27/04/2015

PopeJohnPaulIImeditatingontheTarot?theosophist.wordpress.com

theosophist.wordpress.com

Pope John Paul II meditating

on the Tarot?
April 24, 2008 3 min read original

Another very intriguing addition to the perception of the possible

esoteric interests of Pope John Paul II came from a friend of my
Alpheus web site in the form of a set of photos, one of which
shows the pope sitting behind his desk with a stack of books. The
bottom two books are arguably the 2-volume set of Die Grossen
Arcana des Tarot, which is the 1983 German edition of the
French original and out of which sections were taken and
published in English as Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into
Christian Hermeticism.

The book was anonymously written by the Catholic writer and exAnthroposophist Valentin Tomberg and was published in 1972
just before he died. The eminent esotericism scholar Antoine
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Faivre states that in

terms of content and reception it has to be positioned among
the foremost books in Western esotericism published in the
20th century. (Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, 112)

On closer inspection the images actually do not match up, for the
books on the popes desk have the arrows on the spine of the book
pointing north-east (if you position the book straight up),

while on the clear picture of the original book the arrows point
north-west:

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Different book? Initially I was skeptical to find such a book on the

desk of the pope while being photographed for a prominent
magazine. Maybe there just was some semblance and based on
that the person who found the images, Ed Manhood, just jumped
to the conclusion that the two books were identical. My solution
to that little conundrum was to test whether it was possible that
the picture of the pope at his desk was maybe a mirrored picture.
To determine that possibility from the appearance of the titles is
impossible, because they are not clear enough. To actually find
out I focused on the question of whether the pope wears his
wristwatch on his left or right wrist. On the photo it is clear he is
wearing it on his right wrist. But is that the wrist he usually wears
it? Apparently not. I found through Google Images at least three
clear photos where he is wearing his watch on the left. And here is
one:

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Based on this I have to conclude that the 1988 Weltbild photo is a

mirror image of the original. Therefore, if you mirror the photo
back, the arrow will go from pointing north-east to north-west

just as is the case on the spine on the clear photo (here turned
180 degrees to align them again), and the discrepancy is solved:

Therefore the original picture of the pope behind his desk was
this:

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Apparently the book landed on the popes desk as a gift from one
of his Cardinals, the German Jesuit Hans Urs von Balthasar, who
also had written its very laudatory foreword, which by itself is
another startling addition to the emerging picture here of a
Hermeticist-Catholic connection here.
A thinking, praying Christian of unmistakable purity reveals to
us the symbols of Christian Hermeticism in its various levels of
mysticism, gnosis and magic, taking in also the Cabbala and
certain elements of astrology and alchemy. These symbols are
summarised in the twenty-two so-called Major Arcana of the
Tarot cards. By way of the Major Arcana the author seeks to lead
meditatively into the deeper, all-embracing wisdom of the
Catholic Mystery.
Firstly, it may be recalled that such an attempt is to be found
nowhere in the history of philosophical, theological and
Catholic thought.

And the connection is not secretive either. On the contrary. The

American Cistercian monk and populizer of a practice named
centering prayer, Fr. Thomas Keating openly calls in a review
for the book to become a fundamental Christian text.
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With its firm grasp of tradition, its balance, wisdom, profundity,

openness to truth, and comprehensive approach to reality, it
deserves to be the basis of a course in spirituality in every
Christian institution of higher learning and what would be even
better, the point of departure and unifying vision of the whole
curriculum.

Wow. Whats going on here? Specifically, my question would be:

What are the possible spiritual-intellectual ways Wojtyla,
Balthasar and Keating are relating to Tombergs book? Are they
Hermeticist moles in the Vatican spreading esotericism amongst
thinking Catholics? Or are they part of an agenda to subsume
Hermeticism under Catholicism with possibly a sinister
Jesuitical twist? Or are they ecumenical syncretists? Or are they a
part, consciously or not, of a Mahatmic agenda to reform
Catholicism along Occult lines? After all Blavatsky stated:
Like an immense boa-constrictor, Error, in every shape,
encircles mankind, trying to smother in her deadly coils every
aspiration towards truth and light. But Error is powerful only on
the surface, prevented as she is by Occult Nature from going any
deeper; for the same Occult Nature encircles the whole globe, in
every direction, leaving not even the darkest corner unvisited.
And, whether by phenomenon or miracle, by spirit-hook or
bishops crook, Occultism must win the day, before the present
era reaches Sanis (Saturns) triple septenary of the Western
Cycle in Europe, in other wordsbefore the end of the twentyfirst century A.D. (BCW XIV, p. 27)

Which of these possibilities might muster some proof? Is there

anything in Tombergs text that might give a clue? I didnt read
the book, so I dont know. Anybody?

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