As a corollary, the real author of a work setting forth the profundities of Egyptian and Greek mysticism must have been an initiate himself and consequently obligated to write only in the symbolic language of the Mysteries. Second, it is possible that the Book of Revelation was written to reconcile the seeming discrepancies between the early Christian and pagan religious philosophies. When the zealots of the primitive Christian Church sought to Christianize pagandom, the pagan initiates retorted with a powerful effort to paganize Christianity.
The Christians failed but the pagans succeeded. With the decline of paganism the initiated pagan hierophants transferred their base of operations to the new vehicle of primitive Christianity, adopting the symbols of the new cult to conceal those eternal verities which are ever the priceless possession of the wise. The Apocalypse shows clearly the resultant fusion of pagan and Christian symbolism and thus bears irrefutable evidence of the activities of these initiated minds operating through early Christianity.
Third, the theory has been advanced that the Book of Revelation represents the attempt made by the unscrupulous members of a certain religious order to undermine the Christian Mysteries by satirizing their philosophy. This nefarious end they hoped to attain by showing the new faith to be merely a restatement of the ancient pagan doctrines, by heaping ridicule upon Christianity, and by using its own symbols toward its disparagement. For example, the star which fell to earth Rev. While the last theory has gained a certain measure of popularity, the profundity of the Apocalypse leads the discerning reader to the inevitable conclusion that this is the least plausible of the three hypotheses.
To those able to pierce the veil of its symbolism, the inspired source of the document requires no further corroborative evidence. In the final analysis, true philosophy can be limited by neither creed nor faction; in fact it is incompatible with every artificial limitation of human thought. The question of the pagan or Christian origin of the Book of Revelation is, consequently, of little importance.
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The intrinsic value of the book lies in its magnificent epitome of the Universal Mystery--an observation which led St. Jerome to declare that it is susceptible of seven entirely different interpretations. Untrained in the reaches of ancient thought, the modem theologian cannot possibly cope with the complexities of the Apocalypse, for to him this mystic writing is but a phantasmagoria the divine inspiration of which he is sorely tempted to question. In the limited space here available it is possible to sketch but briefly a few of the salient features of the vision of the seer of Patmos.
A careful consideration of the various pagan Mysteries will assist materially also in filling the inevitable gaps in this abridgment. In the opening chapter of the Apocalypse, St. John describes the Alpha and Omega who stood in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. Surrounded by his flaming planetary regents, this Sublime One thus epitomizes in one impressive and mysterious figure the entire sweep of humanity's evolutionary growth--past, present, and future. Rudolph Steiner, "ran their course at a period when the earth was still 'fiery'; and the first human incarnations were formed out of the element of fire; at the end of his earthly career man will himself radiate his inner being outwards creatively by the force of the element of fire.
This continuous development from the beginning to the end of the earth reveals itself to the 'seer,' when he sees on the astral plane the archetype of evolving man. Before the throne of God was the crystal sea representing the Schamayim, or the living waters which are above the heavens.
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Before the throne also were four creatures--a bull, a lion, an eagle, and a man. These represented the four corners of creation and the multitude of eyes with which they were covered are the stars of the firmament. The twenty-four elders have the same significance as the priests gathered around the statue of Ceres in the Greater Eleusinian Rite and also the Persian Genii, or gods of the hours of the day, who, casting away their crowns, glorify the Holy One. As symbolic of the divisions of time, the elders adore the timeless and enduring Spirit in the midst of them.
The seven stars carried by this immense Being in his right hand are the Governors of the world; the flaming sword issuing from his mouth is the Creative Fiat, or Word of Power, by which the illusion of material permanence is slain. Here also is represented, in all his symbolic splendor, the hierophant of the Phrygian Mysteries, his various insignia emblematic of his divine attributes.
Seven priests bearing lamps are his attendants and the stars carried in his hand are the seven schools of the Mysteries whose power he administers. As one born again out of spiritual darkness, into perfect wisdom, this archimagus is made to say: In the second and third chapters St.
John delivers to the "seven churches which are in Asia" the injunctions received by him from the Alpha and Omega. The churches are here analogous to the rungs of a Mithraic ladder, and John, being "in the spirit," ascended through the orbits of the seven sacred planets until he reached the inner surface of the Empyrean. Their Origin and Destiny , "in his ecstatic state has passed in its rapid flight through the seven spheres, from the sphere of the moon to that of Saturn, or from the planet which corresponds to Cancer, the gate of men, to that of Capricorn, which is the gate of the gods, a new gate opens to him in the highest heaven, and in the zodiac, beneath which the seven planets revolve; in a word, in the firmament, or that which the ancients called crystallinum primum, or the crystal heaven.
CHAPTER I.
When related to the Eastern system of metaphysics, these churches represent the chakras, or nerve ganglia, along the human spine, the "door in heaven" being the brahmarandra , or point in the crown of the skull Golgotha , through which the spinal spirit fire passes to liberation.
