The Christianity of resurrection and ascension “absolutely demands the ability to move between worlds and to see with the eye of the heart, and to receive ongoing teaching, help, and support from a risen Jesus.” Cynthia Bourgeault

The Bold Paradox of Resurrection

“There is no idea and ideal more bold, more contrary to all empirical experience, and more shocking to common sense than that of resurrection.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p558.

Beyond Literal Interpretation

“As I’ve read the early writings and teachings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers that eventually spilled out of this, I see that this is the overweening agenda. They understand the resurrection does not mean primarily that a dead body came back to life. It got this interpretation along the way as people’s minds got more literal. But the first and absolute certainty that sent the disciples out was that Jesus’ physical death had not made a damn bit of difference interrupting the intimacy and immediacy of their relationship. That his presence continued, even though his physical body did not, and was constantly accessible to them, interpenetrating with them. And out of this, he could create a body or set it down as needed.

“But the thing that remained was this sense of abiding intimacy. Death and the change of form had interrupted nothing, nothing at all. … what the early disciples knew and that energy that they really preached out of it and got Christianity launched off was resurrection energy. The understanding that Jesus had triumphed over death because consciousness triumphs over death. Because something that is the core of the individual cannot be put down, is not tied to the physical form.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Introductory Wisdom School May 2025, 22:12 05 Tues am Benedictine 4 Quadrants.

“Whatever else you may say about the resurrection, whether or not you believe in the bodily appearance of the person that came out of the grave in his original skin and bones, the one thing that is absolutely clear about resurrection is that the people who experienced it knew Jesus was alive and knew that Jesus continued to be in personal relationship with them.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga 2015 14:34 Day 3.6a Evening Part 1 of 3.

The Event in the Imaginal Realm

“Ascension was an objective event, but it took place in the Imaginal realm. He’s actually using the term. At the substratum of human existence, where the most fundamental changes on consciousness take place, the ascension was a fact on the Imaginal plane, not just an assertion of faith. It irreversibly altered the nature of the disciple’s consciousness. Does that make sense to you? And if you look at it, the stories, it was not until about the year, until the late second, early third century, that the bodily resurrection of Jesus became doctrinal.

“Up until that point, what was believed was that Jesus was risen. And there was a deep belief and certainty in Paul that what rose, the Jesus they met, was in his resurrection body. As a matter of fact, St. Paul, if you look at him very carefully in Corinthians, says that flesh cannot inherit eternal life, but the resurrection body does. … The event that really comprises resurrection is the moment where in the deepest substratum of consciousness, all of a sudden, you see from a different reality. And your whole being gets on board with that seeing.” Cynthia Bourgeault, In the Wake of St. Brendan, 1:08 disc1 track15.

“Come to know the one in the presence before you, and everything hidden from you will be revealed. Does it resonate differently in you when you sing it in your bodies instead of in your brains? It’s very, very interesting because, depending on your orientation, you’ll hear it as either an inevitable foreshadowing of the resurrection or an inevitable foreshadowing of Jungian psychology. Take your pick.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga 2015, 2:51 Day 4.5b Afternoon Teaching Part 2 of 3.

Resurrection as Conscious Transformation

“What does it mean to die to something quite small and how could we understand that there always follows a resurrection from what we die to? Supposing that you in a quite real way do not go with some negative thought and its resultant feeling, supposing you really sacrifice this from yourself, from your own will, from your own understanding, will there be any resurrection?

“The idea of resurrection is that the quantity of force that would have gone into this thing and has been genuinely sacrificed from one’s deepest will, reappears in a higher form—that is, on another level—and begins to create another form of insight, of understanding, of feeling, of thinking, just as an egg can become something quite different, on a quite different level.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p663.

The Victory of Love and the Vertical

“Jesus of the cross with the affirming being the heart of infinite love for the creation and everything in this God-given world. And the negative force being all the opposing, the hatred, the vilification, all the stuff that human beings are collectively capable of. Meeting in the surrendered heart. And what rises out of that is resurrection. And by resurrection I’m not talking about the level of a body coming back from the grave. I’m talking about the possibility of walking that life of truly redeemed spirit beyond death while still on this planet.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2014 Jacob Boehme, 34:51 5e.Satpm.TeachingGWS14.

