I can only say that I myself have lived in Gemany and it is obvious to myself and all who know the German text that this is the two-volume German edition. If any doubt remains, a blow-up of the photo can be seen here compared with a clear picture of the German volumes. Certainly this is not a book to read superficially, nor is it a book that will help you do the tarots very well (not in the traditional way at least), but it is a book that will expand your mind, see the tarot cards through the lens of Christian hermeticism, it takes you on a journey through the eyes of a remarkable mind. This classic text is perhaps the single greatest work combining mysticism with the tarot; one that is viewed through the rarely revealed lens of Christian esoteric tradition.

They leave the Subtle Body and enter the Soul, in which case they either transform the soul into its Likeness or Annhilate it.

The new, most current, special Avatar can easily be accepted and be placed first on the list of Avatars. Because I have taken the apparently odd position (again in that same Tomberg series starting here) that Meditations on the Tarot, despite its highly problematic nature for Catholics, forms an important defense of the Faith in our troubled age. I think Hans Urs von Balthasar (who wrote the afterw0rd) was right when he said the aim of the book was a synthesis of all Jewish, Eastern, and Pagan wisdom without the expense of his Christian faith.

This is a very, very painful topic and I do understand the enormous distress suffered by those whose hearts are pierced by the betrayal of the faith within the Church in recent decades. What happened to me is that through daily mass and regular confession (monthly at least) I found that here I have EVERYTHING. He mentions the Indian practice of using Bija-mantras to awaken the Chakras and suggest alternatively a “Christianisation” of the Chakras would be to co-relate them to the Seven “I AM” sayings of the Gospel of John.It takes the reader into the mindset of someone you is vastly knowledgeable, who uses the Major Arcana cards as reflective mirrors on himself, society, humanity, through a core foundation of christian thought. Pour yourself a glass of wine, coffee, water, chocolate milk, or beer, and allow yourself to linger, to mull and ponder. Please forgive me for taking so very long to make this very inadequate response to your depths, unknown friend. For it was then I saw that Tomberg’s profound, complex masterpiece turned not simply on Jesus Christ – but on a sustained meditation of how the entire cosmos changed through the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Well, yeah, in the sense that it's a long, complex book about so much more that the Tarot that it's like a bomb going off inside you when you start to follow where it's going. And what makes the tarot potentially more useful than other alternatives is its visual nature, as well as the way in which it results in a temporary structure—in the form of the cards spread across the table—that can be scrutinized from various angles.I'm not a scholar in these matters this is just my take on it) Anyway I am neither Catholic nor to I practice Hermeticism but something about this book facinates me. I rather enjoyed this book this second time around (second time finishing, 3rd time starting it) -- and that was really amazing. To my mind, this has much to do with what Martin Kriele – Tomberg’s heir – says of Tomberg’s grave concern with both the New Age movement and Freemasonry (which can be found about half way down the page in this piece Behind the French Meditations of a Catholic Hermeticist). And shortly after Vatican II, he wrote of the Church as headed towards the abyss in the wake of the conciliar changes.