The church of Ephesus corresponds to the muladhara , or sacral ganglion, and the other churches to the higher ganglia according to the order given in Revelation. Steiner discovers a relationship between the seven churches and the divisions of the Aryan race. The seven churches also signify the Greek vowels, of which Alpha and Omega are the first and the last. A difference of opinion exists as to the order in which the seven planers should be related to the churches.
Some proceed from the hypothesis that Saturn represents the church of Ephesus; but from the fact that this city was sacred to the moon goddess and also that the sphere of the moon is the first above that of the earth, the planets obviously should ascend in their ancient order from the moon to Saturn.
From Saturn the soul would naturally ascend through the door in the Empyrean. In the fourth and fifth chapters St. John describes the throne of God upon which sat the Holy One "which was and is, and is to come. Then appeared a Lamb Aries, the first and chief of the zodiacal signs which had been slain, having seven horns rays and seven eyes lights. The Lamb took the book from the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne and the four beasts and all the elders fell down and worshiped God and the Lamb.
During the early centuries of the Christian Church the lamb was universally recognized as the symbol of Christ, and not until after the fifth synod of Constantinople the "Quinisext Synod," A. As shrewdly noted by one writer on the subject, the use of a lamb is indicative of the Persian origin of Christianity, for the Persians were the only people to symbolize the first sign of the zodiac by a lamb. Because a lamb was the sin offering of the ancient pagans, the early mystic Christians considered this animal as an appropriate emblem of Christ, whom they regarded as the sin offering of the world.
The Greeks and the Egyptians highly venerated the lamb or ram, often placing its horns upon the foreheads of their gods. The Scandinavian god Thor carried a hammer made from a pair of ram's horns. The lamb is used in preference to the ram apparently because of its purity and gentleness; also, since the Creator Himself was symbolized by Aries, His Son would consequently be the little Ram or Lamb.
The lambskin apron worn by the Freemasons over that part of the body symbolized by Typhon or Judas represents that purification. In the central foreground, St. John the Divine is kneeling before the apparition of the Alpha and Omega standing in the midst of the seven lights and surrounded by an aureole of flames and smoke. In the heavens above the twenty-four elders with their harps and censers bow before the throne of the Ancient One, from whose hand the Lamb is taking the book sealed with seven seals.
The seven spirit, of God, in the form of cups from which issue tongues of fire, surround the head of the Ancient One, and the four beasts the cherubim kneel at the corners of His throne. In the upper left-hand corner are shown the seven angels bearing the trumpets and also the altar of God and the angel with the censer. In the upper right are the spirits of the winds; below them is the virgin clothed wit h the sun, to whom wings were given that she might fly into the wilderness.
To her right is a scene representing the spirits of God hurling the evil serpent into the bottomless pit. At the lower left St. John is shown receiving from the angelic figure, whose legs are pillars of fire and whose face is a shining sun, the little book which he is told to eat if he would understand the mysteries of the spiritual life. The plate also contains a number of other symbols, including episodes from the destruction of the world and the crystal sea pouring forth from the throne of God. By the presentation of such symbolic conceptions in the form of rituals and dramatic episodes the secrets of the Phrygian Mysteries were perpetuated.
When these sacred pageantries were thus revealed to all mankind indiscriminately and each human soul was appointed it own initiator into the holy rite, of the philosophic life, a boon was conferred upon humanity which cannot be fully appreciated until men and women have grown more responsive to those mysteries which are of the spirit. In this allegory the Lamb signifies the purified candidate, its seven horns representing the divisions of illuminated reason and its seven eyes the chakras, or perfected sense-perceptions. The sixth to eleventh chapters inclusive are devoted to an account of the opening of the seven seals on the book held by the Lamb.
When the first seal was broken, there rode forth a man on a white horse wearing a crown and holding in his hand a bow. When the second seal was broken, there rode forth a man upon a red horse and in his hand was a great sword. When the third seal was broken there rode forth a man upon a black horse and with a pair of balances in his hand.
And when the fourth seal was broken there rode forth Death upon a pale horse and hell followed after him. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse may be interpreted to signify the four main divisions of human life. Birth is represented by the rider on the white horse who comes forth conquering and to conquer; the impetuosity of youth by the rider on the red horse who took peace from the earth; maturity by the rider on the black horse who weighs all things in the scales of reason; and death by the rider on the pale horse who was given power over a fourth part of the earth.
In the Eastern philosophy these horsemen signify the four yugas , or ages, of the world which, riding forth at: Commenting on the twenty-fourth allocution of Chrysostom, in The Origin of all Religious Worship , Dupuis notes that each of the four elements was represented by a horse bearing the name of the god "who is set over the element.
This horse was winged, very fleet, and, describing the largest circle, encompassed all the others.
