of a new race, asserting that true fulfilment comes from recognising and actualising their inherent powers.

The Solar Connection

The title of this article states a fact. The whole animal creation, culminating in man, is the physical offspring of solar energy, developed in the womb of Mother Earth. Back through the chain of earthly embodiments runs the current of every human life to its source in the solar radiance. Thus, truly are we ‘grandchildren of the sun.’

The Unbroken Chain

No break, anywhere in the chain, or we should not be here. Thus, we may say with certainty that our personal lives are the direct expression of the radiant power which has evolved the physical universe out of itself. In us, beginning (1) and end (9) are united. Rightly understood, therefore, Key 19 strengthens faith and gives that calm confidence in the perfect adequacy of the force we are learning to direct, as it flows through our minds, our speech, and our actions, into the field of circumstance surrounding us.

The Power of Faith

Faith works wonders, even when it is blind. Seeing faith, resting on the sure foundation of demonstrable knowledge, accomplishes even greater marvels. It is the basis of courage and of personal power. Thus, what is pictured in Key 19 of Tarot is, astrologically, the rule of the activities pictured by Key 8; and in Key 4, astrologically, we have the Tarot presentation of the special field in which the solar radiance finds its highest expression in human life.

The Creative Power Within

You have within you the power that constitutes creation. It is a real power, even in the narrow sense of ‘real’ as understood by the crassest materialist. It is no dream, no fancy, no wish-fulfilment. It can be measured – even weighed. And through unmeasured millenniums of evolution, it has worked to produce its highest terrestrial instrument, human personality. Now, in you and others working along the same lines of endeavour, it is affecting the marvel of conscious, purposive evolution from mere homo sapiens to something far beyond.

Historical Context

We say ‘now’ but we do not mean that this regeneration is something new. By comparison with the millions of millenniums of terrestrial past revealed by the radioactive properties of fossil rocks, man’s history is as a moment in the great drama of the Life-Power’s self-expression. Our time-sense makes the lives of the great Regenerates seem far distant from us; but in the eternal consciousness, Moses and Buddha, Lao-tze and Jesus, are truly our contemporaries. The same power which was at work through them is at work in us, can perform the same wonders, can free us forever from the space-time limitations symbolised in Key 19 by the wall behind the children.

 

You have within you the power that constitutes creation. It is a real power, even in the narrow sense of ‘real’ as understood by the crassest materialist.

The Presence of Great Powers

We think of these great men as ‘old souls’ far advanced beyond us. But what is their report of themselves? They all agree that they are first-fruits, that they are little children of the Spiritual Sun. They are our kinsmen, and in their eternal consciousness, they truly live and act in and through us. Their powers flow out through the channels of our human personality.

The Invisible Forces at Work

Unperceived by most of us, recognized as present only by a few in every human generation. Yet really and truly present, just as the invisible waves of innumerable broadcasting stations are present in the room where you read these mighty words.

And it is the presence of these mighty powers in you which has shaped your life and has resulted in the special interests which make you one of that great body of men and women who are called to determine the future of mankind.

Embracing Your Potential

Does this seem too grandiose? Why under-estimate yourself? The real nature of man is essentially divine, and when we begin, however dimly, to realise this, and act upon the realisation, we find ourselves dancing with the children in the fairy ring.

The Creative Impulse

Telegraph and telephone companies have instruments that take an electric impulse, weakened by long-distance transmission, and build it up again. In the creative order, man is like that. In him, the creative impulse originating in the Limitless Light and physically concentrated in our Sun, runs like a weak current, because it has been transmitted through an unimaginably long series of lives. Yet in man, this weak impulse can be made to rise in power and intensity. This is the inner occult meaning of ‘regeneration.’ In us, the Life-Power flames again with its original creative potency.

The Birth of a New Race

More than this, our high destiny is to bring forth upon this globe a new race of men and women. Not by the slow processes of birth and growth, nor by the transmission of characteristics established during thousands upon thousands of years of ordinary generation. Those processes have reached their limit in producing homo sapiens. In a sense, the coming race is self-generated, self-created. Its members already walk the Earth, and every year sees the addition of new recruits to its ranks.

Crisis as Opportunity

Times of stress and trials like those of this century, the records show, are times particularly favorable for the development of such men and women. The whole history of evolution shows that the great changes and great advances come in periods of crisis and cataclysm. In such a period, it is our privilege to find ourselves once more incarnate on this Earth.

Practical Fulfilment

But what has all this to do with practical fulfilment? First, that as you were in The Seven Steps in Practical Occultism, vision of the desirable result must precede all our endeavours to affect its actualisation. So, we show you the picture and remind you how often you have been told that nothing is too good to be true. Second, that by using Key 19 itself and by feeling in you the swelling surge of the Cosmic Light, you will build up the necessary mood of confident expectation. For you will know, better and better, as you practise that the Life-power can be relied upon.

Embracing Your Vocation

Already you are among the called. Your vocation is clear. Point yourself toward it and all the necessary transformations of personality and circumstance will have been begun. Not that you are to suppose the high vision is to be henceforth your exclusive mental preoccupation. What we aim at is to have you practice the long view a little more. Things nearer at hand will demand attention, to be sure, but these are, so to say, only the changing scenery along the Way of Return. There may be dark days. There may be times of storm and stress. Yet, if you do but remind yourself of who and what you really are, power to meet the day’s requirements will well up within you. Not idle day-dreaming, but clear vision of your inevitable, certain destiny will be the fruit of this practice with Key 19. It shows you, as do other Tarot Keys, what you really are – the fulfilment of hope of all the kingdoms of nature below the level of humanity. Through you, and others like you, not only is the human personality to be regenerated, but more than this, the very Earth shall blossom like the rose.

The Meaning of Regeneration

Regeneration means re-creation. Too often do we confuse re-creation with various means of escape. But the Great Work, say the alchemists, is really child’s play. Nothing deadly serious about it. And perhaps this is the most important use of Key 19. Identify yourself with the little children, and you will begin to feel their gay lightsomeness. You will be rid of the disguises of pretension and undue regard for what people think. You will recapture the innocent shamelessness symbolised by their nudity. For the New Creature has nothing to hide from and nothing to conceal.

Read more about the Tarot Key 9: The Hermit – Light in Extension