Thomas Keating loved it. Just like Basil Pennington and Bede Griffiths. In our time, Cynthia Bourgeault and Thérèse Schroeder-Sheker have praised it — enthusiastically. So why, tell me, do these leaders of the contemplative community endorse a book with a title like Meditations on the Tarot?

Written in the 1960s and published only after the death of its author in 1973, Meditations on the Tarot is a unique book that explores contemplative imagination – how our God-given powers of intelligence, intuition, insight and wisdom can support us in a life of ever-deeper prayer, meditation and contemplation. The author combines the classical teachings of Christian mysticism with innovative and sometimes surprising insights from science, philosophy, other religious and spiritual traditions, and – most distinctly – from the Western esoteric/”hermetic” tradition, including including ideas and concepts inspired by the 22 “majors”. Arcana” images from the Tarot, an ancient Italian card game that most people know as a divination tool.

Corn Meditations on the Tarot is not a book on divination. Like Carl G. Jung and others, the author of this book is interested in the Tarot primarily for its archetypal imagery. Each image is presented as a tool for meditation – of inner reflection and intuition, to enable the reader to foster an ever-deeper openness to prayer, meditation, contemplation and the recognition that we are all created to the image and likeness of God – of divine Love.

Join me for a deep dive into Meditations on the Tarot

This book, filled with rich imagery, literary and spiritual allusions, and profound philosophy and theology, requires prayerful reading, similar to the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina. For this reason I chose Meditations on the Tarot at the center of my new initiative, “contemplative study of mystical writings.”

The idea behind “contemplative study” is that this book is best explored slowly – over months – with a focus not only on reading Where To master the information presented there, but with a more prayerful, meditative and open approach – almost like a “retreat from everyday life”, to borrow the image St Ignatius used to describe the nine-month practice of his Spiritual Exercises .

Like the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, Meditations on the Tarot offers its readers profound invitations to deeper prayer and meditation. When you enroll in this program, you will receive the following resources to help you on your spiritual journey:

• Monthly Zoom meetings with me and other readers (recorded if you can’t attend the event)
• Twelve videos introducing you to the key themes and concepts of Meditations on the Tarot
• Downloadable PDF files with commentaries, selected quotes and instructions for spiritual exercises
• Community discussion forum where you can interact with the group to reflect on the wisdom of the book

You can enroll in this program at any time and complete your journey through Meditations on the Tarot at your own pace. However, if you would like to participate in live Zoom calls, register now – the first two Zoom calls will take place on February 10 and March 10, with subsequent meetings taking place once a month until December 2022.

Course content (PDFs, videos, and community discussion forum) will be available from late January 2022. New content will be made available approximately every two weeks, with the full course available by December 2022. Students will be able to continue to access the course after that. time, so if you want to take it slow in this program of contemplative study, you can.

Online courses similar to this one often cost $400, $800 or even more! But in the spirit of St. Benedict (who encouraged his monks to sell their products at reduced prices), this course is available for a one-time payment of $299 – or, if you join my Patreon membership site at the $20/month level (“Visionaries”), you get full access to this course as one of your membership rewards (Patreon memberships renew monthly but can be canceled at any time).

Dive deep into this fascinating and mysterious book of contemplative spirituality – sign up for this course today!