The End of the World

"As your Grace well knows, the most universal image of mankind is  not love and death; It is Judgment Day. . . "         John Cheever

"There have been and there will be many and divers destructions of mankind, of which the greatest are by fire and water, and lesser ones by countless other means."

-Plato

 

   "The end of the world is near. Don't be deluded; judgment awaits. Be humble, tremble, and fear God. Pray for mankind, that they too may repent and find God. Greet anger with meekness, pride with humility, slander with prayers, and love each other. Have faith and love for Jesus. Faith prevents sin, and love prevents hatred. Let no one mislead you. False teachers are evil hypocrites, and like mad dogs; beware their bites. They stay away from Eucharist; they are doomed because they question; they do not care for widows, orphans, prisoners; they will be consumed in everlasting fire."

Ignatius   (2nd century bishop of Antioch)

 

"There have been end times aplenty in the six thousand years of recorded history, but never one so universal or so dangerous. Only the demon of relativism bars us from full consciousness of our predicament. Be not deceived. Our twentieth-century end-time does surpass, in scope and destructive potential, all others."

-Warren Wagar

Terminal Visions: The Literature of Last Things

 

"Let whoever wants to laugh, laugh. No one will be laughing for too much longer. The drama is too real and the facts incontrovertible.

   The world is turning over. The end has come. The beginning is near."

Marianne Williamson

Illuminata: A Return to Prayer

 

"Science teaches that Earth is an enormous 'terrestrial bombshell'.....its hidden interior....an intensely heated mass in a condition of molten fluidity, agitated, restless, and rolling its fiery waves hither and thither age after age, incessantly seeking with a terrible expressive power an outlet to diffuse its igneous elements....On this thin, rocky film, or outer surface, dwells a fallen, sinful, and dying race of mortals....Is it any wonder than thinking, sober people have from the earliest ages looked for a final, awful convulsion and burning day?"

The Coming Earthquake, and the Signs that Betoken Its Approach, 1870 Boston: Scriptural Tract Repository

The End of the World: An Annotated Bibliography by Tom McIver

 

"I have read the Book of Revelation and yes, I believe the world is going to end-by an act of God, I hope-but every day I think that time is running out."

-Caspar Weinberger, New York Times, Aug 23,1982

 

"Revelations: A curious record of the visions of a drug addict."

-George Bernard Shaw

 

"Revelation: A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing."

-Ambrose Bierce,  Devil's Dictionary

 

"The end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded."

H.G. Wells

 

"The reality glares coldly and harshly upon any of those who can wrench their minds from the comforting delusions of normalcy to face the unsparing question that has overwhelmed the writer. They discover a frightful queerness has come into life. Even quite un-observant people now are betraying, by fits and starts, a certain wonder, a shrinking and fugitive sense that something is happening so that life will never be quite the same again."

H.G. Wells

 

"The world will end....I'm not saying it will be reduced to the buffoonish chaos of the South American republics or that we will perhaps return to a state of savagery.....No: machinery will have so Americanized us and progress will have so completely atrophied our spiritual faculties that nothing, not even the sanguine chimeras of the utopians, could possibly compare to those excellent results....But universal ruin (or universal progress: the name matters little to me) will manifest itself not in political institutions, but instead in the debasement of our souls."

Baudelaire (from the notebook in 1851)

 

"What until recently seemed to be only the apocalyptic fantasies of the Christian faith has today entered the sphere of the soberest scientific calculus; the sudden end of history."

Emil Brunner

Eternal Hope

 

"All great events have been set in motion by madmen, by mediocre madmen. Which will be true, we may be sure, of "The End of the World."

E.M. Cioran

 

"This is the beginning of the final days. This is the apocalypse."

-Deogracias Bivunde, a resident of Goma, Zaire, on witnessing the trampling to death of refugees on the Rwandan border. Time Mag Aug 1,1994

 

"I sometimes believe we're heading very fast for Armageddon right now."

-Ronald Reagan, quoted in Boston Globe May 2, 1982

 

"We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord!"

-Theodore Roosevelt, at the Bull Moose party convention, Chicago, 1912

 

"The approaching end of the world strikes me like some obvious but quite subtle scent-just as a traveler nearing the sea feels the sea breeze before he sees the sea."

-Vladimir Solovyev

 

"Only our concept of time makes it possible for us to speak of the Day of Judgment; in reality it is a constant court in perpetual session."

-Franz Kafka

 

"And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. and the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dad that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done."

-Revelation, 20;12-13

 

"Today the constant presence of the cataclysm as a possibility-indeed a probability-offers a signal opportunity for reflection as such, and at the same time the one chance for the political rebirth that would avert the cataclysm. A refusal to know is already part of the disaster."

-Karl Jaspers

The Future of Mankind

 

"As to America, I say to it and its people a few words: I swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him."

Osama bin Laden (videotaped statement first aired on Oct 7,2001)

 

"When we joined, David was planning to lead the group to Israel to retake Jerusalem. He taught that there would be a big battle between the forces of the world and David and his people. The world would win, and we would be killed, but we would come back in a cloud and smite the wicked and retake the world.....There never was a time when we didn't expect to be killed by the feds."

-Kiri Jwell, (lived at the Waco compound until shortly before the raid)

 

"As the end of the world approaches, errors increase, terrors multiply, iniquity increases: the light, in short…..is very often extinguished; this darkness of enmity between brethren increases, daily increases, and Jesus is not yet come."

St. Augustine (5^th Century A.D.)

 

"In the dreamtime of apocalypse, each twist of the spiral opens and closes time: no timeless space but a limen or threshold tense with tenses. To let Revelation frustrate the apriori assumption of time as a causal series is to shake the construction of Western historicism from within. At the same time perhaps it scrolls Apocalypse free of the endist literalism for which is the necessary mythic origin but therefore sufficient cause."

Catherine Keller

Apocalypse Now and Then (a feminist guide to the end

Of the world)*

 

   "And what in the world is the message of apocalyptic literature? We often use the word "apocalypse" to mean catastrophic destruction-and cosmic upheaval is evoked in Daniel, in the Book of Revelation, and several Gospel passages, in images of earthquake, fire, and plague, of the sun and moon darkening, the sea turning to blood, and stars falling from the sky. But destruction is not what the word "apocalypse" means, and it is certainly not the heart of its message, which is hope for persecuted or oppressed communities in crisis, hope for those on the losing end."

Kathleen Norris

Communion

 

"Now what death is to each man, the Second Coming is to the whole human race."

-C.S. Lewis

The World's Last Night

 

"Every religion has a story about the end of the world, some more complex than others, but all of an ominous and powerful nature. Islam is no exception. The Qur'an describes the beginning of the end of the world: famine, storms, floods, vandalism, and rampant immorality prompting the arrival of Dajjal, the name of the anti-Christ in the Qur'an. Dajjal is described as a monster of God's creation, brought into existence by, and as an expression of man's increasing savagery. As to be expected events on Earth take a downward spiral with even more immorality and evil dominating the lives of people in the world.

   Dajjal's reign of terror lasts only forty days, however, because God sends Jesus down from Heaven on a white horse with a lance in his hand to save the world for the righteous people-those who have lived their lives in service to God and with kindness to others. Jesus' throne will also be lowered to Earth from Heaven and the faithful will rejoice upon seeing it. Jesus will lead an army of the righteous against Dajjal, who will be defeated by this army but will manage to escape. Nevertheless, Jesus finds Dajjal and kills him with God's lance.

   Jesus will bring a reign of righteousness over the Earth for roughly eighty years. The Apocalypse and Judgment Day are still to come , though, with the death of Jesus. Jesus will return to Jerusalem, at the end of the period of his reign, and pray at the Dome of the Rock, dying and returning to God. Again, barbarianism breaks out, and the angel of death, Azrail, shall come for the souls of the world."

Asma Gull Hasan

American Muslims

 

"There was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood. The stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe fruit when shaken by a great wind. And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the graves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from  the wrath of the Lamb"; for the great day of their wrath has come' and who is able to stand?"

Revelation 6:12-17

 

"All manner of things shall be well

When the tongues of flame are

In-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one."

 

 

"And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever."

Daniel 2:44

 

"On the day Gog attacks….the fish in the sea and the birds of heaven, the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl along the ground, and all men on earth, will quake. Mountains will fall, cliffs crumble, walls collapse, and….this is how they learn that I am Yahweh."

Ezekiel 38:18-23

 

"In that day the Lord will punish,

With His great, cruel, mighty sword

Leviathan the Elusive Serpent-Leviathan the Twisting Serpent:

He will slay the Dragon of the sea." 

(Isa. 21:1,Job 41:1,Psalms 74:14,104:26)

 

"The real end of the world is the destruction of the spirit; after that there remains only the insignificant attempt to see whether after such destruction the world can go on."

Karl Kraus 1922

 

"....The imaginations of my boyhood came back as speculative possibilities. In those days I had believed firmly in the necessary advent of a last day, a great coming out of the sky, trumpeting and fear, the Resurrection, and the Judgment. My roving fancy now suggested to me that this Judgment must have come and passed. That it had passed and in some manner missed me. I was left alone here, in a swept and garnished world (except, of course, for this label of Swindells)...to begin again perhaps...

H.G. Wells

 

"Everywhere the awakening came with the sunrise. We awakened to the gladness of the morning: we walked dazzled in a light that was joy. Everywhere that was so. It was always morning. It was morning because, until the direct rays of the sun touched it, the changing nitrogen of our atmosphere did not pas into its permanent phase, and the sleepers lay as they had fallen. In its intermediate state the air hung inert, incapable of producing either revival or stupefaction, no longer green, but not yet changed to the gas that now lives in us....

