Whore of Babylon
The Whore of Babylon, called Babylon the Great (Greek: Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη Babylōn hē megalē: Rev 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2; 18:10; 18:18; 18:21) in the Apocalypse of John, is mentioned several times in the New Testament. She sits on a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns. The kings of the earth committed prostitution with her. What is meant here is the prostitution of the spirit with matter, black magic. On her forehead is written a name, a secret, a mystery, which marks her as the mother of all the harlots and abominations of the earth. She is drunk with the blood of all saints and strivers in the Christian sense:
„1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” 3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. 5 And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” 6 And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.“
Origin of black magic
Black magic has its origin in the temptation by the two-horned beast, the sun and earth demon Sorat. Rudolf Steiner explains:
„The abuse of spiritual powers is connected with that seductive power of the beast with the two horns. And we call this abuse of spiritual power black magic in contrast to the correct use, which we call white magic. Thus, by dividing itself, the human race will prepare itself, on the one hand, to reach ever more spiritual states and thus to enter into the use of spiritual powers, into white magic, and on the other hand, that which abuses spiritual powers will prepare itself for the wildest power of the two-horned beast, black magic. In the end, humanity will split into beings who practise white magic and those who practise black magic. Thus in the secret of 666 or Sorat is hidden the secret of black magic. And the seducer of black magic, of that most terrible crime in the evolution of the earth, which no crime can equal, is represented by the apocalyptic through the two-horned beast. Thus, as it were, the division of humanity enters our horizon in the very distant future: the chosen ones of the Christ, who will finally be the white magicians, and the opponents, the wild sorcerers, the black magicians, who cannot get away from matter and whom the apocalypticist represents as those who fornicate with matter. Therefore, all this activity of black magic, everything that arises in the marriage between man and the hardening in matter, is brought to his attention before his visionary soul in the great Babylon, in the community that unites all those who practise black magic, in the terrible marriage or rather wild marriage between man and the forces of degenerated matter.
And so, in the distant future, we see two forces confronting each other: on the one hand, those who sail into the inhabitants of the great Babylon, and on the other, those who rise above matter, who unite as human beings with that which is presented as the principle of the Lamb. We see how, on the one side, the blackest separates itself in Babylon, led by all the forces opposed to the sun, by Sorat, the two-horned beast, and we see the humanity that has developed from the elect, who unite with the Christ, the Lamb, who appears to them: the marriage of the Lamb on the one side, that of Babylon, the sinking Babylon, on the other side. And we see the elect, who have held the marriage with the Lamb, sinking into the abyss of Babylon and ascending to the handling of the powers of white magic. And because they not only recognise the spiritual forces, but also know how to handle these spiritual forces magically, they can prepare what they have on Earth for the next planetary embodiment, for Jupiter. They draw, so to speak, the great outlines which Jupiter is to have. We see rising out of the power of the white magicians the preparatory figures which are to survive as the figures of the next earth embodiment, of Jupiter: we see the New Jerusalem rising out of the white magic.“ (Lit.:GA 104, p. 231ff)
Babylon and the lower astral sphere of the earth
It is no coincidence that the Whore of Babylon also refers to the city of Babylon and the atmosphere of the soul associated with it. Cities are particularly suitable places for individualisation, but also for egoism. In this sense, Babylon stands for all cities and for the overflowing external civilisation that is indifferent to nature and its spirituality. Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome and later also Cassiodorus (* around 485; † around 580) and Andrew of Caesarea (around 600) related the Whore of Babylon to the entire worldly power structure.
