Valentin Tomberg > Quotes

“A person who has had the misfortune to fall victim to the spell of a philosophical system (and the spells of sorcerers are mere trifles in comparison to the disastrous effect of the spell of a philosophical system!) can no longer see the world, or people, or historic events, as they are; he sees everything only through the distorting prism of the system by which he is possessed. Thus, a Marxist of today is incapable of seeing anything else in the history of mankind other than the “class struggle”.

What I am saying concerning mysticism, gnosis, magic and philosophy would be considered by him only as a ruse on the part of the bourgeois class, with the aim of “screening with a mystical and idealistic haze” the reality of the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie…although I have not inherited anything from my parents and I have not experienced a single day without having to earn my living by means of work recognised as “legitimate” by Marxists!

Another contemporary example of possession by a system is Freudianism. A man possessed by this system will see in everything that I have written only the expression of “suppressed libido”, which seeks and finds release in this manner. It would therefore be the lack of sexual fulfillment which has driven me to occupy myself with the Tarot and to write about it!
Is there any need for further examples? Is it still necessary to cite the Hegelians with their distortion of the history of humanity, the Scholastic “realists” of the Middle Ages with the Inquisition, the rationalists of the eighteenth century who were blinded by the light of their own autonomous reasoning?

Yes, autonomous philosophical systems separated from the living body of tradition are parasitic structures, which seize the thought, feeling and finally the will of human beings. In fact, they play a role comparable to the psycho-pathological complexes of neurosis or other psychic maladies of obsession. Their physical analogy is cancer.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“The fullness of existence, life’s true richness, does not consist solely in health and happiness but in an ever-expanding range of joy and sorrow; and the broader the range, the richer life becomes.”
― Valentin Tomberg

“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).”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“Silence is the indispensable climate for all revelation; noise renders it absolutely impossible.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“By upbringing and intellectual training, I belong to the “children of heaven”; but by temperament, and by my professional studies, I am a “child of the earth”. Situated thus by life at the heart of two worlds with whose theory, idiom and feelings intimate experience has made me familiar, I have not erected any watertight bulkhead inside myself. On the contrary, I have allowed two apparently conflicting influences full freedom to react upon one another deep within me. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“It is said that, “Nature has a horror of emptiness” (horror vacui). The spiritual counter-truth here is that, “the Spirit has a horror of fullness”. It is necessary to create a natural emptiness—and this is what renunciation achieves—in order for the spiritual to manifest itself.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“If a man lives without inner struggle, if everything happens in him without opposition, if he goes wherever he is drawn or wherever the wind blows, he will remain such as he is. But if a struggle begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this struggle, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to ‘crystallise’…Crystallisation is possible on any foundations.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“It is necessary to restrain the bull in us in order to elevate it to the Bull. This means to say that the instinctive desire which shows itself as rage concentrated upon a single thing, and which blinds one to everything else, is to be restrained and thus elevated to the propensity for profound meditation. This entire operation is summarized in Hermeticism by the words "to be silent". The precept "to be silent" is not, as many authors interpret it, solely a rule of prudence, but it is moreover a practical method of transforming this narrowing and blinkering instinct into a propensity towards depth and, correspondingly, an aversion towards all that is superficial in nature.
The winged Bull is therefore the result obtained by the procedure of "being silent". This means to say that the Bull is elevated to the level of the Eagle and united with it. A marriage of the impetus towards the heights and the propensity towards depth is effected by this union. The marriage of opposites - this traditional theme of alchemy - is the essence of the practice of the law of the Cross.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“Europe is haunted by the shadow of the Emperor. One senses his absence just as vividly as in former times one sensed his presence. Because the emptiness of the wound speaks, that which we miss knows how to make us sense it.

