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Copyright © 2012 by Ed Townley. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from Unity Books, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews or in newsletters and lesson plans of licensed Unity teachers and ministers. For information, write to Unity Books, 1901 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, MO 64065-0001.

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Bible quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

This book is dedicated, with love and deep appreciation, to the congregations of Unity in Chicago and Unity of Dallas, who not only endured but warmly supported my Revelation fascination; and to Unity of Greater Hartford, the wonderful spiritual community that challenged me to finally get it all down on paper.

INTRODUCTION

Looking back, I think it started for me in the cave. It’s not a physically impressive cave, as these things go. Still, the fact that I was there at all was so astonishing, and the energies of the place so strong, that the memory remains vivid even now, a dozen years later.

The cave is on Patmos, a small Greek island near the coast of Turkey in the Aegean Sea. It is the place where, in the late first century of the Common Era, a religious exile named John wrote his descriptions of a detailed and specific personal spiritual vision. His language was so vivid, and his imagery so intense, that his writing has haunted Christians and actually affected the course of history for more than 2,000 years.

It was my first trip to Greece—well, my first trip anywhere, really. At the time I was senior minister at Unity in Chicago, a lively spiritual community, part of the worldwide Unity movement and decidedly on what would be considered the liberal end of the Christianity spectrum. I had been asked to serve as a kind of spiritual tour guide for a small group on a two-week exploration of Greece and the Aegean islands.

By the time we arrived on Patmos, I was already in a profound spiritual fog—to the point that my traveling companions had become concerned. I had long felt “called” to Greece, more strongly than to any other place on the planet. I expected to find natural beauty, impressive ruins and a deep sense of time and history—and it was all there. What I hadn’t expected was an all-pervasive spiritual energy so intense and alive that it left me reeling and nearly delirious. In fact, I spent two days in bed, not really sick but with a high fever and vivid dreams of Furies and flies. (I think perhaps the flies were a result of having recently reread Sartre’s play about Orestes pursued by vengeful flies.)

I had expected to be visiting the ruins of a long-dead, pantheistic religious tradition. What I found instead was a profound sense of immediate, eternal Spirit, very much alive, and very eager to embrace me in its power and purpose. I quickly came to realize that this was not a distinct and specific energy; it was a particular expression of the One—the only energy there is. I understood that it is relatively unimportant whether we talk of many gods and goddesses with distinctive personalities or many distinct aspects of One Presence, One Power. The truth is the same. The infinite Love that is God eagerly assumes whatever characters or qualities we may need as we struggle to reclaim our own Oneness—our absolute unity with the divine.

Out of my feverish delirium and chaotic awareness, I wrote a poem. It’s the one piece of my own writing that I continue to reread and refer back to as I move forward on my own path.

Now, except for high school writing assignments, I had not written poetry before; and I have not felt called to write any more poetry in the ensuing years. But it seemed to be the only way I could process my thoughts and emotions in that particular moment. This is what I wrote:

So this is who and how I was as I stood in that cave on Patmos. I had come to sense the Aegean as a vast, spiritual whirlpool in which many different religious traditions—Hellenistic, Jewish, Christian, Muslim and others unnamed—had clashed and combined, blended and separated from prehistoric times to the present—and beyond.

That morning, on a whim, I had tucked my small travel Bible in among my water bottle, sunblock, seasick pills and other necessities of the day. As we stood together in the timeless cave, and more out of a sense of ministerial duty than from any clear spiritual guidance, I began to read aloud to my fellow travelers the opening words of the Revelation to John:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

The moment truly felt eternal. When I looked up, other visitors to the cave had quietly gathered around. I read a few more verses and stopped. There was a deep silence, filled with infinite energy. I have rarely felt more aware of the spiritual quality of Oneness: Not just the Oneness of all of us gathered in the cave, and not just Oneness with the mysterious author who had written those words so long ago. That was all there, of course. But around and within and beyond all of that, I felt a Oneness with eternal Spirit, and with all the ways in which that Spirit has been approached, and has expressed, as our collective human journey unfolds.

That cave experience remains a treasured memory—difficult to explain, impossible to forget. Not long afterward, the first in the Left Behind series of books appeared, and became an immediate best-seller, not only among religious titles but on general fiction lists as well. Curious as always, I read the first book—and felt an immediate sense of revulsion. The Revelation to John, around which I had felt such an energy of spiritual power that was both intensely personal and absolutely universal, was presented as a work of anger, judgment, conflict and chaos. The message was the antithesis of universal; it insisted that only those who embraced and obeyed normative Christianity (as defined, of course, by the authors) had any hope of survival or spiritual reward. All others were doomed to various punishments, described in excruciating detail, and to eternal damnation without even the slightest hope of a second chance.

