Teheuti
Here's a couple of teaser sentences from my long intro:
"A Swiss, an Italian, a Spaniard and a Dutch-Frenchman walked into a bar . . . It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but in the artistic and metaphysical melting pot of fin de siècle Paris this was a formula for a creative and volatile, indeed, alchemical mixture as profound in the esoteric world as the symbolist and expressionist movements were in the art and literary world. In 1888, the same year as the birth of England’s Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Oswald Wirth joined Stanislas de Guaita, Papus, and Joséphin Péladan in founding the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix (“Kabbalistic Order of the Rosy Cross”)."
"Wirth tells us in his preface that he tragically lost the first manuscript of his Tarot opus, but was then given the opportunity for 'uninterrupted meditation . . . stimulated by a Gothic background' at a location 'with one of the finest landscapes in France.' It was there that he was able to complete his second version. It was precisely for the unmatched beauty of the landscape that American heiress, Mary Wallace Shillito, built Le Château des Avenières on a hill top in the south of France. . . . [info about how Shillito and her husband, Assan Dina, knew Wirth].
Built in the Gothic style, the Château (now a five-star hotel known for its breathtaking views) contains an even more Gothic chapel, completed in 1917. The walls are covered with enamel and gold mosaics depicting all the images of the Tarot Major Arcana. It is likely that Wirth retreated here to write his book."
"The English title of this book, Tarot of the Magicians, is found in Chapter Seven’s cosmogonic outline: “The god of Tarot is the Magician, the father of all things, the eternal generator” who, as Wirth explains, symbolizes creative activity and will, the idea before conception. This idea directly addresses the magic of transcendence that for Lévi and Wirth was accessed through the Astral Light, a sort of etheric electromagnetism (aether, odic fluid, vril, orgone, prana, Qi and Star Wars’ The Force) that operates uniquely on each plane of consciousness."
"Despite his many-layered approach, Wirth never loses sight of the practicalities of mundane divination. When he first published his deck in 1889 Wirth tells us he was prejudiced against divination. However, many friends asked him for readings, which he could not deny them, and they reported back on the incredible accuracy of what was revealed. After much experience he concluded that, "To divine is to imagine rightly," and that we must educate and discipline the imagination to make divination into a sacred art."
"A Swiss, an Italian, a Spaniard and a Dutch-Frenchman walked into a bar . . . It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but in the artistic and metaphysical melting pot of fin de siècle Paris this was a formula for a creative and volatile, indeed, alchemical mixture as profound in the esoteric world as the symbolist and expressionist movements were in the art and literary world. In 1888, the same year as the birth of England’s Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Oswald Wirth joined Stanislas de Guaita, Papus, and Joséphin Péladan in founding the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix (“Kabbalistic Order of the Rosy Cross”)."
"Wirth tells us in his preface that he tragically lost the first manuscript of his Tarot opus, but was then given the opportunity for 'uninterrupted meditation . . . stimulated by a Gothic background' at a location 'with one of the finest landscapes in France.' It was there that he was able to complete his second version. It was precisely for the unmatched beauty of the landscape that American heiress, Mary Wallace Shillito, built Le Château des Avenières on a hill top in the south of France. . . . [info about how Shillito and her husband, Assan Dina, knew Wirth].
Built in the Gothic style, the Château (now a five-star hotel known for its breathtaking views) contains an even more Gothic chapel, completed in 1917. The walls are covered with enamel and gold mosaics depicting all the images of the Tarot Major Arcana. It is likely that Wirth retreated here to write his book."
"The English title of this book, Tarot of the Magicians, is found in Chapter Seven’s cosmogonic outline: “The god of Tarot is the Magician, the father of all things, the eternal generator” who, as Wirth explains, symbolizes creative activity and will, the idea before conception. This idea directly addresses the magic of transcendence that for Lévi and Wirth was accessed through the Astral Light, a sort of etheric electromagnetism (aether, odic fluid, vril, orgone, prana, Qi and Star Wars’ The Force) that operates uniquely on each plane of consciousness."
"Despite his many-layered approach, Wirth never loses sight of the practicalities of mundane divination. When he first published his deck in 1889 Wirth tells us he was prejudiced against divination. However, many friends asked him for readings, which he could not deny them, and they reported back on the incredible accuracy of what was revealed. After much experience he concluded that, "To divine is to imagine rightly," and that we must educate and discipline the imagination to make divination into a sacred art."
