Category: Hermetic Tradition

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The Conversion of Valentin Tomberg

Much ink (virtual and real) has been spilled regarding the conversion of Valentin Tomberg from Anthroposophy to Roman Catholicism. Yet, as we saw in the conversion of Rene Guenon, such a move cannot be understood in the conventional sense as the rejection of one thing and the adoption of another.

Nevertheless, there are those who are convinced that Tomberg rejected so-called New Age teachings to become a Catholic, and therefore attempt to follow him in that path. As a matter of fact, it seems that the Internet is replete with converts (or reverts) who are quite enthusiastic in promoting their new-found faith, usually to excess. While we think such conversions are a good thing in general, that is not at all Tomberg’s message.

In Letter XI, Tomberg explain his reasons for entering the Church.

The way of Hermeticism, solitary and intimate as it is, comprises authentic experiences from which it follows that the Roman Catholic Church is, in fact, a depository of Christian spiritual truth, and the more one advances on the way of free research for this truth, the more one approaches the Church. Sooner or later one inevitably experiences that spiritual reality corresponds—with an astonishing exactitude —to what the Church teaches.

He then lists several specific teachings:

  • There are guardian angels
  • There are saints who participate actively in our lives
  • The Blessed Virgin is real, as she is understood, worshipped, and portrayed
  • The sacraments are effective and there are seven of them
  • The three sacred vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty constitute the very essence of all authentic spirituality
  • Prayer is a powerful means of charity
  • The ecclesiastical hierarchy reflects the celestial hierarchical order
  • The Holy See and the papacy represent a mystery of divine magic
  • Hell, purgatory, and heaven are realities
  • The Master himself abides with his Church
  • The Master is always findable and meetable there

The Common Believer

Any cursory reading of the Meditations shows that it is replete with references to ideas, systems, books, and people that are certainly precursors to the New Age teachings of today. Yet Tomberg did not reject them in toto, not at all. To the contrary, he makes the remarkable claim that following Hermetic teaching to its depths led to his “conversion”. The reasons for this must be explored in what follows. But first of all, note that Tomberg does not claim any sort of superiority; rather, he acknowledges a solidarity with common believers, as expressed in Letter IV.

For the Hermetic-philosophical sense has more in common with the plain and sincere faith of simple people than abstract metaphysics has.

  • For the common believer, God lives; likewise for the Hermeticist.
  • The believer addresses himself to saints and Angels; for the Hermeticist they are real.
  • The believer believes in miracles; the Hermeticist lives in the presence of miracles.
  • The believer prays for the living and the dead; the Hermeticist dedicates all his efforts in the domain of sacred magic to the good of the living and the dead.
  • The believer esteems all that which is traditional; the Hermeticist does likewise.

Rejection of Alternatives

In the Introduction to Inner Development, we are informed that Tomberg initially tried to align himself with the Christian Community and then with Russian Orthodoxy.

The Christian Community was formed by some of Rudolf Steiner’s followers; they have no dogmas, although they have priests and seven sacraments. However, dogmas are not an affront to free will as the Community claims, but rather they are living symbols of a higher spiritual reality as Tomberg came to realize. Typically, organisations that reject dogmas tend to converge to liberalism.

Tomberg attempted to work with the Christian Community by introducing a cult of Mary-Sophia. Emil Bock reportedly said to him: “We have Michael, that’s enough! We don’t need Mary-Sophia.”

As we will see in the next section, that is absolutely contrary to Tomberg’s purpose and mission.

Orthodoxy lacks a complete hierarchy, in particular, the papacy which Tomberg regards as a mystery of divine magic. Russian Orthodoxy retains a notion of being the Third Rome, with an Emperor and the Patriarch as Pope. From the esoteric perspective, this is a caricature of the true teaching, whose real source is suspect. Most of the early popes came from the East; they were more aware of the celestial hierarchy and divine magic. Someday, there will be a Russian pope ruling in the first Rome.