“Is not the Resurrection the demonstration of the other aspect of the primacy of love over being, i.e. that love is not only superior to being but also that it engenders it and restores it?” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p34.

“Resurrection is not only the triumph of Life over Death, but is moreover the triumph of Life over life. It is the victory of the vertical over the horizontal.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p362-363.

The Great Alchemical Operation

“The ‘good news’ that the world received more than nineteen centuries ago is in no way that of successful surgical operation of freedom from suffering; no more is it that of the successful construction of a tower attributed to man—small though the tower may be, or of unparalleled grandeur, i.e. ‘reaching up to heaven’; but rather it is that of resurrection—the great alchemical operation of the successful transmutation of the human being. Liberation through spiritual surgery, power owing to the construction of mental or other mechanisms, or resurrection thanks to the Cross, to the law of spiritual growth—here is the choice of ideal that every human soul must make.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p451.

The Eternal Cycle

“Just as the external sun eternally repeats springtime, summer, autumn and winter, so does the spiritual sun reveal his eternal springtime aspect—his infancy—at Christmas, his eternal summer aspect—his miracles, his eternal autumnal aspect—his passion and resurrection, and his eternal winter aspect—the ascension. This means to say, again, that the ages are eternal—that infancy, youth, middle age and old age are eternal. The Christ is eternally Child, Master, Crucified and Resurrected. Man bears in himself at one and the same time the child, the young man, the mature man and the old man.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p532.

Divine Memory and Resurrection

“The liturgical year of the Church is simply the yearly endeavor of human memory to unite itself with divine memory so as to realise resurrection, i.e. to make the past live in the present. The words of consecration, ‘This is my body, which is given for you; do this in memory of me,’ is the key to the liturgical year.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p533.

“Experience teaches us that we easily forget, and recall with difficulty, the things to which we attach no value—that we do not love. One forgets what one does not love and one never forgets what one loves. It is love which gives us the power to recall at any desired moment the things that our hearts preserve warm’. Indifference, in contrast, makes one forget everything. It is the same with the “awaking and resurrection of the dead”. Here it is not cosmic indifference (that we call “matter”) which will effect anything, but rather it is cosmic love (that we call “spirit”) which will accomplish the magical act of resurrection, i.e. the reintegration of an inseparable unity—the unity of spirit, soul and body—not by way of birth (reincarnation) but by way of the magical act of divine memory.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p562.

The Meeting of Divine and Human Response

“Resurrection is not an all-powerful divine act, but rather the effect of the meeting and union of divine love, hope and faith with human love, hope and faith. The trumpet sounds from above the whole of divine love, hope and faith; and not only the human spirit and soul but also all the atoms of the human body respond ‘yes’ in chorus.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p571-572.

The Continuing Reality

“The spiritual history of Christianity is the history of successive resurrections of that which is valuable from the past, worthy of eternity. It is the history of the magic of love reviving the dead. It was thus that Platonism became resuscitated and will go on living for ever—thanks to the vivifying breath of he who is the resurrection and the life (“Ego sum resurrectio et vita”—John xi, 25). It is thus that Aristotelianism will participate in eternal life. And it is thus that Hermeticism, also, will live until the end of the world and, perhaps, beyond the end of the world.

“Moses and the prophets will live on for ever, for they have acquired their place in the eternal constellation of the Word of resurrection and life. The magical poetry and songs of Orpheus will be resuscitated and will live for all eternity as colour and sound of the Word of resurrection and life.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p194-195.

“Resurrection Christianity absolutely demands the ability to move between worlds and to see with the eye of the heart, and to receive ongoing teaching, help, and support from a risen Jesus.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mary Magdalene and the Path of Conscious Love, 2:43 disc1 track7.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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VI. OUT OF NOTHING
To be nothing
Is to consent to being a simple creature.
This is the place of encounter with
“I AM that I Am.”
When there is no more “me, myself, or mine,”
Only “I AM” remains.
Then the “I” may fall away,
Leaving just the AM.
God empowers our powerlessness
So that we never despair
Of unconditional forgiveness and infinite mercy.
Such is the grace of inner resurrection,
And the reward of seeking no reward.
Thomas Keating 

Logion 5
Yeshua says…
Come to know the One in the presence before you,
and everything hidden from you will  be revealed.
For there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed,
and nothing buried that will not be raised. 

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Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise. 

Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)

Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.

Read the Impression on Meditations on the Tarot.