Review by Jean-Michel David
Anonymous (written in French by a Russian ex-patriot living
in London, 1967)
As the Robert Powell 1985
translation of this book has just been published for the third
time, I thought it timely to write this brief review
which cannot, in my opinion, do the book justice. As
Powell writes in his own review, the book 'is truly a
magnum opus'.
I have the 1993 edition published by
Element Books, which has no introduction, afterword nor
index - unlike, from what I have been told, the newly
released (Penguin-Putnam) Tarcher 2002 publication. Still,
the manuscript I have has 658 pages of solid, clear
and wide-ranging text.
The book is divided into
twenty-two letters from the Unknown Author (UA) to his
readers ('UA' is an appellation becoming increasingly
common when referring to its author, and reminiscent of
the Martinist 'Unknown Philosopher'). Such 'letter'
style is not unusual, and is found in some classic
Russian and mediaeval Christian texts - for example The
Cloud of Unknowing (Penguin Classics).
The UA clearly comes from a Christian perspective, but not one
which would be expected from the exoteric church -
though I have been informed that the current Pope has a
copy of the German translation of the work!
Each letter truly is an exegesis of one of the Major Arcana,
with the final letter making implications for the
minor. Though the author clearly refers to the
Marseilles deck in the text - the French edition of the book,
by the way, is illustrated with the Wirth deck - he
also states (p 260)
The twenty-two Cards of
the Major Arcana of the Tarot being an
organism, a complete whole, it is not a question of diverse
and disparate origins of particular Cards, but rather
of the degrees of their evolution or
transformation. For the Tarot, also, is not a wheel, a
closed circle, but rather a spiral, i.e. it
evolves through tradition and ...
reincarnation
Reading the book is certainly a journey - not because it
takes the reader along well traveled paths (which it
does, being firmly grounded in tradition)
- but because the reader is lead far and wide to a
very diverse and broad range of other authors - some
well known, such as Drs Steiner or Jung, others not as
well, such as Dr Carton or Prof. Mebes.
The classics
are also extremely well interweaved, and
relevant quotes from such important esoteric, spiritual and
hermetic texts as the Kore Kosmu, the Bible,
the Zohar, the Vishvasara Tantra, the
Hermetica (amongst others), as well as quotes from Wirth,
Origen, Papus, St Teresa, St John of the Cross, as well as
those previously mentioned (Steiner et al.) are
carefully selected and artfully placed.
Of Tarot's history,
the UA states (ibid.)
The authors who saw in
the Tarot the "Sacred Book of Thoth" (Thoth = Hermes
Trismegistus) were both right and wrong at the same time. They
were right in so far as they traced back the history of
the essence of the Tarot to antiquity, notably
to ancient Egypt. And they were wrong in so far as
they believed that the Tarot had been
inheritedfrom ancient Egypt, i.e. that it had been
transmitted from generation to generation subject to minor
iconographic changes.
Further details of the book are
also available at
http://www.medtarot.freeserve.co.uk/
This book, when only not long out of print, fetched up
to US$200 on the market - such is its desirability.
For all serious Tarot enthusiasts, and for all
aspirants walking the Occidental Spiritual paths, I would
recommend it without reservations.
This work ranks amongst
the classics of mysticism, gnosis and magic - the
three pathways into Hermeticism. In my opinion, it is
the most masterful book which utilises the Major
Arcana of the Tarot as tools to enter spiritual
dimensions.
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