Prolegomena to the Minor Arcana

The second part of Letter XXII on The World deals with the Minor Arcana. It describes a program to follow, both in terms of knowledge and inner work, in order to approach the Minor Arcana. This is an outline that highlights the main points of that program.

The Four Worlds

The Minor Arcana deals with the complete Cabbala of four complete trees, corresponding to four distinct, but interpenetrating, worlds.

Thus, the 10 Sephiroth of each world are represented by the pip cards of its corresponding suit.

Moreover, the four elements have a role in each world. The elements are represented by the four face cards of each suit.

The following diagram shows how the elements are represented in the Sephiroth, and the chart summarizes all these relationships.
4 worlds

Cabala World Philosophy Element Suit Figure
Azilut Emanation Pantheism Fire Wands King
Beriah Creation Theism Air Cups Queen
Yetzirah Formation Demiurgism Water Swords Knight
Assiyyah Action Naturalism Earth Pentacles Knave
World Sacred Name Method Cause Ascent Stage
Azilut Yod Mysticism Efficient Creative Activity Perfection or Mystical Union
Beriah He Gnosis Formal Spiritual Activity Illumination
Yetzirah Vau Magic Material Destruction of the imagery Purification
Assiyyah He Hermetic philosophy Final Intellectual and sensual imagery Preparation

The Tetragrammaton

The four suits are also related to the letters of the Sacred Name.

Each plane, or world, has its own methodology of knowledge, which needs to be appropriate to its object.

These methods are: Mysticism, Gnosis, Magic, and Hermetic philosophy.

Causation is understood in a specific way for each world. These are Efficient Cause, Formal Cause, Material Cause, Final Cause.

The Efficient Cause is the Will of God that starts the World Process. From that perspective, the world is an emanation of God.

The Formal Cause is the Essence of Beings, through which all things are made. This involves a separation from God, so Theism is its philosophy.

The Material Cause is the Substance of Beings, from which they are made. This is like the Demiurge that constructs the world from matter in conformity to the Ideas.

The Final Cause refers to the purpose of beings.

(Note: There is an apparent inconsistency in the text about these causes, since Levi’s system is a little different. However, this system seems to me to be more complete.)

Psychurgical Practice

The Major Arcana constitute a teaching program. Their purpose is to awaken consciousness to the laws and forces which are at work beneath the moral, intellectual, and phenomenological surface.

The Minor Arcana require psychurgical practice, i.e., the transformation of consciousness rising from plane to plane. Hence, they are much more than an intellectual puzzle. They require a change of consciousness, which is why we start at the lowest world.

The Minor Arcana require the analysis, synthesis, and elaboration of the Major Arcana as applied to the planes of consciousness. There are 22 paths between the Sephiroth, which correspond to the Major Arcana. Some systems try to work along those paths.

The Ascent of Consciousness

The World of Action is dominated by intellectual and sensual imagery. Although they are not fully illusory, they are also not fully images of reality.

Consciousness is surrounded by memories of experiences, intellectual schemes, and moral ideals.

Psychurgical practice is the ascent from this world to higher worlds. So the first step is to free the mind from is attachments to these mental constructions, which obscure any higher knowledge.

Further Considerations

There are three main points.

  • Practice the emptying of imagery, also called unknowing.
  • Learn to recognize the occult forces behind moral and intellectual movements in the world, and how they manifest.
  • Meditate of the manifestation of the Sephiroth in the world. E.g., what is the Kingdom in the world of Action, what is the Crown? What is considered Wisdom and Beauty in this world? And  so on.

The Minor Arcana

Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. ~ Isaiah 43:7

These are the meeting notes for 15 January 2018.

We reviewed the topics and themes that we discussed over the past year:

  • Solovyov, Berdyaev, Bergson, Jung
  • Dante
  • Boehme
  • Concentration without effort
  • Second birth, initiation
  • Centering prayer, meditation, Aurobindo
  • Spiritual vision. Based on Thomas Aquinas and the Law of correspondence. How our sensory experience corresponds to a spiritual reality
  • Hinze, Gichtel, Chakras and the planets

We then discussed possible themes:

After discussion and thoughtful meditation, we decided to make the study of the Minor Arcana as the group project. This will incorporate all the themes discussed to this point; moreover, it will also bring into play the other possible themes listed above.

Of course, as we learned in our Bodhisattva studies, this is best accomplished as the union of Intellectuality and Spirituality. Hence, our meditations must be on something concrete. Specifically, everything must be tested to separate what is of God from what is from “sins, whims, and personal ideas”. Initially, it will not be systematic; each one of us should follow his own interests first. There is no particular hurry.

