When Moses received the Torah on Mt. Sinai, it was accompanied by an Oral Tradition, which elaborated on the deeper meaning hidden beneath the literal text of the Scriptures. The Oral Tradition ― which in the Second Century was reduced to writing in the form of the Midrashim ― teaches that the allotted period of human history is 6000 years, from the Fall of Adam to the Messianic Kingdom. According to the Hebrew calendar, the year 2000 A.D. began some 5760 years after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden. By that reckoning, we’ll arrive at the end of the Sixth Millennium of human history within the next two-and-a-half centuries. And if ― as appears to be the case ― the ancient Talmudic scholars who compiled the Hebrew calendar overlooked a period about 200 years in their calculations, then the “end of Time” will come sometime within the first half of the 21st Century!
After the failed attempts of the 20th Century to collectivize humanity on a strictly material basis, mankind is destined in the 21st Century to reclaim its shared spiritual identity. We are not merely ― or even primarily ― individual beings, but we are all part of the universal Body of Man. The word “apocalypse” comes from the Greek for “uncovering”. In its truest prophetic sense, the Apocalypse is the rediscovery ― the “uncovering” ― of the Body of Man. It is a sublime union founded upon a common human Interior, something Carl Jung called the “Collective Unconscious”. This is the consummation toward which all of history has been leading ― the emergence of a God-Man in whom all men are joined as One. In the symbolism of Western culture, the advent of this God-Man may be described, with equal validity, as the coming of the Jewish Messiah or as the return of the Christian Redeemer.
Drawing upon both ancient and modern sources, the book you are about to read strives for nothing less ambitious than to reconstruct the mythic edifice of the God-Man ― the archetypal Temple which is the unifying theme of Judeo-Christian prophetic tradition. In my approach to this theme, I have endeavored to steer between the Scylla of amorphous New Age spirituality and the Charybdis of sectarian religiosity. Informed by William Blake=s precept, “All religions are One”, my argument proceeds along the lines of an impending convergence of the major paths of Western faith, a convergence in which nothing is compromised and all is fulfilled.
Beyond simply envisioning such a convergence, this book will explore a number of prophetic writings which suggest how it may occur. What will unfold for my reader in the pages to follow is a truly visionary drama. We will witness together the New Jerusalem of the poets and prophets coalescing as a real model of humanity=s future ― indeed, the only model which may avert a general conflagration for our species.
As the history of the 20th Century has amply demonstrated, a culture which lacks a coherent vision of its own future is a culture in chaos. The Christian dogma which captivated Western minds during the Middle Ages has lost its hold on the popular imagination, which now turns to science and pagan myth for its transcendent imagery. The ultimate Christian vision of the future ― the Apocalypse ― is not understood as a future at all, but is perceived as an unthinkable doomsday. As reflected in its entertainment media, Western culture ― which has proliferated into a World culture ― anticipates a future of open-ended technological growth, with no discernable goals apart from “more”, “faster”, and “further”.
Yet, enduring human civilizations of the past ― the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Mayas ― have invariably preserved an alternate paradigm of Time, a Sacred Time based on cyclical renewals, with their attendant “apocalypses”. Therefore, human history strongly suggests that a belief system recognizing the “end of Time” is an indispensable element of a sustainable social order, a primary attribute of collective mental health.
In the first chapter of this book, our prophetic pilgrimage begins, of necessity, with an exploration of the darker recesses of the history of the Papacy. Why “of necessity”? Because, if the many apocalyptic visions of the past two millennia share a common thread, it is their nearly unanimous casting of the Roman Pontificate as the central player in the drama of the “end times”. Early on in this journey, we will encounter an obscure 12th Century mystic, St. Malachy, who compiled a “list” of future popes, each identified by an uncannily prescient motto. Indeed, the undeniable clairvoyance of his descriptive titles for the last two pontiffs is certain to inspire awe in even the most skeptical among us. Yet, as my reader comes to acknowledge the bona fides of Malachy=s prophecies, he/she will be stunned by the gravity of their implications ― for the Saint=s list of future popes contains but two more names!
St. Malachy=s visions will furnish us with an entrée into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Pope John Paul I, whose reign was cut short in 1978 only a month after his election. Our investigation will plunge us into a shadowy international underground of Mafia bankers and clandestine masonic cabals, whose tentacles reach deep within the Vatican=s walls ― deep enough to strike down the Supreme Pontiff himself. The theme of papal assassination leads us into the murky prognostications of Nostradamus. His horrifying visions of murder within the Vatican walls are only the prelude to even more appalling consequences to follow: the outbreak of a great Schism ― a veritable civil war within the Church ― pitting rival claimants to the papal throne against one another.
As we move into the second and third chapters of our narrative, our focus will shift to the most mystery-shrouded prophecy of the past century. Ever since the reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children in rural Portugal in 1917, the contents of the “Third Secret of Fatima” have intrigued Catholics and non-Catholics the world over. It is known to consist of only 20 handwritten lines jotted down by the sole remaining survivor of the three young witnesses, Lucia dos Santos, now a Carmelite nun. By her own account, Lucia was instructed by the Virgin to entrust the Secret to the Holy Father, with the proviso that it be read to the world in 1960.
