Thus, Mary Magdalena, who at first took him for a gardener, recognised him only by the manner in which he pronounced her name “Mary.” Thomas recognised him when the Risen One showed him the marks of his wounds. The two disciples from Emmaus knew him in the breaking of bread. Continue reading →

Before you think and choose, society takes over your being and moulds it, as is its right. Once you think and choose, remove those received imprints, that is to say, liberate yourself from contemporary habits, as is your right. Continue reading →

The Sons and Daughters of Europe, the spiritual Knights of the Holy Roman Empire, have been bequeathed the greatest of spiritual and intellectual gifts: Platonic philosophy and the Catholic religion. One to feed the mind, the other, the heart. Continue reading →

All magic is the putting into practice of the maxim: the subtle rules the dense, writes Tomberg. He quotes the words of Mary to the angel Gabriel at the head of the chapter. The empress symbolizes the super-consciousness ruling the consciousness (which rules force, which rules matter). The crown on … Continue reading →

In Valentin Tomberg’s discussion of “The Empress”, he quotes Josephin Peladan’s description of magic as “’the sublimation of man’… of human nature”. Thereafter, Tomberg offers a detailed discussion differentiating Sacred Magic, from “personal and arbitrary magic”, the latter which explains became more or less the earmark of Renaissance “ceremonial magic”, … Continue reading →

This will, I hope, be an ongoing series of quotations from Josephin Peladan’s How to become a Mage (Comment on devient Mage). Perhaps there is still a chance to form young men with a free mind, not stuck in useless propaganda hoary with age. The art of life doesn’t consist … Continue reading →

We, on the contrary—basing ourselves on a tradition much more ancient and real than the one which can be claimed by the “faith” of Western man, on a tradition which is not proved by doctrines, but by deeds and acts of power and clairvoyance—affirm instead the possibility and the concrete … Continue reading →

Valentin Tomberg explains why he wrote his meditations on the major arcana of the Tarot in French: These letters were written in French, which is not the mother tongue of the author, because it is in France, and in France only, that a living literature on the Tarot has been … Continue reading →

This passage is from the section Arcana of Adar or Persistence from Joséphin Péladan’s book Comment on devient Mage. Péladan was a devout Catholic as well as a Hermetist. Yet he recognizes that the Catholic faith makes sense only if it is the Primordial Tradition. All truth must be incorporated … Continue reading →

Before you think and choose, society takes over your being and moulds it, as is its right. Once you think and choose, remove those received imprints, that is to say, liberate yourself from contemporary habits, as is your right. Continue reading →