Since each suit corresponds to a Cabbalistic world, it is necessary to be clear about the characteristics of each of those worlds. In order to provide some background, I will provide this introduction to the worlds, along with some suggestions for further study.

Then, within that world, the pip cards will correspond to the Sephiroth. The picture cards have a different purpose. Furthermore, the worlds interpenetrate, so that the Sephiroth at one level may have a different connotation from the world above or below it.

Keep in mind that the passage from Isaiah from the epigraph reveals the nature of the four worlds.

Azilut (Emanation). This is the unchanging divine world. One is called to that world, as Beatrice called to Dante. This should begin with the Trinity. Eckhart’s and Boehme’s understanding of the Trinity are helpful, as is Solovyov’s as described in Lectures on Divine Humanity.

Sophia, too, as Wisdom appears here. There is a collection of Solovyov’s writings and descriptions of his encounters with Sophia. Bulgakov wrote a short book as an introduction to Sophia.

Mouravieff may have something to add on these ideas.

Beriah (Creation). This is the world beyond space-time, pure consciousness, or Heaven. The world of the higher angels. Pure spirit or thought. Some philosophers have attained to an understanding of this level.

Relating to the named angels may be helpful, starting with Metatron. Dionysius on the Celestial Hierarchy, also St. Bonaventura. The Meditations mention two works by Rudolf Steiner.

Yetzirah (Formation). This the Corporeal world. Also Eden. I’ve found that Wolfgang Smith’s distinction between the Corporeal and Physical worlds is very helpful. He shows that the corporeal world of our ordinary experience, is on a higher plane than the material world studied by physicists.

The features of the body at this level are: Impassibility, Subtlety, Agility, Clarity. (Look them up if you don’t know them.)

Boehme’s description of the Fall of Adam and Eve may be helpful, in showing the transition from corporeality to physicality.

Assiyyah (Action or making). This is the world of man’s making, a factitious world. After the fall he became dense and acquired a material body (“coats of skin”). The upper part of this world is the natural psyche relating to the lower intellectual and emotional centers. Then the descent is to sensations, instincts and the body itself.

The Star of the Magi

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are. ~ St. Augustine of Hippo

As was mentioned in Salvation and Evolution last month, it is worthwhile to repeat this:

Our time makes an appeal to the collective endeavour of Hermetists of today to make a third summary, which will be for our time what the Tarot was for the Middle Ages and what the Emerald Tablet was for antiquity. Thus, just as the Emerald Tablet saved the essence of ancient wisdom, and just as the Tarot saved the essence of medieval wisdom, across the deluges which occurred in the time that separates us from them, may the essence of modern wisdom be saved in a spiritual “Noah’s ark” from the deluge which is going to come, and may it thereby be transmitted to the future, just as the essence of ancient wisdom and that of medieval wisdom has been transmitted to us by means of the Emerald Tablet and the Major Arcana of the Tarot. The tradition of Hermetism blossomed in the past and must live in the future. This is why a new, modern summary is required, which will be as viable as the Emerald Tablet and as the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

It is all too easy to forget that the intention of the Tarot is to preserve Hermetic wisdom. It is an example of objective art, since its symbolism will open itself up to those with the developed intuition to grasp its deeper meaning. Without that, the cards become subjective and arbitrary. So in “our time”, we see a multitude of variously themed decks of cards that have no connection at all to Hermetic teachings, but merely reflect the personal judgments of the artist.

In the Letter on the Fool, Valentin Tomberg reveals his experiences in 1920 with the group who had studied the Tarot with the Russian esoterist Gregory Ottonovitch Mebes. Although his claim to have surpassed their understanding of the Tarot is certainly true, the echoes of that original impulse can still be heard in the meditations.

The Spiritual Battle

Mouni Sadhu had also encountered some members of Mebes’ groups and even hinted at an initiation into the Martinist Order. His book on the Tarot is strongly based on the notes he had from that group. As such, that book is interesting as a framework for the Meditations. Sadhu’s book is analogous to the chord progression and the Meditations are like jazz riffs over those chords.
Star of the Magi
Each Arcanum in the Mebes Tarot deck has three levels of interpretation: archetype, human, nature. It also has a scientific name as well as a common name. For example, the full name of Arcanum 17 is the Star of the Magi. The Magi come up in passing in the Meditations through their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The three levels of this Arcanum are:

  • Hope
  • Intuition
  • Natural Divination

Each of these levels corresponds to the knowledge of the three cosmic forces explained by Fabre d’Olivet:

  • Providence. Supernatural Hope is the knowledge of God’s promises.
  • Will. Intuition is knowledge without thinking.
  • Destiny. Also Fate or Karma. Natural Divination is our knowledge of the physical world.