At this time I had not allowed that cave experience to lead me further into the Revelation itself. But I had begun to find great joy—and positive reinforcement—in the pages and stories of the rest of the Bible. I had learned to approach it with fresh eyes—to approach it, in fact, maieutically. This intimidating-sounding word comes from the Greek for “midwife.” It suggests that the role of any teacher or minister is not to tell students what they need to believe, but to help them give birth to the knowing that they already hold in deepest consciousness. The teacher is thus a midwife, and every student is already pregnant—and has fully come to term—with spiritual truth.

Using this maieutic method, and understanding the Bible as a kind of personal travel guide describing the spiritual Hero’s Journey from the Adam consciousness of Genesis to the Christ Consciousness of the teachings of Jesus, I was able to find clarity, comfort and practical support in every book of both Hebrew Scripture and the Christian New Testament.

Well, almost every book. I still steered clear of the Revelation. Even before the Left Behind series, I was certainly aware that many people found in the Bible’s final book a lot of justification for beliefs that I did not share—belief in a God of judgment and eternal punishment, belief in a dualistic world of constant danger, conflict and warfare, belief that our spiritual presence in human form was the ultimate divine punishment for a long-ago sin of hubris that God simply could not, or would not, forgive.

I may not have shared these beliefs, but—as I’ve come to realize—that doesn’t mean they don’t affect me. My relatively newborn faith in our individual and unique Oneness with the divine, and the spiritually important creative purpose that brings us into human expression, was still a little tentative. I didn’t want to risk exposing my beliefs to the negative energy I believed to be lurking in the images of Revelation. I held my Patmos memories dear, and I didn’t want to risk losing them in a book of darkness and gloom.

I’ve come to realize that many of us feel that way. No longer able or willing to accept dualistic religious beliefs, we’re still afraid that their collective power might overwhelm the lovebased energy that is working in our lives. Some avoid the entire Bible out of an unfounded fear that it might contradict our new faith. Many more pick and choose selectively. The Gospels are fine, of course, and Genesis is okay as spiritually guided folklore. Some of the Psalms are helpful, as is Paul on a good day. But very, very few think of Revelation as anything but a dark and angry contradiction of everything we have come to believe.

I didn’t read any more of the Left Behind books. But as time went on, questions arose, articles appeared, and assumptions I considered to be contrary to both faith and logic seemed to be taking hold in our shared consciousness. I finally decided that if the Bible was to be my chosen road map to the kingdom, I had to be comfortable with all of it. I needed to march fearlessly through the Revelation to John, trusting that the love and empowerment of the Gospels could also be found in this final book of the Bible.

This book is the result of that process. Far from a grudging acceptance of the Revelation, I have come to enthusiastically appreciate the realistic and loving way in which it describes the Hero’s Journey that each of us is called to experience—again and again!—as we set about accomplishing the spiritual work that is our whole purpose for coming into the limitations of mortality.

Finding a way to share that enthusiasm has been a real challenge. That’s why you may find that this book has something of a split personality. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) On the one hand, it is a record of one man’s personal process of wrestling with the Revelation, and the understanding it offers on some of the challenges and turning points of my own life. On the other hand, I’ve created a more impersonal analysis—chapter by chapter, sometimes verse by verse—of the Revelation from a perspective that is appreciative, spiritual and metaphysical, but not directly related to the dogma or history of any particular church.

It didn’t start out to be so schizophrenic. My original focus was limited to the text itself and to understanding it from a fresh perspective. But I’ve come to believe that only by including both elements—the personal and the interpretive—can I hope to achieve the larger goal that became clear as my work continued. That goal is to appreciate the Revelation, not as an apocalyptic vision of the end of the world, but as a practical, personal guide to the spiritual process—what Joseph Campbell called the Hero’s Journey—that each of us is engaged in, knowingly or not, every moment of our lives.

What I know best about that journey is, of course, how it has expressed in my own life in astonishing ways—and I’ve centered my ministry in my willingness to share that story with others. I have made many mistakes, lost many battles, stumbled accidentally into astonishing victories, and slowly begun to understand and express a dimension of awareness and personal empowerment that allows me—sometimes—to move more efficiently through the interplay of shadows and light that this human experience involves and requires.

