Valentin Tomberg
Encyclopedia
Valentin Arnoldevitch Tomberg (February 27, 1900 - February 24, 1973) was a Russia
n Christian
mystic
, polyglot scholar and hermetic
magician
.
and the mystical practices of Eastern Orthodoxy. In 1917 he was initiated into Hermetic Martinism
by Prof. G. O. Mebes. He also discovered the works of Rudolf Steiner. In 1920, Tomberg fled with his family to Tallinn
in Estonia
, where, searching for his mother who had left the house, he discovered her with her dog tied to a tree, both shot by revolutionaries. Tomberg worked as a nurse at a hospital, in a pharmacy, on a farm and in the Tallinn Central Post Office. He studied languages and comparative religion
at the University of Tartu
in Estonia.
In 1925, Tomberg joined Rudolf Steiner
's Anthroposophical Society
. He married Maria Demski, a Polish Catholic, in the early 1930s; they had a son, Alexis. During the 1930s, Tomberg, then in his 30s, published his original occult research in a number of articles and lectures, which made him a controversial figure in Anthroposophical circles. As a result of the controversies, in 1938 the Tombergs were invited to move to Amsterdam. In 1940, however, he was asked to withdraw from the Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands as well, by its chairman Zeylmans van Emmichhoven, due to his being too controversial.
He was active in Dutch Nazi resistance by hiding allied pilots and parachuters. Tomberg and a Russian friend, the poet-philosopher Nikolai Belotsvietof, allegedly approached the leader of the Christian Community, Emil Bock about creating a new ritual focusing on Sophia, but were rebuffed. He then joined the Russian Orthodox Church
in Holland but left shortly thereafter, as its leadership turned out to be sympathetic to National Socialism
.
Towards the end of World War II
, Tomberg received a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence from the University of Cologne
, where he had moved in 1944. He studied under Prof. von Hippel, who became a personal friend. His thesis was published as Degeneration and Regeneration in the Science of Law, followed by the thesis Peoples' Rights as Humanity's Rights in 1946. Around this time, he converted to Roman Catholicism.
Shortly after the war he helped founding a community college in the Ruhr area. In 1948, however, he moved to England, where he became a translator for the BBC
monitoring Soviet
broadcasts during the Cold War
. He retired early, to Reading
near the River Thames
in 1960, where he worked on the manuscripts for his main work, written in French and entitled Méditations sûr les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot, Meditations on the Tarot
in English.
He died on a holiday in Majorca. Two weeks later his wife and collaborator Maria died as well. A Dutch or German rough translation of the manuscript to Méditations sûr les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot was circulated in the Netherlands against Tomberg's intentions a year before his death, but was only formally published in 1984.
Some Anthroposophical scholars, such as but not limited to Dr. Robert A. Powell of the Sophia Foundation, believe that Tomberg was an incarnation of the present Bodhisattva
, who will, in about 2,500 years, become the Maitreya
Buddha. The characteristics of the Boddhisattva were listed by Rudolf Steiner and include a radical change of life and outlook at the age of 33, which was so in the case of Tomberg, as with St. Dominic and Blaise Pascal.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, polyglot scholar and hermetic
Hermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
magician
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
.
Life
Valentin Tomberg was born on March 11, 1900 (February 27 in the Old Russian Julian calendar) in St. Petersburg, Russia. His parents were Lutheran, the mother was a devout Russian and the father a sceptic of Baltic origin. As an adolescent, Tomberg was drawn to TheosophyTheosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
and the mystical practices of Eastern Orthodoxy. In 1917 he was initiated into Hermetic Martinism
Martinism
Martinism is a form of mystical and esoteric Christianity concerned with the fall of the first man, his state of material privation from his divine source, and the process of his return, called 'Reintegration' or illumination....
by Prof. G. O. Mebes. He also discovered the works of Rudolf Steiner. In 1920, Tomberg fled with his family to Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...
in Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, where, searching for his mother who had left the house, he discovered her with her dog tied to a tree, both shot by revolutionaries. Tomberg worked as a nurse at a hospital, in a pharmacy, on a farm and in the Tallinn Central Post Office. He studied languages and comparative religion
Comparative religion
Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...
at the University of Tartu
University of Tartu
The University of Tartu is a classical university in the city of Tartu, Estonia. University of Tartu is the national university of Estonia; it is the biggest and highest-ranked university in Estonia...
in Estonia.
In 1925, Tomberg joined Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
's Anthroposophical Society
Anthroposophy
Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development...
