Christian Hermeticism: Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary
Christian Hermeticism, the spiritual stream inaugurated by the Russian mystic and esotericist, Valentin Tomberg, has a flavor of the deeply occult to those who are unfamiliar with it. This spiritual path was, after all, first described in detail in Tomberg’s magnum opus (published anonymously), Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism—a title which itself conjures an aura of mystery and magic.
Yet, I would argue, that Christian Heremetcism is not a path shrouded in the mysterious, bizarre, or arcane—but rather it is a path that finds extraordinary magic in the ordinary experiences of life.
Expect the Unexpected
To those fearful of anything esoteric, the mere mention of the word “Tarot” is enough to cause them to thrill with terror, tossing Meditations into a bonfire and calling for the nearest exorcist. Those who are familiar with esoteric teachings, however, may have quite the opposite reaction, opening the book in eager expectation of arcane and obscure explications of ancient mysteries. The interesting thing about Meditations on the Tarot, however, is that it rather disappoints both those expectations, offering an altogether different spiritual vision than anyone expects.
To those fearful of the occult, it offers a surprising affirmation and defense of ordinary religious practices, such as the rosary, novenas, the Our Father, and other familiar prayers. It also appeals to aspects of Catholic faith and practice well-known to all, such as the spiritual office of the papacy, St. Benedict’s famous dictum ora et labora, and the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Put another way, it defends simple Christian piety and devotion—something surprising to Catholics or other Christians who may expect anything occult to be a dangerous threat to their faith.
To an occultist fascinated by all that is obscure, strange, and mysterious, the book may offer a surprising lack of excitement. That is not to say that there are not many occult teachings within it. Many familiar with esoteric knowledge agree that Meditations on the Tarot is one of the most profound occult texts written, and copious mentions of such topics as alchemy, kabbalah, the Emerald Table, and magic abound within it.
What is unexpected, however, is that Meditations does not revel in or cultivate occult strangeness for strangeness’ sake, something which I have found to be true of some other occult texts I have encountered. For it is, unfortunately, true that some occultists seem to disdain the ordinary or exoteric, eager as they are to bathe everything in the shadowy half-light of secretiveness, oddity, and obscurity. This type of esotericist revels in an atmosphere of mystery, seeing himself as a wiser-than-ordinary mage and proud possessor of secret knowledge inaccessible to the masses.
What makes Valentin Tomberg, and thus Meditations on the Tarot, unique is that he flatly rejects any cultivation of this pseudo-magical ethos. Of course, Tomberg was highly knowledgable and experienced in nearly every occult stream, including Tantra, Tibetan Buddhism, Rosicrucianism, Alchemy, Anthroposophy, Kabbalah, and, of course, French Hermeticism, to name a few. But his project was not to plunge one into a bewildering whirlpool of esoteric currents, but rather to marry these esoteric currents in all their depth to the exoteric dimension of ordinarily life and religious practice.
What is Christian Hermeticism?
Christian Hermeticism is many things, some of which I hope to explore in future reflections, but it is in its essence a spiritual way of peace that seeks the reconciliation of opposites, the neutralization of binaries, through the dimension of depth. It is a work of love and healing that seeks a marriage between all that is seemingly conflicted and opposed, culminating in the ultimate reconciliation and re-union of Above and Below, God and fallen Creation.
And this way of peace encompasses all dimensions of life, not the least of which is the esoteric and exoteric, the extraordinary and the ordinary. This is why Tomberg refused to indulge in mystery for mystery’s sake. This is why he refused to flaunt his esoteric knowledge, vast though it was. This is why Tomberg infused ordinary practices of Catholic piety with a degree of depth that had previously been overlooked.
Tomberg was not interested in fostering a new antinomy between the esoteric and exoteric, a conflict that had been growing in intensity for centuries. Rather, he was interested in healing the deep wound in the Western soul which had relegated all magic, all mystery, and all spirituality to an occult domain in which it never really belonged, and which had in its place exalted Reason to an idolatrously divine state—a pathology which led to the untold destruction of the 21st century, and which continues to destroy today.
Yes, Tomberg’s project was to heal the divide in the Western soul, and to do this, he sought to marry the ordinary and the arcane, the prosaic and the mysterious.
In his own words:
Esotericism is not a collection of extraordinary and unknown things, but it is above all a less ordinary and less known way of seeing ordinary and known things—of seeing their profundity. (Meditations on the Tarot, p. 516).
Christian Hermeticism, then, is emphatically not a cultivation of the bizarre or unusual, or a reveling in an aesthetic of strangeness. Much less it is an inflated and arrogant confidence that one has unlocked all the secrets of the universe.
(Incidentally, this is why Tomberg refuses dogmatic interpretations of the symbols of the Tarot arcana. Symbols, such as those on the Tarot cards, are stimulants to thought, not fixed or limited containers of only one truth. A dogmatic interpretation of the Tarot aracana would lead to a doctrinaire attitude that would be the death of true Hermeticism.)
Rather, Christian Hermeticism is about seeing all of life as an Arcana, a mystery on which to meditate and which contains depths of infinite profundity to be discovered. The way of Christian Hermeticism is the way of humility and wonder, the way of perceiving the oceanic depths beneath the undulating surface of the experiences of ordinary life. It is a way of love and healing, of reconciling that which is opposed, so that once again reality may become transparent to spirit, and the glory of God may shine forth in all that is.