Customer Reviews

Lazarus, Come Forth!

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These essays were found in the desk drawer of the deceased Hermetic Initiate Valentin Tomberg. There is no indication that he intended to have them published. Perhaps precisely for this reason, the essays, though lofty, has a breath of intimacy seldom found in published texts. You can almost feel the author's breath and hear his voice in certain passages. Above all, you can see what he saw when he wrote them.

In spite of being just another paperback book, it carries a feel of trust, almost holiness, about it. The reader becomes a confidee. This is rare. And understandably, not that many readers are comfortable with that level of posthumous trust. But to those of us who are, this book is a deep gift.

This is a book I cannot possibly begin to recommend highly enough. That is to say, I am incapable of thinking of it as anything other than one of the greatest books of the twentieth century.

My writing of these words is very, very personal. Though I never met him in the flesh, the author has radically changed my life - radically, which means to say, from the *roots*. He has worked to heal and expand my soul in ways I can never sufficiently honour in words. But again, he has not acted in the flesh to transform me, but through the profound hermetic Catholic writings he left behind, of which this is one.

Through his hermetic Catholic writings ... I want to stress that. Here at Amazon, one may well gain the impression that the author was mainly an esoteric Christian of the Anthroposophical school of Rudolf Steiner. This would be because all the other books under the author's name stem from his Anthroposophical youth. However before he died, the author actually asked that these early Anthroposophical works never be reprinted.

Instead he has left us with two major hermetic Catholic writings, of which this is the second. The first book is anonymous and alas - as much as I definitely want to! - I cannot point to it here, without betraying the author's identity. Alas, because the two books belong together and I cannot help but wish that this volume was also published anonymously, so as to allow the two books to be discussed together, here and elsewhere ...

What this book contains is a series of hermetic and Catholic reflections - that is to say both esoteric and traditional - on three thousand years of the Judaeo-Christian current. One long section thus profoundly, profoundly probes the events of Moses on Mount Sinai and the relevance of the Ten Commandments today. Another delves into the seven miracles of the Johannine Christ.

Here the final miracle the raising of Lazarus receives an astonishing treatment and the reader may need to catch his breath from the vast expanse of meaning given to those three words: Lazarus Come Forth!

Far, far more though, is probed, contemplated, lifted into fresh light and sanity - far more than I can say here. But just for example, there are passages considering the history of Christianity and its need for regenerating impulses at intervals over the centuries, which the author sees coming through the successive advents of the great orders of the West, the Benedictines, then the Franciscans and Dominicans, and most recently the Jesuits. Here especially the author seems far away from the Anthroposophy of his youth which condemned Jesuitism.

Yes the author still respects certain accomplishments of Rudolf Steiner, but he has profoundly separated himself from Anthroposophy. To take just one further example, there is an analysis of the esoteric causes of the first world war that seems to me, anyway, so very different to that of Rudolf Steiner's and also the politics of Rudolf Steiner.

But these are again, simply selected *examples* of the content. There is just so, so much in the book that in a short Amazon review, it is impossible to do justice to. Although the book is just 296 pages long its content is so intensive, that it is as though it contains many more. At least for me, this is a book to be read again and again and again, discovering new vistas with each fresh encounter.

If I cannot here summarise the *quantity* on offer here, I hope that I can at least point to the *quality*. On this page of Amazon reviews, another reader has invoked the word "holiness" in regard to this authentic masterpiece. How deeply I agree! This is not simply a book for the mind, but for the whole heart, soul and life of the reader who will contemplatively enter into its recesses, recesses which can indeed serve to heal and make whole again...

I have little to add to the above posts on this book which I enjoyed reading very much. Except for a little heads-up about the translator and the context of the book in relation to anthroposophy.(Although this book is worth reading in its on right even if one has no interest in Steiner or anthroposophy)

It's funny how reading one writer leads to another and another. Like many readers of Tomberg, I was drawn to this book after reading many works by Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophists. Which is why I would like to point people to the individual who translated (or at least co-translated) "Lazarus come forth" into English.....Robert Powell.

Robert Powell has written many books which try to bring together various conflicting strands of anthroposophy into reconciliation.And develop them further. Steiner himself wrote of a Platonic and Aristotlean stream and spoke of the former stream including many souls who would become prominent around the beginning of the millenium....that is, now.

Tomberg seems to differentiate himself from anthroposophy through more of a pure emphasis on mysticism. Is this like platonism in relation to Aristotle? One criticism by Tomberg of anthroposophy was that the latter became more of a social reform movement than a source of pure spiritual inspiration.

I feel tremendous gratitude to Robert Powell for translating this work which is a wonderful complement to an anthroposophical outlook. And I would like to call people's attention to his various books which build on the astrological work that Steiner/Elisabeth Vreede initiated.

I just wish that the various people who are attracted to Steiner's body of work could get along better. Nothing alienates many of my bio-dynamic gardening friends more than when I mention Steiner's philosophical or spiritual ideas. And some of many of the philosphically minded individuals seem to see the astrological work as flaky.

And many anthroposophists see Tomberg as a traitor for becoming a catholic. Perhaps all this is sounding a little like a soap-opera and should be expected. But this book is fantastic and is part of a very rich spiritual, social and philosophical culture.

And I apologize for being all over the place. I just figured I would brainstorm on some aspects of the book significant to me rather than write like a literary critic.