The Book of Revelation has been, for me, a useful tool for the fine detail work this process demands. It is more willing than any “self-help” book to acknowledge the tremendous power that appearances of duality can exert in our human lives. I hope some of my own adventures may encourage others to open their hearts and minds to its reassuring message.

The Revelation to John also helps me stay awake to the “bigger picture” when I tend to get lost in my own small dramas. Like all true Scripture, it offers clarity and practical support as I encounter the unique challenges and choices of the day. It also encourages me to keep going by evoking the new dimension of spiritual consciousness that expresses through me, and that becomes the shared new dimension of the human experience that Jesus Christ named the “kingdom of heaven.”

As we can clearly read throughout the New Testament—in the Gospels, the Revelation to John and the assorted letters of Paul and others—this kingdom is not meant to be thought of as a spiritual possibility limited to the afterlife. It is rather a new consciousness in which we can—and will—live out the balance of our human experiences.

Achieving this kingdom consciousness is the entire purpose for which we eternal spiritual beings have come into this mortal illusion of duality and limitation. It begins with a spark of faith, and it requires us to move forward through distractions, illusions, fears and false beliefs with our focus firmly fixed on our purpose and goal. Step by careful step, we are guided to the depths of negative expression—not as a threat, not as a judgment, but as an assurance that no matter how dark things get, the outcome is well worth the journey.

Using the Revelation to John as an instrument of spiritual support, however, cannot ignore the fact that this dramatic and apocalyptic book has been seen and used as something quite different throughout the two millennia since it was written. To many passionate Christians, the Revelation is not about a loving spiritual energy eager to express through us as a new dimension of the process of Creation. To them it is rather a highly dualistic view of life as a constant battle between the forces of a resentful and judgmental God and those of a cruel, jealous and vindictive Beast eager to lure us into an eternal abyss of darkness and pain—with each of us trapped somewhere in the spectrum between God and the Beast.

For these people who either wield the Revelation as a weapon of attack or avoid it as a relic of old, vengeful thinking, no personal stories will, by themselves, reconcile them to a new and positive view of an uncomfortable book. They already “know” what Revelation is all about; and they already “know” whether they accept it as a harsh and judgmental tool, or reject it as a crock.

It is to these people that I offer the second of the two paths that are interwoven throughout this book. To dissolve their fearbased convictions that nasty things lurk in the shadows of the Revelation, ready to devour any light-seeking soul who might venture in, the only effective approach is to move through its 22 chapters, verse by verse, until we’re sure we can trust it, that no surprise attack is waiting around its next corner.

I do not claim to be a Bible scholar; I am at best a Bible enthusiast. Nor do I pretend to be an expert in how your spiritual path is—or should be—unfolding. It’s all I can do to stay centered on my own path at any given moment.

What I do know is that the Revelation to John has a tremendous amount of clarity and loving support to offer when we approach it with a willingness to explore its metaphysical depths. To stay stubbornly stuck to its dramatic surface, fascinated by its imagery, steeped in duality, judgment, vengeance and eternal damnation, is a tragic mistake. To avoid it altogether out of fear of those same negative energies is equally misguided. We must go deeper. Our brains have an important role to play in understanding its imagery. But its true spiritual meaning, its loving outpicturing of our own Hero’s Journeys, requires that we take it to our hearts. A heart-centered appreciation is the hope and intent of this book.

Understanding any spiritual writing requires that we first know something about when it was written, and by whom, and why. Of course, in its metaphysical depths, any spiritual writing is timeless—as relevant today as on the day it was written. But we can only reach that metaphysical perspective by recognizing and moving beneath the details of language, imagery and reference that anchor it in its time and place. So let’s review what we know about the Revelation to John before we plunge into its murky depths.

About the Work

The Revelation to John is, without a doubt, the most controversial and contentious book of the Bible. On one hand are those who love it, quote it, use it to justify a whole range of opinions and prejudice, and wait eagerly for the day when the angry, judgmental and apocalyptic energy they find in the book comes to pass here on earth. (It’s interesting to note that those who love the Revelation unanimously agree that its lurid pains and punishments will be inflicted on other people, not on them.) On the other hand are those who see in the Revelation’s vivid imagery and judgmental attitude proof positive that the entire Bible is an antiquated remnant of religious superstition to be dismissed out of hand by anyone with a spiritual sensitivity.