   To everyone, I think, came some parallel to the mental states I have already sought to describe-a wonder, an impression of joyful novelty. There was also very commonly a certain confusion of the intelligence, a difficulty in self-recognition. ..."

H.G. Wells

In The Days of the Comet

 

"One, irrelevant memory comes back to me, irrelevant, and yet by some subtle trick of quality it summarizes the Change for me. It is the memory of a woman's very beautiful face, a woman with a flushed face and tear-bright eyes who went by me with out speaking, rapt in some secret purpose. I passed her when in the afternoon of the first day, struck by a sudden remorse. I went down to Menton to send a telegram to my mother telling her all was well with me. Whither this woman went I do not know, nor whence she came; I never saw her again, and only her face, glowing with that new and luminous resolve, stands out for me....But that expression was the world's."

H.G. Wells

In the Days of the Comet.

 

 

"There has been an earth for a little more than a billion years. As for the question of the end of it I advise: Wait and See!"

Einstein

 

"The end of all things is near; therefore be serious."

-1 Peter 4:7

 

"David Koresh is a thug who interprets the Bible through the barrel of a gun."

ATF officer (Turning Point, Aug 3,1994)

 

"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation."

 Thomas Paine

Age of Reason

 

"The time has come when we must be wholehearted in the truth. Everything is to be shaken that can be; therefore those whose feet are not planted on the rock will be shaken all to pieces. Those only will be able to stand in the day of slaughter who shall be found keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus-"

Ellen White July, 1849

 

"What we need is an alternate vision, when that of the last Judgment no longer satisfies anyone."

E.M. Cioran

The Trouble with Being Born

 

 

"As in Jesus’ Time, we live, quite palpably, in the shadow of an impending apocalyptic event. Militant fundamentalists can proclaim that the end of the world is imminent. Even for people who have no personal reason to anticipate the intervention of divine wrath, the threat of a semi-senile finger on the nuclear button is quite real. We are all helpless hostages to a reality we no longer fully control. To the specter of a destruction we are individually powerless to avert. And beneath the general anxiety, the maddening sense of impotence, the disillusionment with inept or irresponsible politicians, there is a profound longing for a genuine spiritual leader, an "all-wise’ and ‘all-gentle’ figure who will understand, will take charge and-without of course violating established democratic freedoms-assume the role of guide, conferring meaning once again on lives which have grown increasingly empty."

Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln

The Messianic Legacy

 

"There is very little in history as powerful as an idea and nothing as convincing as an idea whose time is come. The time seems always to be right for the idea that the world is coming to an end."

Roberto d’ Asturias (1941)

 

 

"Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is intolerable that he be doomed to complete annihilation after such a long-continued process. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful."

Charles Darwin

 

"President Reagan strongly believed throughout his administration that the United States was on the verge of fighting a nuclear battle with the Soviet Union. He further believed that in accordance with biblical prophecy, the "Evil Empire" would invade Israel, that America and the Soviets would nuke it out at Armageddon, and that Jesus would then descend from heaven."

Weird History 101

 

Book: "The End of the World" ed by Lewis H. Lapham

Book: "Messianic Revolution" by David S. Katz & Richard H. Popkin

Book: "The God of Hope and the End of the World." by John Polkinghorne

Book: "Living at the End of the World" by Marina Benjamin

Book: Apocalypse: On the Psychology of Fundamentalism in America" by Charls B. Strozier

Book: "The End of Time" by DAmia Thompson

 

"It seems an odd whitewash to have not learned in Sunday School that Jesus’ parables were about the Kingdom of Heaven, to have not learned in school that Columbus thought he was the next Messiah.

Why not admit these facts? Are we so cocksure in our religious disbelief that we are embarrassed to remember that our past is the history of people who thought that God might, at any time, cancel his enthusiasm for our little world?

The white-wash is complete: Merlin is considered a wizard although for Ten Centuries he was better known as a Prophet. The peasants’ Revolt and the Hussite uprisings are always described as "reform movements" and examples of social discontent, despite their profoundly millenialist expectations.

Perhaps our current embarrassment stems from our realization that mankind has been crying wolf for nearly 2,000 years. We would have been happy, around the 1700s, if the End had become more rational, more industrial, more technological in line with everything else in the sphere of our knowledge."

Yuri Rubinsky

A History of the End of the World

 

"Love is the final end of the world's history, the Amen of the Universe."

Novalis

Hymns and Thoughts on Religion

 

The Maya predict that the world will end on Sunday, Dec 23,2012

 

"A single day will see the burial of mankind, all that the long forbearance of fortune has produced, all that has been raised to eminence, all that is famous all that is beautiful; great thrones, great nations-all will descend into one abyss, all will be overthrown in one hour."

-from the Sibylline Oracles

 

"There have been end times aplenty in the six thousand years of recorded history, but never one so universal or so dangerous. Only the demon of relativism bars us from full consciousness of our predicament. Be not deceived. Our twentieth-century end-time does surpass, in scope and destructive potential, all others."

      Warren Wagar

Terminal Visions: The Literature of Last Things

 

"Pagan man projected his fears outward; contemporary man internalizes. Like biblical man (at least to that very limited extent) he holds himself, or more accurately his own society, responsible for the coming end of the world. Not only the disaster allegedly threatened by pollutants but ever prospective modern apocalypse stipulates man rather than the gods or nature as the primal cause. And the charge is always the same: Whether it is to be by fire or by ice, mankind faces extinction as a punishment for its impiety."

Peter Shaw

The War Against the Intellect: Episodes in the Decline of Discourse

 

 

"To a watcher in some remote entirely alien cosmos, if we may assume the impossibility, it might well seem that extinction is coming to man and like a brutal thunderclap of halt!

H.G. Wells

 

"Zeus will destroy this race of mortals when children are born gray at the temples. Children will not resemble their fathers, and there will be no affection between guest and host and no love between friends or brothers as in the past. Sons and daughters will be quick to offend their aging parents and rebuke them and speak to them with rudeness and cruelty, not knowing about divine retribution; they will not even repay their parents for their keep-these law-breakers-and they will sack one another's cities."

 Hesiod

The Five Ages

 

"And then cometh the season and the end; and my vineyard will I cause to be burned with fire."

              Book of Mormon,Jacob 5:77

 

 

 

"When the Sun shall be folded up and when the stars

shall fall,

And when the wild beasts shall be gathered together….

And when the leaves of the BOOK shall be unrolled

And when HELL shall be made to blaze and

Paradise brought near,

Every Soul shall know what it hath produced.

And by the Night when it cometh darkening on,

And by the Dawn when it brighteneth…..

Whither THEN ARE YE GOING?"

Koran

 

"Only our concept of Time makes it possible for us to speak of the Day of Judgment by that name; in reality it is a summary court in perpetual session."

Kafka

 

"Millenarianism is, in essence, the expectation that the end of the world is near and that, accordingly, a new earthly paradise is at hand."

David F. Noble

The Religion of Technology

 

"Oh, I run to the hills and the hills were a-fallin’,

Run to the sea and the sea was a-boilin’

Run to the sky and the sky was a-burnin’!

ALL ON THAT DAY

(old spiritual)

 

"Now is the time…..for destroying the destroyers of the earth"

(Rev 11:18)

 

"Columbus saw himself as a "divinely inspired fulfiller of prophecy." He was firmly convinced that the world would end in about a century and a half, based upon calculations by d’Ailly, and that in the meantime all prophecies had to be fulfilled, including the conversion of all peoples and the recovery of Mount Zion. (Jerusalem)

David F Noble

The Religion of Technology

 

"God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth of which he spoke in the Apocalypse of St. John after having spoken of it through the mouth of Isaiah, and he showed me the spot where to find it."

Christopher Columbus

 

"Women, designed by evolution as the link between spirit and flesh, are perhaps also designed by the cosmos to lead the human world back, now, to the great celebration of the reconciliation of flesh and spirit. Thus, at the very edge of death, we will return to the beginning. That is, at the end of the world (where we must surely be!) we will return to the Goddess, the Great Mother of All Life, as her magic children. In a round world, the only way for human beings to survive the end is to return to the beginning. Thus we complete a circle; but on a spiral, we revolve to a larger circle."

Monica Sjoo & Barbara Mor

The Great Cosmic Mother*

 

"Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice."

Robert Frost

 

 

"the Messiah will come only when he is no longer needed….."

Kafka

 

 

"Why dost thou fear thy last day? It contributes no more to thy death than does ever other day. The last step does not cause the lassitude: it declares it. All days journey towards death; the last arrives there."

Montaigne

 

"Gesar Khan is a hero whose new incarnation will take place in Northern Shambhala. There he will unite his co-workers and leaders who have followed him in his previous life. They too will incarnate in Shambhala whereto they will be attracted by the mysterious power of their Ruler or by the mysterious voices which are heard only by the initiate."

    Alexandra David-Neel (Article -"The Coming Northern Hero"-1924)

 

"All eyes are attracted to the majestic white summits rising above the clouds. They tower, like a transcendental realm. from all sides, the best aspirations are directed to the Himalayas.

   Kang-chen-dzod-nga-Five Treasures of Great Snows. And why is this sublime mountain so called? Because it contains a store of the five most precious things in the world. What things are there-gold, diamonds, rubies? By no means. The old East values other treasures. It is said that there will come a time when famine will overcome the whole world. At that time a man will appear who will unlock the giant gate of these vast treasuries and nurture all mankind. Certainly you understand that this man will nourish humanity not physically, but with spiritual food."

Nicholas Roerich

Heart of Asia

 

 

"The planet’s survival has become so uncertain that any effort, any thought that presupposes an assured future amounts to a mad gamble."

