Meditations on the Tarot
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Contents |
[edit] Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermetism
[edit] Author(s)
[edit] Publication details
Originally written in French, completed in 1967
Original French title: Méditations sur les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot (New edition, Aubier, Paris, 1980, ISBN 2700703693)
[edit] date of publication and publisher
Translated into English by Robert Powell
- 1993 by Element Books (658 pages, no index) ISBN 1852302224 (& ISBN 978-1852302221)
- 2002 by (Penguin-Putnam) Tarcher ISBN 1585421618 (& ISBN 978-1585421619)
[edit] Description
The book is divided into twenty-two letters from the Unknown Author (UA) to his readers ('UA' is an appellation becoming increasingly common when referring to its author, and reminiscent of the Martinist 'Unknown Philosopher'). Such 'letter' style is not unusual, and is found in some classic Russian and mediaeval Christian texts - for example The Cloud of Unknowing (Penguin Classics).
The author clearly comes from a Christian perspective, but not one which would be expected from the exoteric church - though I have been informed that the current Pope has a copy of the German translation of the work!
Each letter is an exegesis of one of the Trumps (Atouts or Major Arcana), with the final letter making implications for the court cards and pips (minor arcana). Though the author clearly refers to the Marseille deck in the text, he also states (p 260 of the Element edition):
The twenty-two Cards of the Major Arcana of the Tarot being an organism, a complete whole, it is not a question of diverse and disparate origins of particular Cards, but rather of the degrees of their evolution or transformation. For the Tarot, also, is not a wheel, a closed circle, but rather a spiral, i.e. it evolves through tradition and ... reincarnation
Reading the book is certainly a journey - not because it takes the reader along well traveled paths (which it does, being firmly grounded in tradition) - but because the reader is lead far and wide to a very diverse and broad range of other authors - some well known, such as Drs Steiner or Jung, others not as well, such as Dr Carton or Prof. Mebes.
The classics are also extremely well interweaved, and relevant quotes from such important esoteric, spiritual and hermetic texts as the Kore Kosmu, the Bible, the Zohar, the Vishvasara Tantra, the Hermetica (amongst others), as well as quotes from Wirth, Origen, Papus, St Teresa, St John of the Cross, as well as those previously mentioned (Steiner et al.) are carefully selected and artfully placed.
Of Tarot's history, the author states (ibid.)
The authors who saw in the Tarot the 'Sacred Book of Thoth' (Thoth = Hermes Trismegistus) were both right and wrong at the same time. They were right in so far as they traced back the history of the essence of the Tarot to antiquity, notably to ancient Egypt. And they were wrong in so far as they believed that the Tarot had been inherited from ancient Egypt, i.e. that it had been transmitted from generation to generation subject to minor iconographic changes.
This work ranks amongst the classics of mysticism, gnosis and magic - the three pathways viewed by the author as entries into Hermeticism.
[edit] Author's comments
From the opening paragraphs of the foreword to the book, as translated by Robert Powell:
'These meditations on the Major Arcana of the Tarot are Letters addressed to the Unknown Friend. The addressee in this instance is anyone who will read all of them and who thereby acquires definite knowledge, through the experience of meditative reading, about Christian Hermeticism. […]
'These letters are written in French because in France – since the eighteenth century until the present time, i.e., the second half of the twentieth century – there exists a literature on the Tarot, a phenomenon which is found nowhere else. On the other hand, there existed in France – and it still persists – a continuous tradition of Hermeticism, in which is united a spirit of free research with one of respect for the tradition. The purpose of these Letters therefore will be to "incarnate" into this tradition, i.e. to become an organic part of it, and in this way to contribute support to it.'
