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A later hardcover printing of The Sacred Tarot, issued by The Church of Light as Doctrine of Kabalism, Serial No. 48. Originally authored under the name Elbert Benjamine (C. C. Zain), this volume represents a formal instructional text within the Brotherhood of Light system—an early twentieth-century American esoteric order integrating astrology, Hermetic philosophy, and Kabalistic symbolism.
The work presents a structured esoteric interpretation of the Tarot, treating the cards not as fortune-telling devices but as symbolic keys within a larger metaphysical and cosmological framework. Zain’s approach reflects the distinctly American occult revival tradition: systematic, didactic, and syncretic, drawing from Western Hermeticism, astrology, and initiatory mysticism.
This edition, published by The Church of Light in Los Angeles, carries dual copyright statements (1936; 1969) and retains the institutional formatting typical of the organization’s instructional series. Bound in black cloth with gilt stamping to the front board, without dust jacket, as found.
A solid and well-preserved example of a foundational Church of Light text—of interest to collectors of American occult movements, esoteric instructional literature, and structured Tarot systems outside the more common Rider–Waite lineage.
A later hardcover printing of The Sacred Tarot, issued by The Church of Light as Doctrine of Kabalism, Serial No. 48. Originally authored under the name Elbert Benjamine (C. C. Zain), this volume represents a formal instructional text within the Brotherhood of Light system—an early twentieth-century American esoteric order integrating astrology, Hermetic philosophy, and Kabalistic symbolism.
The work presents a structured esoteric interpretation of the Tarot, treating the cards not as fortune-telling devices but as symbolic keys within a larger metaphysical and cosmological framework. Zain’s approach reflects the distinctly American occult revival tradition: systematic, didactic, and syncretic, drawing from Western Hermeticism, astrology, and initiatory mysticism.
This edition, published by The Church of Light in Los Angeles, carries dual copyright statements (1936; 1969) and retains the institutional formatting typical of the organization’s instructional series. Bound in black cloth with gilt stamping to the front board, without dust jacket, as found.
A solid and well-preserved example of a foundational Church of Light text—of interest to collectors of American occult movements, esoteric instructional literature, and structured Tarot systems outside the more common Rider–Waite lineage.