Elias Canetti

The Secret Heart of the Clock

 

"I believe the settlement of those Russian and European Jews (in Israel) is critical to the fulfillment of prophecy. Personally, I always like to cooperate with prophecy, not fight it! If God has a purpose-as He certainly does in Israel-we don't want to be seen as opposing it."

Pat Robertson

The Secret Kingdom

 

The Lubavitch Rebbe Has Declared

The Time of the Redemption Has Arrived

To learn more, please call:

718 2 MOSHIACH 7

(from Jewish Week, Jan 14,1994)

 

 

 

"In the zone of perdition where my youth went as if to complete its education, one would have said that the portents of an imminent collapse of the whole edifice of civilization had made an appointment."

Guy Debord

Panegyric

 

"We are poised on the edge of the millennium-ruin behind us, no map before us, the taste of fear sharp on our tongues. Yet we will leap."

A Woman’s Creed

 

"Pealing ! The Clock of Time has struck the woman’s hour,

We hear it on our knees. All crimes shall cease, and

Ancient wrongs shall fail;

Justice returning lifts aloft her scales,

Peace o’er the world her olive wands extends

And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descends."

Illinois Women’s Press Club (1891)

 

"The Heavens were open’d and she saw two Archangels descending from the east, with golden crowns on their heads, clothed in long white robes…..brining a sealed pardon from the living God, and putting their Trumpets to their mouth, they proclaimed saying, Room, Room, Room, in the many mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone….and the day of grace is not yet over with them. For every one that will come, may come, and partake of the waters of life freely, which is offered to Sinners without money and without price."

(vision occurring to Jemima Wilkinson 1774)

 

"She will come into government and purify it, into politics and cleanse it….for woman will make home-like every place she enters, and she will enter every place on this round earth."

Francis Willard (1880)

 

"We are the female beings poised on the edge of a new millennium. We are the majority of our species, Yet we have dwelt in the shadows. We are the invisible, the illiterate, the laborers, the refugees, The poor. And we vow: NO MORE! We are the women who hunger-for rice, home, freedom, each other, Ourselves. We are the women who thirst-for clean water and laughter, Literacy, love."

A Women’s Creed

 

 

Book: "Living at the End of the World." by Marina Benjamin

Book: "Apocalypse: On the Psychology of Fundamentalism in America" by Charles B. Strozier

Book: "The End of Time" by Damia Thompson

 

"Predictions of the end of the world, as old as human history itself and lately a subject of scholarly inquiry, have by no means abated in our own time. Nor are those who believe in such predictions confined to isolated religious sects, as was the case as recently as the 19^th century. While such sects do continue regularly to spring up and disappear, predictions of catastrophe have become the virtual orthodoxy of society as a whole. Journalists, educators, churchmen, and philosophers daily endorse one or another script foretelling the end of individual life, of human civilization or of the entire earth."

Peter Shaw

The War against the Intellect: Episodes in the Decline of Discourse

 

"the one consistent effect of the fear or joy of an impending End of the World is the turning of mankind’s thought to the temporal , the immediate, the urgent.

Visions and warning of the End are –without exception-reaction to an existing or threatening social, moral, political or physical condition. This is the paradox of the End: it keeps people’s minds off the subjects of the infinite. It replaces spiritual vastnesses with petty concerns about signs, omens, warnings, admonitions, strategies, campaigns, small steps.

Mankind’s fascination with the End, in all its picayune detail, accomplishes the remarkable: it saves us from the difficulty-in fact- the impossibility-of having to imagine life without end. What if life were infinite? What if the fragile earth was to be our home forever? How would we face that possibility? We are too weak to contemplate such responsibility. Our mind makes it easier for us. It invents the End of the World."

Yuri Rubinsky & Ian Wiseman

A History of the End of the World*

 

 

"….We may be spinning more and more swiftly into the vortex of extinction, but we do not apprehend as much."

H.G. Wells

 

"This is the beginning of the final days. This is the apocalypse" Deogracias Bivunde (witness to the trampling to death of refugees on the Rwandan border...quoted in Time, Aug 1,1994)

 

"On the day the world ends

Vegetable peddlers shout in the street

And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

The voice of a violin lasts in the air

And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder

Are disappointed.

And those who expected signs and archangels’ Trumps

Do not believe it is happening now.

As long as the sun and moon are above,

As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,

As long as rosy infants are born

No one believe it is happening now."

 

Czeslaw Milosz

A Song on the End of the World

 

 

"For all life longs for the Last Day

And there’s no man but cocks his ear

To know when Michael’s trumpet cries

That flesh and bone may disappear,

And there be nothing but God left’

But I alone being blessed keep

Like some old rabbit to my cleft

And wait Him in a drunken sleep."

W.B. Yeats

 

"….the human species….is about to be extinguished, but the library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret."

Borges

 

"Sometimes it seems to me that the madness of the peoples, governments, militants, and of the irresponsible men who lead us reflects a mystic common sense. That it leads us toward death is clear. But it is perhaps also because it has understood that the sum of human suffering has grown so great with progress that there are many more people on earth who wish to have done with life than people who wish it would last longer. As if humanity, in a very secret pall, had voted to call a halt to the outlay, and all these madmen were, after all, only carrying out the common will……

Denis de Rougement

The Last Trump

 

 

"In fact the world may end the way Rwanda is, person by person....Who needs the Bomb when there are machetes and clubs?"

Roger Rosenblatt           (Macneil-Lehrer News Hour,Aug 1994)

 

"…..and then shall flow a ceaseless cataract of raging fire, and shall burn land and sea, and the firmament of heaven and the stars and creation itself it shall be cast into one molten mass and clean dissolve. Then no more shall there be the luminaries’ twinkling orbs, no night, no dawn, no constant days of care, no spring, no summer, no winter. No autumn."

Sibylline Oracles

 

"Our doomed formicary is helpless as the implacable antagonist kicks or tramples our world to pieces. Endure it or evade it; the end will be the same."

H.G. Wells

 

"A single day will see the burial of mankind, all that the long forbearance of fortune has produced, all that has been raised to eminence, all that is famous and all that is beautiful; great thrones, great nations-all will descend into one abyss, all will be overthrown in one hour."

Sybilline Oracles

 

"Remember Sodom and Gomorrah!

It shall soon be the same again!

(suicide note sent by Luc Jouret and the Order of the Solar Temple,1994)

 

"It is not arrogance that urges me, but my medical conscience which advises me to fulfill my duty and to prepare the few whom I can reach to the fact that events are in store for the human race that signify the end of an EON."

C.G. Jung

 

"The Swiss composer Claus Huber was inspired to write his large-scale work….inwendig voller Figur….for choirs, large orchestra and tape-recorded sounds (1971) by vision of Albrecht Durer’s. It was in 1525 that Durer dreamt a terrifying vision of the end of the world, with water falling down from the sky’ with such speed, rage and fury’;, so afraid was he, in fact, that when he awoke his whole body was trembling. Durer thereupon drew his vision and Claus Huber points out that the resulting water-colour anticipated the atomic mushroom-cloud of 1945 by 420 years….

Peter Michael Hamel

Through Music to the Self

 

"In his last great work, De Temporum Fine comoedia (The Play of the End of Time), Orff seems to be signaling the end of our age of mental-rational consciousness. Certainly the mental consciousness-level, and with it our whole Western culture, has its roots in the great thinkers of classical times and has had its fruition in the last five hundred years. In his Comoedia, orff represents the words of the "Sybiline Oracles’, the Anchorites and the Last Men, and celebrates the approaching destruction, world-conflagration and time of dread: ‘Ubique daemon, ubique daemon,the Devil’s abroad, the Devil’s abroad….till the end of time, till the end of time!-When shall time end?

The programme notes for its first performance in Salzburg in 1974 explain: ‘In the first section the words are placed in the mouths of the nine Sibyls, those mysterious prophetesses of the ancient world…..In the work’s second section, too, original Greek verses are to be found in the Orphic hymn to the god of dreams. This divinity is adjured to reveal to the Last Men the end of time in a prophetic dream. The hymn is placed in the mouths of the Anchorites, those early Christian hermits….who hurl an impassioned "No’ in the face of the prophecy of the judgment of the Nations. For the purpose of the world cannot be the horror of the Last Judgment, but the return of the wicked to the ways of righteousness, the final redemption of the universe as a creation limited in time…..From the three intertwined speech-layers of Greek, Latin and German there arise gigantic necklaces of sound, rolling reverberations and circling spirals of words.’ Orff makes use of the magical effect of timeless, endless repetition in order to bring the hearer into a state of severance from all accustomed, everyday experience, in which he no longer needs to shrink from death and the end of time but, led safely through the midst of the final dread, can hope for liberation. Kalon thanathein! Goes the call: ‘it is beautiful to die!- a statement which may also be taken as referring to an esoteric death, namely the death of the’ I’."

Peter Michael Hamel

Through Music to the Self

 

"And yet one must be more precise. It is not, ultimately, a question of ‘humanity destroying itself’. ‘Humanity’ has no desire to do any such thing. If ‘mankind’ is destroyed, it will not be by ‘man’. But by a handful of specific individuals whose power, derived from the Trust reposed in them, has been mishandled and abused."

Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln

The Messianic Legacy

 

 

 

 

"We drowse Our way to the end of the world."

Jonathan Schell

The Fate of the Earth

 

 

 

"For it is one thing to come into the world

and another to envision its end, ablaze with volcanoes. "

 

Pablo Neruda

 

 

You might wonder why anyone would bother to write about a subject as depressing as the end of the world or read about it, for that matter. But oddly it isn't a depressing subject at all, Rather it possesses a sort of horrifying fascination and even exhilaration. "

Daniel Cohen

 

.