The Blessed Virgin

Tomberg insists that the Blessed Virgin is real, as she is understood, worshipped, and portrayed in the Church. This means that he accepts the four Marian dogmas, not as beliefs but as a personal experience. These are:

  • Mary as the Mother of God
  • Perpetual Virginity
  • The Immaculate Conception
  • The Assumption

Although it is not so common today, when I was a schoolboy, we would attend yearly novena to the Blessed Virgin. We would be given scapulars or medals. Although I might not have fully understood their significance at the time, I have always lived in the security of Mary’s promises of protection. Tomberg describes the esoteric meaning of these promises:

Every Hermeticist who truly seeks authentic spiritual reality will sooner or later meet the Blessed Virgin. This meeting signifies, apart from the illumination and consolation that it comprises, protection against a very serious spiritual danger. For he who advances in the sense of depth and height in the “domain of the invisible” one day arrives at the sphere known by esotericists as the “sphere of mirages” or the “zone of illusion”. This zone surrounds the earth as a belt of illusory mirages. It is this zone which the prophets and the Apocalypse designate “Babylon”. The soul and the queen of this zone is in fact Babylon, the great prostitute, who is the adversary of the Virgin. … One cannot traverse it without the protection of the “mantle of the Blessed Virgin”.

Mary is celebrated as the Queen of Heaven. Tomberg has a deeper insight that takes that teaching much further. In Letter XI, he asserts:

The day when it is achieved will be the day of a new festival — the festival of the coronation of the Virgin on earth. For then the principle of opposition will be replaced on earth by that of collaboration. This will be the triumph of life over electricity. And cerebral intellectuality will then bow before Wisdom (SOPHIA) and will unite with her.

The Virgin will be not only Queen of Heaven, but also Queen of the Earth. Of course, this is confirmed in the Dogmatic Constitution, which calls Mary the Queen of the Universe.

The triumph of life over electricity refers to the Hermetic teaching of electricity, or electro-magnetism, arising from lower forces. Just as a reminder, Tomberg explains:

The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil — the fruit of the polarity of opposites — is therefore electricity; and electricity entails fatigue, exhaustion. death. Death is the price that is paid for the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. the price of life amidst opposites. For it is electricity — physical, psychic and mental — which was introduced into the being of Adam-Eve. and thereby into the whole of life-endowed Nature, from the moment that Adam-Eve entered into communion with the tree of opposites, that is to say with the principle of electricity. And it is thus that death entered into the domain of life-endowed Nature.

Therefore, the next dogma will be Mary as Co-Redemptrix.

Way, Truth, and Life

Tomberg rejected Anthroposophy (although not Steiner himself), describing it as

a movement for cultural reform (art, education, medicine, agriculture) deprived of living esotericism, i.e. without mysticism, without gnosis and without magic, which have been replaced by lectures, study and intellectual work aiming at establishing a concordance between the writings and stenographed lectures of the master.

In other words, it has Truth but not the Life. It is locked in concepts, meaning that one learns the concepts first, then tries to have the experience, whereas it should be vice versa. Tomberg explained this in a letter to Bernhard Martin:

First they [i.e., Anthroposophists] have a world of formulated concepts and then try to arrive at experience. But the concepts hold them shut within their world: the spiritual world remains silent, because they are the ones talking about the spiritual world; they don’t let it speak. It’s otherwise with people [like Jung]; in silence they let the spiritual world speak. And the spiritual world speaks in symbols—i.e. in mystery speech—today just like before.

In other words, it is necessary to treat the concepts as symbols, as the symbol is understood in the Meditations. It is an invitation to a personal meditation, not a univocal concept to be learned. In Covenant of the Heart, Tomberg is more explicit:

Alas it happened, however, for reasons which we need not go into here, that Rudolf Steiner gave his work the form of a science, so-called “spiritual science”. Thereby the third aspect of the indivisible threefoldness of the Way, the Truth, and the Life—namely Life—was not given enough attention. For the scientific form into which the logic of the Logos had to be cast, and by which it was limited, left little room for pure mysticism and spiritual magic, that is, for Life. So there is in Anthroposophy a magnificent achievement of thought and will—which is, however, unmystical and unmagical, i.e. in want of Life. Rudolf Steiner himself was conscious of this essential lack. Therefore, it was with a certain amount of hope that he indicated the necessary appearance of a successor (the Bodhisattva), who would remedy this lack and would bring the trinity of the Way, the Truth, and the Life to full fruition.

