The book Meditations on the Tarot (MoTT) has affected people on many levels.
Some will take it as an end in itself and either never go beyond the text itself or perhaps focus on the author, who deliberately sought to remain unknown, rather than the meditations.
Others will focus on the Tarot, become interested in the history of the Tarot, various cards, and so on, although MoTT is not at all interested in such topics.
Rather, MoTT’s purpose is to entice the reader into being a part of the living stream of the Hermetic tradition, and even to contribute to it.
The many authors cited in MoTT should entice us to seek out the original works. For, as MoTT points out, to become immersed in the thoughts of a dead writer is to re-think those same thoughts, thus bringing them back to life.
The sheer variety, however, presents us with difficulties. Someone who reads Thomas Aquinas, for example, is unlikely to have read Rudolf Steiner, and vice versa. An expert in Biblical scholarship will not have read occult literature. The historian of the human race will reject the esoteric history revealed in MoTT. The scientist is not interested in angels. And so on.
Hence, we rely on the method of depth. Two people of the same depth will understand each other, even when their surface interests are quite divergent. So instead of commentaries on the meditations, it would be better to focus on developing depth. The first four meditations provide the foundations; they need to first be understood thoroughly.
To that end, it would be better to focus on certain topics. Some specific topics for your consideration are:
- Angels. The works of Dionysius, Steiner, and Swedenborg are suitable starting points.
- Esoteric History. MoTT recommends Fabre d’Olivet, d’Alveydre, Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner
- Cosmogony. Genesis, the yugas of ancient India, the Secret Doctrine, Occult Science, Plato, Zohar, etc.
- Of course, there are specific Biblical texts that are good spiritual exercises: Genesis, St. John’s Gospel, Ezekiel, Revelation
- Then there is the as yet unfulfilled meditation on the minor arcana, which has been left to the readers of MoTT
Obviously, none of these things can happens quickly, but to happen at all, a that task must be begun. I assume many of you think efforts in these directions will be quite worthwhile, both for your personal spiritual development, as well as to contribute to the Hermetic tradition. There are two ways to participate:
- Mailing lists discussions of one or more of these topics
- Online collaboration. We have web conferencing software, so we are planning an online discussion for some time in July