Valentin Tomberg

Valentin Tomberg ( born February 27, 1900 in St. Petersburg, Russia, † February 24, 1973 in Mallorca ) was legal scholars and mystics.

Life

His father, Arnold Tomberg, was an official of the Ministry of Interior of Swedish descent, his mother was Russian. He attended St. Peter's School, a prestigious St. Petersburg educational institution with a humanistic orientation, learned early Greek and Latin, in the home also German, English and French. Since 1919/20, he worked in St. Petersburg with the Tarot, but he was early even by the writings of Rudolf Steiner's thrilled. After the October Revolution he fled to Tallinn in Estonia. He worked as a civil servant, teachers, farm workers, pharmacists and artists and was financed as an evening study of comparative religion, philosophy, and multiple languages ​​. He also worked for the Tallinn branch of the Anthroposophical Society, of which he was already 25 years.

Since the beginning of the 30s, he published numerous articles in anthroposophical journals. In 1931, he had a profound spiritual experience. By his own account, his had " spiritual eyes and ears " opened, and he began immediately to perceive and engage in intellectual intercourse with them surrounding him world of angels and spiritual individualities. To the widow of Rudolf Steiner wrote in 1931: "A Great, I was allowed to experience - in the true sense of the word. For great is the spirit - cosmos, which has opened up in radiant certainty of the soul awake. " In the following years he tried with his essays and lectures in the anthroposophical sense his listeners and readers more responsive to Christ and to make more and more the Bible in his lectures at the center. 1938 Tomberg moved over to Rotterdam and lived in the time of the war with his wife and child in the Netherlands. He worked 1939 - 1940 as a secretary in the Estonian Vice - Consulate in Amsterdam under the Estonian Vice-Consul, the Dutchman Jan red through the German occupation of the Netherlands and the Soviet occupation of Estonia, the Vice - Consulate in Amsterdam was closed and Tomberg lost his job.

In 1945, he guided the Catholic Church (although it is unclear whether he joined this also in the formal sense ). He stayed in Mülheim an der Ruhr, where he led the rebuilding of the community college, and Cologne, where he was Professor Ernst von Hippel offered a position at the University of Cologne. Tomberg received his PhD in Dr. jur. and submitted writings on the philosophy of law and international law. After a short time in London ( in 1948 ) he moved to Reading on the Thames, worked until his retirement in 1960 for the BBC and then intensively on his manuscripts, particularly his major work, The Great Arcana of the Tarot (1967). Tomberg died during a stay in Mallorca on February 24, 1973.

Creation

In early writings Tomberg picks from the anthroposophical teachings of Rudolf Steiner in particular Christological aspects out, combines these into comprehensive contexts and complements results of their own research. Later, however, Tomberg regret " to the frequent " to anthroposophical literature still " one more " and added so readers overwhelmed to have. However, it is noted that he has always stressed the importance of Rudolf Steiner for the spiritual development of mankind. At a genuine break with anthroposophy it never came consequently. Tomberg is in his later writings, which are no longer influenced by anthroposophy, but from a profound Christology in a great tradition, which form the Christian Church Fathers and mystics on the one hand, and on the other by the French and Russian Hermeticism, the Jewish Kabbalah and contemporary thinkers who sought to break through the boundaries of the scientific-materialist worldview, such as Henri Bergson, Jung and Teilhard de Chardin are formed. Tomberg but was not limited, the tradition only to recapitulate and summarize, but enriched with new insights and incorporates knowledge. In the 60s he wrote his major work The major Arcana of the Tarot, the only - should appear after his death under a pseudonym - his will accordingly. The major arcana are a meditative introduction to everything that belongs in the most comprehensive way to the Christian message and spirituality, a Summa of Christian Hermeticism.

Works

• Anonymus d' Outre Tombe: The Great Arcana of the Tarot. Meditations. Edited by Martin Kriele and Robert Spaemann. Introduction by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Herder, Basel, 1983; Third expanded edition 1993, ISBN 3-906371-05-0 Original title: Méditations sur les 22 Arcanes majeurs du Tarot, Aubier - Montaigne, Paris 1980