Book Reviews

The Spiritual Roots of the Tarot: The Cathar Code Hidden in the Cards

RUSSELL A. STURGESS
Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2020. 368 pp., paper, $24.95.

“I have never given a tarot reading” is an unusual way to begin a study of the Tarot, but this is an unusual book. It is not one where you will learn about divination and how to do card readings. Instead it reveals a personal journey taken with the traditional Marseille Tarot, embedded in a complex study of its philosophy and history, with guidance on using the sequence of cards as a spiritual journey.

After a Christian upbringing, the author avoided all contact with Tarot until he tentatively began to study its imagery in the context of C.G. Jung’s symbolism. Then, in 1995, while shopping for Christmas presents for his children, he happened upon a set of traditional Marseille Tarot cards in a game store. “Unexpectedly,” he writes, “I felt a strong impression to buy them.” He tried to fight the urge as a transgression of his religious beliefs, but could not resist the purchase. From there, his interest escalated, culminating in his spending nearly a year in the Latina region of Italy, a country strongly associated with the origins of the Tarot. Here he experienced an awakening of the heart and “heard an inner voice that was more like a knowing than a hearing . . . ‘Welcome back. You have chosen to return to complete a work you began but never finished.’”

I would take seriously the findings of anyone who has experienced such a deep inner calling and crossed continents to study his subject with utter commitment. There is a ring of authenticity about the journey Sturgess has taken. His allegiance is with the core of Tarot, the traditional twenty-two “Triumphs” or trumps, which have wound their beguiling way through five or six hundred years of history into the highest and lowest levels of society. As they have for Sturgess, these Marseille images have fueled my own Tarot quest over a lifetime.

The author’s approach there differs from my own, as he relates the sequence of Tarot cards to Cathar philosophy, which he calls the “Cathar Code” and connects specifically with the Beatitudes: the words of Jesus spoken in the Sermon on the Mount, beginning with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” His interpretations of individual cards are also backed up by copious historical allusions and psychological reflections. For example, the Hanged Man is specifically related to becoming “poor in spirit,” on being “emptied out” like the Norse god Odin, a process that can be related both to the mystical Dark Night of the Soul and perhaps to modern depression as offering a gateway to a new state of being. The diverse associations gathered in to illustrate this card include the medieval theory of the four humours and the Festival of Fools, convincingly woven together to illuminate this image.

But to embed all this into a schema based on Cathar teachings is a challenge, given the wide range of interpretation of Cathar philosophies and the uncertainty about their place in Christianity as heretics or illuminati (depending on your viewpoint). For those readers not convinced by the idea of the Cathars as a source of wisdom, it may not matter here: Sturgess pays tribute to a higher vision, shows us a mystical path, and links his interpretations to some of the most profound teachings of Christianity. A system which can be a path to knowledge needs to be self-consistent, but it can draw on symbolism and myth without having to be historically accurate.

Another schema running within the Cathar Code is a definition of the Tarot sequence as a “pilgrimage of the soul,” where the Fool has to learn lessons according to progressive subsets of the cards. For instance, the first three cards in the deck—the Magician, High Priestess, and Empress—are said to represent the domain of childhood, whether physical or spiritual. Extricating the author’s intended number symbolism can be tricky on a straight read-through, however, and I think the book would have benefited from a clearer outline of his schema and a fuller explanation of the Cathar Code. It would also be handy to have a complete citation of the Beatitudes and to have quotations from the Bible in a recognized version. (Biblical passages seem to be paraphrased in the author’s own renderings.)

This is a book to come back to again and again. It has a richness to it and is a cornucopia of valuable insights. Whatever your take on the Tarot, your preferred deck, or your philosophical outlook, this book can enrich your understanding of these wonderfully vivid and enigmatic cards. Sturgess shares his insights and discoveries with great generosity, and his book will have a permanent place on my shelves.

Cherry Gilchrist

Cherry Gilchrist’s most recent article for Quest was “Channeling the Waters of Wisdom” in the fall 2020 issue.

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The Chela’s Handbook

Compiled by WILLIAM WILSON QUINN
San Antonio, Texas: Turning Stone Press, 2020. 91 pp., paper, $18.95.

