Kabbalah & G. O. Mebes

Fada

I have been studying G. O. Mebes for a while, and I am looking for a discussion about his work. So far I have not found an English version of his works "Major Arcana" and "Minor Arcana." It is deep and extremely complex, it would be wonderful to have someone to exchange opinions and learnings.

Thanks,

Fada
 

evlogite

Mebes & Minor Arcana

Hi I have read both of Mebes' books and would like to discuss.
Cheers
 

jmd

As far as I am aware, Mebes's works are not available in English.

It has been claimed by some that Mouni Sadhu's book essentially recapitulates Mebes's work, but in some ways doubt that this is an accurate reflection of the latter. Rather, I suspect that Sadhu used as his basis Mebes, and then went on to develop his own work in the context of the 'study' groups he was part of in the 1950s and 1960s.

It would be useful indeed to have Mebes's works in English (or French - I'm not sure if they are available in French).
 

evlogite

Sadhu's Lessons, GOM

It's interesting that you mention Sadhu's study groups-- as he breaks the chapters up into different lessons. The original Mebes text is available, in Russian, on the web for free.
 

Fada

Different posts have led me to find what I have been looking for, for years now. At: http://trionfi.com/l-old-tarots-deck-list/ I’ve found a particular deck: Cabbalistic Tarot G.O.M. – Switzerland – Aenigma. It took me a while…

Studying Mebes is not easy. Before getting into the analysis of each of the Major Arcana, he describes each card, that is, the deck he said was made available to him called The Bohemian Tarot. However, I have searched everywhere I could, and NONE of the so-called Bohemian Tarot type decks would fit the description of the cards used in his books.

Here is the introduction of The Minor Arcana of Tarot –

Disclaimer: Please blame me for any “felonies” against the English language, I had a hard time to translate it from Portuguese to English:

Quote:

“During the second half of the XIX century and the first half of the XX century, lived in the Russian Capital, Petersburg (Leningrad), one of the greatest esoterism practicioner of his time, G. O. Mebes, known as G.O.M. in his spiritual work.

G. O. Mebes, a man of exceptional culture and great occult powers, was the leader of the ‘Russian Fraternity of Cross and Rose’, with more than 200 years of existence at that time, and the founder of ‘The Initiation School of Western Esoterism’. In his external life, he occupied the position of professor of French and Math in two of the best schools in town. He was appreciated and well known among the members of the society in the capital city. However, very few knew of his School. Only those who were invited by him were allowed into the School.

The School had an ‘external circle’, attended by all of his students, as well as some ‘internal groups’ formed accordingly to the evolutionary level of the disciples, their individual aspirations and capabilities.

In 1912, foreseeing what perhaps was the storm about to reach Russia, G. O. Mebes agreed that his disciples published the lessons about the 22 Major Arcana of Tarot. The book came out under the title of ‘The Course of Encyclopedia of Occultism’, which was completely justified because through the explanation of the Arcana, which are faces of the Truth, he introduced all of the ramifications and aspects of occultism. The first edition was sold out soon.

In late 1917, when the new soviet regime started to persecute religion and spiritualism, the School of G.O. Mebes became clandestine, but its works never stopped.

In 1926, due to imprudence of one of the students, the School and the domicile of its members were invaded by soviet authorities, the documents destroyed and those who were linked the School were arrested.

G. O. Mebes was deported to a gulag in Solovetsk islands, in the White Sea, sub-Arctic region. He died a few years later.

In 1937, the ‘Encyclopedia’ was considered as a classic of occultism, it was again published in Shanghai, in China.

Before that, in the second decade, in Tallin, Estonia, the Russian theosopher Catarina Sreznewska-Zelenzeff, who was getting ready to leave Europe and move to Brazil, received from her friend, Nina Rudnikoff, disciple of G. O. Mebes, a precious material about the Minor Arcana of Tarot. Nina, escaping from Russia, saved all her notes taken during the studies at the School. Having had known that Catarina was going to travel to Brazil, Nina gave her the notes taken from the lessons that had been ministered by Mebes to the internal circle groups of the School. She also asked her to transfer her notes to ‘someone dignified’, asking her that take that with her and, eventually, transfer the material to someone else ‘dignified’ so that the lessons could be preserved.

Years later, in Brazil, in a very strange coincidence, Catarina met Nadia, widow of Gabriel Iellatchitch, another disciple and great friend of Mebes. Both ladies decided to live together. Right after that, Nadia’s brother, Alexandre Nikitin-Nevelskoy, who had a profound knowledge of esoterism and was also a follower of Mebes’ School, came from Chile to live with them.