Knowledge as Intuition

Tomberg is trying to get us out of our heads in order to experience a higher type of knowledge. In Covenant of the Heart, he explains:

truth is based on “intuition [which] is not attained through practical knowledge or intellectual consideration (reflection), but through direct experience of reality … ‘an evolving revelation from the inner being of man’ … and ‘a direct grasping of the being of things ….’”

He then goes on:

For those who experience it, this form of knowledge counts as the highest because it is experienced … as the result of the most profound contemplation and the greatest concentration, in comparison with which that of intellectual consideration and the practical knowledge gained by way of observation appears superficial. However, it does not count in the slightest way as knowledge (let alone as the highest form of knowledge) for the scientific disciplines—which, as such, lay claim to being of general validity. For the scientific approach is not to strive simply for the truth, but rather to strive for that brand of truth which is of general validity, i.e. that which can be comprehended fundamentally by everyone bestowed with healthy understanding and faculties of perception, and which should thus be concurred with. A scientific discipline—whether a spiritual-scientific or a natural-scientific discipline—does not want to, and is not able to, address itself only to those people who are capable of the concentration and inner deepening necessary for intuition. Were it to do so, it would then not be scientific, i.e. generally comprehensible and provable. Rather, it would be “esoteric”, i.e. a matter for an elite group of special people. In this sense theology is also “science” since, assuming the authority of Scripture and the Church are acknowledged, it can be comprehended and tested by all believers.

Direct spiritual knowledge achieved through intuition is personal—never general or universal, i.e. scientific in the conventional sense. That is why Hermetism is not one philosophical system among many systems, nor one scientific theory among other competing views, nor the foundation of a new religion. In other words, it is not expansive in the horizontal sense, but rather a matter of depth, i.e., a deepening of understanding.

Postscript

So, to simplify, we can define:

  • The Truth as the understanding of concepts
  • The Way as the deepening of that understanding
  • The Life as direct intuition

An example might be this:

  • Hegel’s system of Absolute Idealism, or perhaps other similar systems
  • Steiner created not just a thought system, but also proposed a path of spirit and soul development
  • Tomberg opens up the meaning of symbols and intuition
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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.
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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.

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Advent Meditation: Purity of Thought

Advent Wreath

The distinguishing mark of the Hermetic path is that it seeks to make dogmas and teachings “real” in consciousness. As Tomberg insists, this does not make it “better” than the exoteric teaching, but that it is a path that some are called to follow.

In this spirit, we can meditate on what Christmas means.

  • The birth in the past of Christ the Redeemer.
  • The expectation of Christ the Judge at the end of time.
  • The birth of Christ in the soul eternally, now.

Redemption is the reversal of the effects of the Fall. The Hermetic Tradition calls this process “regeneration” as we seek to make that real in consciousness. The undoing of the Fall requires the second birth of Christ/Logos in the soul. That is, the soul, as the passive element, reflects the activity of the Spirit. Disturbances in the soul — passions, images, desires, thoughts — will distort the spirit, just as disturbances on a pond distort its reflection of the surrounding forest.
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Mind Fasting and the Immaculate Conception

Mary

Mary
In the advent season, many are making sacrifices such as giving up cupcakes or even añejo tequila. While there is a benefit to intentional suffering, it cannot happen in a mechanical way. Too often, it is thought of as the function of “will power”, that is the opposition of one desire (cupcakes) against another (sacrifice). What is really needed is to understand the relationship between personal effort and spiritual reality as we learn in the first Arcanum. This is essential because if one does not understand it (i.e. take hold of it in cognitive and actual practice), one would not know what to do with all the other Arcana. Valentin Tomberg reveals the first and fundamental principle of esoterism:
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