As is usually the case in such religious battles, facts are the first victim. True, there aren’t many facts about the Revelation to John we can affirm with absolute conviction. We’re pretty sure where it was written but not when. And there’s no certainty about whom the “John” who wrote it was. Still, it can’t hurt to begin with a focus on what we do, in fact, know about the work—and what we don’t.

As previously noted, we’re told in the opening verse that the Revelation was written on the island of Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor, by someone named John who had been banished to the island because of his insistence on preaching his Christian faith. (The faith of those who followed the teachings of Jesus Christ was not actually called “Christian” at the time, but it will help keep things simple if you’ll allow me to use the term.)

There are almost as many men named John in the New Testament as there are women named Mary—and lacking any family names, nicknames or other clues, it’s difficult to sort them out. There is a long-held tradition that says John, the “beloved disciple” who stood below the cross and to whom Jesus gave charge of his mother, was the same John who wrote five books of the New Testament—the fourth Gospel, the three epistles ascribed to “John” and the Revelation.

On the island of Patmos today, as well as among believers both in Greece and Turkey, it is firmly held that the disciple John brought Jesus’ mother Mary north after the crucifixion, settling in a small house near Ephesus that can still be visited today. It was from there that he continued the apostolic work that resulted in his banishment to Patmos and the visionary experiences described in the Revelation.

It’s a nice story; and indeed I found the spiritual energy around the cottage known as Mary’s House to be incredibly powerful and deeply moving. But biblical scholars have pretty much agreed today that it can’t be entirely true. The various writings are quite different stylistically, expressive of very different levels of literacy and education. Their perspectives on the message and meaning of Jesus Christ are equally varied. Further, for the same person to have written them all, he would have had to be alive, healthy and extremely active for a very long time, particularly in terms of life spans at the time.

This leads to the question of when the Revelation was written. Again, there is no unanimity of opinion but a general consensus. Internal evidence and early church tradition set its composition at around the year 95 of the Common Era (A.D. in familiar reference). At that time, near the end of his reign, the Emperor Domitian had declared himself a god and required all subjects of the empire to publicly worship him as such. Since this is something early Christians could not or would not do, they were severely persecuted in large numbers—imprisoned, tortured and put to death. It was during this time of religious turmoil, some scholars believe, that John of Patmos, exiled from Asia Minor because of his faith, composed his Revelation as an affirmation to believers everywhere that beyond their present suffering lay the absolute assurance of victory and joy.

Other authorities argue for an earlier date of composition—perhaps 68 or 69 C.E., during the reign of Nero. Certainly the work was known by the middle of the second century, since there are references to it in other writings of that time. The earliest actual manuscript of the Revelation still in existence dates from the late second century.

More recent—and quite persuasive—scholarship suggests the author of the Revelation was not in exile from Rome at all, but rather from other Christians! He would have found in Asia Minor at the time Christian communities that coexisted comfortably in the shadows of major Roman temples and prevailing Roman customs. Tracing their spiritual roots largely to the Gentiles brought to the teachings of Jesus by the apostle Paul, they had little interest in the more conservative messianic beliefs rooted in Judaism.

To Jews such as John, for whom Jesus was still understood as the promised Jewish messiah, not as the founder of a separate religion, these more universalist Christians were an abomination. Their willingness to find accommodation with the larger Roman society was the single most divisive issue within the fledgling spiritual movement.

This earliest Christian conflict, with its roots two generations earlier in the ministry of Paul, had grown more negative and accusatory with the passage of time—particularly in the region of Asia Minor, in which prosperous cities such as Ephesus and Pergamum competed with each other in creating impressive temples to favorite Roman deities. As we shall see, it is on the Christian communities in these cities that the author of Revelation focuses his most dire warnings and threats. To him, the evil of Rome itself goes without saying. The evil that concerns and consumes him throughout his vision is the evil of those who adhere to a sort of faux-Christian faith (in his view) that exists with a fair degree of comfort within the larger energy of Rome.

So we have an angry and bitter believer in Jesus as the Jewish messiah, isolated perforce from the Roman Empire in which he lived, and isolated equally from the prevailing consciousness of his own fellow Christians. He is convinced that he is upholding, almost singlehandedly, a standard of spiritual purity and moral judgment that is the absolute prerequisite for ultimate admission to the kingdom of heaven. Substitute “American” for “Roman” and you have, I think, a fairly accurate description of many “Left Behinders” who continue to wait for John’s fiercely negative vision to express in the world today.