The year 1960 came and went, and four more decades passed, but the Third Secret of Fatima remained a secret. While the Vatican has released Lucia’s description of the vision which accompanied the Third Secret, it still withholds the prophetic words spoken by Our Lady of Fatima. Why? The answer will become apparent as we proceed to assemble, one by one, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle which reveal the incredible contents of the Third Secret. We will discover that the great Secret of Fatima is, first and foremost, a divine mandate for the “cleansing” of the Holy See. Coupled with this command come an escalating series of “or else” contingencies, beginning with an agonizing Schism in the Catholic Church and a prolonged vacancy of St. Peter=s throne. As this nightmare vision expands before our eyes, we will discern the shape of an Abomination who is, even now, preparing to step into this calamitous power vacuum. He is the very incarnation of human duplicity ― the false Messiah, known to Christian prophecy as Antichrist.
The next two chapters of Apokalypso pick up where the Third Secret of Fatima leaves off, that is, with the dramatic entry of Antichrist onto the World scene. Before unveiling the prophetic scenario for the Beast’s meteoric rise to the pinnacle of secular and religious power, however, we will first seek to clothe him in a real persona. We will put flesh on his bones, so to speak, in order that the reader may relate to him as a living, breathing human being, rather than a monstrous abstraction. Drawing upon a rich prophetic tradition, we come to recognize that the false Christ defines himself, first and foremost, by his blasphemous claim to actually be Christ, the Son of Man, the Messiah of Israel. It follows, then, that he must appear to the world, not as a monster, but as a Savior. His claim to be Christ must not only be believable, it must be ostensibly undeniable ― worthy of the imprimatur of the Pope himself! And we will further discover that, just as the Son of Man has a collective Body, consisting of those souls treading the path to the New Jerusalem, so does the Man of Sin possess his own collective body. Which is to say, he is much more than an evil individual. He is the lord of his own particular “city”, the head of a “torso” in which all of us are, in varying degrees, “members”.
We will come to understand that it is this collective avatar of Antichrist which makes his attraction well-nigh irresistible. Like a hypnotic suggestion, the voice calling us to him comes from within our own mind. As recent history amply attests, the collective human psyche is very susceptible to the delusion of the “Leader”, onto whom we can project our submerged visceral Oneness. This mass illusion becomes more inevitable and imminent as our unitary Being becomes progressively atomized.
When we finally return to Nostradamus’ prophetic Quatrains, our portrait of Antichrist will seem to come alive in a most unnerving way. We will see him as the “reincarnation” of the Roman Caesar Nero, perhaps the vilest human specimen to ever wield the scepter of an empire. As details emerge of the Beast=s parentage, his siblings, even his facial features, my reader will begin to sense his mesmerizing presence. Our Provençal prophet not only informs us “who” to expect, he also tells us “when” to expect him. Thanks to our understanding of Nostradamus’ astrological dating system, we shall uncover a host of clues, all of them pointing toward the first decade of the 21st Century as the period of the Beast’s ascendancy ― an ascendancy due, in no small part, to the contemporaneous unraveling of the Papacy. In the wake of this “shipwreck” of St. Peter’s bark, the Man of Sin will, with the help of an Antipope, assemble his Universal Church, with himself enshrined as its Messiah. Truly, the “Abomination” envisioned by prophet Daniel will then have come to defile the “Holy Place” of humanity’s divine Spirit.
The sixth chapter of our treatise plunges us into the hidden meaning of St. Malachy’s prophetic title for the Antipope destined to follow John Paul II ― “The Glory of the Olive Tree”. Given the consistent Scriptural usage of the Olive Tree to represent the people of Israel, we cannot avoid the implication that the next Pontiff will be a Jewish convert to Catholicism. It is extremely noteworthy that Nostradamus himself was the son of Jewish parents who were compelled to accept Christian baptism. With that in mind, we will revisit his Quatrains to search for clues of the “Olive Tree” Antipope.
Using associational links, our narrative restores the proper order of Nostradamus’ stanzas, which he intentionally jumbled to conceal his Papal prophecies from the watchful eye of the Inquisition. What emerges is a detailed, coherent chronology of the Antipope=s fraudulent election to the papal throne ― procured by his ally, Antichrist ― and of his short, turbulent reign, marked by savage persecution of the faithful who resist his heresies. Our prophetic drama reaches its climax in the outbreak of a religious war ― mankind’s Final War.
In the final chapter of Apokalypso, we will attempt to anticipate the heresy which is to become the creed of Antichrist and his Universal Church. Surveying the principal heretical sects of the past two millennia, we recognize them to be as the many heads of a single Hydra ― the underlying heresy of dualism. Dualism sees in Creation an irreconcilable antagonism between Matter and Spirit, and from this concludes that there is not one Creator but two, one of whom is the malignant architect of an utterly hellish material universe. Prophecy informs us that the Hydra of dualism has yet to rear what is by far its most subtle and seductive head ― one which will spawn no mere heretical sect, but will furnish the tenets of a Universal Church in which the major religions of the world will, for a time, merge.