"The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea,

The hot stars fall from the sky,

And fire leaps high above heaven itself. ".

The Edda

 

 

"Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand?

Yeats

 

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works."

Bible: New Testament, Rev 20:12

 

When the sun shall be darkened.

When the stars shall be thrown down.

When the mountains shall be set moving.

When the pregnant camels shall be neglected.

When the savage beasts shall be mustered.

When the seas shall be set boiling.

When the souls shall be coupled.

When the buried infant shall be asked for what sin she was slain

When the scrolls shall be unrolled.

When the heaven shall be stripped off.

When Hell shall be set blazing.

When Paradise shall be brought nigh.

Then shall a soul know what it has produced.

Qur’an the darkening 81:1-14 (ed by Arthur J. Arberry,1955)

 

 

 

"The wolf Fenrir, whose jaws stretch from heaven to earth, breaks his fetters; the Midgard Snake, spewing poison, rises from the sea;eglfar, the Ship of the Dead, made of the uncut nails of dead men, breaks from her moorings down in Hell. The fire giants, led by Surt, come riding out of Muspell, and as they approach Asgard (home of the gods) the rainbow bridge Bifrost crackle under their weight. Giant-home rumbles and the dwarfs whimper. Loki bursts free of his chains and advances to battle. "

(description from the Eddas by Gwyn Jones)

 

 

 

 

"From what and to what can this infinite whirl be saved?"

 

D. H. Lawrence

 

 

 

 

"We shall rest! We shall hear angels, we shall see the whole Sky all diamonds, we shall see how earthly evil, all our sufferings are drowned in the mercy that will fill the whole world. And our life will grow peaceful, tender, sweet as a caress. I believe, I do believe. "

Uncle Vanya

Anton Chekhov

 

 

"The Biblical revelation of, Man, his origin, his present predicament, and his destiny is true. Few philosophers, politicians, economists, sociologists accept Jesus' prophetic account. county of History (Matthew 24) . Man IS precisely what the Bible says he is , Human nature is behaving exactly as the Bible said it would. The course of human events is flowing just as Christ predicted it would. "

Billy Graham

 

 

"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

Leaving not a rock behind."

Shakespeare

The Tempest

 

"Pain cold panic

the world tilting

twirling on its axis, out of control

spinning off away from the sun into the darkness

light bursting against his eyes, an explosion of light

a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors."

Madeleine L' Engle

A Swiftly Tilting Planet

 

 

 

 

"On the awful day of judgment , the discrimination of the good from the wicked, is not made by the criterion of sects or of dogmas, but by one which constitutes the daily employment and the greatest end of Agriculture. The judge upon this occasion has by anticipation pronounced, that to feed the hungry , clothe the naked, and give drink to the thirsty , are the passports to future happiness; and the divine intelligence which selected an agricultural state as a paradise for its first favorites, has here again prescribed the Agricultural virtues as the means for the admission of their posterity into heaven.

John Taylor

1812

 

"Prophecies of old have hinted, spoken, and sometimes shouted about what was going to happen . in the latter part of this century. Books flood the market revealing the-wisdom and knowledge of ancient cultures, the prophecies of "primitive" tribes, the wisdoms of native Americans. While there is some disagreement as to whether or not the changes the planet is undergoing will be accompanied by cataclysm and destruction, there ,seems to be less and less disagreement as to the reality of' the changes. "

Paul Hawken

The Magic of Findhorn

 

"at this very moment you are experiencing the end of the world; at the moment of your death your wish to be redeemed weighs more than a hundred years of pious practice daily. You will be reborn in the Buddha's Pure Land, in the hour of your death, and that is now. Pray earnestly for redemption through Amitabha; then will the lotus-flower on which you will be reborn appear to you in the paradisian pond of grace. . .Over the whole pond of grace flowers of various jewels bloom, the blue is of a radiantly blue Colour, the yellow of glowing yellow, and the red and the white are of a deep vibrant colour, and all these flowers sway in the gentle breeze-a shimmering, curling wave flows from this side to that, it flows silently, neither too fast nor too slowly, with a light, bewitching whisper. "

 

Gemshin (942-1007) also known

as Eshinosozu 6th Patriarch of

the Jodo School,Japan

(l2th Century Japan was permeated with the idea that the

end of the world was at hand. )

 

 

 

Seems like I've always been looking for some other place

to get it together

Where with a few of my friends I could give up the race

And maybe find something better

But all my fine dreams

Well though out schemes to gain the motherland

Have all eventually come down ,to waiting for Everyman. "

 

(For Everyman)

Jackson Browne

WB Music Corp.

 

"You are surprised that the world is losing its grip? That the world is grown old and full ,of pressing tribulations? Do not hold on to the old man, the world; do not refuse to regain your youth in Christ, who says to you: The world is passing away, the world is losing its grip, the world is short of breath. Do not fear, thy youth shall be renewed as an eagle. "

ST. Augustine

 

 

"One o' these days 'bout twelve o'clock

this old worl' gonna reel an' rock;

I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna ride,

Six white horses side by side."

 

African American song, quoted by Howard W. Odum

Wing on my Feet 1929

 

 

 

"The aged earth aghast

with terror of that blast

Shall from the surface to the center shake,

When, at the world' s last session,

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread

His throne. "

 

- John Milton 1629

 

 

"Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye

think not the son of man cometh. "

 

 

"They will go two by two ,

Till the world' s end, step by step and side by side."

Musset

 

 

Oh the time will come up

when the Winds will stop

and the breeze will cease to be breathin

Like the stillness in the wind

'For the hurricane begins,

The hour when the Ship comes in.

Oh the seas will split

And the ship will hit

And the sands on the shoreline will be shaking.

And then the tide will sound

And the wind will pound

And the Morning will be breaking.

When the Ship Comes In

Bob Dylan

 

 

 

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some

men count slackness ; but is longsuffering to usward, not

willing that any should perish, but that all should come to

repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the

night; in which the heavens Shall pass away with a great

noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the

earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. '

 

chapter 3, verses 9-10

 

 

Oh the fishes will laugh

As they swim out of the path, :

And the seagulls they' 11 be smiling

and the rocks on the sand

Will proudly stand

The hour that the ship comes in.

And the words that are used

for to get the ship confused

Will not be understood as they' re spoken

For the chains of the sea

will have busted in the night

and be buried at the bottom of the ocean.

A song will lift

As the mainsail shifts

and the boat drifts on to the shore line

And the sun will respect

Every face on the dock

The hour when the ship comes in.

Then the sands will roll

Out a carpet of gold

For your weary toes to be a touchin'

And the ships wise Men

Will remind you once again

Oh the foes will rise "

With the sleep still in their eyes

And they 'll jerk from their beds and think they ' re dreamin '

But they 11 pinch themselves and squeal

And they' 11 know that it ' s for real

The hour when the ship comes in.

Then they' 11 raise their hands

Sayin' we' 11 meet all your demands

But we ' 11 shout from the bow your days are numbered

And like Pharoah' s tribe

They ' 11 be drowned in the tide

"- And like Goliath they'll be conquered.

 

When the Ship Comes In

Bob Dylan

 

 

The end of the world is a total and ruthless power struggle in which all the Kings of the earth are engaged, but which has an inner spiritual dimension these kings are incapable of seeing and understanding. The wars, cataclysms and plagues which convulse worldly society are in reality the outward projection and manifestation of a hidden,, spiritual battle. Two dimensions, spiritual and material, cut across one another. To be consciously and willingly committed to the worldly power struggle , in politics, business, and war, is to founder in darkness , confusion, and sin . " '

 

Thomas Merton

Seeds 0 f Destruction

 

"The book of the New Testament that definitely canonizes

this eschatological view of Peace in the midst of spiritual

Combat is the Apocalypse , which sets forth in mysterious and

symbolic language the critical struggle of the nascent Church

with the powers of the world, as typified by the Roman Empire.

This struggle, which is definitive and marks the last age

of the world, is the final preparation for the manifestation

of Christ as the Lord of the Universe (the Parousia) (Apoca-

lypse II : 15-18) . The Kingdom is already present in the world,

since Christ has overcome the world and risen from the dead.

But the Kingdom is still not fully manifested and remains

outwardly powerless. "

 

 

 

"There be many shapes of mystery;

and many things God makes to be,

Past hope or fear.

and the end men looked for cometh not,

and a path is there where no man thought ,

So hath it fallen here."

Euripedes 400 B.C.

 

Christian history was steadily and incessantly transformed

by those who waited for nothing but its end. Christianity

represented a supernatural force, - in fact it attacked the

ways of nature and life. 'In order that charity should act

in a person the powers which naturally dominate the soul

must be overcome; they must, in fact, be slain like the early

gods of the myth.

 

 

 

The Harvest is the End of the World

The final separation as process. In the parable of the

tares among the wheat the servants ask whether they should

gather up the tares but are forbidden by the householder "Lest

them. Let both grow together until the harvest and in the

time 0f harvest I wi11 say to the reapers , Gather ye together

first the tares, and bind them in bundles and burn them: but

gather the wheat into my barn. " And Jesus , explaining the

parable himself, says, according to the gospel: "The harvest is the end of the world." History will come to an end.

 

 

"The feeling of a vast march-of infinite cavalcades filing off. . . the morning was come of a mighty day. . . Somewhere . . . Somewhere , I knew not where-somehow , I knew not how - by some beings , I knew not whom - a battle , a strife , an agony , was conducting - was evolving like a' great drama of piece of music. "

 

De, Quincy

The Opium Eater

 

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth;' for the first heaven

and the first earth passed away and there is no longer any sea."