I find it interesting that visionaries of all faiths tend to receive and share visions that exactly correspond to their own innate beliefs. That doesn’t necessarily negate the power and value of the visions; but it does require us to recognize that the predisposition of the visionary plays an important role. It’s not always true, of course; the singular vision of Saul of Tarsus, for example, turned his worldview completely on its head, as a Christ persecutor became a Christ believer. But it can be seen, I think, that John of Patmos’ own angry judgments against more accommodating Christians played a significant role in the tone and detail of his Revelation.

The Revelation to John was accepted into the canon—that is, declared an official book of the Bible—at the Council of Carthage in 397. It was by no means a unanimous decision; in fact, many branches of Christianity continued to reject it for many years. A group of bishops led by Gregory of Nazianzus argued against including it because (prophetically enough) they felt it was too hard to understand and presented grave risks of abuse and intolerance. Even today the Eastern Orthodox Church, while including the book as Scripture, does not read from it in its liturgical calendar—the only book of the Bible to be so excluded.

It’s interesting to note that Martin Luther rejected the Revelation to John early in his ministry. Later, however, he changed his mind when he found that its scary imagery of the devouring Beast could usefully be applied against the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome, of course, returned the favor¸ seeing itself as the good guy and placing the black hat of the Beast on Luther. This has been true of the Revelation throughout its entire history; the “correct” interpretation depended entirely on the viewpoint of the interpreter.

What ultimately argued in favor of its inclusion in the Bible, really, was the simple fact that it had become very popular. People liked it, and the church leaders reluctantly went along. Many people in the ensuing two millennia have wished it had been excluded, with its dualistic and terrifying images of eternal punishment and divine revenge. Others continue to embrace it with the same enthusiasm that made it a “best-seller” in its day.

From a metaphysical perspective—and a literary one, as well—the Revelation to John does in fact bring the long drama of the Bible to a significant and satisfactory conclusion. As we will see, some of its closing images would seem to suggest that its position as the final book is a perfect example of divine order.

Let’s take a moment to clear up any confusion about the title. The author himself did not provide a title for the composition. It is usually included in English Bibles as the Revelation to John. It is also known as the Book of Revelation or as the Apocalypse, from the Greek word apokalupsis, which means (Duh!) “revelation.”

So Apocalypse, Book of Revelation, Revelation to John—they are all acceptable titles for the same 22 chapters. I tend to use them interchangeably; don’t let that throw you. Please note that the book should never be referred to in the plural, as Revelations. (For some reason, this particular mistake causes many Bible scholars to foam at the mouth and generally go nuts.)

There is a whole genre of writings known as apocalyptic literature, of which the Revelation is certainly a prime example. (There are others in the Bible, especially in Hebrew Scripture, including Daniel, Ezekiel and parts of Isaiah.) Apocalyptic literature is always highly symbolic and centers on revealing information that had previously been hidden, often as the result of a visionary journey to a higher realm.

The Revelation to John consists of 22 chapters. There is an underlying structure of sorts—each chapter takes us another step further into the confusing blend of spiritual truth and mortal illusion that constitutes the landscape of our personal journeys. But these steps are in no way linear or logical. Images circle back on themselves, some episodes are revisited from different perspectives, and the basic journey is interrupted at its darkest points with quiet interludes that provide a release from the stress and a ray of hope for the outcome.

There is more helpful information about the Revelation that we will explore as we delve into the text. I’ll be adding periodic meditations to help us stay focused on spiritual truth, undistracted by confusing temporal images. So let’s take a deep breath—and plunge in!

MEDITATION

In approaching the Revelation to John, I choose to call upon my divine gifts of appreciation, love and wisdom. My mind and my heart are open to receive the guidance and spiritual support its words may offer, and the gift of divine discernment allows me to see and claim the assurance of universal love beneath all appearances of duality and resistance.

Step 1

HEEDING THE CALL

Every revelation requires that we be “lifted” out of our day-to-day focus on the challenges and events of human existence. We cannot hear a message from the realm of Spirit if we are unaware that such a dimension exists. For Paul and later Christian mystics, the lifting is described as an experience in consciousness. John of Patmos adopts the imagery of Isaiah, Ezekiel and other Jewish prophets who describe the overwhelming beauty and power of the throne room of God.

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: ‘Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.’”

