Origins of the Tarot: Cosmic Evolution and the Principles of Immortality Paperback – Illustrated, June 30, 2009

Reading 'Origins of the Tarot' was a body-mind-spirit resonance of Bliss with the Beloved for me. It is a rare book that touches so profoundly into the heart of our individual and collective soul.'Origins of the Tarot' is a complex and comprehensive treatise on Eastern influences and their relationship with Western philosophy and religion, leading up to and deeply formulating what we now call Tarot. In essence, it traces the non-dualistic roots of Tarot from Europe, back to the East, along the Silk Road, and beyond.For those interested in the history of philosophy and religion, this is the equivalent of a college-level course with its expansive details. It traces a complicated confluence of crossed and criss-crossed influences from Indo-Aryan "shamanic cultures" to ancient Greek philosophy and myths, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, Neoplatonism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Eastern Christianity, Western Christianity, and Celtic culture, including the metaphysical concepts of alchemy, tantrism, and Eros.At it's heart, this work is a philosophical study following the weaving of dual and nondual values as they stream together, influencing, sometimes repelling, each other throughout our history of evolution as intelligent beings.Tarot enthusiasts will find this is to be a radically different interpretation of the basic template of our modern Tarot's major arcana. Yet, knowledgeable scholars of Tarot will recognize these deeper roots and how they informed the pre-Renaissance sequence and power of each Tarot Trump, or Triumph. When seen through the wisdom of nondual values as they move through the hierarchy of stages toward immortality, this preeminent template of Triumphs constitutes an amazing model of evolution, our spiritual potential reflecting back to us through the visual archetypes of the Tarot.This movement toward our spiritual potential is the most powerful argument and I suspect the reason for the creation of this impressive labor of love, as found within its title ''Cosmic Evolution and the Principles of Immortality.'For some folks Léon's writing style may be circuitous, dense and difficult to follow. On the surface, it does not appear to apply a linear outline, but topics are well-rounded discussions of major concepts with their multiple influences. I particularly appreciate his vast knowledge, extensive references, and precise vocabulary.This is a must read for any serious student of Tarot wisdom.

Where can we find the threads that would help guide us out of the dark labyrinths of our personal and social bewilderment today? How can we be moved by the magical synchronism of the Tarot in a way that expands our quest beyond personal desires and private dreams? How can our intuitions of the profound wisdom reflected in traditional metaphysics be grounded in the actuality of what's needed to preserve life on earth?Questions like these have motivated Dai Leon to assemble this prismatic work of integrative history and thought. Through them he aims to redeem the esoteric meaning of the Tarot from its contemporary embrace by the occult. More than that, he asks his attentive readers to pose their own fundamental questions along with his: How do we get to there from here? A desire to release the eternal from the confinement of the present seems to pervade this book. This work merits the efforts of all who are called to engage with it.

A friend of mine accidentally found this book at the library and raved about it so I looked for and found it here. I love it, especially the chapter "Kosmic Knowledge" as consciousness in the universe fascinates me. Not a light book to read, but If you want to stretch your mind, get this book!

Arrived on time and exactly as described.

A remarkable book...

The images of the major arcana of the Tarot are universal, archetypal signifiers. As such there is much in human spirituality that can be contained within their meanings and I have no problems with people finding all manner of correspondences to enhance their significance. I suppose this book could've been written from that perspective, but Mr. Leon has foolishly opted to try for a supposedly historical case for the source of this imagery. But while his historical assumptions seem to be arbitrary, his scholarship itself, at least in areas I've studied, seems to be quite superficial. His interpretations of Plato and Platonism for example seem to follow rather tired, standard interpretations that have misled thinkers for centuries. Seeing Plato as a mind/body dualist is really unacceptable to anyone who would seriously consider calling themselves a Platonist. There is only one continuous reality, even in Plato's thought, body being but the final emanation in the series. Western thought has generally followed Aristotle in its understanding of Plato's work, but problematically Aristotle did not understand Plato and so managed to confuse Western thought to the present time. I don't see any of the relevant arguments in this work, though one would expect them to be present where a theme of metaphysical emanationism is being utilized. The appropriate historical transmission channel for true Platonism would be through the Athenian school whose thought was synthesized ultimately by Proclus, but here we find Alexandria held up as the major point of transmission. Alexandria was the point at which Christianity began to extol Aristotle over Plato. Though Proclus does come up a number of times, Iamblichus is not even mentioned though the line of transmission for the true Platonic school runs from Iamblichus in the 3rd to Proclus in the 5th century. Another example of shoddy scholarship is when the author states that Proclus' philosophy was influenced by Buddhism. Anyone who has seriously studied Indian thought knows that Buddhist thought is both nominalist and what is called a-satkaryavada. This latter is emphatically a non-emanationist position. Emanationist thinking is called satkaryavada in India, that is, the effect is contained in the cause. Proclus' thought is decidedly of the emanationist variety. Further, Platonism is generally a form of spiritual realism, in which the realm of spiritual meanings is understood to be real. In a nominalist position meaning is merely a more or less illusionary affect of the mind. The Buddhist believes that mind is unreal, the Platonists that it is very real. Thus, I can only say that it seems that the rest of Mr. Leon's scholarship will probably be just as shallow. Even so, I may yet read the whole book.