Revelation 21:1

 

 

"For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage, until the day the NOAH ENTERED THE ARK , and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man be.

"Then there shall be two men in the field; one shall be taken, and one will be left

Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you be ready too; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time master finds so doing when Blessed is that slave whom the master finds so doing when he comes . " "

Matthew 24 : 38-46

 

 

"But I am telling you this Strange and wonderful secret: We

shall not all die, but we shall be given new bodies ! It will

all happen in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye , when the

last triumph is blown. "

I Corinthians 16

 

 

"Resurrection, announced by Christ points to the End-Product

of Human Experience in its upward sweep: Transfiguration"

Pir Vilayat Inyat-Khan

 

 

" "But the present heavens and earth by His word are being re-

served for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction

of ungodly men.

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved,

that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years , and a

thousand years as one day.

 

 

 

"Keep a fire for the human race

Let your prayers go drifting into space

You never know what will be coming down

Perhaps a better world is drawing near

And just as easily it' could all disappear

Along with whatever meaning you might have found

let the uncertainty get you down

(The world keeps turning around and around)

Go on and make a joyful sound."

 

Jackson Browne

WB Music Corp

 

 

"Everybody I talk to is ready to leave

With the light of the morning

They've seen the end coming down long enough to believe

That they ' ve heard their last warning

Standing alone

Each has his own ticket in his hand

I sit thinking 'bout Everyman

 

Jackson Browne

Waiting for Everyman

 

"The doctrine of the Second.’ Coming, then is not to be rejected because it conflicts with our favorite modern mythology. It is, for that very reason, to be the more valued and made more frequently the subject of meditation. It is the medicine our condition especially needs."

C.S. Lewis

 

 

 

"the doctrine of the Second Coming has failed, so far as we are concerned, if it does not make us realize that at every moment of every year in our lives Donne's question, "What is this present were the world's last night?" is especially relevant."

-

C.S. Lewis

 

 

"As for Jesus' s apocalyptic utterances-all imaginative minds are prone to them, as , equally, to utopian fantasies. heightened consciousness of human imperfection points to the imminence of some cosmic catastrophe, as a heightened awareness of human potentialities points to the possibility of living happily ever after. These two impulses may be seen at their most vulgar in someone like H. G. Wells, who, on the one hand, envisaged the coming to pass of a scientifically planned and directed kingdom of heaven on earth, and, on the other, in the face of the achievement of atomic fission-in itself, no great matter-turned his face to the wall and insisted that mind was now at ,the end of its tether , and that  the last days were upon us., with only the prospect of beginning the evolutionary process all over again in the hope that it might produce some creature more satisfactory and amenable that the shortly to become, extinct Homo Sapiens. The same impulses existed in Marx's over-heated mind. He likewise imagined the final emergence of a perfect human society when the proletariat of the world took their destined place as the definitive ruling class whose beneficent rule would go on for ever and ever. At the same time in the light of the actual condition of the world in the later stages of the industrial revolution, he could only foresee conflicts and disasters. It would be ridiculous, as well as in the worst of taste, to equate Jesus with Wells and Marx, but it may properly be said that during his sojourn on earth, like them, he partook of the alternations of mood belonging to a discerning, intuitive and audacious mind. "

Malcolm Muggeridge

Jesus the Man Who Lives

 

"If, for the early Christians, with Jesus’ actual words of warning still echoing in their ears, the prospect of the coming apocalypse was very actual , in the subsequent centuries there have always been some unhinged or prophetic souls who felt certain that the last days would shortly be upon them. Today the feeling is particularly strong, not without reason. The truth is that famines and pestilences and wars and rumors of wars have been the constant 'lot of mankind. Crisis is not this, as Dr. Johnson said of waiting to.' be hanged, wonderfully concentrates the mind.' To believe that men living in time can know lasting peace, prosperity and contentment is far more fallacious and demented than to expect the end of the world in the near future. The world is always about to end, -but utopias never even begin; and so the Devil, who feels most at home in fantasy, and sees more mileage in the Guardian than in the News of the World, in Eleanor Roosevelt than in Marilyn Monroe , IN THE World Council of Churches than the Mafia, as being more amenable to his purposes, can work more readily through utopians than through apocalyptists, as the post-Rousseau era has all too clearly shown. I cannot see how the Church could possibly have survived through all the decadence, disorder and wickedness of the last centuries of the Roman Empire if there had not been this built-in expectation of a second-coming and the end of history. Otherwise, the early Christians like the later ones, would have got themselves enmeshed in the risings and rebellions and illusory earthly expectations which are the invariable accompaniment of a ,decomposing civilization. Who, expecting the end of the world today or tomorrow, is going to concern himself about further nationalizing the means of production , freedom-fighting, raising the school age to nineteen and lowering the age of consent to ten , and other such enlightened enterprise;? The only way to be sane about history is to keep its end in view as the only way to be sane about living is to keep death: in view. "

 

Malcolm Muggeridge

 

 

"Now can you see those dark clouds gathering up ahead?

They' re going to wash this planet clean like the Bible said

now you can hold on steady and try to be ready

But everybody' s going to get wet

Don' t think it won' t happen just because it hasn't happened yet. "

 

The Road and the Sky

Jackson Browne

WB Music Corp.

 

 

 

"The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count

slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any

to perish but for all to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which

the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements Will

be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works

will be burned up. "

" II Peter, verses

3,7, 8,9 , & 10

 

 

"nevertheless we, according to this promise, look for new

heavens and a new earth, where in dwelleth righteousness. "

 

II Peter 3:13

 

 

"We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. . .then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in Victory. 0 Death, where is thy sting? 0 grave, where is thy victory?"

I Corinthians 15: 51-55

 

 

"Through the subsequent centuries Christians have gone on looking at the world's happenings for signs that Jesus' s predictions were about to come true, and have rarely looked in vain. The disasters which were to presage his Second Coming have proved to be endemic, and never more so than in the twentieth century. As I write these words apocalyptic intimations are multiplying, to the point that many see the last days as soon to be upon us. For believers, Christianity has thus been a condition of continuing alertness. No state of mind could be more appropriate to our human condition, enabling us, as it does, to see each day as perhaps marking the end of time. "

 

Malcolm Muggeridge

 

 

"As for being judged at the great divide, when the Son of Man comes in his glory with all the angels in attendance , to take his seat upon his throne and separate the sheep from the goats-no great law books will be required for reference, no Learned Counsel to gather their gowns round them and expound and Jesus will claim as his own those who, when he was hungry and thirsty and homeless and naked, had succored him. If, incredulously, they say they have no means of performing these services, it will be explained to them that in performing these for others they performed them for him. Contrariwise, those who failed to minister to the needs of others will be seen as thereby failing to minister to Jesus’ needs, and so fit only to be expelled from his presence and cast into outer darkness. Such will be the simple test. And who dare face it?"

 

Malcolm Muggeridge

 

 

"Then who in the world can be saved?" they asked.

Jesus look at them intently and said

'Humanly speaking, no one. But with God,

everything is possible' . "

Matthew 19 : 25-26

 

 

"Oh people, look around you

The signs are everywhere

You've left it for somebody other than you

To be the one to care

You're lost inside your houses

There ' s no time to find you now

Your walls are burning and your towers are turning

I ' m going to leave you here and try to get down to the

- sea somehow

The road is filled with homeless souls

Every woman , child and man

Who have no idea where they will go

Now everyone must have some thought

That' s going to pull them through somehow

Well the fires are raging hotter and hotter,

But the sisters of the sun are going to rock me

on the water now

Oh people, look among you

It 's there your hope must lie

There's a seabird above you

gliding in one place like Jesus in the sky

And then hang on to that Gospel plow

When my life is over, I ' m going to stand before the Father

But the sisters of the sun are going to rock me on the

water now . "

Rock Me on the Water

Jackson Browne

WB Music Corp.

 

 

"She was contemplating her life, intoxicated by something too great to be expressed in words. Every day, every step she took, was bringing her, imperceptibly and inevitably, nearer to that supreme happiness which is the only reason for which we enter this world. And that longed-for happiness of hers would depend neither on wars and revolutions nor on revolutionaries and engineers: it was simply bound to come."

 

August 1914

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Bantam Book published by " arrangement with Farrar, Straus and Giroux

 

 

no time now for our little literary games ,

No time now for our paranoia’s and hypochondrias

No time for fear and loathing,

Time now only for light and love . "

 

Ferlinghetti

 

 

"The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure

undertaken by God. Actually it will be undertaken by my brothers

with my help. It is a final healing rather than a meting out of

punishment, however much you may think that punishment is deserved.

Punishment is a concept totally opposed to right mindedness, and

the aim of the last judgment is to restore right-mindedness to you.

'the Last Judgment might be called a process of right evaluation.

It simply means that everyone will finally come to understand what

is worthy and what is not. After this, the ability to choose can

be directed rationally, Until this distinction is made, however,

the vacillations between free and imprisoned will cannot but

continue .

The first step toward freedom involves a sorting out of the false

from the true. This is a process of separation in the constructive

sense, and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse. Everyone

will ultimately look upon his own creations and choose to preserve

only what is good, just as God Himself looked upon what he had

created and knew that it was good. At this point, the mind can

begin to look with love on its own creations because of their

worthiness, At the same time the mind will inevitably disown its

miscreations which without belief, Will no longer exist,"

 

from "A Course in Miracles"

 

 

"Back in the year 1934, Ohsre, who was living in the north of India then, had a great guru who prophesied that the next big event in the world's history would see the world become as hot as the sun for a period of twenty-four hours. No one would remain alive except the true, sincere devotees of Cod."

 

Sai Baba

 

 

"It may be, that all this outward universe shall one day disappear, when its whole sense hath been comprehended and engraved forever in the eternal thoughts of the human mind."