Who is Jesus Christ? In what way is this revelation his? It’s important to note that he is not the instigator of the drama about to unfold—the vision does not come from Jesus. Nor is Jesus “him who is and who was and who is to come,” since he (Jesus) is mentioned separately in the same list. He is a “faithful witness” whose testimony joins and supports the testimony of John, the author of the Revelation. In describing him as “the firstborn of the dead,” the author suggests that Jesus is not unique in his relationship to God—or to the rest of humankind. He is rather the first to do what we all must do—move through the resistance of fear and the illusion of death to assume our spiritual role in the new consciousness that is “the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus is “the ruler of the kings of the earth,” not because he has armies or temporal power, but because his perfect demonstration of spiritual principle allows him to express the infinite Power of God. We are all called to achieve that same level of spiritual expression: “What I have done, you will do” (Jn. 14:12).

“To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.”

It is not merely Jesus of Nazareth who is “coming with the clouds;” it is the Christ Consciousness that Jesus achieved and perfectly expresses. Everyone contains that Christ Consciousness—even those who deny and resist it. We are all inseparably one with the infinite Power and Love of God, and one with each other as the Christ of God in expression. There will be resistance—that’s what so much of the revelation is to be about—but there can be no doubt that Christ Consciousness will prevail, and its expression as the “kingdom of heaven” will be achieved, because “it is to be.”

“‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

“The Lord God” is not the Allness of God as Source, but rather the Christ of God present in each of us—“the Lord of your being,” a term used frequently in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Christ is the Word of God. (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … In him was life, and the life was the light of all people” [Jn. 1:1, 4].) The Christ—our own true identity—is as eternal as the Allness of God from which it flows. It is past, present and future. We must fully understand this about ourselves before we can proceed on our journey into higher consciousness.

“I, John, your brother, who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, ‘Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.’”

“The persecution” of fear-based resistance to spiritual principle, “the kingdom” of fully realized Christ Consciousness, and “the patient endurance” it takes to move through the resistance to achieve and express the kingdom—these three elements are the essence of the Revelation. Jesus clearly and lovingly demonstrated that we are to do that by remembering and expressing our spiritual powers as we work with the challenges of this human experience.

This new awareness must be activated in every aspect of our mortal identity. Every part of us—body, mind and spirit—must receive the news, which is the metaphysical purpose underlying the symbolic seven letters. From John’s perspective, the Christian communities in these seven prominent cities were committing a grievous sin in their willingness to coexist and compromise with the Roman society that surrounded them. They needed to be forcefully awakened to the absolute priority of their spiritual purpose. The same is true for us; distracted by this human experience, we lose sight of the spiritual work we are here to do. We must awaken the seven chakras—the points of powerful contact between the human and divine within us—in order to fully embrace our Hero’s Journey.

“Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.”

The number seven will be our constant companion as we move through this revelation. We’ll discuss its significance a bit later, at the end of this chapter.

“Son of Man” is a term Jesus used frequently—not simply to refer to himself, but to describe each of us. It’s a translation of the Aramaic barnasha or “human being.” It is the true spiritual identity of each of us—not limited, finite and weak, but strong, clear and radiant. Our Christ nature is pure, bright and deeply centered. It contains the seven stages (stars) of spiritual completion, and the sharp discernment (sword) necessary to cut through illusion and embrace the truth.

This vision of the Christ is, I think, the true touchstone of the entire Revelation. The long robe and sash denote temporal authority; the hair and eyes are radiant with divine Light. The feet are not airy and ethereal, but formed of earthly minerals, burnished and refined to reflect the Light of Spirit, and to anchor it firmly in this human dimension. It is not simply a spiritualized expression of Jesus Christ, but of each one of us—the Christ that is the true reality of every person.

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.’”

1	Heeding the Call
2	Awakening Lower Chakras
3	Exploring Higher Chakras
4	Moving Into Spirit
5	Opening the Scroll
6	Releasing Repressed Energies
7	Taking a Break
8	Trumpeting Chaos
9	Enduring Three Plagues
10	Renewing Our Purpose
11	Sensing Things to Come
12	Meeting the Actors
13	Recognizing Two Beasts
14	Reaffirming the Good
15	Singing the Song of the Lamb
16	Emptying Bowls of Wrath
17	Judging the Great Whore
18	Grieving the Old
19	Affirming the New
20	Discerning Consequences
21	Claiming the Kingdom
22	Continuing Forward

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

About the Work

Step 1

HEEDING THE CALL