Napoleon, eye-witness to the French Revolution, understood the direction which Europe had taken—the direction towards the complete destruction of hierarchy. And he sensed the shadow of the Emperor. He knew what had to be restored in Europe, which was not the royal throne of France—because kings cannot exist for long without the Emperor—but rather the imperial throne of Europe. So he decided to fill the gap himself. He made himself Emperor and he made his brothers kings. But it was to the sword that he took recourse. Instead of ruling by the sceptre—the globe bearing the cross—he made the decision to rule by the sword. But, “all who take up the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew xxvi, 52). Hitler also had the delirium of desire to occupy the empty place of the Emperor. He believed he could establish the “thousand-year empire” of tyranny by means of the sword. But again—“all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword”.

No, the post of the Emperor does not belong any longer either to those who desire it or to the choice of the people. It is reserved to the choice of heaven alone. It has become occult. And the crown, the sceptre, the throne, the coat-of-arms of the Emperor are to be found in the catacombs…in the catacombs—this means to say: under absolute protection.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“One need not fear the devil, but rather the perverse tendencies in oneself!”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“all revelation which does not give hope is useless and superfluous.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“We bow with respect and gratitude before all the great human souls of the past and present - the sages, the righteous, the prophets, the saints of all continents and all epochs throughout the whole of human history - and we are ready to learn from them all that they wish and are able to teach, but we have only one sole Initiator or Lord; we are obliged to reiterate this for the sake of certainty.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“And here we arrive at the full problem of the resurrection body. What is it? Modern science has come to the understanding that matter is only condensed energy – which, moreover, was known by alchemists and Hermeticists thousands of years ago. Sooner or later science will also discover the fact that what it calls “energy” is only condensed psychic force – which discovery will lead in the end to the establishment of the fact that all psychic force is the “condensation” of purely and simply, of consciousness, i.e., of spirit. Meditations on the Tarot”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“Balinas the Wise (which is the Arabic name for Apollonius of Tyana),”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“The Secret of Creation attributed to Apollonius. Jabir (or Geber) himself, in giving the text of the Emerald Table states that he is quoting Apollonius. Now, Kraus has shown that The Secret of Creation was written, at least in its final edition, during the Caliphate of al-Ma’mun (813-833),”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“you only know that which is verified by the agreement of all forms of experience in its totality—experience of the senses, moral experience, psychic experience, the collective experience of other seekers for the truth, and finally the experience of those whose knowing merits the title of wisdom and whose striving has been crowned by the title of saint.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“A pyramid is not complete without its summit; hierarchy does not exist when it is incomplete. Without an Emperor, there will be, sooner or later, no more kings. When there are no kings, there will be, sooner or later, no more nobility. When there is no more nobility, there will be, sooner or later, no more bourgeoisie or peasants. This is how one arrives at the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class hostile to the hierarchical principle, which latter, however, is the reflection of divine order. This is why the proletariat professes atheism.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“It is necessary to restrain the bull in us in order to elevate it to the Bull. This means to say that the instinctive desire which shows itself as rage concentrated upon a single thing, and which blinds one to everything else, is to be restrained and thus elevated to the propensity for profound meditation. This entire operation is summarized in Hermeticism by the words "to be silent". The precept "to be silent" is not, as many authors interpret it, solely a rule of prudence, but it is moreover a practical method of transforming this narrowing and blinkering instinct into a propensity towards depth and, correspondingly, an aversion towards all that is superficial in nature.
The winged Bull is therefore the result obtained by the procedure of "being silent.: This means to say that the Bull is elevated to the level of the Eagle and united with it. A marriage of the impetus towards the heights and the propensity towards depth is effected by this union. The marriage of opposites - this traditional them of alchemy - is the essence of the practice of the law of the Cross.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“Is mankind therefore solely responsible for its history? Without a doubt—because it is not God who has willed it to be as such. God is crucified in it.”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

“Nemesius, bishop of Emesa (Horns) in Syria during the second half of the fourth century A.D. Nemesius wrote in Greek, but his book On the Nature of Man”
― Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism