Tarot as a path to Gnosis:

revisiting Faivre, Tomberg and Ouspensky

Inna Semetsky, PhD

irs5@columia.edu

www.innasense.org
http://columbia.academia.edu/InnaSemetsky

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A. Faivre

• Gnosis --- “intuition and the certainty of possessing a

method permitting access to such knowledge”

• “Tarot, a specific art … through a hermeneutic of

situations and characters … opens up upon a gnosis”

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P. Ouspensky
• Language of the Initiates

• Tarot – the most synthetic method

• Relation between God, Man and the Universe

• Symbol, meaning(s), alphabet

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Ouspensky: What then is the Tarot?

• Is it a doctrine or merely a method? Is it a definite system or merely

an alphabet by means of which any system may be constructed?

• In short, is it a book containing specific teachings, or is it merely an

apparatus, a machine which we may use to build anything, even a
new universe

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V. Tomberg, Meditations

• Tarot de Marseille

• 22 Major Arcana illustrate concepts of the Hermetic Philosophy

• Arcana are letters to a friend, each Arcanum teaching a

philosophical (intellectual, moral and spiritual) lesson

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Faivre on Tomberg:

There is perhaps no better introduction to Christian theosophy, to

occultism, to any reflection on esotericism than this magisterial
work, not that of a historian but of an inspired theosopher — a
rather rare occurrence

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Tarot cards for Tomberf are:
authentic symbols, i.e. they are "magic, mental, psychic and moral
operations" awakening new notions, ideas, sentiments and
aspirations, which means to say that they require an activity more
profound than that of study and intellectual explanation. It is
therefore in a state of deep contemplation--and always ever
deeper--that they should be approached. And it is the deep and
intimate layers of the soul which become active and bear fruit when
one meditates on the Arcana of the Tarot.

…
They possess… the communal soul of religion, art and science

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1. Why this Book?
2. Doing Bricolage
3. Myths and Reality
4. Human Experience and Tarot Symbolism
5. Personality and Consciousness
6. Gilles Deleuze: Learning from the Unconscious
7. Tarot and Projective Hypothesis
8. Stories Lives Tell
Case 1. Michael
Case 2. Lola
Case 3. Omar
Case 4. Sam
Case 5. Lina
Case 6. Marina
Case 7. Renata
Case 8. Pam
Case 9. Ross
Case 10. Donna
Case 11. Tess
Case 12. Cathy
Case 13. Rodney
Case 14. Gordana
Case 15. Anita
9. The Cultural Pedagogy of Tarot
10. Tarot and a New Science

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Prologue: Educating for three Is
Chapter 1: At the edge of chaos
Chapter 2: Signs in action
Chapter 3: The language of images
Chapter 4: Transversal communication
Chapter 5: Becoming-woman
Chapter 6: Toward integral consciousness
Chapter 7: An ethics of integration
Chapter 8: Signs and information
Chapter 9: Exploring educational futures
Chapter 10: The paradox of inquiry
Epilogue: Ghosts in the machine?

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The language of images

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Practice: readings

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H. Corbin:
Eyes of Fire

Third, Imaginal, World

A. Faivre:

Intelligence is an entity or universal interaction of the same

nature as electricity or gravity and there must be some existing
formula of transformation, analogous to the famous equation of
Einstein …in which intelligence would be put into equation with
other entities of the physical world.

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 Kabbalistic overtones

• From the High Priestess – Shekhinah or Wisdom (written in the scroll,

behind the Isis’ veil) to the Star
• Recovering the lost feminine (Holy Spirit – broken vessels, holy
sparks of dispersed light)
• The language of images – lost speech (after the Tower of Babel) –
recovering (unveiling) Eros in addition to Logos

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