An Intro to the Intro
It is possible to study the Holy Bible in many ways. To some it is the literal word of God, to others a metaphorical library full of morality tales and history and then again there are those that seek meanings hidden within the stories, within the choice of words and even within the words themselves.
This last group, those of esoteric persuasion – literally seeking the ‘inner’ meaning can likewise have a choice of technique through which (like a lens) they can bring into clarity the hidden meanings they seek.
There is no reason for the technique itself to have validity in a ‘proven’ sense. As an example should I assert that the ‘twelves’ of the Holy Bible (12 tribes and 12 Apostles) are showing a similar esoteric structure then there is no way that I can ‘prove’ this, nor anyone else disprove it… you either accept it or not.
This acceptance of an esoteric meaning is therefore based on an inner sense of it being right, an “ah ha!” However, once you start to ‘interpret’ the Holy Bible this way then it’s hard to go back to the purely literal rendition. It seems that the flavour of forbidden fruit makes normal fare tasteless.
This leads us to the final bit of this Intro to the Intro, namely that the Holy Bible has been compiled mainly to support the beliefs of the dominant Christian Church of whatever era. Many would say about religious arguments “there’s the proof – it’s in the Bible” without realizing that what’s in the bible has been altered many times and for many reasons, most of them political.
Go to a bible shop and check out the choices – there’s a Catholic edition and a Protestant edition of most major versions, with the Catholic including more ‘Holy’ books the other. Then there are all the versions and very few scholars just decide to write a version of the bible. It takes lots of work and manpower over years. In essence it takes a wealthy denomination to fund writing from scratch a new translation.
Ask yourself – why would a church want to fund their own translation of the bible? Usually its because they want the text to better reflect ‘The Truth’ which their denomination believes the Bible can reveal if better translated. So the Holy Bible, no matter how well intended is translated and compiled according to a very human agenda.
The literal “there’s the proof – it’s in the Bible” isn’t really holding up too well to scrutiny is it? Thankfully the keys by which we can unlock the hidden teachings aren’t frequently modified by various translations; details of number and name for example seem not to be so theologically important.
A Caution
This work is a metaphysical exegesis of the last book in the common canon of the Christian Bible – The Revelation to John.
Scholars will point out that I’m neither academically qualified (true) nor intellectually disciplined. Probably theologians might also join in expressing doubts about the validity of my interpretation – based on the fact I’m not arguing about the interpretations of other theologians.
Then again unlike many scholars and theologians I have an advantage in so much as I compile across intellectual systems and can pick and choose to suit ‘the plot’, rather than be forced to stick to promoting one particular doctrine.
I’m trying to be just a story teller, no more. I hope you’ll come along and follow the winding ways of myth, symbols and drama to find the mysteries hidden by John some two thousand years ago. It is my intent to make apparent those meanings of a metaphysical and esoteric nature hidden in Revelation.
Should you find such ideas disturbing because they run contrary to your beliefs; then out of my great respect for your ‘Wa’ (inner harmony) I suggest you cease reading – now.
Sources
There are lots of excellent books out there that I’ve consulted and included in a bibliography section on this page. But there are three main books I’ve used to fuel my exploration of John’s work, namely The Greek Qabalah by Kieren Barry, The Magical Message According to Ioannes (St. John) by James Morgan Pryse and A Commentary on the Book of The Revelation by Edgar Cayce.
It’s worth noting that Pryse’s and Cayce’s books differ completely as to which system of symbolism they believe is the key to The Revelation of John. Pryse sees the book as a drama based on mystery religion whereas Cayce interprets it as representative of forces in our psyche and esoteric nature. I find it quite acceptable that both viewpoints can and probably are true, in fact each being a reflection of the other.
Obviously I’ve also had to study the Bible texts and where quoted I’m using the New Revised Standard Version.
So, Who Was St. John?
I love the stories associated with St. John the Apostle and for our purposes it isn’t important whether they’re fully factual, partially true or complete rubbish. For mysteries are to be experienced ‘as if’ and the relevance of the teachings lies in the packaged narrative.
John is believed to have joined Jesus in his ministry when John was a young man. He is commonly identified with the ‘apostle that Jesus loved’ mentioned in his gospel and on Jesus’s death he ‘inherited’ Jesus’s mother Mary as his own, and took her in.
Following various adventures John and Mary settled in Ephesus (currently in Turkey) in the Roman province called ‘Asia’ and were a part of the local Christian community. For reasons unclear he crossed the local appointed governor and ended up being exiled to ‘offshore detention’ on an island called Patmos. Thereon he received the visions in the book. Later he was allowed to return to Ephesus and where he stayed till he died an old man; some say he was martyred, others legends say he ascended directly to heaven – either way he has departed the scene.
Internal evidence (inferences drawn from the text) lead some to believe that the Revelation was written early on, maybe only 30 or so years after Jesus’s death. This fits in with the large number of Old Testament (OT) symbolism in the book, John still perhaps thinking of himself as Jewish with the apostle Paul’s Christology yet to be released.
