It is included in the bibliography of books ascribed to Valentin Tomberg. The author is known, but requested to remain anonymous. Powell basing his rendering on the author's original French manuscript, whereas the published French edition ( ISBN 978-2700703696) does not always follow the French original manuscript. An English translation was then published in 1985, with Robert A. This was followed by translation into German ( Die großen Arcana des Tarot : Meditationen, ISBN 978-3906371054).

The article proposes to view esoteric practices as an integral part of a broader kataphatic stream in European religious history, separated out by a set of disjunctive strategies rooted in the policing of ' orthopraxy ' by ecclesiastical authorities.Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism ( French: Méditations sur les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot) is an esoteric Christian book originally written in French with the date of given by the author at the end of the last chapter, and published posthumously and anonymously in 1980. Examples suggesting evidence for both these two claims are discussed. Secondly, it is argued that the Aristotelian inner sense tradition of the scholastics left a lasting impression on later esoteric conceptualizations of the imaginative faculty. By looking at the role of Bonaventure's ' cognitive theology ' in the popularization of gospel meditations and kataphatic devotional prayer, it is argued that there is a direct link between the scholastic reconsideration of the imaginative faculty and the development of esoteric practices inspired by Christian devotional literature. First, it is argued that esoteric practice is rooted in a broader kataphatic trend within Christian spirituality that explodes in the popular devotion literature of the later Middle Ages.

Two aspects of the history of the imagination are discussed. While the esoteric vis imaginativa is usually attributed to the influx of Neoplatonism in the Italian Renaissance, this article argues that many of its key properties were already in place in medieval scholasticism. Scholars agree that the imagination is central to esoteric practice.

Valentin tomberg tarot