By putting his notes together and with the help of the two ladies, Alexandre reestablished the course of the Minor Arcana of Tarot in its entirety.

Therefore, Nina’s wish came true because the material was safe and not only transmitted to ‘someone dignified’ but also organized by someone competent, who belonged to the same egregoric chain. This allowed the work to be translated to Portuguese.

This is the history of the present book. We hope that the edition will be useful to a peregrine of the Spiritual Way.

Translation and adaptation by Marta Pécher”
-----------------------------------

Translated from Portuguese by myself and cited from the book: Ensinamentos de G.O. Mebes – Os Arcanos Menores do Tarô – Seu Simbolismo, suas Iniciações e seus Passos para a Realização Espiritual, Editora Pensamento, São Paulo, Brazil, Translated from Russian by Marta Pecher, year ?

Ok, so now, having the lead to http://trionfi.com/l-old-tarots-deck-list/, I took my time there and, to make it short, I have found the deck (2003) entitled Cabbalistic Tarot GOM, Switzerland, Aenigma, WWPCM of Alexander Sukhorukow. The leaflet is in Russian though…

The details, colors, symbols, shapes, etc. are almost 100% exactly represented. I can finally see with my own eyes what before was just left to my imagination. I do not like cards with frames. I rather see the whole image, but I think the “frames” in this deck make sense to be used due to the complexity of his entire work. Also, these cards are excellent for meditation.

I thank Aecletic for this.

Just wonderful…
 

Fada

The deck

And... The Fool is XXI or 0, SHIN. Now I'm sure the deck is really on the same page as Mebes' works.
 

jmd

Fantastic additions - now, of course, we await an English translation of Mebes's own work, rather than its uses by either Tomberg or Sudowski (Sadhu).

I wonder if the 'Aenigma' cards by Alexander Sukhorukow for the Cabbalistic Tarot G.O.M[ebes] have been compared, in terms of detail, with those designed for Mouni Sadhu's book, the Grand Etteilla II, and comments by P. Christian.

It would certainly prove interesting.

Also, though I have not as yet checked, the above would make for an interesting addition to the (blank) Mebes entry to tarotpedia.com.
 

Fada

For reference about the books I have:

Major Arcana:
Title in Portuguese: Os Arcanos Maiores do Tarô - Seu Simbolismo, suas Iniciações e seus Passos para a Realização Espiritual
ISBN: 85-315-0014-1
Publisher: Editora Pensamento
email: pensamento@cultrix.com.br
http://www.pensamento-cultrix.com.br (this site is no longer available)

Minor Arcana:
Title in Portuguese: Os Arcanos Menores do Tarô - Seu Simbolismo, suas Iniciações e seus Passos para a Realização Espiritual
ISBN: ?
Publisher: the same

We need more info and may be somebody is already working on a translation to English.
 

atlantean

Fada said:
For reference about the books I have:

Major Arcana:
Title in Portuguese: Os Arcanos Maiores do Tarô - Seu Simbolismo, suas Iniciações e seus Passos para a Realização Espiritual
ISBN: 85-315-0014-1
Publisher: Editora Pensamento
email: pensamento@cultrix.com.br
http://www.pensamento-cultrix.com.br (this site is no longer available)

Minor Arcana:
Title in Portuguese: Os Arcanos Menores do Tarô - Seu Simbolismo, suas Iniciações e seus Passos para a Realização Espiritual
ISBN: ?
Publisher: the same

We need more info and may be somebody is already working on a translation to English.

I have these books and they're indeed very interesting and quite unique.

The explanation about the binaries in the Magician's chapter is great and alone is worth the book (Arcanos Maiores do Tarô).

I also have Sadhu's book and it's basically a copy of the "Arcanos Maiores do Tarô". Nevertheless, his comments help clarifying some issues left deliberately unanswered by Mebes, so Sadhu's book has merits of its own.
 

babeijon

First of all, please forgive my bad english....
I´ve found this discussion in internet, as I´m interested in Mebes work and looking for some information about him.
I´m interested in kabbalah and tarot, and I think that Mebes´work is extremely interesting. I´ve got both books (I got them by chance, as I found them on an auction in internet) and I think that both of them are really priceless. Since I´ve read them, I´ve been looking for some information about the publication and the author, and I´ve reached the conclusion that the only existing edition is the Portuguese one. As I´m spanish, it´s easy for me to understand it, and I´ve been thinking of translating it into spanish.
The reason why I´ve thought of this is that I think that these books will soon disappear, as they´re not published anymore, and the diffusion of Portuguese books is limited.
What do you think about this? I would be grateful about any suggestion...
Thanks