 

Emerson

 

 

 

"So the New Age is not any more important than any other age of man. It should not be looked upon as being the ultimate answer to all of man' s problems , because the age itself is none of those things. Man is the ultimate answer to all of man's problems; he always has been and always will be. It is what man does in and through his own being, his consciousness, and his openness to life. Therefore, out with the New Age , out with the old age , out with all ages, and in with agelessness, both personally, collectively, and in terms of our consciousness, for then we find the real spirit and essence of what the New Age is intended to convey. It is a time when man comes home again to his spirit and from that point accepts his crown and throne as the steward of life and the king of life , the king of his own life , and takes his place as a creative partner with God. He can then enter a new cycle, the momentum will grow, and change will indeed come swiftly, change upon change upon change until the only thing that is stable is the stability that we have created within ourselves. . . .The we will discover that everything is stable and that there is no such thing as change, only that unfoldment of what is within us and the reorganization of matter to clear the way for that unfoldment and to allow it to express itself perfectly. "

David Spangler

 

 

"The City will descend from Heaven. Rain and frost will not

touch her golden mansions. There will be no siege, no sack,

such as we see today. Nor will the city need the light of lamps ,

for she will shine with the light of her splendor."

Commodian

 

"I would have you understand my prognostication of the true universal Medicine, which shall serve not only Men, but also all Flesh, namely that there grows in Paradise a Tree which is, and is called the Tree of Life, which in the glorious and long expected coming of Jesus Christ our God and savior shall be made manifest, and then it shall be afforded to men, and the fruits of its hall be gathered, by which all men shall be delivered from death, and that as truly solidly and surely, as at the time of the Fall, by gathering the fruit of the forbidden Tree, we together with all flesh fell into sin, death, and ill. And this glory and great joy hath latter days, and hath kept his good Wine until now….I do foretell all physicians, that then their Physic shall be worth nothing; for another Garden will be found, whence shall be had herbs, that shall preserve man not only from sickness, but from death itself."

Samuel Hartlib

Chymical Address 1655

 

"Yes, there is misery and suffering on earth. Thanks for adding to it, Killjoy. Life seems pointless. This isn’t a reason to party? And the world’s about to end. As if we were going to live forever otherwise. Will it mater in a hundred years if we went one by one or in a bunch? Besides, the world’s been about to end for a long time. Hardly a mythology lacks its Gotterdammerung. The penultimate verse of the New Testament has Jesus saying, "Surely I come quickly." And he wasn’t coming over for a swim (Note to kids: Finish that math assignment. Somehow the world never manages to end before your homework is due) Also, if the world’s about to end, why aren’t things more interesting? Why are people abandoning themselves to cares and gripes instead of to booze-ups and orgies? Why aren’t I having an affair with Ava Gardner the way Gregory Peck was in On the Beach."

P.J. O’ Rourke

All the Trouble in the World

 

"that’s how we stand, and comical it is. One might have expected the end of the world to be anything but comical."

 

 

"The individual is the end of the universe. "

Miguel de Unamumo

 

 

THE END OF THE WORLD (Apocalypse explained

by Swedenborg by George Trobridge)

 

"What, then, does the spiritual sense in the Apocalypse discover to us? The book opens with the description of a wonderful vision of the glorified Saviour, as seen by the aged apostle. We can-not accept this as a picture of the actual person of Deity,but rather as a comprehensive representation, seen in the spiritual world, of the Divine perfections. The head of dazzling whiteness, the feet like glowing brass, the covering garments, the golden girdle , the sword proceeding from his mouth, and the seven stars in His right hand , all have a definite signification and shadow forth some quality of Divinity,or some form of Divine activity.

The seven Churches are not seven particular Christian organizations, though the apostle's message may have been addressed to such at first, but stand for all classes of those who receive the Gospel . Their various defections describe the different forms of heresy and evil that have brought corruption in the Church; for the Apocalypse is the book of judgment of the first Christian dispensation. A great part of it is taken up with a prophetic forecast of this judgment. Protestant theologians have been agreed in regarding Babylon as a type of the perverted Romish Church; Swedenborg gives it a spiritual meaning: the judgment pronounced upon Babylon is not alone upon a particular section of the corrupted Church, but upon all who pervert the truths of religion for the sake of gaining dominion over others. There are many such outside the Roman communion, but the subjection of the laity to the priesthood, and the assumption of almost Divine powers by the latter, are such striking characteristics of the Romish system, that they cannot be overlooked. Protestant heresies are equally condemned in the Book of the Revelation. The great red dragon stands for the immoral doctrine of salvation by faith alone, which, as destructive of all spiritual enlightenment , is represented by the monster drawing down the stars with his tail, This dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth to a child , that he might devour it as soon as born. Women in general correspond to affection, and the woman here represents those in the decadent church who still retain a love of what is good and true , among whom a new church will arise. The spiritual dragon vehemently opposes the pure doctrine of this new church , symbolized by the man-child . The triumph of the good and true, and the inauguration of a new dispensation, are set forth in the marvelous vision of the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending from God out of Heaven. Cities in the Bible always represent systems of doctrine, true or false. As a great city, Babylon typifies the corrupt system of the Romish Church , so , the New Jerusalem describes in vivid symbols the beauty and consistency of the doctrines of a True Christian Religion. The foundations of precious stones are the great fundamental principles of religion, full of light and beauty ; the wall great and high, truths that protect from the assaults of evil; the gates of pearl, introductory truths, like the two great commandments , that lead the soul to the heavenly state represented by the golden streets of the holy city; the river of the water of life flowing from the throne through the street of the city, the continual influx of living truth from the Lord: and so with all other objects described; each has its inherent signification. Stated in this brief and bare manner, it may seem to the reader that the interpretation of these Divine symbols is arbitrary and inconclusive; but further study will satisfy him that it is based, as Swedenborg taught that it was based, upon a principle that is universal and, by creation, resident in the nature of things. It would be easy to show for instance, that stone throughout the Scriptures stands for truth, especially the hard facts of knowledge. Recognizing this correspondence, we can see why the Israelites were commanded to build altars of unhewn stones; that is, to offer worship from unsophisticated truth; why the tower of Babel was built of brick instead of stone; how David vanquished the philistine giant by means of a smooth stone from the brook; we can understand the meaning of the stone that destroyed the composite image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream; of the "head stone of the corner"; of the rock upon which the wise man built his house; and of the other rock, the declaration by Peter of Christ's Divinity, upon which the true Church is found-Space will not permit or further elaboration of the subject, but what has been written will serve to give a general idea of Swedenborg ' s exegesis. The reader will probably admit that his method is ingenious and the result interesting; but if he once grasps the great principle of correspondence, upon which the spiritual interpretation of Scripture is based, he will come to see that the method is also true and the result inevitable: that, in fact, Swedenborg has not given us an ingenious system, but revealed to us the facts of an unalterable law, under which "the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the thing that are made . " (Rom, i . 2 0 . )

 

George Trobridge

Swedenborg Life & Teachings

 

 

"Many have expounded this prophetical book which is called the Apocalypse; but none of them have understood the internal or spiritual sense of the Word, and therefore  they have applied the various particulars in it to the successive states of the church, with which they have become acquainted from history; besides which, they have applied many of them to civil conditions. Hence it is that those expositions are for the most part conjectures, which never can appear in such a light as would admit of their being established as truths; wherefore, as soon as they are read, they are laid aside as mere opinions. . .All things which are written in the Apocalypse are expressed in a style similar to that in which the prophetical parts of the Old Testament are written, and, in general, in which the whole Word is written, and the Word in the letter is natural, but in its inward contents it is spiritual, and being such, it contains a sense within it which does not at all appear in the letter. "

 

 

Swedenborg 1745

Apocalypse Explained , No . 1)

 

 

 

"It is impossible for any man to know when the Last Judgment is accomplished, for every one expects it on the earth, accompanied by a change of all things in the visible heaven and on the earth and with the human race therein. Lest therefore the man of the Church from ignorance should live in such a belief, and lest they who think of a last judgment should expect it forever, whence at length the belief in those things which are said of it in the sense of the letter of the Word must perish, and lest haply, therefore, many should recede from a faith in the Word, it has been granted me to see with my own eyes that the Last Judgment is now accomplished ; that the evil are cast into the hells, and the good elevated into heaven, and thus that all things are reduced into order, and consequently the spiritual equilibrium, which is between good and evil , or between heaven and hell , is restored. (The Last Judgment,No.45. )

 

Swedenborg 1745

 

 

"The "End of the World" so often spoken of in the authorized version of the New Testament is a mistranslation of the Greek term, and should be rendered "The Consummation of the Age" , which rendering at once puts a new construction upon the passages in question. The consummation of an age, Swedenborg tells us, is the end of a Church of Dispensation, which takes place when it has become corrupted to such an extent that "there is no faith because there is no charity."

