1998-11-21 10:13:00
Let me start tonight by making several comments about the visions of John in Revelations itself.
What John saw were images representing what are called "The Principle of Cycles". Within various cycles on this earth and others, and this system and others, there are certain cyclic events and principles that always happen within certain parameters.
Prophecy of the future is rarely exact; consequently, the true prophets of the race are given the basic cycles of the future in symbols. Then when a reader with soul contact contemplates on them in meditation, he can, through intuition, divine the current and future circumstances with a high degree of accuracy. If this same symbology of Revelations were presented (and it probably has been) to other worlds at our point of evolution, the inhabitants there could get as much inspiration from it as we can.
Man is supposed to always go forward in evolution, but the line of least resistance is to always be lazy and drift backward for a time into what we were rather than what we are becoming. Among other things, the beast represents the tendency of humanity to revert back to the authority of a mindless God outside of us, rather than the God who speaks from within.
As we progress in this chapter I think the group will be amazed at how accurate the symbology has portrayed the past, present and future, especially from 2,000 years ago. Because Revelations deals with cycles, this means it can be interpreted on numerous levels and bring greater truth to our intuition. There are basically seven levels of interpretation possible, but for this work we will deal with the physical level. The higher levels would have meaning to some, but we would lose the interest of the general student if we concentrated on them. However, it may be useful to talk about the higher level to bring additional light in some cases.
Let us continue.
The beast is really us, humanity as a whole, who are having difficulty leaving the old form and moving on to the kingdom of God. We (the sea of people) create the beast, mainly by the power of our combined desire to be ruled by what we feel from the solar plexus, rather than by what we think from the heart and mind.
Most people fall into this trap of the beast; therefore, this powerful, mindless Authority gains tremendous power and influence, even over the few who may otherwise see through it. Advanced souls are often caught in the trap of thinking: "Everybody does it this way, or everybody thinks this way, so why question it?" Actually all young souls and many advanced ones do not even think to question. The mindless authority seems so dominate that an alternative does not even occur to them.
We are told that "power was given unto him (the beast) over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations..." Verse 7 Thus the prophecy tells us that mindless authority controls all people in all lands and nations. We do not have to wait for a Hitler-like dictator to arise and enslave the earth. The beast is here now and has great authority. It may be deceptive and subtle, but it is great and all encompassing nevertheless.
As I said, the beast is here because we are the Beast. Even many who think they are enlightened still allow themselves to be herded like a non-thinking animal by the outside authority he deems most sacred. Let me phrase it this way. Average humanity is the beast because they do not use the power of the mind or realize their power of Decision. The trained dog responds to his master without even thinking about it, without using the faculty of the mind. The "sea" of people are like a large trained beast.
Someone on the list pointed out that water or the "sea" also represents emotion. This tells us that the beast functions on an emotional level and does not use the mind.
The beast controls many departments of life; but in this article, we will seek the beast in one important department, the religious-spiritual. There are a few obvious examples we can cite of the beast at work.
The main one that comes to mind for most of us would probably be the Jim Jones group. Jones was such an authority to the group that the whole city did not resist his command to drink poison Kool-Aide and kill themselves. Not one resisted that we know about.
When the world found out about this everyone was amazed and wondered after this beastly act. How could they have been under such a tight control? Why did not even one out of the hundreds have power to resist? Many thought they must have been under some type of hypnosis.
Recently we were witness to the Heaven's Gate group who were told by their leader to kill themselves so they could be transported aboard a spacecraft. They all joyfully obeyed. Again not one resisted and the world wondered anew at the power of the beast.
We cringe when we hear about a crazed religious fanatic driving a car bomb into a crowd of women and children because his beastly leader promised him a spot in heaven.
As ordinary people watch this amazing power certain leaders have over the lives of others, they make the mistake of believing that these people are some type of oddity in nature and do crazy things because they are mentally disturbed. What they do not realize is, that these beasts who followed their leader to pain and even death, are just ordinary folk like you and I. They are like people we grew up with that seemed fairly normal.
What the other 99.9% of humanity needs to realize is, how thankful they need to be that their own beastly leader has not commanded them to handle snakes, drink poison or die for the cause YET. Most leaders within the order of the beast do not go off the social edge, and only give commands within social parameters, like Jim Jones did when his group was young. Make no mistake, though, those under the power of the beast are always in danger. The commanders within the order of the beast are legion, and they rotate. Being within the beastly power is like playing Russian Roulette.
Whenever you hear about someone doing something very odd or bizarre you can usually trace the behavior to the power of the beast, but do not make the mistake of thinking that only members of a cult are under the beastly power. Almost everyone reacts as a beast to authority in at least one area of his life. It is usually the aspect of his life that is most dear to him. For some it is religious, for some it is political, for some it is his job or business, for others it is philosophy, and for others it is family or a loved one. Then too, the commander is not always a person of flesh and bones. It can be a book like the Bible, it could be a holy object, it could be a channeled entity or even an imagined voice that is not of the soul.
Now, for the brevity of discussion, we will stay on the spiritual aspect. Many religions who are not considered cults have many followers who will obey like unthinking beasts responding to the command of their owner. Let us take an encounter that I mentioned in an earlier post. I wrote about these fairly ordinary believers who asked me if I accepted Jesus as my personal savior.
They have accepted this idea of Jesus being our personal savior with unthinking beast acceptance because their leaders told them they were supposed to. They did not think the idea through or even check it out with their leaders authority--the Bible. The phrase sounds good to them so they accept without thinking. I greatly disturbed their thoughtform when I asked this question: "Show me in the Bible where it calls Jesus a personal savior." This created a "does not compute" to their program because they accepted both their religious leaders and the Bible as beastly authorities and now they did not harmonize. All they could do is feel frustrated and angry.
Others believe in some odd version of heaven or hell because their leaders told them to, not because it makes any sense or registers with their soul. Still others believe that Friday, Saturday or Sunday is the correct Holy Day because their authorities have the correct understanding of the mind of God on the subject.
Many serious religious followers believe their leader represents the mind of God or is in touch with God to the extent that his or her commands are to be followed no matter what. They will not check with the mind of God themselves. They almost feel that would be blasphemy because the leader is surely much closer to God than they are; therefore, whatever the prophet, priest or minister commands is mindlessly followed as a beast follows his master. We are just lucky as a society that there are not more deranged religious leaders as their serious followers would obey their every command.
Even a very spiritual book like the Bible can be the source of beast commands. There are those who handle snakes as a test of faith because of misreading it. There are others who will not let women speak because of an off hand comment of the Apostle Paul. There is even a group that undergoes castration because of a terrible misunderstanding of a comment of Jesus. You wonder, "Don't these people reach a point where they will use some reason and question a beastly command as possibly wrong?" No, not once. The God within is replaced by the beast without.
Jesus was very conscientious about giving power to the beast as illustrated in the book of Matthew. A man addressed him as "good master." To this he responded: "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God." Matt 19:16-17
Jesus did not even want to take the chance of looking too "good" to his followers, but now the mindless followers think it is blasphemy to call Him anything less than the goodest, most perfect creator God of the universe. When Christ returns only a few will recognize Him because the rest will be following a non-thinking program that does not allow for vision.
Now for a closing question: What other areas besides religion is the beast at work? Give an example where the beast is in control.
Copyright 1998 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved