We investigate the ground state energies of neutral pseudoscalar and vector meson in SU(3) lattice gauge theory in the strong abelian magnetic field. The energy of ρ0 meson with zero spin projection sz=0 on the axis of the external magnetic field decreases, while the energies with non-zero spins sz=−1 and +1 increase with the field. The energy of π0 meson decreases as a function of the magnetic field. We calculate the magnetic polarizabilities of pseudoscalar and vector mesons for lattice volume 184. For ρ0 with spin |sz|=1 and π0 meson the polarizabilities in the continuum limit have been evaluated. We do not observe any evidence in favour of tachyonic mode existence.