. He married Maria Demski, a Polish Catholic, in the early 1930s; they had a son, Alexis. During the 1930s, Tomberg, then in his 30s, published his original occult research in a number of articles and lectures, which made him a controversial figure in Anthroposophical circles. As a result of the controversies, in 1938 the Tombergs were invited to move to Amsterdam. In 1940, however, he was asked to withdraw from the Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands as well, by its chairman Zeylmans van Emmichhoven, due to his being too controversial.
He was active in Dutch Nazi resistance by hiding allied pilots and parachuters. Tomberg and a Russian friend, the poet-philosopher Nikolai Belotsvietof, allegedly approached the leader of the Christian Community, Emil Bock about creating a new ritual focusing on Sophia, but were rebuffed. He then joined the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
in Holland but left shortly thereafter, as its leadership turned out to be sympathetic to National Socialism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
.
Towards the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Tomberg received a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence from the University of Cologne
University of Cologne
The University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...
, where he had moved in 1944. He studied under Prof. von Hippel, who became a personal friend. His thesis was published as Degeneration and Regeneration in the Science of Law, followed by the thesis Peoples' Rights as Humanity's Rights in 1946. Around this time, he converted to Roman Catholicism.
Shortly after the war he helped founding a community college in the Ruhr area. In 1948, however, he moved to England, where he became a translator for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
monitoring Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
broadcasts during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. He retired early, to Reading
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
near the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
in 1960, where he worked on the manuscripts for his main work, written in French and entitled Méditations sûr les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot, Meditations on the Tarot
Meditations on the Tarot
Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism is a book published posthumuously and anonymously in 1985. It was originally written in French and translated into English by Robert A. Powell of the Sophia Foundation....
in English.
He died on a holiday in Majorca. Two weeks later his wife and collaborator Maria died as well. A Dutch or German rough translation of the manuscript to Méditations sûr les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot was circulated in the Netherlands against Tomberg's intentions a year before his death, but was only formally published in 1984.
Some Anthroposophical scholars, such as but not limited to Dr. Robert A. Powell of the Sophia Foundation, believe that Tomberg was an incarnation of the present Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
, who will, in about 2,500 years, become the Maitreya
Maitreya
Maitreya , Metteyya , or Jampa , is foretold as a future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. In some Buddhist literature, such as the Amitabha Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, he or she is referred to as Ajita Bodhisattva.Maitreya is a bodhisattva who in the Buddhist tradition is to appear on...
Buddha. The characteristics of the Boddhisattva were listed by Rudolf Steiner and include a radical change of life and outlook at the age of 33, which was so in the case of Tomberg, as with St. Dominic and Blaise Pascal.
Published works
Tomberg's major written works were published posthumously. They include:- Lazarus, komm heraus: vier Schriften (Come Forth, Lazarus), a study of Christian mysticism, written in GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and published in 1985, ISBN 3-90637-108-5. Translated as Covenant of the Heart and published in EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in 1992. Also published as Lazarus, come forth! Meditations of a Christian esotericist on the mysteries of the raising of Lazarus, the Ten Commandments, the Three Kingdoms, and the Breath of Life. ISBN 1-58420-040-5. - Méditations sûr les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot (a study of the Tarot of MarseillesTarot of MarseillesThe Tarot of Marseilles , also widely known by the French designation Tarot de Marseille, is one of the standard patterns for the design of tarot cards...
) published anonymouslyAnonymityAnonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
in FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in 1984 (with a foreword by a Catholic theologian and priest Hans Urs von BalthasarHans Urs von BalthasarHans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and priest who was nominated to be a cardinal of the Catholic Church...
), and in English as Meditations on the TarotMeditations on the TarotMeditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism is a book published posthumuously and anonymously in 1985. It was originally written in French and translated into English by Robert A. Powell of the Sophia Foundation....
in 1985. ISBN 1-58542-161-8. - Christ and Sophia: anthroposophic meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and apocalypse, Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2006. ISBN 0-88010-565-8.
- Degeneration und Regeneration der Rechtswissenschaft, Bonn: Bouvier, 1974 [German]. ISBN 3-41601-032-9.
- Le Mat itinérant. L'amour et ses symboles. Une méditation chrétienne sur le Tarot. Edition établi et présentée par Friederike Migneco et Volker ZotzVolker ZotzVolker Zotz is an eminent Austrian philosopher, and a prolific author in German language....
. Luxembourg: Kairos Edition 2007[French with German translation] ISBN 978-2-9599829-5-8.