Sophie-David
Last week Lynn and I stayed in residence for a week of half day sessions at the Vancouver School of Theology, within the University of British Columbia. This was our Tarot Holiday, the study of Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism by the Unknown Author. The course, "An Introduction to Christian to Hermeticism", was led by Cynthia Bourgeault, Anglican-Episcopal priest, hermit and author. The class was at close to capacity, with 41 attendees from various parts of western North America, and one from Hong Kong (in Vancouver for other reasons).
I thought that a review of this course might be of interest, for both its esoteric spiritual and Tarot specific content. If I understood correctly, Cynthia has taught this course five times previously, and she will undoubtedly do so again. This site provides a course description (this link will likely become invalid when the summer programs are over) and this site describes the work of the Contemplative Society. Note that I am recording my impressions from my own copious notes - but it is very likely that in a spiritually stimulating course of this depth my own perceptions have coloured my interpretations. So if in doubt, blame me, not Cynthia.
Like mystical leaders in most of the world religions, Cynthia sees spiritual progress as founded in centering prayer, and each morning there was an opportunity for participants to attend a half-hour silent session before class started. Lynn and I never did attend these sessions.
Cynthia characterized Meditations on the Tarot as the modern Bible of the Christian Hermetic Tradition, a system visioned in the fundamental transformational principles modeled in the Major Arcana of the Tarot, stimulating the archetypal imagination to see with the eye of the heart. Cynthia sees the Tarot as dealing with the cosmos at the level of synchronicity, and that a well centred consciousness will be able to perceive reality beyond the limits of conventional time and space, using the Tarot as a tool for meditation and illumination.
Our teacher advised us to approach the book not as an academic exercise, but slowly and after meditation. Although Meditations on the Tarot is close to 700 pages long, written discursively and densely, it is best approached through the powers of the visualizing and holistic right brain. Cynthia suggested that each chapter was arranged similarly to a string of prayer beads or a rosary, each main idea popping up as a large bead followed by several smaller ones in support. The flow through from one large bead to the next was not necessarily linear. I immediately found that this idea was of great use in approaching the book, and Lynn noticed that Cynthia appeared to be unconsciously fingering invisible beads as she was leading us through the material.
Cynthia also warned us that the work was not necessarily politically correct, and that the author occasionally ventures into dogmatism and overstatement. Nonetheless she advised us to approach the book with respect, seeking the foundation of the Wisdom tradition which lies at the roots of the Western world. At the author's request, the book was published anonymously and posthumously, first showing up in North America in about 1992. Although Cynthia did refer to the author by name and summarized his biography as an aid to deeper understanding, I am not going to do so here. There are further details on the book and its author at this site and JMD has contributed a helpful review here.
The core of Cynthia's teaching was that Jesus is the great Hermeticist, a master of transformation, not the ascetic who seems to emerge from the history of the church. He intended that his followers would join him on the path towards radical transformation, through the act of letting go of the ego self. To this end he taught in parables similar to the Buddhist koans, hoping to awaken in his disciples a deep and non-linear perception.
But as the church became institutionalized, his very individualistic and egalitarian doctrine was suppressed, and in particular the Gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdala were expunged and destroyed. Only in the last century were these treasures rediscovered, revealing a very different version of the Good News, in which Mary Magdala played a central role as one of the few who actually understood the teaching.
In the intervening centuries the core principles of undergoing spiritual progress through a radical change of consciousness went underground, the practice of esoteric Christianity descending to us through sacred alchemy and Hermeticism. But in Judaism the Wisdom traditions continued more consistently, and the Sufis represented the core movement of transformational Islam with great beauty and flair.
The central focus of these esoteric traditions is the acknowledgement that we live in a unified field, that energy, matter and spirit operate in a continuum of energy which interpenetrates each perceived form. Acts of spiritual grace can thus have measurable physical effects on the cosmos, described as sacred magic. The polarization which tears the world apart is founded on literalism - often in very good causes. But the practice of Wisdom is at the heart of the solution, stimulating the allegorical thinking which transcends what Cynthia terms "egoic consciousness", so that participants enter into unitive consciousness, the reality of non-dualism.
Although I have already wrote more than I intended, I obviously cannot approach the depth that Cynthia achieved over a week's period, and this article is inevitably going to come across as simplistic. Clearly the Hermetic approach to Christianity shares much in common with most other world religions, and Cynthia often introduced her concepts by noting that these connections were there, although often expressed in different language. This integrative approach to spirituality was perhaps the course's greatest gift to me.
Since my own transformational experience of a year ago, perceived as the union with the Inner Beloved, I have felt more and more an alien within the Christian context. In particular my need to relate to the divine in both feminine and masculine terms seems to be constantly at odds with the practice of exoteric Christianity. There is some of what I feel to be a superficial acknowledgement of the feminine aspect of God, but it never seems to go very deep - and many of the Canonical scriptures as they have been accepted and translated certainly do not help in this. Just as frustratingly there is a trend within the church to depersonalize the divine in the effort to be gender and hierarchically neutral.
In my alienation, I soon relabeled my religious identity as Christo-Pagan or esoteric Christian. But I now have the feeling that if the Christian church were reorganized based on the Hermetic traditions which Cynthia was revealing to us, not only I but many others would find a much more meaningful home there. In fact Christianity itself would have the potential of becoming not a separate faith but merely a denomination within a unitive world religion.
The interesting fact today, the day after the course, is that I woke up with a very strong feeling of outpouring love for the world - and it is still here, just hovering on the edge of tears. What really makes this intriguing is that the course was in no sense deliberately ecstatic. In fact it was intentionally designed to not stir the emotions but to be contemplative. Except for a meditative Taizé chant at the optional evening session which we attended there was not even the slightest opportunity for community prayer or worship within the program itself. So the affect of the course has been within the mind and soul at a subtle yet deep level - an alchemical level.