This is how Sadhu describes this Arcanum:

It is not sufficient to be logically convinced under all circumstances, often Hope is necessary. It is not enough to enforce our will astrally, we should also have tact and intuition. It is not enough to know that Fate is pitiless on the physical plane, but it may be useful to know how to foresee its forms by the use of divinatory methods.

Alfred North Whitehead in Process and Reality describes how those forces interact to create new experiences. At each moment, the accumulation of the past exercises a strong influence to prevent change. God’s influence is also present as a creative, but not coercive, lure. Finally, the human Will acts on those possibilities of manifestation at each occasion.

Our knowledge of the physical world is through science and discursive thinking. However, intuition is our knowledge of higher things. That is why the Arcanum of the Star is about intuition, as it reveals aspects of Reality unknown to science. Sadhu explains:

Providence illuminates the present with its Light. … Hope acts and radiates its rays throughout the darkest corners of our consciousness.

Tomberg identifies this light with Hope:

The light-force which emanates from the star … is hope. … Hope is not something subjective. It is a light-force that radiates objectively and directs creative evolution towards the world’s future.

However, it does not act alone but requires humanity’s cooperation. Sadhu, too, recognizes human evolution, but only:

If humanity’s will is allied with the enlightening influence of Destiny, then it is stronger than Fate. In such cases, the history of humanity has an evolutionary character.

That is the only valid path. Unfortunately, there are false paths that lead to destruction: viz., denying the influence of Destiny, denying the voice of Providence, or even succumbing to Fate.

The latter keeps the will asleep, leading to resignation, routine, quietism, or fatalism. Dualism, on the other hand, awakens the will. Specifically, there must be a Yes and a No, the Will is forced to choose. Without the awareness of a spiritual battle, the Will remains asleep. Johann Fichte’s recognized this very clearly. Bryan Magee summarizes Fichte’s insight:

For morality to be possible there must be a choice, and for choice to be a possibility for me it is necessary that something should exist other than my self. Similarly, for moral action to be a possibility for me, there needs to be some challenge, something that exists in opposition to my self, or at least something that is a potential obstruction to my activity. So if I am to be a moral being at all it is necessary that there should be a world which is not me, a world of objects which can obstruct me. On the basis of this central argument Fichte evolved a philosophy according to which what is primal and original is the noumenal moral will, and this will begins into existence the phenomenal world as the requisite field for the self-objectification of moral activity.

This is represented by the two vases, which are poured into the same stream. Tomberg laments:

Here is the tragedy of human life and mankind’s history and cosmic evolution. The flow of continuity in heredity, tradition and lastly evolution bears not only all that which is healthy, noble, holy and divine of the past, but also all that which was infectious, vile, blasphemous and diabolical. All is borne pell-mell, never ending, towards the future.

There must be righteous Anger against the latter qualities, as well as the Courage to choose the former. Together, those are the daughters of Hope, which “transforms the future into promise.” That promise ultimately is the City of God, the state of Reintegration prior to the duality exposed by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Light of Hope

To live in the light of Hope is to reject the sleep of Fate. Fate is the Eternal Return, in which nothing is new, but is merely the Past repeating itself indefinitely. On the contrary, Tomberg reminds us:

Each day is a unique event and revelation which will never be repeated.

This is compatible with Rene Guenon’s claim that the same state of existence cannot be repeated, as that would be tantamount to the denial of God’s Infinitude.

Fortune Telling

The Patzer’s of Hermetism remain mired in the residues such as the various forms of Divination or the material tasks of the Alchemists. Mouni Sadhu acknowledges that “Everything in the Universe is mutually connected and bound together or interwoven.” Hope, Intuition, and Destiny – as we pointed out – occur at every moment. Regarding Fate or Karma, Sadhu acknowledges:

Karma reveals its mysteries and secrets to us every hour, every minute, and every second. For every one of us these mysteries are written in the starry sky (astrology), on our skulls (phrenology), on our faces (physiognomy) and on our hands (chiromancy). Karma unveils itself in every one of our movements, in the smallest of realisations (graphology, cartomancy) and so on.

The practice of these techniques requires an intuition to experience images. Although many may have such experiences, Sadhu points out that the main difficulty is not the obtaining of such visions, but rather the art of interpreting them. This is only possible through the full domination of the mind which requires the power of concentration. This is a rare quality.