„The ancient pre-Christian oriental cultures, as you know, also produced great cities. We can look back on widespread oriental cultures that also produced great cities. But these great cities of the ancient cultures, they had a certain spirit beside them. All oriental cultures had the peculiarity that, with life in the great cities, they developed the view that if man does not penetrate beyond the physical to the superphysical, he actually lives in emptiness, in nothingness. And so the great cities of Babylon, Nineveh and so on were able to develop, because through these cities man did not come to regard that which these cities produced as the real thing, but that which is behind all this. It was only in Rome that urban culture was made a regulative of the conception of reality. The Greek cities are inconceivable without the land that surrounds them; they nourish themselves from the land that surrounds them. If our history were not so much a fable convenue as it is, but brought up anew the real shape of earlier times, it would show how the Greek city is rooted in the land. Rome was no longer rooted in the land, but the history of Rome actually consists in making an imaginary world into a real one, in making a world that is not real into a real one. In Rome the citizen was actually invented, the bourgeois, this terrible caricature next to the human being. For man is man; and that he is also a citizen is an imaginary thing. That he is a citizen is written somewhere in the church books or in the law books or the like. That he, apart from being a human being and having certain abilities as a human being, also has a registered property, a property registered in the land register, that is something imaginary apart from reality. But all this is Roman. Yes, Rome has achieved much more. Rome has understood how to transform everything that results from the detachment of the cities from the countryside, from the real countryside, into a reality. Rome knew, for example, how to introduce Roman legal concepts into the religious concepts of the ancients. He who, in accordance with truth, goes back to the old religious concepts does not find Roman legal concepts in these old religious concepts. Roman jurisprudence has actually entered into religious ethics. Basically, in religious ethics - through what Rome has made of it - it is as if such judges were sitting in the supersensible world as they sit on our Roman-style judges' chairs and judge human actions. Yes, we even experience it, because the Roman legal concepts still have an effect, that where karma is spoken of, most people who profess karma today imagine the effect of this karma as if some otherworldly justice were there, which, according to earthly concepts, assigns this or that reward, this or that punishment, to what one has done, entirely according to Roman legal concepts. All saints and all supernatural beings actually live in these ideas in such a way that Roman legal concepts have crept into this supernatural world.“ (Lit.:GA 191, p. 79f)
Dante's description of the Whore of Babylon
Already in early Christianity, Babylon was especially a cipher for Rome and the Roman Empire. When the Romans finally adopted Christianity and the papacy took root in Rome, Babylon also increasingly became a symbol for the transgressions of the Roman Catholic Church and the excesses and abuses of power of numerous popes. Dante used this image in his Divine Comedy in the 19th canto of the Inferno and in the 32nd canto of the Purgatorio for his radical criticism of Pope Boniface VIII, notorious for his arrogance. Here, on the top of the Mount of Purification, in the middle of the Earthly Paradise, in the Garden of Eden, the key scene of the Divine Comedy takes place, which represents, as it were, the Ahrimanic-Soratic exaggeration of the Fall - the unholy connection of heavenly and earthly power, the prostitution of spirit with matter.
An eagle, the bird of Jupiter and symbol of the Roman emperors under whose rule the persecutions of Christians took place, swoops down on the tree with frenzied movement, bending blossoms and leaves and gnawing the bark. With all its might it tears at the chariot, which is tossed back and forth like a ship on a stormy sea. A fox, a symbol of false doctrine, stalks the carriage, eagerly peering around for the best food, but Beatrice chases it away. Again the eagle swoops down on the chariot, shedding many feathers from its plumage.
Suddenly the earth seems to crack open and a dragon emerges, piercing and breaking the chariot with its spiked tail. The remains of the sacred vehicle are overgrown by weeds. Then the chariot turns into a monster with seven heads (Rev 17:1-18 LUT), three in front, each with two horns like bulls' horns, and four, stretching out from the edges, each with one horn. The seven heads here correspond to the seven main vices: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony and Lust. On top of this sits a boisterous whore with her breasts bared, who is courting a giant. It is easy to recognise the Whore of Babylon in her. After they have kissed each other fiercely, he raises his whip, beats her and tears the chariot loose from the tree and disappears with it into the forest.
The division of the city of Babylon into three parts
At the outpouring of the seventh bowl of wrath, the great city of Babylon was split into three parts, according to the accounts of the Apocalypse, after the fighting crowds had gathered for the decisive battle at Armageddon:
„13 And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. 14 For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. 15 (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) 16 And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
17 The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” 18 And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. 19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20 And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. 21 And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.“
Here one may think of the splitting of the soul forces, as it also occurs in advanced spiritual training. Thinking, feeling and willing are torn out of their natural connection and act as independent forces. This development is only salutary when the I attains full conscious dominion over the soul forces and directs their activity into orderly, coordinated paths. Otherwise, the life of the soul sinks into chaos and becomes the plaything of the adversary powers.