Blessings - David
I thought that a review of this course might be of interest, for both its esoteric spiritual and Tarot specific content. If I understood correctly, Cynthia has taught this course five times previously, and she will undoubtedly do so again. This site provides a course description (this link will likely become invalid when the summer programs are over) and this site describes the work of the Contemplative Society. Note that I am recording my impressions from my own copious notes - but it is very likely that in a spiritually stimulating course of this depth my own perceptions have coloured my interpretations. So if in doubt, blame me, not Cynthia.
Like mystical leaders in most of the world religions, Cynthia sees spiritual progress as founded in centering prayer, and each morning there was an opportunity for participants to attend a half-hour silent session before class started. Lynn and I never did attend these sessions.
Cynthia characterized Meditations on the Tarot as the modern Bible of the Christian Hermetic Tradition, a system visioned in the fundamental transformational principles modeled in the Major Arcana of the Tarot, stimulating the archetypal imagination to see with the eye of the heart. Cynthia sees the Tarot as dealing with the cosmos at the level of synchronicity, and that a well centred consciousness will be able to perceive reality beyond the limits of conventional time and space, using the Tarot as a tool for meditation and illumination.
Our teacher advised us to approach the book not as an academic exercise, but slowly and after meditation. Although Meditations on the Tarot is close to 700 pages long, written discursively and densely, it is best approached through the powers of the visualizing and holistic right brain. Cynthia suggested that each chapter was arranged similarly to a string of prayer beads or a rosary, each main idea popping up as a large bead followed by several smaller ones in support. The flow through from one large bead to the next was not necessarily linear. I immediately found that this idea was of great use in approaching the book, and Lynn noticed that Cynthia appeared to be unconsciously fingering invisible beads as she was leading us through the material.
Cynthia also warned us that the work was not necessarily politically correct, and that the author occasionally ventures into dogmatism and overstatement. Nonetheless she advised us to approach the book with respect, seeking the foundation of the Wisdom tradition which lies at the roots of the Western world. At the author's request, the book was published anonymously and posthumously, first showing up in North America in about 1992. Although Cynthia did refer to the author by name and summarized his biography as an aid to deeper understanding, I am not going to do so here. There are further details on the book and its author at this site and JMD has contributed a helpful review here.
The core of Cynthia's teaching was that Jesus is the great Hermeticist, a master of transformation, not the ascetic who seems to emerge from the history of the church. He intended that his followers would join him on the path towards radical transformation, through the act of letting go of the ego self. To this end he taught in parables similar to the Buddhist koans, hoping to awaken in his disciples a deep and non-linear perception.
But as the church became institutionalized, his very individualistic and egalitarian doctrine was suppressed, and in particular the Gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdala were expunged and destroyed. Only in the last century were these treasures rediscovered, revealing a very different version of the Good News, in which Mary Magdala played a central role as one of the few who actually understood the teaching.
In the intervening centuries the core principles of undergoing spiritual progress through a radical change of consciousness went underground, the practice of esoteric Christianity descending to us through sacred alchemy and Hermeticism. But in Judaism the Wisdom traditions continued more consistently, and the Sufis represented the core movement of transformational Islam with great beauty and flair.
The central focus of these esoteric traditions is the acknowledgement that we live in a unified field, that energy, matter and spirit operate in a continuum of energy which interpenetrates each perceived form. Acts of spiritual grace can thus have measurable physical effects on the cosmos, described as sacred magic. The polarization which tears the world apart is founded on literalism - often in very good causes. But the practice of Wisdom is at the heart of the solution, stimulating the allegorical thinking which transcends what Cynthia terms "egoic consciousness", so that participants enter into unitive consciousness, the reality of non-dualism.
Although I have already wrote more than I intended, I obviously cannot approach the depth that Cynthia achieved over a week's period, and this article is inevitably going to come across as simplistic. Clearly the Hermetic approach to Christianity shares much in common with most other world religions, and Cynthia often introduced her concepts by noting that these connections were there, although often expressed in different language. This integrative approach to spirituality was perhaps the course's greatest gift to me.
Since my own transformational experience of a year ago, perceived as the union with the Inner Beloved, I have felt more and more an alien within the Christian context. In particular my need to relate to the divine in both feminine and masculine terms seems to be constantly at odds with the practice of exoteric Christianity. There is some of what I feel to be a superficial acknowledgement of the feminine aspect of God, but it never seems to go very deep - and many of the Canonical scriptures as they have been accepted and translated certainly do not help in this. Just as frustratingly there is a trend within the church to depersonalize the divine in the effort to be gender and hierarchically neutral.
In my alienation, I soon relabeled my religious identity as Christo-Pagan or esoteric Christian. But I now have the feeling that if the Christian church were reorganized based on the Hermetic traditions which Cynthia was revealing to us, not only I but many others would find a much more meaningful home there. In fact Christianity itself would have the potential of becoming not a separate faith but merely a denomination within a unitive world religion.
The interesting fact today, the day after the course, is that I woke up with a very strong feeling of outpouring love for the world - and it is still here, just hovering on the edge of tears. What really makes this intriguing is that the course was in no sense deliberately ecstatic. In fact it was intentionally designed to not stir the emotions but to be contemplative. Except for a meditative Taizé chant at the optional evening session which we attended there was not even the slightest opportunity for community prayer or worship within the program itself. So the affect of the course has been within the mind and soul at a subtle yet deep level - an alchemical level.
Blessings - David
