The Luminous Depths - Tarot for Spiritual Practice
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 พ.ย. 2023
- Jed and Shari discuss a brief meditation on the tarot. This particular exercise is not geared toward fortune-telling or divination. Rather, here the tarot is being used as a contemplative practice for spiritual edification. If any of you have watched GC videos on Tomberg's Meditations on the Tarot, this discussion will build off of those prior discussions.
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I'm glad to see someone finally lay out the cards on this channel and demonstrate a Christian approach to working with the Tarot. I know there are a lot of Christians who feel intimidated by this, as they've applied a simple binary to something that -- like many things in life -- is really a spectrum with a lot of room to maneuver. The word "tarot", like the word "gnosis," has become in the Christian world a mental shortcut; people find it easier to just repeat talking points that they've picked up from elsewhere instead of first *listening* to the other party and then *thinking through* what is being said.
Tomberg has been an incredible teacher in this regard. In his manuscript, written before Meditations on the Tarot and published recently under the title Personal Certainty: On the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Tomberg addresses in a more straightforward manner the benefit of working with symbols and their superiority over systems that rely on univocal concepts. Secondly, he defined gnosis as "deeper insight into the mystery of love," which is perhaps the best definition that I've come across as to what the Christian should be aiming at in their encounters with both symbolism and the Divine.
Thank you for this comment. I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for the feedback. I’m aware that utilizing symbolic tools like Tarot are going to illicit strong negative responses among some Christians. However, I firmly believe that the hidden presence of Christ as Logos is in all things, and that it’s within the creative vocation of the Christian mystic to draw attention to his presence even in the most unlikely places.
Thanks for the Tomberg recommendation btw! Definitely going to order it and give it a look.
Wow, you guys. This was very interesting. Shortly after Jed finished explaining his reading, something clicked and for the first time I understood what Pageau means when he says “lower and higher waters.” When I’m muddling through the day unconsciously or vaguely troubled by something I haven’t yet named, I’m in the lower waters. But as Shari mentioned about Meister Eckhart, the mystical experience of God has a similar vagueness or darkness to it, which must be what Pageau means by “higher waters.”
37:07 re: Meister Eckhart and riddles etc.
“What you see and hear depends a lot upon where you’re standing. It also depends upon the kind of person you are.”
I've been following this channel for a bit (and dipped my toes in Tomberg's Meditations on the Tarot) and have this question:
Does the question of orthodoxy (lowercase o) and heterodoxy/heresy ever cross your mind when discussing these things? Or is that not too much a concern?
Even if not used for divination, my instinct on meditating on the arcana of the tarot rubs my conscience the wrong way, but my mind the right way, if that makes sense.
Hopefully this question makes sense. Thanks
Great question. I have a long answer. I’ll start with the word Image. We are the Image and because we are the Image we make the invisible visible. Because of literacy we think we think in words, but we don’t. We think in images. We know this because we dream. Dreams are our thoughts. So in short, if this was a theological text and not a bunch of images, would your conscience speak up?
Secondly, because of the fact that we are image bearers who think in images, it is images that speak the most powerfully to our souls. Icons. Iconography. The image will carry its meaning in layers of understanding and will speak for aeons. Meaning must be subjective and implicit. It is personal. I think George MacDonald makes a great case for this in his essay The Fantastic Imagination.
You can’t control the meaning that people will derive from an image. I think this terrifies people.
Thirdly, I didn’t see this as a form of divination. No one was trying to predict the future or order their lives in any weird way. This was strictly a contemplative spiritual exercise using the forms (which God made) to lead us into Truth and Goodness. The Beauty is found in the forms and contemplation.
I’ll end with a quote from George MacDonald…….
“For what are the forms by means of which a man may reveal his thoughts? Are they not those of nature? But although he is created in the closest sympathy with these forms, yet even these forms are not born in his mind. What springs there is the perception that this or that form is already an expression of this or that phase of thought or of feeling. For the world around him is an outward figuration of the condition of his mind; an inexhaustible storehouse of forms whence he may choose exponents--the crystal pitchers that shall protect his thought and not need to be broken that the light may break forth. The meanings are in those forms already, else they could be no garment of unveiling. God has made the world that it should thus serve his creature, developing in the service that imagination whose necessity it meets. The man has but to light the lamp within the form: his imagination is the light, it is not the form. Straightway the shining thought makes the form visible, and becomes itself visible through the form.”
-George MacDonald
I hope this makes sense:)
Great question! There’s no way to match Shari’s response. So, I will be simple. The path of Christian mysticism always exists in a kind of dance with orthodoxy, and the inner core of orthodoxy and the mystery drives the dance. It’s not that mysticism cares nothing of dogma, but the manner in which it cares differs insofar as Truth is meant to be experienced.
I definitely get that some Christians are hesitant to tread in these waters, and God bless them for it. But, Christian Mysticism, Hermeticism, etc. has much to offer to those who are so inclined. And, I believe this kind of path is something that has the potential to revitalize the Christian tradition in a post Christian world.
@@jedidiahpaschall1040 💯
@@shari6063this is all the things. “The eye is the lamp of the body…”
We see images. Dreams are our thoughts. Not the labels we describe the dream images with. ❤
@@jedidiahpaschall1040 I'm Catholic, and even the Angelic Doctor himself referenced Hermes Trismegistus in the Summa (among other places). I think a distinction between "philosophical Hermeticism" and "magickal Hermeticism" is helpful. I have no doubt there's fruit here, but maybe my hesitancy to deal with it more is due to living still in "apologetic Christianity"
Hi Shari, ...saw another video where you are giving your testimony and you mention John Wimber. You were at a healing class and if he shut the door on some Square dancers you were going to walk out but you never said what happened and did you ever hang out with him after that ? I also have some questions about TLC and what all this about....
Im reaching out because of your interview with Martin Shaw. That was great.
Hey! Lucky I saw this. Sorry for the delayed response. The healing seminar wasn’t with John Wilber but with Ken Blue who authored some books as well. I knew him quite well. He was a resident lecturer at the small school I attended at the time.
How did Silly Sally get to town? Walking backwards upside down.
I love this comment. ❤
@@shari6063 it’s from a children’s book I read to my son almost nightly. How childlikeness relates to the inversions you guys mentioned in this conversation is another caveat.
@@notvadersson it’s perfect!
What's the gentleman's name? Does he have a channel?
41:40 re:imagination
infinite:finite::unknown:known::unnamed:named::Heaven:earth etc
Which deck is this?
Rider Waite
Tarot
@@WhiteStoneName yessir!
Neville Goddard tried then left behind for higher self woke I AM all things cure outer worships.