Meditations on the Tarot: Pope of the Pentagramthe operation of a limited number of magical formulae and signs

The senses —given that they are sound and functioning normally—are wounds through which the objective world, without regard to our will, imposes itself on us. But the senses are organs of perception, not of action.

It is still necessary to specify the five wounds corresponding to the five dark currents of the will — the desire for personal greatness, to take, to keep, to advance and to hold on to at the expense of others —which correspond, in their turn, to the five limbs (including the head as a limb).

How does one acquire the five wounds?

Every esotericist, every mystic, every idealist, every spiritual-seeker and, lastly, every man of good will makes use of it, in Europe as in Asia, today as twenty centuries ago. This universal method of all ages and all cultures is nothing other than the practice of the three traditional vows, namely obedience, poverty and chastity.

Now, it is a matter in the magic of the sacred pentagram of five wounds of accomplishing the living presence of the good alongside the consciousness of the subject of the operation. For good does not fight evil; it does not struggle against it. The good is only present, or it is not. Its victory consists in that it results in being present, its defeat in that it is forced to be absent.

The history of mankind —seen from its "nocturnal" side— is at root the operation of a limited number of magical formulae and signs.

The cross, the pentagram and the hexagram are signs and formulae which operate in the history of mankind. The cross is the vow and virtue of obedience, i.e. the sign and formula of faith, as horizontal human respiration and vertical divine respiration united together. The pentagram is initiative; it is effort and work, i.e. the vow and virtue of poverty—or the sign and formula of hope as the effect of the presence of divine light here below. The hexagram is the vow and virtue of chastity, i.e. the sign and formula of love.

Now, the post of Pope in the spiritual history of mankind is that of guardian of the sacred pentagram of the five wounds, i.e. he guards the one legitimate way of passing from the cross to the pentagram and from the pentagram to the hexagram. The mission of the post of Pope is to take care that spiritual obedience, poverty and chastity—free and holy —do not disappear from the world and that there are always people in the world who embrace them and represent them. For these three practical vows constitute the preliminary condition for living faith, luminous hope and ardent love, i.e. for the spiritual respiration of humanity.

excerpted and edited from chapter, The Pope

Meditations on the Tarot: Knowing the Emperorthe simultaneous vision of the temporal and the eternal

Authority is the magic of spiritual profundity filled with wisdom. Or, in other words, it is the result of magic based on gnosis due to mystical experience.

For this reason it is more correct to say that authority is the completely-manifested divine name. The completely-manifested divine name signifies at the same time a post, the post of the Emperor, or the state of consciousness of the complete synthesis of mysticism, gnosis and sacred magic.

And it is this state of consciousness of complete synthesis which is initiation. . initiation understood not in the sense of ritual nor in the sense of the possession of information held to be secret, but rather in the sense of the state of consciousness where eternity and the present moment are one. It is the simultaneous vision of the temporal and the eternal, of that which is below and that which is above.
*********************

Hermetic philosophy does not teach what one ought to believe concerning God, man and Nature, but it teaches rather how to ask, seek and knock in order to arrive at mystical experience, gnostic illumination and the magical effect of that which one seeks to know about God, man and Nature.

And it is after having asked, sought and knocked —and after one has received, found and gained access — that one knows. This kind of knowing — the certainty of the synthetic comprehension of mystical experience, gnostic revelation and magical effect—is the Emperor, this is the practical teaching of the fourth Card of the Tarot.

from The Emperor

from Meditations on the Tarot: Juggling Analogiessynthesizing with the unconscious; vision without effort

The practice of analogy on the intellectual plane of consciousness does not, in fact, demand any effort; either one perceives ("sees") analogous correspondences or one docs not perceive or "see" them. Just as the magician or juggler has had to train and work for a long time before attaining the ability of concentration without effort, similarly he who makes use of the method of analogy on the intellectual plane must have worked much —i.e. to have acquired long experience and to have accumulated the teachings which it requires — before attaining the faculty of immediate perception of analogous correspondences, before becoming a "magician" or "juggler" who makes use of the analogy of beings and of things without effort as in a game.

The Magician represents the man who has attained harmony and equilibrium between the spontaneity of the unconscious (in the sense given to it by C. G. Jung) and the deliberate action of the conscious (in the sense of "I" or ego consciousness). His state of consciousness is the synthesis of the conscious and the unconscious —of creative spontaneity and deliberately executed activity. It is the state of consciousness that the psychological school of C. G. Jung calls "individuation", or "synthesis of the conscious and unconscious elements in the personality", or "synthesis of the self." This synthesis renders possible concentration without effort and intellectual vision without effort, which are the practical and theoretical aspects of all fruitfulness in both practical and intellectual realms.

from The Magician

from Meditations on the Tarot: Out the Mystic Degenerating to the creative and into the aesthetic

Just as contemporary technological science is the direct continuation of ceremonial magic, contemporary profane art is merely a continuation of gnosis and magic which have lost sight of mysticism and become separated from it. Because art seeks to reveal and applies itself to do this in a magical manner.

The ancient mysteries were only sacred art — being in the background conscious of mysticism and gnosis. But after forgetting this background or, so to say, after this background receded too far into the background, there remained a gnosis (or a "revelationism") deprived at root of mystical discipline and experience. In this way "creative art" originated, and the mysteries became theatre, revelationary mantras became verses, hymns became songs, and revelationary pantomimic movements became dances, whilst cosmic myths gave way to belles lettres.

Art, being separated from the living organism of the unity of the Tetragrammaton, is necessarily removed from gnosis as well as from sacred magic —from which it springs and to which it owes its substance and the sap of its life. The pure revelation of gnosis has become more and more a game of the imagination and the power of magic has degenerated more and more into aesthetics.

from The Empress

from Meditations on the Tarot (Valentin Tomberg)The Four Esoteric Senses (& The Four Stages of Gnosis)

Each mode of experience and knowledge when pushed to its limit becomes a sense or engenders a special sense. He who dares to aspire to the experience of the unique essence of Being will develop the mystical sense or spiritual touch. If he wants not only to live but also to learn to understand what he lives through, he will develop the gnostic sense. And if he wants to put into practice what he has understood from mystical experience, he will develop the magical sense. If, lastly, he wants all that he has experienced, understood and practiced to be not limited to himself and his time, but to become communicable to others and to be transmitted to future generations, he must develop the Hermetic-philosophical sense, and in practicing it he will "write his book".

The essence of pure mysticism is creative activity. One becomes a mystic when one dares to elevate oneself—i.e. "to stand upright", then even more upright, and ever more upright - beyond all created being as far as the essence of Being, the divine, creative fire. "Concentration without effort" is burning without smoke or crackling fire.

The essence of pure gnosis is reflected mysticism. Gnosis signifies that that which takes place in mysticism has become higher knowledge. That is, gnosis is mysticism which has become conscious of itself. It is mystical experience transformed into higher knowledge.

Now, this transformation of mystical experience into knowledge takes place in stages. The first is the pure reflection or a kind of imaginative repetition of the experience. The second stage is its entrance into memory. The third stage is its assimilation in thought and feeling, in a manner where it becomes a "message" or inner word. The fourth stage, lastly, is reached when it becomes a communicable symbol or "writing", or "book"—i.e. when it is formulated.

from The High Priestess