Recently, I read a comment that claimed that someone with such divinatory powers would become wealthy. That shows an ignorance of the methods of the esoteric sciences, as she can conceive them only in the manner of the secular sciences, which are open to anyone. On the other hand, the mastery of the esoteric sciences requires the moral purification of the will. If such powers are used for egotistical motives or monetary gains, they are likely to be lost. Hence, the charging of money for Tarot card readings should be suspect.

Ultimately, Sadhu rejects such divinatory practices, because they are restricted to the level of Fate or Destiny. They leave out both the person’s free will and God’s Providence from the vision of the future.

The Synthesis of Science and Religion

Tomberg asserts that the synthesis of science and religion if the task and mission of Hermetism. Those who like to play at Hermetism remain obsessed with the early material tasks of the Alchemists: the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, the panacea, the transmutation of metals, all in their private laboratory. Tomberg offers an alternative.

It is the world which has become the alchemical laboratory, just as it has become the mystical oratory.

This is not the failure of alchemy, but rather its triumph. This new alchemy is the synthesis of salvation and evolution, which is expressed in three ways:

The work of all those who taught a way —

  • the mystical and spiritual way of purification, illumination and union, or
  • the historical and social way of the progress of civilisation through social and moral justice, or
  • the biological way of evolution from the sphere of chemical elements to the sphere of living organisms and from the sphere of living organisms to that of beings endowed with thought and word

— the work of all these, I say, which teaches us a way of individual and collective perfection, is now resplendent in the rainbow of the synthesis of salvation and evolution, the rainbow of mankind’s hope.

Safeguarding the Mysteries

Klein Bottle
Spiritual questions, or debates over the superiority this of that tradition, can be resolved neither by personal predilections nor by empirical and historical considerations. These issues can only be addressed from the understanding of metaphysical principles. It is curious, though symptomatic of the contemporary human situation, that everyone feels competent to opine on spiritual and political matters, although they would not dare to say anything at all about quantum physics or algebraic topology, topics much simpler to understand.

One such principle is that knowledge is being, “to know is to be”. In order to know something of spiritual depth, one must become deep oneself. Frithjof Schuon wrote a book titled The Transcendent Unity of Religions, the point of which is that although on the human plane, different religions may diverge widely, at the level of principle, they must needs converge. Thus, for example, the Catholic monk Thomas Merton can rightly claim that he has more in common with a Zen monk than he does with the average Catholic in the pew.

Hence, the importance of spiritual practice is more important than just knowing doctrines or philosophies. This is what separates the Metaphysician and the Hermetist from the ordinary philosopher. The great Hermetist of the 20th century, Valentin Tomberg, in the Meditations on the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot makes this clear in the following passage: (p 122, my translation)

The goal of spiritual exercises is depth. It is necessary to become deep in order to be able to achieve the experience and knowledge of deep things. And it is symbolism which is the language of depth — so that these are the arcana expressed by the symbols that are the means and the goal of spiritual exercises, from which the living Tradition of Hermetic Philosophy is composed.

Common spiritual exercises create the common link which unites Hermetists. It is not common knowledge which unites them but rather spiritual exercises and the experiences they entail. If three people from different countries who had used Moses’ Genesis, John’s Gospel, and Ezekiel’s Vision as the subjects of spiritual exercises for several years were to meet, they would do so as brothers even though one knew the history of humanity, the other had the science of healing, and the third was a deep cabbalist.

What they know is the result of personal experience and direction, whereas the depth, the level that they have reached — without regard to the aspect and extent of the knowledge that has been gained — is what they have in common. Hermetism, the Hermetic Tradition, is first and foremost, a certain degree of depth, a certain level of consciousness. And it is spiritual exercises that safeguard it.

Salvation and Evolution

At the conclusion to the Meditation on the Arcanum of the Star, Valentin Tomberg makes the following appeal:

In our time, therefore, it is a matter of the task of effecting the third step of the evolutionary spiral of the Hermetic tradition — the third “recovery” of the subject of the Emerald Tablet. Our time makes an appeal to the collective efforts of Hermetists of today to make a third summary, which will be for our time what the Tarot was for the Middle Ages and what the Emerald Tablet was for antiquity… This is why a new, modern summary is required, which will be as viable as the Emerald Tablet and as the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

With this, Tomberg exhorts us to move past the Tarot and to reformulate Hermetic wisdom in a contemporary way. Nay, it is not he but our Mother who exhorts us to our duty to the future. That is the message of the woman in the Star:

It is she who is the Mother of the Future, and this is why her message confronts us with duty towards the future—the duty of the river of the unbroken Tradition. It is necessary for us to make efforts to comply with this!

