- The Tarot: A Contemporary Course of the Quintessence of Hermetic Occultism
- by Mouni Sadhu
- Published by Aeon Books, 2023
- RRP: £40
- ISBN-13 : 978-1801520232
In the forward to this edition of a text first published in 1962, John Michael Greer provides useful context for this work by Mouni Sadhu (the silent monk), the pen name of Mieczyslaw Demetriusz Sudowski, a Polish-Australian occult scholar. Its lessons are based on lectures by Grigori Ottonovich Mebes, an early twentieth century Russian occultist and Freemason whose work was smuggled out of the country just before the Bolshevik Revolution. Sadhu’s work shares a historic lineage with the more familiar teachings of the Golden Dawn, but are different enough to provide many new insights and ideas to people used to working in the Golden Dawn tradition.
After the forward and introduction, the book provides 101 short lessons covering the Major Arcana. Each set of lessons is introduced with a ‘symbolically exact’ full-page drawing of their card by artist Phoebe Young (I have seen different drawings in a previous edition of this text; I’m not sure who created the earlier ones). I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the cards themselves are incidental to the occult principles taught in these lessons, but they are not primarily about Tarot as such. There is a lot in this book about the principles of hermeticism – astral travel, Kabbalism, gematria, astrology – mixed in with the Theosophical ‘Eastern philosophy’ popular among early twentieth century European occultists. Sadhu begins his lessons with the fanciful origin story of the Tarot in ancient Egyptian temples as a key to secret initiatory rituals; I personally find this and some of the other ideas shared in these lessons a bit far-fetched, but can use my own judgement to determine what teachings here are valuable and what may not be.
Many of the correspondences and principles in Sadhu’s lessons are different from what those of us familiar with the Golden Dawn tradition are used to. For example, Sadhu starts the Hebrew letter correspondences to the Major Arcana with the Magician as א, rather than the Fool as in the Golden Dawn, assigning the Fool the letter ש, second from last in the Hebrew alphabet. And the text is, of course, a product of its time; it includes some (to me) disturbing remarks about ‘races’, and some assumptions made about ‘types of people’ that we’d no longer consider accurate or appropriate, as well as some ideas on such topics as sex, sexuality, and vegetarianism that are now dated to say the least.
This book is a dense historical text, and a unique time capsule providing us a glimpse into a little-known development of early twentieth century hermetic philosophy. I would recommend it to anyone who would appreciate an immersive experience in early twentieth century hermetic thought; working through a lesson a week would result in a two-year course of study. I would also recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the Western esoteric tradition, anyone familiar enough with the better-known versions of this tradition to find an alternative intriguing, and anyone who might just be interested in unusual brain-challenging exercise.
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