Meditations on the Tarot

2022-03-20

The Holy Book of Thoth

In the Foreward to Meditations on the Tarot, we read:

For these are in essence twenty-two spiritual exercises, by means of which you, dear Unknown Friend, will immerse yourself in the current of the living tradition, and thus enter into the community of spirits who have served it and who are still serving it.

Miss Charlotte Cowell is one of those spirits who has been serving the living Hermetic tradition. First she translated and made available the books on the Tarot Majors and Tarot Minors by G. O. Mebes, whose teachings had influenced the Unknown Friend. We also read in the Meditations:

I have mentioned some Hermeticists whom I suppose that you, dear Unknown Friend, know of. But there are many others who ought to be named as guardians of the ancient tradition of the arcanum of inspiration. But what will the name of Shmakov say to you, for example? Or the name Roudnikova? These are names which, like the yellow leaves of autumn, repose in forgetfulness beneath the immense white shroud of snow which covers pre-revolutionary Russia.

So last year, Miss Charlotte made available in English The Solar Way by Nina Roudnikova.

This year, she has made available The Holy Book of Thoth by Vladimir Schmakov in a beautiful edition with colour plates! Our Unknown Friend recommended Shmakov’s book very highly and now English speaking Hermeticists can read the same material.

2021-11-302021-12-01

The Five Ways to God

The misconception is that the so-called 5 proofs for the existence of God are supposed to be so compelling that anyone, or even a robot, will know that God exists by following a syllogism. By that standard, you cannot even prove that you yourself exist, or that your wife, husband, or lover exists; i.e., any being with an “I” or Self.

That is why Valentin Tomberg suggests instead to use the proofs as seeds for a deeper meditation. These are mine, but you should do your own. The quest for certainty is not satisfied by a scientific, mathematical, or logical proof, but rather in an entirely different dimension.
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2021-11-262022-03-20

Why I Was Born

Choosing One’s Birth

One often hears the lament, even from spiritual or religious people, “Why should I be judged, when I didn’t even choose to be born?” Valentin Tomberg, in the Letter on Death, formulates a response to that question:
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2021-05-202021-12-01

The Hidden Tradition

For most men life is made up of two days:

In the first they believe everything.

And in the second, nothing.

For a few others, life also has two days, but what distinguishes them from ordinary men is that

In the first day they believe only in illusions, and these are nothing;

While in the second day, they believe in everything, for they believe in truth, which is all.

~ Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

Since Rene Guenon was an initiate into a Martinism order, it may be of interest to explore their teachings. Martinism derives its name from the two “Martins”: Martinez Pasquales and Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. The former mysteriously appeared with an order based on theurgy or ceremonial magic. The latter joined that order, but eventually abandoned it when he felt that he moved beyond “operations”. There was a loose group that gathered around him, the S.I. for the Order of Superieurs Inconnus (Unknown Superiors) and initiation was decidedly less formal.
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2020-12-042020-12-07

Liberating the Guardian Angel

Between the angelic nature, which is an intellectual thing, and the human soul there is no step, but they are both almost continuous in the order of gradation. … Thus we are to suppose and ﬁrmly to believe, that a man may be so noble, and of such lofty condition, that he shall be almost an angel. ~ Dante, Convivio, VII. 3

Nearly all that has been said theologically of the angels can be said metaphysically of the superior states of the being, just as in the astrological symbolism of the Middle Ages the ‘heavens’, that is to say the various planetary and stellar spheres, represent these same states and also the initiatic degrees to which their realization corresponds ~ Rene Guenon, Multiple States of Being

In flowing and running water, in mists dissolving into water, also in the winds and the lightning flashing through the air, in all these, you have to look for the physical body of Angelic beings. The difficulty for man consists in his fixed idea that a physical body must necessarily have a definite outline. It is difficult for a man to say to himself: I see fog rising, I see a stream of water dissolving into spray, I stand in the blowing wind, I see lightning dart from the clouds, and I know that all these are revelations of Angels; behind this physical body, which is by no means so limited as the human one I have to recognise the spirit. ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Hierarchies

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