George Trobridge

 

 

 

"If the Last Judgment was a spiritual event, it is needless to say that the Second Coming of Christ is to be interpreted spiritually also. The Church has been looking for a physical reappearance of its Divine Founder for nearly two thousand years, until faith and hope are almost exhausted; but it has looked in vain, because it has misunderstood the prophecies. As the Jews looked for a conquering Messiah, and did not recognize the promised deliverer in the meek and gentle Jesus; so Christians have rested their faith on the appearance of a visible Judge, and have been disappointed in their expectations. Both erred in reading prophecies too literally. Christ, indeed, has come, but not as men have expected Him. His First advent was the revelation of the Divine in human nature,-'the Word was made flesh" : the Second Coming is the spirit, a revelation to men of the inner glory of the Divine Word. The "clouds of heaven," from which the manifestation comes forth, are appearances of truth, which obscure the clear shining of the Wisdom of God. The literal sense of Scripture is full of such appearances, arising from the limitations of the mental and moral condition of those through whom the Scriptures were given. Thus , to the evil , God appears angry and vengeful; simple minds think of God and Christ as separate Persons, and so on. "

 

George Trobridge commenting on

Swedenborg Life & Teachings

Swedenborg Foundation

139 E. 23 St. N.Y. N.Y. 10010

 

 

"Armageddon should not be understood as only physical war. Armageddon is full of incalculable dangers. Epidemics will Se the least of the calamities. The main destructive results will come from psychic perversion. People will lose confidence, they will sharpen their minds in mutual injury, they will learn to hate all that exists beyond" the boundaries of their own dwellings, falling into a state of irresponsibility and sinking into depravity. To these mad nesses will be added one more, the most shameful one, the revival of the battle between the Masculine and Feminine Principles."

Helena Roerich 1938

 

 

" The NEW AGE, esoteric tradition maintains, will culminate in the re- appearance of the Christ, And this event will be preceded by "the externalization of the Hierarchy,' that is to say, the appearance in the world of a number of great initiates and men of wisdom who, while doing normal worldly jobs, will be serving as guides and spiritual leaders. These members of the hierarchy, it is said, have long been preparing themselves for existence in the unfamiliar confines of the physical body. Their work of preparation will be assisted by a large and continually growing group of people in all countries and all walks of life, who are known as the ' the new group of world servers." The Christ, who last incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth, will return for the beginning of the Aquarian age when through the work of these precursors man has manifested in his political, economic and social relations a will to base his conduct on the principles of co-operation  sharing, goodwill and mutual responsibility. He will return to complete the work begun in Palestine two thousand years ago, which could not be brought to fruition at that time because mankind was not sufficiently educated and spiritually evolved to understand and apply the teachings.'

 

Stuart Halroyd

Prelude to the Landing on Planet Earth

w.&. Allen London

 

 

"but the unexpected is already happening! when the typhoon reaches its height, its end is already predictable. At the extreme pole, negation becomes affirmation. To the perceptive eye it must become evident that something of fundamental importance has taken place in our era. The two world wars have produced a fundamental change in the spiritual outlook of Western man. Dostoevsky's and Nietzsche's somber prophecies of doom" have already been fulfilled. The dreadful hour in which the West was reduced to a heap of rubble has come and gone. Such Jeremiads can there fore not be repeated. The pronouncements of a last judgment must cease, and a new set of tidings drafted. It is urgently necessary to recognize that the situation has changed. Another direction must be sought. This is the decisive problem confronting man at the present time."

Nigg

The Heretics p-4G5

 

 

 

"There is another way, however, an altogether different way. of interpreting the End of the world. Mark i3 has been thought by some to be an interpolated late chapter, misrepresenting whatever words might have been spoken by reading them in the sense of the current Jewish apocalyptic hysteria represented in the texts of the dead Sea Scrolls. And this view of Mark 13 has been now strongly reinforced by the discovery in 1945-in ajar found buried in the Egyptian desert, near the village of Nag Hammadi , on the first sharp bend of the Nile -of a Coptic translation from the Greek of the long lost Gospel According to Thomas. here we read in the last saying (Saying l3 ) of Jesus, the following: His disciples said to him: "When will the Kingdom Come?" Jesus said: "It will not come by expectation they will not say : "See, here," or" See, there," but the kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it." The function of art, we might say , is to render a sense of this hidden radiance of the Kingdom, right here now, among us. And all that is required for the vision is a slight but radical shift-in-perspective of the eye to bring us to a realization transcendent of the pairs-of-opposites: I and Thou, right and wrong, this and that."

 

The Celtic Consciousness

Robert O'Driscoll

 

 

"These lines, attributed to Jesus, occur in the "Round Dance of the Cross, " The ritual for a sacred dance included in the Acts of John, one of the most remarkable texts that survived from the early Christian movement. The Acts of John were condemned as heresy by Pope Leo the Great, but survived by being coupled and shared among Christians who dared to risk heresy.

(an article on this appears in Parabola Vol iv,no 2)

 

"To the universe belongs the dancer.

Whoever does not Dance

does not know what happens."

(apocraphia: The Acts of John)

 

WHAT IS THE SECOND COMING?

 

"Christ's Second Coming, which is sure as God, is merely the correction of mistakes, and the return of sanity. It is part of the condition that restores the never lost, and re-establishes what is forever and true. It is the invitation to God's Word to take illusion's place; the willingness to let forgiveness rest upon all things without exception and without reserve. It is the all-inclusive nature of Christ's Second Coming that permits it to embrace the world and hold you safe within its gentle advent, which encompasses all living things with you. There is no end to the release the Second Coming brings, as God's creation must be limitless. Forgiveness lights the Second Coming's Way, because it shines on everything as One. And this is oneness recognized at last.

The Second Coming ends the lessons that the Holy Spirit teaches, making way for the Last Judgment, in which learning ends in one last summary that will extend beyond itself, and reaches up to God. The Second Coming is the time in which all minds are given to the hands of Christ, to be returned to spirit in the name of True Creation and the Will of God.

The Second Coming is the one event in time which time itself can not effect. For everyone who ever came to die, or yet will come or who is present now, is equally released from what he made. In this equality is Christ restored as one identity, in which the Sons of God acknowledge that they are all one. And God the Father smiles upon His Son, His one creation and His only Joy. Pray that the Second Coming will be soon, but do not rest with that. It needs your voice. And most of all it needs your willingness. Let us rejoice that we can do God's Will, and join together in its holy light. Behold, the Son of God is one in us, and we can reach our Father's Love through Him."

 

Course In Miracles

 

"You know, I turn back to your ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs for telling Armageddon and I find myself wondering if, we're that generation that's going to see that come about. I don't know if you've noted any of those prophecies lately, but believe me, they certainly describe the times we're going through.

Ronald Reagan

 

 

"Presently in the Soviet Union there is so Much fear regarding "the end of days" that Premier Gorbachev has taken to wearing makeup on Soviet television to obscure a birth mark on his forehead became people have called it "the mark of the beast". And there has been an undertone of fear in relation to the fact that the word 'Chernobyl" in Ukrainian means "wormwood," the name of the star in the book of revelation that is to Poison a third of the waters."

 

Whitley Streieber

Communion

 

ALL SHALL BE WELL

There is the question of the very meaning of the assertion "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." I can say only that the meaning of the assertion is the experience itself. Outside that state of consciousness is has no meaning, so much so that it would be difficult even to believe init as a revelation without the actual experience. For the experience makes it perfectly clear that the whole universe is through and through the playing of love in every shade of the word’s use, from animal lust to divine charity. Somehow this includes even the holocaust of the biological world, where every creature lives by feeding on others. Our usual picture of this world is reversed so that every victim is seen as offering itself in sacrifice."

Alan Watts

See article: THE VERY LATEST SPECULATION ON DOOMSDAY …BY Malcolm W. Browne The New York Times …Could particle accelerator experiments create a tiny black hole that would consume earth?

"Last month, the Sunday Times of London informed readers that Brookhaven might have created a world-devouring monster. The British weekly commented that "the men in white coats would send us, and them, into the oblivion of a back hole of their making’ (in reality, accelerator physicists wear jeans and sport shirts, but never mind.)

 

Armageddon

 

"I first went to Jerusalem in 1979 to research a book dealing with Christians, Muslims and Jews. While there I met many third-generation Americans, such as Bobby and Linda Brown of Brooklyn who together with 25 other couples-half of them from the United States-moved onto the land of the Palestinians and took the land at gunpoint. They staked of 750 acres and put a strong iron fence around it. Israeli soldiers guard this settlement night and day. That is illegal under every international law.

One evening, we sat under the stars looking at the flickering lights of Palestinian villages. Bobby Brown, with a wave of his arm, said, "All the Palestinians have to leave this land. God gave this land to us , the Jews." This incident made a deep impression on me. I knew Bobby Brown could not use an Uzi-and confiscate land at gunpoint in Brooklyn. What made it all right for him to use a gun to take land from Palestinians? And moreover, why did we as American tax-payers give Israel the money to pay for the weapons-to confiscate Palestinian land? Had God deeded the land to Bobby brown? Had the Palestinians been living there for 2,000 years, just holding it until Bobby Brown could claim it? I had to ask myself: Did I believe God had a Chosen Land a Chosen People?

 

I returned home, and the questions remained. To research these questions, and how I an others felt about them, I signed to go on a conducted tour of the Holy Land with Jerry Falwell. On arrival in Jerusalem, our group went to the Old City and we approached the large Muslim grounds where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque are located. "There, " said our Israeli guide, pointing to the mosque, "we will build our third temple."

 

I As we left the site, I remarked to Clyde , a retired Minneapolis business executive, that the guide said a temple would be built there. But, I asked, what about the mosque? It is one of the three most sacred shrines in all of Islam-and holy to a billion Muslims around the world. "Oh," said Clyde, "The mosque will be destroyed. One way or another, it has to be removed. You know it’s in the Bible that the temple must be built. And there’s no other place for it." Clyde was convinced that Jews, aided by Christians, should destroy the mosque, build a temple and reinstate the killing of animals in the temple-all in order to please God.

 

Many Christians throughout this land feel the same as Clyde. They organized a Temple Mount Foundation to raise money to help Jewish terrorists destroy the Muslim mosque. I talked with several, including Terry Reisenhoover of Oklahoma and the Reverend James deLoach of Houston’s Second Baptist Church.

