Ways of Christ

An intense meditative examination of John's Gospel shows that it is mainly based on his own meditative reflection of his life with Jesus.

John's Revelation on the other hand, shows that it originates in visions. Here we find no mental extrapolations of external knowledge of life into the future. The form of these visions also shows - provided one has the ability to interpret one’s own inner visions and so forth - that they come from higher sources than those in which external expectations take shape in our imagination. In this case, any mixing with the personal mind is not perceivable. The source is also designated clearly - although this fact alone would not be a guarantee in such experiences : "This is 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…".

Most modern protestant theologians are not interested in this kind of apocalyptic writing. They would not really be able to decrypt it with their intellectual methods - or at most only fragmentarily, because they cannot derive the "method" of their origin and the associated symbolism from their own experiences. In the Catholic Church there are some ideas about the apocalypse*, but the people hardly read this because it is too far from the self-satisfaction of many people and churches in today’s world. Free Churches and sects, on the other hand, refer directly to the apocalypse*, but have an insufficient, intellectual understanding of the prophetic vision, leading them to believe in an external disaster and in most cases see themselves as the chosen ones or at least as the most directly chosen ones (*apocalypse: from Greek = uncovering.)

In the chapter "The Whitsun event (Pentecost)" transitions between the individual work of Jesus in his immediate sphere and developments on a large scale have already been pointed out.

If we look at St. John's Revelation in the same integrated way as his Gospel, as proposed in the "Introduction…", unexpected insights become apparent which can not be found in literature.

This revelation shows a sequence related to the sequence in the life of Jesus. But here the development of mankind, earth and cosmos is definitely being spoken of. Even the most inward and mystical work on it simply confirms that it is not simply a collection of images for the development or "initiation" of individual people, as some thought - although it can be of help to individuals, due to the parallels to the gospels. The actual stage of the revelation itself is rather one of consciousness, which compares the archetypal events surrounding Jesus Christ two thousand years ago with the development of mankind and the earth in the cosmos, interwoven in the same way by archetypal steps. Here too, the universal aspect of Christ is included, in contrast to his work as a Son of Man two thousand years ago. Seen from this viewpoint, it would in turn be possible to draw some conclusions concerning the events that happened on the smaller scale approx. 2000 years ago.

The revelation is, however, inimitably more complex than the description of the gospels. It is not simply a "projection" of what John saw in the life of Jesus onto world events.

The revelation in its "element" describes events in several dimensions or levels of existence. The chronological sequence is only secondary. This alone shows that many interpretations as historical events can only be regarded as visions and are often quite misleading.

From another, but also permissible aspect, R. Steiner sees that some modern spiritual disciples can anticipate future states of consciousness today. See R. Steiner in: "Die Apokalypse des Johannes", lecture cycle 1908.

According to Otto Hanish, founder of the Zoroastrian-oriented old "Mazdaznan" life reform movement, Oberdoerffer found parallels to the physiological systems, e.g. the nervous connections in the human being. Book: "Apokalypse", from the "Deutsche Mazdaznan- B." Gablonzer Str.7, 76185 Karlsruhe, Germany, - if still available; possibly only in German).

Arthur Schult: "Das Johannesevangelium als Offenbarung des kosmischen Christus" (The St.John's Gospel as a manifestation of the Cosmic Christ) and „Weltenwerden und Johannesapokalypse" (Development of worlds and St. John's Revelation) attempted a chapter-for-chapter esoteric interpretation. Of course these are approaches to knowledge, mainly based on studying symbols, to which many annotations could be made.