What is this more subtle form of dualism, and why will it prove so irresistibly seductive? To answer these questions, we will proceed as spiritual physicians, examining the collective Body of Man for signs of the onset of a deadly malady. When we do so, we shall find the most obvious symptoms of pathology all radiating from one telltale source ― human sexuality. The pathetic incapacity of institutional religion ― and most notably the Holy See ― to accept Man=s sexual nature is symptomatic of their infection with the virus of dualism. Though Man is created Male and Female in God=s image, it is somehow denied that Male and Female are attributes of the Godhead, that they are spiritual as well as biological faculties.
My reader should, from the outset, be aware of one of this book=s principal tenets: that the road back to the bosom of Our Creator lies not in the overcoming of our sexual nature, but in its apotheosis. This, I submit, is the very essence of the Wedding which awaits us in the Resurrection of the Body. The Quest of the Holy Grail comprises the final path to this divine conjugation, the last portal through which we must pass on our way to the embrace of our most beloved Bridegroom, the Son of Man.
Paradoxically, in the Grail Legend, we will find both the elusive secret of regaining the lost Grace of Eden and the fatal error through which that Grace may be lost forever. In its pages we can read the most ethereal visions of the God-Man overwritten with the most blasphemous repudiations of His divinity. It is a story like no other in its ability to evoke the appalling divisions within the human soul.
As we progress in our Quest, we will come to realize that the Grail is not so much a tangible object as a heraldic symbol of a royal bloodline. Within the name of the Holy Grail itself, “San Greal”, we uncover the hidden formula, “Sang Real”, meaning “Royal Blood” ― the very same phrase by which Nostradamus repeatedly alludes to the pedigree of Antichrist! Probing more deeply into this mystery, we shall discover that the royal line identified by Grail heraldry is none other than the House of David, the lineage of the Messiah according to Old Testament prophecy. And, as we unearth further clues from the Grail romances, they will begin to point us insistently toward the most shocking proposition of all: that the bloodline of the “Sang Real” is actually that of Jesus of Nazareth and his progeny!
This last bizarre twist in our tale implies that Jesus did not die on the Cross and did not rise from the dead. Now the heretical elements of the Beast=s Universal Faith begin to come into sharp focus: Christ is be “redefined” as a purely human, temporal monarch ― the Messianic King of Israel. His sacred dynasty having been preempted by the Romans and a corrupt Jewish priesthood, his scion emerges at the end of Time to claim his universal throne. We shall have cause to marvel at how perfectly this script provides the rationale for Antichrist=s reign. If the Son of Man is not divine, if he does not embody the collective God-Man, then a “superior” individual, such as the Beast, can fit the bill.
Under this dispensation, humanity would, once and for all, abandon the dream of resurrecting its collective Body, of restoring the sublime Oneness of Eden. The Apocalypse is deferred forever; the new Aeon never dawns; Time recapitulates itself ad infinitum. The “Maimed King” ― the Will of Man reduced to an impotent insular ego ― extends his moribund reign indefinitely. Ironically, this dismal vista of the future already dominates the secular thinking of our culture. But, if Antichrist is to exercise total domination of human consciousness, the same scenario must be injected into religious faith as well.
Having extracted from the Grail Legend the secrets of the Beast=s heretical creed, we will resort one last time to the visions of Nostradamus to project the path of Antichrist=s downfall. Unlocking the meaning of these, the most enigmatic of his Quatrains, demands that we venture into the Provençal haunts of the prophet=s childhood. As we pass among the Roman ruins of Glanum, where the young Nostradamus often walked in the company of his grandfather, the cryptic images of the Centuries become suddenly lucid, their messages plain. Directed by these messages to the 15th Century castle of Good King René of Provence, we will witness the traditional ritual masque of the Tarasque monster, whose insatiable appetite for children reminds us of the Beast=s mythical antecedents ― Moloch, Saturn, and Hercules. As the masque ends, we watch the Tarasque succumb to St. Martha, the sister of Lazarus in the Gospels, whose faith renders the monster “as gentle as a lamb”.
Those choosing to join me in this prophetic pilgrimage should be forewarned that I intend to infect you with an ardent longing for what lies before us in this “apocalyptic” future. Our common destination is the Promised Land of Consciousness, restored to its primeval wholeness in an ecstatic embrace of Flesh and Spirit. From the rapture of that embrace follows the Advent of the God-Man. Just as Jesus=s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was a scene of sublime euphoria, so must the Messiah’s entry into the New Jerusalem resound with our exultation:
... be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet!
As you turn the first pages of this book, I invite you to join me in this most sacred Wedding dance, as we celebrate the loving union of God with His/Her people. Together, let us joyously proclaim the end of the dark ages of Man=s divided soul ― the “end of Time” ― for, behold, the first Light of the new Day is, even now, breaking upon a new Heaven and a new Earth!