 

The Rev. DeLoach visited my apartment in Washington, and was proud to tell me he had raised and spent tens of thousands of dollars to defend Jewish terrorists charged with assaults on the mosque. He was also pleased to relate that he had entertained in his Houston home Jewish yeshiva students who were studying how to slaughter animals, to be used as sacrifice inside the temple they hope to build.

 

The Christians who want the mosque destroyed-and a Jewish temple built-follow a belief system called dispensationalism. In all of the world, in all of history, they place Israel on center stage. They contend that we must all go through seven time periods. The countdown on history began, they tell us in 1948-with the gathering of Jews into Palestine and the creation of the modern state of Israel. The dispensationalists believe in a God not of love, but of war: they believe in what is termed Armageddon theology.

 

Our group also traveled to Megiddo, located about an hour’s drive north of Tel Aviv

 

As we left the bus, I walked alongside Clyde, the retired business executive. As we looked out over the valley, Clyde exclaimed, "At last! I am viewing the site of Armageddon." We continued to gaze at fields-that in size would be lost in any Texas ranch-and Clyde talked of a 200-million-man army that would invade Israel-"right here," he said, and that a great decisive battle would ensure that would involve all the armies of the earth, and that this battle, involving nuclear weapons, would kill most of the inhabitants of this earth. I remarked that for such a big battle-the valley looked very small. "Oh, no!" Clyde says. "You can get a lot of tanks in there!" Clyde’s eyes were shining. "When this battle begins, we –who are Born Again-will be lifted up, raptured-" He assured me he was not worried about the destruction of the earth, because he would not be here. But Up There. Watching. With his escape hatch, he seemed actually to look forward to the destruction of Planet Earth.

 

A couple of years passed, and I received a colored brochure of a Falwell-sponsored trip. Like the first brochure, it was printed in Israel. In this brochure, Falwell did not once mention that we would be traveling to the Land of Christ. Nor, for that matter, did he once mention the name of Christ. Once we arrived, we had no Christian guide-to any site where Christ was born, died or had his ministry. There was not a single planned visit to a Christian church-or a plan to meet any of the Christians living there, whose forebears have lived in Palestine since the days of Christ.

 

We had only Israeli guides, and the focus was on military aspects. The Israeli guides gave us endless explanations of why the Israelis should keep all the land of historic Palestine, leaving nothing for the Palestinians.

Once we were on a bus tour, and I thought surely we would stop in Nazareth. "No," said the Israeli guide. The bus would not stop in Nazareth. No one contested the guide’s decision. On the outskirts of Nazareth, however, our Israeli guide changed his mind. "We will stop in Nazareth for 20 minutes," he announced –"to use the toilet facilities." And thus we stopped. We left Nazareth without having seen it.

We proceeded to Jerusalem, where Falwell chose to honor Ariel Sharon, the burly general who masterminded the invasion of Lebanon, which injured and killed 200,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, most of them civilians. In introducing Sharon, Falwell said that in the annals of history, only a few great men came along. He named George Washington, Abraham Lincoln –and Ariel Sharon!

 

On another night, Falwell gave a big banquet-to honor the defense minister, Moshe Arens. Before introducing the defense minister, Falwell, in an aside to Arens, said "Mr. Minister, I want to thank you for that jet airplane you gave me."

Falwell-and other dispensationalists-have a working alliance with militant Jewish Zionists. My latest book, Prophecy and politics, deals with this marriage of convenience between militant Christians and militant Jewish Zionists, or dispensationalists, give Israel total support because they think there has to be an Israel there in place, not for the Jews, but for the battle of Armageddon, which they actually believe must occur. It’s part of the required steps, they believe, that will lead to their Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ. Because of their scenario, they make a cult of the land of Israel.

 

The seedbed for this dispensationalism is over in Dallas, at the Dallas Theological Seminary. I met with John Walvoord, the president, an elderly gentleman who said God had given all of Palestine to the Jews. In talking with Walvoord, I kept referring to the suffering of the Palestinians. What about them? I asked. "I am referring to land," he said at one point. And he added,"You keep talking about spirit aspects.."

It actually happens: those who make a cult of the land of Israel put this cult of land above the teaching of Christ. Jewish Zionists such as Begin and Shamir and Sharon support the Christian dispensationalists because the dispensationalists give them total support. In dealing with the criticism of this alliance between militant Christians and militant Jews, I think it is important to know the difference between religion and politics.

True faith, whether one is Christian, Muslim or Jewish, is religion. Zionism, whether one is Christian, Muslim or Jewish, is politics. And it is politics because it deals with land, not spiritual values.

 

In closing, I want to mention a trip I made to Basel, Switzerland. I attended the first Christian Zionist Congress. I was one of 589 persons from 27 countries attending this Congress. It was held in the same hall where Theodor Herzl had called the first Jewish Zionist Congress, about 100 years ago. Herzl had stressed that Jews were different and should live exclusively among Jews. Christian Zionists say the same. This conference was supported by the Israelis.

 

I listened to speakers who were Jewish Zionists as well as Christian Zionists. Rather than provide hope by suggesting steps whereby Jews and Arabs might reach reconciliation, and live together , in peace, each speaker seemed to reinforce the fears of the other. Rather than stress how much in common Arabs and Jews, and indeed all human beings, have in common, speakers told us: ‘Jews are different. They must live exclusively among Jews.

Christian Zionists believe that God has ordained that the Jews control the land of Palestine, and that they control Jerusalem, and build a temple, and that they reinstate animal sacrifice.

 

The Christian Zionists approve every military action taken by Jewish Zionists. If Israel bombs Iraq, as it has done, or invades Lebanon, as it has done, or shoots and kills Palestinian children, as it does, the Christian Zionists will say, "Well that is chosen Land and a Chosen People. All of that is orchestrated by God.."

Although our aid to Israel is more than we give to many countries, including all of India, Africa and South America, Christian Zionists will support these billions of your taxpayer dollars going to Israel, because of their interpretation that God wants that land as the landing base for the Second Coming of Christ. It is the land for which they care. They want it there, in place, so that the rest of their scenario, including their Rapture, can come to pass.

Somehow in all the sermons of Jerry Falwell and other Christian Zionists, I miss their telling us about the Sermon on the Mount. And I miss these militant Christians reminding us that Christ possessed a way that was not based on military strength.

His way was not to steal property and kill people for the sake of a temporary political Kingdom on earth. Rather, as we know, Christ came to advance and enhance life. He came not to speak and support a cult of land. But he came to speak for the suffering, the destitute, the oppressed.

Indeed, He has a Chosen People. We are all chosen to do good, not evil. Chosen to seek and to work for peace, in the Middle East and in the world."

Grace Halsell

See her Book Prophecy and Politics

 

"All Millennial Movements share one thing: failure. The world doesn't end. But the ways in which believers face failure are many. 

   The first crisis may not break a group. William Miller's followers built their hopes on the Second Coming occurring by March 21,1844; when that date went by, they calculated a new one, seven months hence. The very fact of failure seems to have given believers new energy. Proselytizing continued; excitement rose. Only when the new date passed did the movement fragment. Some believers, such those who formed the Seventh Day Adventists, knit new theologies to show that prophecy had been fulfilled that day-and again began proselytizing

Gershom Gorenberg

The End of Days.

 

"A summary of what millennialists forget: There are things worth wanting that you cannot possibly acquire."

Gershom Gorenberg

 

"We will remove the abominations that sully our holy mountain! We will liberate the Temple Mount, even if the political leadership doesn't want to.....Instead of the Dome of the Rock and mosques, the flag of Israel and the Temple!"

Gershon Salomon

 

 

"This is where I place the endpoint….What I see there is a convergence point between technos and ontos, between doing and being. And that at the point of that convergence, the entire meaning of being and doing is transformed. You could call it the end of the world if you wanted to, although I’m not sure I want to. What I do want to say is that it’s the point when we understand the relationship between ontology and the noosphere. December 21, 2012 . It’s the winter Solstice."

Terrence McKenna

 

Sura LII

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

By the Mount (of Revelation);

By a Decree Inscribed

By the much-frequented Fane;

By the Canopy Raised High;

And by the Ocean

  Filled with Swell;-

Verily, the Doom of thy Lord

Will indeed come to pass;-

There is none

  Can avert it;-

On the Day when

   The firmament will be 

   In dreadful commotion

And the mountains will fly

   Hither and thither--

the KORAN

Sura LII

 

 

The end of the world is very near

So take your time."

Abdul Mati Klarwein

 

There will be no conclusion.

THE END...........

 

Amen, Even so, come, Lord Jesus

Rev 22:20

 

Book: "The End of the World. a history...by Otto Friedrich

Book: "The End of the World" by Tom Mciver

Book: "The Cult At the End of The World" by David E. Kaplan & Andrew Marshall

Book: "The End of the World" …edited by Lewis H. Lapham

Book: "Everyday Apocalypse" by David Dark

Book: "Alpha and Omega: Visions of the Millennium" Frances Lincoln

Article: "Apocalypse Now: How a hologram, a blimp, and a massively multiplayer game could bring peace to the Holy Land" by Joshua Davis. Wired Mag April 2004

Book: "The End of Days" by Gersom Gorenberg

Book: "End-Time Visions: The Road To Armageddon" by Richard Abanes

Book: "The Doctrine of Revelation: A Narrative Interpretation" by Gabriel Fackre

Book: "The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction" by John Leslie

Book: "Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future in This Century on Earth and Beyond." by Martin Rees

Book: "Avoiding Armageddon: Our Future, Our choice by Martin Schram

Book: "The Apocalypse And The Shape of Things To Come" Ed. by Frances Carey

Book: "Doomsday: End-of-the-World Scenarios" by Richard Moran

© 2001

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