Abbey-Roads2

What is it?

“A Pagan religion that started in Egypt in the 2nd or 3rd century BCE. Its followers believed that its beliefs were revealed to their founder Hermes by his divine father. They taught that a person on earth is a mortal god and that God is an immortal man. It was one of the main competitors to early Christianity. Some religious historians trace certain Mormon beliefs to Hermeticism.” Web Definitions

Today it comes to light that Hans Urs von Balthasar may have been an adherent, or at best, interested in the Tarot and Christian Hermeticism.  (And to think I had to plow through his dense theological treatises while he may have been something of a neo-pagan.)  Mother Rose of the Lake Elmo Carmel of Our Lady of Divine Providence once explained to me why the community refused to read certain authors and their books, she said that if an author is not consistent with Catholic teaching, one cannot trust that the Holy Spirit is guiding him.

Spero News has a report that von Balthasar seems to have been more of a casual inquirer into the Tarot, apparently along with the esteemed Trappist monk, Basil Pennington, the major proponenat of Centering Prayer.  Here is a snippet from the article by Susan Beckworth:

The “Esoteric Spirituality” of Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar, including his Dedication for the “New Age” book: “Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism” Hans Urs von Balthasar, was a Swiss theologian whose theological output gained him international attention, especially in Europe.

 He died on the 26th of June, 1988, two days before his elevation as a cardinal. Many from the theological scene hailed him as a theologian of great stature, however; some view his writings as questionable. Our Catholic moral theology has always taught us we must not judge the state of another’s soul. But as faithful Catholics, we are called to make in a spirit of love, proper judgments of behavior and to expose dangerous views. Clearly, failure to condemn error indicates tacit agreement. Many of Balthasar’s books and writings contain heresy.

Here is an excerpt from Balthasar’s foreword for the book” Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism” (Referred to herein as “Cardinal” Balthasar).

“A thinking, praying Christian of unmistakable purity reveals to us the symbols of Christian Hermeticism in its various levels of mysticism, gnosis and magic, taking in also the Cabbala and certain elements of astrology and alchemy. These symbols are summarized in the twenty-two “Major Arcana”of the tarot cards. By way of the Major Arcana, the author seeks to lead meditatively into the deeper, all embracing wisdom of the Catholic mystery.”  -Hans Urs von Balthasar - Unorthodox Theologian  

Reading the report on Spero gives me the same creepy feeling I always got when I listened to Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven”:

“Theres a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook
Theres a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.

Ooooooooh, it makes me wonder,
Oooooooooooooooooh, it makes me wonder.”

Yeah, it makes me wonder too!