Scholars differ (a term meaning ‘argue intensely’ so as to be seen to support the bias of whomever is funding their work) even as to whether the John books in the New Testament (NT) are by the same author. I, as previously said am not a scholar, so I’m quite happy to say John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelation are of the same source – there is lots of similarity in style and mythical structure.
One thing that should be remembered is that the content of the Holy Bible really wasn’t fixed until the 3rd or 4th centuries AD. Lots of books were ‘Holy’ back then that today we have to hunt up in obscure academic works.
It may be best to avoid projecting our current issues and moral outrage backwards in time to the early centuries of the Christian era. They kept slaves, women had little or no political status nor control of access to their bodies. There were no protest movements and those that rattled the Roman cage usually died. As to which books were kept and which were removed from the canon seemed to depend more on political sponsorship.
George Bernard Shaw noted that in time of war when both sides pray for Divine help God does seem to favour the ‘big battalions’ so to it seems that those books that promulgated ideas supporting the ‘status quo’ (a good Roman term indeed) seemed to survive better than others.
As the Gospel doctrines were codified over the first few centuries so too the identity of the surviving major characters took on more definition. In the Roman western church (our Roman Catholic church today) John was imaged as the young man helping Jesus’s mother – a young fair haired man propping up a grieving Mary at the crucifixion. In Byzantium however, and in the current eastern church (our Orthodox traditions) he was and is imaged as the bearded wise St. John the Theologian.
Hidden in Symbolism
Suppose you are a teacher and you wish to change and evolve the consciousness of an individual – how would you go about it? By ‘change and evolve’ I mean release their minds from the prison of the mundane and expand their awareness to transcendent truths. No doubt this question has been asked by teachers of spiritual paths throughout history.
We can say with confidence that the answer doesn’t lie in some ‘secret’ whispered in a ritual, nor in book no matter how ancient. This is because our conscious intellect thinks within it’s subjective sense of what’s real and just adding a bit more ‘special knowledge’ to that intellect won’t release the spirit beyond that subjective reality.
This subjective sense of what’s real is your personal paradigm and it acts as the vessel for your spiritual voyage throughout this life. John, the author of the Book wished to convey a truth about something that transcended his paradigm and that could only be experienced. This means that John’s truth is a paradigm changer – you will be different after the experience.
The other problem the author faced was the task of packaging the ‘keys to the mystery’ in a form that readers, separated by geography, culture and even time could still engage. Readers of the book nowadays have the same problem looking backwards through time – we are separated in cultural understanding from the author’s world view.
Probably there are only three or so experiences common to most humans throughout their cultural history. So if an author wants to write with relevance to any reader in any culture or time using ‘physical world’ objects as symbols will have to use one of these patterns:
The stars in the night sky – constellations and planets, the human form, the light of a fire and the sound of the wind.
Yet none of these are obviously in John’s text though both the structure of the human form esoterically viewed and astrological associations of various mythologies are included – if you have the training to see it.
Therein lies the issue – John’s text wasn’t written for everyone.
Firstly it includes lots of Isopsephy (see below) and secondly bundles of Old Testament (OT) symbolism. Along with this it’s set out like a mystery play. So John wrote it for those trans-cultural Greek reading scholars who were also familiar with Jewish religion – that is people like himself.
Some Terms:
System: A grouping of symbols all based about a common understanding eg: Hermetic, Mythology or Tantric. John’s Book of Revelation contains elements normally associated with various systems. Most of us have a bias toward one system and tend therefore to interpret a mixed system work according to our bias. This ‘bias’ is the next term: Paradigm.
Paradigm: The sense of the ‘real’ which includes the emotional experiences as well. When other people’s paradigms differ too much from our own we are forced to include ‘excuses’ in own for the discrepancy – as in “We shouldn’t be surprised – he’s an artist”. Paradigms when ‘rattled’ by contrary viewpoints tend to release emotional ‘certainties’ indicative of stress.
Esoteric: Not necessarily ‘secret’, esoteric means ‘relating to the inner non-physical’ nature. If someone says “Your chakras need balancing” they are speaking esoterically and also probably vague nonsense as Chakra (which means wheel in Sanskrit) can’t just be balanced like a tyre.
Isopsephy: The Greek language attributed a numerical value to it’s alphabet letters (as did Hebrew) so each word also has a number value. The usual term ‘letters to number value’ is Gematria (though that can also include geometric symbolism in it’s complete application) whereas the term for the practice when applied to Greek letters is Isopsephy.
Mystery Play: In the Greek period mysteries were transformational rites covering sometimes days. Usually they were based about the myth of a God or Goddess and the candidate for initiation – the person being led through the mystery experience – did so as if it was a drama or play about them.
A Spurious note: On the subject of Mystery Plays – ‘As You Like It’, a pastoral comedy by Shakespeare included “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. The Bard of course went on to list the famous Seven Stages of Man after this quote, worth noting because 7 is definitely the favourite number of Revelation