There is something to be said about the power of small spiritual books, particularly ones that condense some aspect of the Ageless Wisdom and deliver it with the intensity of a carefully distilled essence. One of these, The Chela’s Handbook, offers a straight arrow into the heart of discipleship. 

As stated in Mabel Collins’ The Idyll of the White Lotus, Theosophy postulates that “the soul of man [and woman] is immortal, and its future is the future of a thing whose growth and splendor has no limit.” Somewhere along this endless process, we become fully human. We reach a level of conscious unfoldment, also called enlightenment, in which all our dormant spiritual potentialities bloom into full splendor. At this point there seems to be a choice. Either we continue that process of expansion no longer associated with humanity, or we become a bodhisattva, a human being who, after reaching nirvana, keeps her or his physical body to assist humanity in the arduous process of awakening. 

A few of these enlightened beings, also called adepts or Mahatmas, had a major role in launching the Theosophical Society and finding the most suitable people for this task. As part of that plan, a great amount of correspondence took place between these adepts and the candidates who appeared to have the qualities required for this endeavor.

The Chela’s Handbook is a compilation of excerpts from the letters between three of those Mahatmas and a handful of Theosophical pioneers. The power of this work lies in the fact that the quotes relate exclusively to discipleship: chela is a Sanskrit word for pupil or disciple.

Although most of these letters have been in print for almost a century, many people have felt discouraged from reading them because of the copious references to specific circumstances and problems the Society was facing at the time, scattering the teaching somewhat among secondary details. The Chela’s Handbook not only rescues the pearls hidden in the correspondence but collects them from different publications, dividing them into five subsections. 

As the compiler himself points out, “for the serious seeker this book should not be viewed as a substitute for reading the letters,” but the selection of quotes is still a useful tool both for research and inspiration. At the bottom of each excerpt, the reader will find the name of the recipient and sender; the date and number of the letter; and the publication and page in which it can be found for further study. Although the internal drama of the time may seem irrelevant, it can provide insights on the many facets and pitfalls of the probationary path, which leads toward chelaship.

One could fairly ask, why is this book relevant to me? What does discipleship have to do with my life and its problems? From a certain perspective, everything. Our life at this point in time is a reflection of what it was, and what we do today becomes our future. The obstacles we face on the path now are not fundamentally different from the ones we will face in the future. The context may change and the intensity may vary, but the root causes are the same and will not go away until we patiently remove them.

Discipleship is full of dangers and hardships. It is an accelerated journey, a voluntary sacrifice. As one of the Masters wrote, “Chelaship unveils the inner man [or woman] and draws forth the dormant vices as well as the dormant virtue,” which explains why so many have failed. Those who succeed are propelled by an unswerving selflessness and a childlike purity.

This compilation is especially inspiring in that it reveals the unusual spiritual heights of the early members of the Theosophical Society and how many of their achievements and failures could have been part of the tests they underwent as chelas. Eternal gratitude to them for forging the path for us.    

Juliana Cesano

Juliana Cesano is manager of the Quest Book Shop. She lectures and teaches regularly for the TSA.

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Blavatsky Unveiled: The Writings of H.P. Blavatsky in Modern English, Volume 1

Edited by MOON LARAMIE
Berkshire, England: Martin Firrell Company, 2020.  x + 457 pp., paper, $21.33.

According to a September 2016 article in the Washington Post, fewer and fewer American adults are reading literature of any kind. The Post was quoting from a recent report published by the National Endowment of the Arts. One indicator of this decline in serious reading was that in 1982, 57 percent of adults claimed to have read “at least one work of literature in the previous year,” while in 2015 it was only 43 percent—a decline of 24 percent. One wonders what it will be twenty years from now.

For those who have developed a love for literature, this is certainly a matter of concern. So too is it for those who admire and value the literature of H.P. Blavatsky and other Theosophical writers, much of which was written over a hundred years ago, in a style unfamiliar to those who have only read literature produced in the past ten or fifteen years.

This is one reason why British Theosophist Moon Laramie devoted four years to producing a version of Isis Unveiled that would appeal to younger audiences. The seminal literature of the Theosophical movement is profound and transformative, but the younger generation of today, whose reading consists largely of postings on social media, is deterred by the writing style of the late nineteenth century, with its longer and more complex sentence structures. As Laramie notes in his introduction, “to the modern eye, the linguistic style of Isis Unveiled can appear dense, convoluted and over-wrought.”

