The author’s introduction to Meditations on the Tarot [our translation]
These meditations on the major arcana of the tarot are presented under the form of letters addressed to the unknown friend. This unknown friend is each one of those who reads them, and, having meditated on them, will know with assured knowledge what Christian Hermetism is. He will see that through these letters the author says more about himself than he could in any other way, and the unknown friend will know him better thanks to the letters than through any other source.
These letters were written in French — which is not the mother tongue of the author — because it is in France, and in France alone, that, since the XVIIIth century, a living literature on the tarot has been perpetuated. Furthermore, there exists there, as well, a continuous tradition of Hermetism, which unites the spirit of free research with rspect for the Tradition. These letters, through their contents, will therefore be able to become an integral part of the Tradition while, at the same time, enriching it.
As they support and contribute to the Hermetic Tradition — whose origin is lost in the night of a legendary time, the era of Hermes Trismegistus — these letters are the concrete manifestation of an age-old current of thought, effort, and revelation. Their goal is to revive the Tradition in the XXth century, but also, and above all, to permit the reader, the unknown friend, to plunge into the current himself, perhaps in a definitive fashion. That is why the numerouse citations of ancient and modern authors, that you will find in these texts, are due neither to litterary considerations, nor to a concern for erudition. They are meant only to evoke the masters of the Tradition, in order to make them present, with their aspirations and the light of their thought, in the flow of meditation that illustrate these letters — these twenty two spiritual exercises that will permit you, dear unknown friend, to plunge into the current of the living Tradition and to penetrate to the bosom of the community of the spirits who have served it and now serve it. The citations are there only to highlight that community. Because the links in the chain of the Tradition are not uniqely made from thoughts and efforts, but especially by living beings who are at the origin of these thoughts or these efforts. The essence of the Tradition is not a doctrine, but a community of spirits who perdure from age to age.
From beyond the grave, your friend greets you, dear unknown friend.
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