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It shone with the purest light, and on its body were the images of the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the bodies in the ethereal regions. The second horse, signifying the element of air, was Juno. It was inferior to the horse of Jupiter and described a smaller circle; its color was black but that part exposed to the sun became luminous, thus signifying the diurnal and nocturnal conditions of air.
The third horse, symbolizing the element of water, was sacred to Neptune. It was of heavy gait and described a very small circle. The fourth horse, signifying the static element of earth, described as immovable and champing its bit, was the steed of Vesta. Despite their differences in temperature, these four horses lived harmoniously together, which is in accord with the principles of the philosophers, who declared the world to be preserved by the concord and harmony of its elements.
In time, however, the racing horse of Jupiter burned the mane of the horse of earth; the thundering steed of Neptune also became covered with sweat, which overflowed the immovable horse of Vesta and resulted in the deluge of Deucalion. At last the fiery horse of Jupiter will consume the rest, when the three inferior elements--purified by reabsorption in the fiery ether--will come forth renewed, constituting "a new heaven and a new earth.
When the fifth seal was opened St. John beheld those who had died for the word of God. When the sixth seal was broken there was a great earthquake, the sun being darkened and the moon becoming like blood. The angels of the winds came forth and also another angel, who sealed upon their foreheads , of the children of Israel that they should be preserved against the awful day of tribulation.
By adding the digits together according to the Pythagorean system of numerical philosophy, the number , is reduced to 9, the mystic symbol of man and also the number of initiation, for he who passes through the nine degrees of the Mysteries receives the sign of the cross as emblematic of his regeneration and liberation from the bondage of his own infernal, or inferior, nature.
The addition of the three ciphers to the original sacred number 1. When the seventh seal was broken there was silence for the space of half an hour. Then came forth seven angels and to each was given a trumpet. When the seven angels sounded their trumpets--intoned the seven-lettered Name of the Logos--great catastrophes ensued.
A star, which was called Wormwood, fell from heaven, thereby signifying that the secret doctrine of the ancients had been given to men who had profaned it and caused the wisdom of God to become a destructive agency. And another star--symbolizing the false light of human reason as distinguished from the divine reason of the initiate--fell from heaven and to it materialistic reason was given the key to the bottomless pit Nature , which it opened, causing all manner of evil creatures to issue forth.
And there came also a mighty angel who was clothed in a cloud, whose face was as the sun and his feet and legs as pillars of fire, and one foot was upon the waters and the other upon the land the Hermetic Anthropos. John the Evangelist occurs at midsummer day, when the sun reaches its highest northern declination. All those church periods are purely astronomical or astrological in character. The "Alpha" and "Omega" of Revelation contain profound evolutionary truths, significative of spirit and of matter, or God unmanifested and manifested.
The famous seven churches of Asia, to whom this book was largely addressed, were all astrological and based upon. Of these seven churches that of Ephesus stood first. This temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, nations vieing with each other in their gifts to add to its splendor.
The moon being the emblem or "angel" of Ephesus, the cry of the multitude when Paul spake there, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians! It is to be noted that none of the seven churches of Asia received the writings of Paul. In the astrology of Chaldea, as in that of Asia Minor, the moon was first among the planets. It must be remembered that the numbers seven and twelve, so frequently mentioned in Re-Veilings, are of great occult significance in relation to the earth.
The angel of the church of Smyrna, to whom the second letter was addressed, was the sun, "the only sun" dying and rising each day; that of Pergamos, the beneficent Jupiter, who became the supreme god of the Greek world. The angel of Thyatira, the lovely and loving Venus, by some deemed the most occult of the planets, sustained her old-time character for lasciviousness in her connection with that church. The fiery, warlike Mars, angel of the church of Sardis, called "the Great King," and Saturn, the angel of the church of Philadelphia, are astrologically known as malefic planets.
Saturn identified with Satan, matter and time, is for occult reasons looked. The angel of the church of Laodicea, Mercury or Hermes, the ambiguous planet, is, next to Venus, the most occult of all the planets; it is, masculine or feminine, the patron of learning or of thieves, as it is aspected.
Most profound secrets connected with the spiritual interests of the race during the middle portion of the fifth round are hidden in the letter to the angel of the church of Laodicea. Professor Goldwin Smith, in a recent work entitled "Guesses at the Riddle of Existence," thinks that we have but little reliable information as to the writers of either the Old or the New Testaments. In this case the style is so different from that of John, that the same Apostle could not have written both books.
REVELATION.
Whoever wrote The Revelation was evidently the victim of a terrible and extravagant imagination and of visions which make the blood curdle. The town of Thyatira lay to the southeast of Pergamos. The epistle to the church was sent by John, with some commendations; but it was said that there was a worm at the root of its prosperity, which would destroy the whole unless it were removed.
It is not agreed whether the expression Jezebel, is to be understood literally or figuratively. From the reading of some manuscripts it has been thought, that the wife of the presiding minister was intended, that she had obtained great influence in the affairs of the church and.