The other reason for Laramie’s book is “the obscure nature of many of Blavatsky’s references,” all of which “have been meticulously researched” and compiled in a seventy-five-page notes section at the end of the book.  

Let us take a few excerpts from Isis Unveiled and compare those with Laramie’s renditions, beginning with this passage from chapter 2:

Is it enough for man to know that he exists? Is it enough to be formed a human being to enable him to deserve the appellation of man? It is our decided impression and conviction, that to become a genuine spiritual entity, which that designation implies, man must first create himself anew, so to speak—i.e., thoroughly eliminate from his mind and spirit, not only the dominating influence of selfishness and other impurity, but also the infection of superstition and prejudice.

Below is Laramie’s streamlined rendition:

Is it enough merely for a man to know that he exists? Does he deserve the name “man” simply by being a human being? Surely the name “man” implies a spiritual being and to become a genuine spiritual entity man must first recreate himself. He must completely remove self-interest, superstition and prejudice from his mind and spirit.

Laramie’s version is shorter and gets right to the point. In today’s world, where everybody seems to be busier than ever, getting to the point is essential.

Let us now take a passage from chapter 6, first the original version, followed by the modern rendition:

One of the most interesting discoveries of modern times, is that of the faculty which enables a certain class of sensitive persons to receive from any object held in the hand or against the forehead impressions of the character or appearance of the individual, or any other object with which it has previously been in contact. 

One of the most interesting discoveries is the phenomenon of psychometry. A person with psychometric abilities is able to receive impressions from an object held in the hand or against the forehead. These impressions may reveal the character of the appearance of an individual who has been in contact with that object.

In terms of length, these passages are about the same, but Laramie’s version uses shorter sentences, which make it easier for the reader to follow the line of thought.

In this next comparison, Laramie not only streamlines Blavatsky’s original words but eliminates an anachronism (“of the present century”):

It may be noted, as an example of the inaccuracy of current notions as to the scientific claims of the present century, that the discoveries of the indestructibility of matter and force-correlation, especially the latter, are heralded as among our crowning triumphs.

Matter and energy are interchangeable and cannot be created or destroyed. The discovery of this principle is regarded as one of the greatest achievements of modern science.

In other instances, Blavatsky quotes from her sources in the original language, as in this quotation from the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre, which appears as an epigraph to chapter 3:

Qui, donc, t’a donné la mission d’annoncer au peuple que la Divinité n’existe pas . . . quel avantage trouves-tu à persuader à l’homme qu’une force aveugle préside à ses destinées et frappe au hazard [sic] le crime et la vertu?

Fortunately, Laramie has taken the trouble to translate it for us:

Who, then, gave you the mission to announce to the people that there is no God? What advantage is there in persuading man that nothing but blind force presides over his destiny and randomly punishes both crime and virtue?

The last example is taken from chapter 7. First, Blavatsky’s words: 

In what particular is the knowledge of the present century so superior to that of the ancients? When we say knowledge we do not mean that brilliant and clear definition of our modern scholars of particulars to the most trifling detail in every branch of exact science; or that tuition which finds an appropriate term for every detail insignificant and microscopic as it may be; a name for every nerve and artery in human and animal organisms, an appellation for every cell, filament, and rib in a plant; but the philosophical and ultimate expression of every truth in nature.

Laramie’s version:

In what way is modern knowledge superior to the knowledge held by the ancients? The word “knowledge” is used here to mean the deepest possible understanding of life itself—not the complex, convoluted explanations of science—not merely labeling everything as in modern education. Knowledge is more than learning a term for every nerve and artery in the body or simply remembering the name of every component of plant structure.

Readers can judge for themselves which version they prefer. If you are comfortable with the writings of Blavatsky and other Theosophists of her era, then this book is not meant for you. But if you have tried reading HPB and found it difficult because of the style in which it was written, then I strongly recommend this book for you.

In closing, I should note that Laramie’s new book covers only chapters 1 through 7 of Isis Unveiled. Translating the rest of volume 1 is a project that he has already undertaken, and I wish him well in this endeavor.