In this Letter Tomberg relates Salvation to Evolution. Salvation is from the Father and tells us “what”: the Mystery of Salvation through the Son. The Mysteries of the Mother tells us “how”: through biological and spiritual evolution. That is, salvation comes from above, the eternal, the timeless, while evolution is the projection of salvation onto the dimension of time. In the following passage, Tomberg gives us a number of predecessors whose collected efforts teach us the synthesis of Salvation and Evolution.

But let us not forget that this synthesis of today has had its history, and that this is due also to “labor pains”. It was born after a long series of continuous efforts from century to century:

  • the effort of Heraclitus, the philosopher of the perpetual change of matter;
  • that of the Gnostics, who made the drama of the fall and return of Sophia Achamoth resound in human history;
  • that of St. Augustine, the father of the philosophy of history, who brought to light the twofold current in mankind’s history—the “City of Man” and the “City of God”;
  • that of the alchemising Hermetic thinkers who affirmed and re-affirmed untiringly the principle of the transformability of the base into the noble;
  • that of Martinez de Pasqually, who wrote his Traité de la reintegration des êtres (“Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings”);
  • that of Fabre d’Olivet, the author of L’histoire philosophique du genre humain (“Philosophical History of the Human Race”), showing the dynamic operation of the triangle destiny-freedom-providence in mankind’s history;
  • that of H. P. Blavatsky, who added and opposed to Charles Darwin’s materialistic evolution a breath-taking vision of the spiritual evolution of the universe;
  • that of Rudolf Steiner, who emphasized that the center of gravity of spiritual-cosmic evolution – to know Jesus Christ – is also not far from Teilhard de Chardin‘s “Omega point”);

All these efforts have contributed —in a visible or invisible manner —to the synthesis of today. They live, all together, in the contemporary synthesis of evolution and salvation, which is the fruit of this collective effort from century to century. ~ Valentin Tomberg, Letter XVII: The Star [corrected translation]

The Philosophical History of the Human Race

The temptation is to get “stuck” on the Tarot, collecting different versions, and so on, whereas our real task is to understand, develop, explain, and expound on the contents of the Letters. To that end, this post will focus on Fabre d’Olivet’s contribution to the synthesis in his Philosophical History of the Human Race. Need I repeat here that Tomberg regarded this history as the most lucid he had encountered?

Note that his is a “philosophical” history, not an exact sequential reproduction as profane historians try to write. Instead, he relies on his powers of Creative Imagination, which Tomberg describes as reading the Akashic record. There are many theories of history, e.g., the Marxist, the Freudian, racial, materialistic, and so on, but Fabre relies instead of his precise understanding of the three Forces that actually motivate the world process, which we previously described in Providence, Will, Destiny.

  • Destiny
  • Will
  • Providence

Corresponding to those macrocosmic forces, there are these three spheres of life:

  • Instinctive (necessities): sensation, instinct, common sense
  • Animistic (passions): sentiment, understanding, reason
  • Intellectual (inspirations): assent, intelligence, sagacity

These spheres are not fully developed in all human beings. Fabre describes the evolution of man as the progress from the instinctive life based on sensation and motivated by attraction or fear, through the animistic life, and finally to the fully human life of the Intellect or Intuition. Of course, that is not the same as discursive thought which is still in the animistic sphere.

However, the development of the intellect cannot happen automatically, mechanistically, or deterministically. Fabre d’Olivet explains:

Nothing was made in advance with him, although everything was determined there in principle. Providence, whose work he was, willed that he should develop himself freely and that nothing should be forced in him.

The Coming Deluge

With this esoteric key, Fabre explains the development of Marriage, social and political structures, commerce, justice, and so on. In an upcoming post, we will summarize his main points. The Deluge is coming. This is the loss of Tradition and the forgetfulness of esoteric or Hermetic knowledge, which is leading us backwards toward our animal and instinctive natures. The collective ignorance of the human race regards that as “progress”, the liberation from social and religious structures that have sustained the human race, bringing Salvation to many.

Signs of the Deluge: Instead of justice, right is established by force. In place of impartial knowledge, there is a battle of opinions, each held with passionate intensity. The Emerald Tablet saved the essence of ancient Wisdom, and the Tarot saved the essence of Medieval Wisdom. The task of preserving modern wisdom requires a new “Noah’s Ark”, whose form is yet to be determined.