Meditations on the Tarot

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The Word is Silence Expressed

Major Arcanum 1

The Multiple States of the Being is Rene Guenon‘s fundamental work on metaphysics. In it he explains that “just as Unity (Being) is nothing but the metaphysical Zero (Non-Being) affirmed, the word is silence expressed.” That is, Silence contains within itself the possibility of the Word.

But the Silence is more than the word. The latter is silence expressed, but Silence must needs include as well the inexpressible. Hence, Silence is related to mystery, which refers to something inexpressible, not incomprehensible (which is a common misconception). The implication here is that the understanding of a mystery requires intuition, a direct knowing of the inexpressible; what can be expressed can, on the other hand, be known through discursive thought.

Guenon makes some interesting etymological connections. The Greek mysterion derives from myein which means “to be silent”. The same root mu in Latin is used in mutus, “mute”, but more significantly in the word mythos, “myth”. So a myth refers to that which is inexpressible, that is, something that can only be expressed indirectly by means of symbolic representations.

In Meditations on the Tarot, this Silence is related to concentration without effort. To know this Silence is to be this Silence. That is, the discursive mind is quieted of its thoughts, images, desires. This is a concentration, not of something, but the effortless concentration of the Silence. We read there:

Concentration without effort, which means there is nothing to suppress and where contemplation becomes as natural as breathing and the beating of the heart, is the state of consciousness — of the intellect, the imagination, the feelings, and the will — a state of perfect calm, accompanied by the complete relaxation of the nerves and muscles of the body. It is the deep silence of desires, concerns, imagination, memory, and discursive thought. We would say that the entire being has become like the surface of calm waters reflecting the immense presence of the starry sky and its inexpressible harmony. And the waters are deep, oh how deep! And the silence increases, always increasing, what SILENCE! Its growth takes place in regular waves which pass, one after the other, through your being: one wave of silence followed by another wave of deeper silence, then yet another wave of even deeper silence … Have you ever drunk the silence. If so, you know what concentration without effort it.

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Enriching the Hermetic Tradition

Although we know who the author was, the book Meditations on the Tarot was published anonymously and posthumously. Valentin Tomberg explains why he wrote his meditations on the major arcana of the Tarot in French:

These letters were written in French, which is not the mother tongue of the author, because it is in France, and in France only, that a living literature on the Tarot has been perpetuated since the 18th century. Furthermore, there exists as well a continuous tradition of Hermetism, which unites a spirit of free research with respect for the Tradition. These letters, by virtue of their contents, will therefore be able to become an integral part of the Tradition while enriching it. [my translation]

This attests to the continuous existence of the Hermetic tradition. Having been driven underground following the destruction of the Templars, it re-emerged in France. From there it was preserved in Russia, as we can infer from the life of Joseph de Maistre.

For our Meditations on the Tarot, we adhere to the following hermeneutic principles:

It is self-contained. Everything essential to understanding the text is in the book, so there is no necessity to appeal to authorities, ideas, or hearsay not explicitly mentioned in the book.
We take the author to be an honest and sober man. That means we accept that his intent is to enrich and be an integral part of the Hermetic Tradition. We don’t assume some other ulterior or hidden motive.
The text is its own authority. The book is useful insofar as the Meditations are fruitful to the reader. We don’t accept the book based on some assumed authority of the author. In particular, we don’t assume that the author was a bodhisattva, savior, or the incarnation of some other high being.
We don’t claim any authority to ourselves. Our intention with this blog is to elucidate and expand upon ideas and concepts in the Meditations. We haven’t been visited by Tomberg; he hasn’t dropped books in our lap. in short, a “Tomberg sighting” does not make anyone a Hermetist, no more so than an “Elvis sighting” makes anyone a pop singer.
As Rene Guenon (who also was quite familiar with the French Hermetic tradition) points out, Hermetism is a cosmological system, not a complete tradition. It presumes a metaphysical doctrine, even if not always made explicit, without which certain ideas in it cannot be understood. Therefore, we will supply the metaphysical foundation whenever necessary.