David Bruce

David Bruce is national secretary of the Theosophical Society in America.

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Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy

Edited by MARK SEDGWICK
New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. xxvi + 325 pp., paper, $29.95.

Mark Sedgwick is the author of two books previously reviewed in these pages: Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century and Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age. With this new anthology, he breaks with his previous focus on Sufism, Islam, and esotericism to shed light on sixteen thinkers who have influenced or helped shape the present radical right in Europe and the U.S. That might seem like something of a non sequitur, but given that the far right has often railed against what they see as Muslim immigrants invading the West, this departure is not as far afield as it might initially seem.

In this volume, Sedgwick has limited his own writing to a thirteen-page introduction, while assembling a capable team of academics and a few lay researchers to each write a chapter on one of the key thinkers influencing the present radical right. These are gathered into three sections: “Classic Thinkers,” “Modern Thinkers,” and “Emergent Thinkers.”

The classic thinkers covered are Oswald Spengler (author of the oft-cited but rarely read The Decline of the West), revolutionary conservative Ernst Jünger, Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, and the Italian Traditionalist Julius Evola. The modern thinkers consist of the French New Right theorists Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye, paleoconservative historian Paul Gottfried, columnist Patrick Buchanan, white nationalist Jared Taylor, Russian exponent of Eurasianism Alexander Dugin, and anti-Islamic zealot Bat Ye’or. The emergent thinkers are all associated with the so-called alt-right and are largely active on the Internet in one form or another: neoreactionary theorist Mencius Moldbug, white-nationalist publishers Greg Johnson and Richard B. Spencer, Jack Donovan of the so-called Manosphere, and Daniel Friberg, Swedish identitarian.

While I was already aware of most of the thinkers profiled (the only female included, Bat Ye’or, was new to me), I was impressed by how even-handed and well-informed the contributors were. The research is deep and generally accurate—at least as far as I could determine—and moral posturing and mudslinging are almost entirely absent. That is pretty remarkable for an examination of a political milieu which many people consider offensive and deplorable, if not downright dangerous. While a number of the thinkers covered here would match most people’s definitions of racist, anti-Semitic, and neofascist, the authors nevertheless consider their ideas and theories as necessary to understand in the interest of the big picture.

This strikes me as a textbook for a college course set on understanding the far right, not just condemning it. At a time when campuses seem overpopulated with students and instructors obsessed with “deplatforming” those they view as the enemy, Key Thinkers of the Radical Right offers insight instead of invective. (As such, it is my hunch that the book’s subtitle, Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy, was devised by the publisher’s marketing department as a sales-boosting come-on. The thinkers covered herein may be at odds with “liberal democracy,” but many of them are clearly highly intelligent and far more sophisticated than their run-of-the-mill critics.)

Perhaps of most potential interest to readers of Quest, a fair number of the people covered have ideas and theories drawing upon esoteric and spiritual traditions. Julius Evola considered himself a Traditionalist in the intellectual stream initiated by René Guénon, as do Dugin, Johnson, and Friberg. De Benoist and Donovan qualify as pagans, while Pat Buchanan is a devout Roman Catholic (though no fan of Pope Francis). Dugin is an Orthodox Christian of the Old Believers sect. Paul Gottfried, whose inclusion on the radical right I question, is Jewish and just a conservative of the Old Right mold (for which he coined the term “paleocon” in contrast to the hegemonic rise of the “neocons”).

All of which is to say that there is little uniformity among these thinkers and no monolithic ideological stance. If they share any basic beliefs, they would be that equality is hard to discern either between individuals or larger groupings; that leftist dreams of an end to war and injustice and a goal of eternal peace are delusional; that civilizations and cultures rise and fall, and in our era the trend is mostly downward; and that the present multicultural celebration of diversity is bound to lead to conflict and dysfunction.

Key Thinkers of the Radical Right fills in the nuances of these beliefs and provides considerable food for thought. While understanding the far right is not everyone’s cup of tea, an informed overview is valuable for those who wish to know what ideas and their messengers are at work in the outer regions of the zeitgeist.

Jay Kinney

Jay Kinney was founder and publisher of Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions and is a frequent contributor to Quest.

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