Babylon and the eighth sphere
Already in the 7th chapter of the Apocalypse the number of the sealed ones is mentioned who can escape the influence of the adversaries. They do not fall prey to the two-horned beast, the sun or earth demon Sorat, and are not eliminated from the further development of the earth and incorporated into its realm, the so-called eighth sphere. The number of these chosen ones of humanity is described as 144,000 - but this does not mean an exact number, but rather their special spiritual quality, through which they can participate in the further development of the earth and the planetary world development stages that follow it. The critical moment until which those who have been seduced by the sun demon can still return to the path of regular earth evolution is indicated by the number of the beast - 666. According to this, the final decision is made in the 6th condition of form of the 6th condition of life of the 6th planetary stage of development, i.e. towards the end of the development of the so-called New Venus. This is also indicated in coded form in the Apocalypse:
„7 But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. 8 The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. 9 This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; 10 they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. 11 As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. 12 And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. 13 These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. 14 They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.” 15 And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. 16 And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, 17 for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. 18 And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”“
Rudolf Steiner gives the following interpretation:
„In the period when the sixth seal is broken, the twelve-men will appear, and likewise in the sixth state the salvation of the "great whore Babylon" will take place. In this sixth state the earth will have repeated the Saturn-, Sun- and Moon-Earth, plus the actual earth state, the Jupiter-Earth, and will finally have completed the five rounds on the Venus-Earth. Then the sixth state has come; but as yet the Vulcan state is not there for the elected. Therefore it is said, "The five are fallen" - and that which is preserved as a remnant: - "the one is" - and the seventh: - "the other is not yet come." (Rev 17:10) Thus we see how we find theosophy in the statements of the apocalyptic. But those who proved immature in the time of Venus-Earth, who placed themselves under the dominion of Sorat, must now segregate themselves on a special globe, while the seven others go down and up again. Thus the colony of Sorat falls out. The black magicians inhabit this eighth sphere, which goes left, and the beast houses all that falls out: that is the eighth state. Thus we might find all the Theosophical teachings in the Apocalypse.“ (Lit.:GA 104a, p. 128)
In an early lecture of Rudolf Steiner, which has survived only in fragments, it says:
„The sixth period has everywhere something of decision. Philadelphia culture over into another time. The sixth seal brings the number twelve. The sixth trumpet also brings something decisive.
5 Jupiter earth, 6 Venus earth - overcoming the great Babylon. Saved all who can be saved. Decided who must wait until the next time.
Repetition of Saturn 1, Sun 2, Moon 3, Earth 4, Jupiter 5, Venus 6, Vulcan 7.
When the earth forms itself into world bodies for the sixth time, having completed five rounds, the sixth state is there, the seventh not yet. Therefore, for the time when Babylon is overcome, we are told, "Here is wisdom. [Rev 13:18]
Five are fallen, that is, Saturn, Sun ... They are gone for the elects - only cast out as a beast - and the sixth is, and the seventh is not yet come. The apocalyptic characterises precisely up to this point.
One more thing: So we have seven states, these are the regular ones that are gone through in order to ascend. But those who have proved immature are also placed under Sorat. What will become of them? They must now separate their own sphere of worlds on which they will continue their development. So that a special sphere is separated, it falls out.
A small colony of the wicked, the black magicians, settle there. Read of the mysterious eighth sphere in theosophical literature, which goes on the left while the other goes on the right. [Gap in transcript] it will remain for a time, and the beast is the eighth and has come from the seven and leads to destruction. This too the apocalyptic knows, that besides the seven spheres there is an eighth.“ (Lit.:GA 90a, p. 160f)
Literature
- Siegfried Gussmann: Die Apokalypse des Johannes, Urachhaus-Verlag 1996, ISBN 978-3825170943
- Die Apokalypse des Johannes, übersetzt und kommentiert von Bernd Lampe, Vlg. der Kooperative Dürnau, 4. überarbeitete Auflage, Dürnau 2013, ISBN 978-3888610332
- Die Offenbarung des Johannes - Eine okkulte Zahlenlehre, übersetzt, mit Fußnoten und Kommentaren versehen von Hergen Noordendorp, Novalis Vlg., Schaffhausen 2004, ISBN 978-3907260265
- Christiane Haid (Hrsg.), Jaap Sijmons (Hrsg.): Apokalypse im Ich: Anthroposophische Perspektiven auf die Apokalypse des Johannes, Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 2018, ISBN 978-3723516126
- Rudolf Steiner, Alexandra Riggins: Die sieben apokalyptischen Siegel, Triskel Verlag 2005, ISBN 978-3-905893-02-1
- Rudolf Steiner: Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache und die Mysterien des Altertums, GA 8 (1989), ISBN 3-7274-0080-3 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Selbsterkenntnis und Gotteserkenntnis I, GA 90a (2017), ISBN 978-3-7274-0900-4 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Die Apokalypse des Johannes, GA 104 (1985), ISBN 3-7274-1040-X English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Aus der Bilderschrift der Apokalypse des Johannes, GA 104a (1991), ISBN 3-7274-1045-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Soziales Verständnis aus geisteswissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis, GA 191 (1989), ISBN 3-7274-1910-5 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Aus den Inhalten der esoterischen Stunden, Band II: 1910 – 1912, GA 266/2 (1996), ISBN 3-7274-2662-4 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Bilder okkulter Siegel und Säulen. Der Münchner Kongreß Pfingsten 1907 und seine Auswirkungen., GA 284 (1993), ISBN 3-7274-2840-6 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Vorträge und Kurse über christlich-religiöses Wirken, V: Apokalypse und Priesterwirken, GA 346 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-3460-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
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References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF. |
