The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] Over the next few days, we will be exploring a very significant and profound anthroposophical topic. Before we begin our reflections, let me express my deepest satisfaction that we are able to discuss this profound and significant topic here in the presence of friends from so many different regions of Germany—and indeed, of Europe. Above all, I wish to express this satisfaction to our dear friends from Nuremberg, who, for their part, will certainly be no less delighted than the one speaking to them to cultivate anthroposophical life here in this city together with our friends from out of town for a relatively extended period. For it is precisely in this city that, alongside the most earnest striving for knowledge of the great spiritual-scientific truths, there has always been such a strong emphasis—and such a profound understanding—of what the anthroposophical spirit is, what a truly anthroposophical life is—this anthroposophical life, which we can only understand when the teachings of spiritual science are not merely something that occupies us theoretically, but when they become something that spiritualizes, enlivens, and elevates our own lives down to the deepest depths of the soul—and which also binds us more closely together with our fellow human beings and with the whole world. It means a great deal to human beings to feel that everything we encounter externally in the sensory world, in sensory-visible existence, can appear as the outer physiognomy of an underlying invisible, supersensory existence. After all, for those who bring anthroposophy into their lives, the world—with all that is within it—becomes more and more a physiognomic expression of the divine-spiritual essence; and when they look at the visible world around them, it will be as if they were penetrating through the features of a human face to the heart, to the soul of the human being. In the face of everything that meets him externally—in mountains and rocks, in the vegetation of the earth, in animals and human beings, in everything that meets him in the entire world surrounding us, in all human activities—it will be as if it were a physiognomic expression, as if it were the countenance of an underlying divine-spiritual existence. And new life springs forth for him from all this way of looking at things and permeates him, and a different, noble kind of enthusiasm fuels whatever he sets out to do.

[ 2 ] Let me recall just one small, illustrative example from my recent experiences on one of my lecture tours. The example I wish to share with you shows how world history—when viewed as an expression of the divine-spiritual—appears significant everywhere, speaking to us in a new language everywhere. A few weeks ago in Scandinavia, I was able to perceive how, in the very fabric of life in the northern part of Europe, everything still reveals an echo of that ancient existence of the Nordic world, where all spiritual life was permeated by an awareness of the beings who stand behind the Nordic mythological deities. One might say that in those countries, echoes of what the initiates of the Druidic mysteries and the Drotten mysteries imparted to their disciples—namely, the ancient Nordic spiritual life—can be heard in everything one encounters. There one becomes aware of how the magical breath of that spiritual life permeates the North, and one sees something like the expression of beautiful karmic connections. One finds oneself—as I was able to do in Uppsala—placed, so to speak, right in the midst of it all when one has before one the first of the Germanic Bible translations, Ulflas’s Silver Codex. It found its way to Uppsala as if through karmic entanglements of a special kind. It had, after all, previously been in Prague. During the Swedish War, it was captured and brought to Uppsala, and there it now lies, a symbol of what permeates those who are able to look a little more deeply into the ancient mystery traditions. It is indeed this mystery tradition—this penetration into the spiritual world within the ancient European cultures—that is permeated and interwoven with a common, remarkable trait, one that was felt more deeply by those who received initiation in those ancient times. It was like a tragic current passing through their hearts when it was made clear to them that, although they could glimpse into the mysteries of existence, something would come in the future that would appear as the complete solution to the riddle. Time and again they were reminded that a higher light was to shine into the knowledge that could be explored in the ancient mysteries. It may be said that all these ancient mysteries contained prophetic references to what was to come in the future—to the appearance of Christ Jesus. The tone, the spirit of anticipation, and the mood of prophecy were inherent in this Nordic mystery tradition.

[ 3 ] We must not force or push a statement such as the one I am about to make, nor should we press it or think of it in overly sharp terms. It is meant only to express, in a symptomatic way, the deeper truth that underlies it. But in what remains like a final leaf from the traditions of the ancient Germanic mysteries—in the Siegfried saga—there is something akin to a glimpse into the mysteries of that mindset. When we are reminded that Siegfried is truly the representative of the ancient Norse initiation, when we are reminded that a leaf lies at the spot where he is vulnerable, that this spot is on his back, then the one who is able to sense such things symbolically feels: This is the spot where something else will lie in the human being once he is no longer susceptible to the wounding that the initiates of the Old Norse mysteries could still suffer. — The cross is to cover that spot. There the cross of Christ Jesus is to lie; it did not yet lie there for the initiates of the Old Norse mysteries. This is alluded to in the ancient mysteries of the Germanic peoples, in the Siegfried saga. And so even there it is symbolically indicated how the ancient initiations of the Druids and the Drotten are to be understood in harmony with the mysteries of Christianity. This placement of the first Germanic Bible translation within the Nordic world serves as a kind of physiognomic expression of this connection. And the fact that this is like a karmic chain of events may be symbolized to you once again by the circumstance that eleven leaves were once stolen from this Silver Codex, and that the later owner of those leaves felt such pangs of conscience that he did not wish to keep them but returned them. As I said, one should not force or push such things, but rather regard them as symbolic representations of those karmic entanglements that find their physiognomic expression in the placement of the first Germanic Bible translation within the Nordic world. And just as this historical event is interpreted here, so too is everything we encounter in life—great and small—deepened and illuminated by a new light through the anthroposophical outlook, which manifests itself in the recognition that everything physically perceptible is the physiognomic expression of a supersensible-spiritual reality.

[ 4 ] May this conviction—that this is indeed the case—permeate us, especially during this course. And may the spirit and the feelings that flow into our souls during the twelve apocalyptic lectures, which are meant to penetrate our hearts, spring from such a conviction. With this mindset, let us approach this course, which takes the deepest document of Christianity—the Apocalypse of John—as its starting point, because the deepest truths of Christianity can truly be connected to this document in a natural way. For this text contains nothing less than a large part of the mysteries of Christianity; it contains the very depths of what we must call esoteric Christianity. No wonder, then, that of all Christian texts, this one in particular has been misunderstood the most. It has been misunderstood almost from the very beginning of the Christian spiritual movement by all those who did not belong to the true Christian initiates. And it has been misunderstood in various eras, always in the sense and style characteristic of the thinking and mindset of those times. It has been misunderstood by eras that, one might say, thought in spiritual-materialistic terms; by eras that forced major religious movements into one-sided, fanatical partisan strife; and in more recent times, it has been misunderstood by those who believed they could solve the mysteries of the world through crude, purely sensory materialism.

[ 5 ] The lofty spiritual truths that were proclaimed at the dawn of Christianity—and which were revealed to those capable of understanding them—are alluded to, as far as is possible in a written text, in the Apocalypse of John, the so-called canonical Apocalypse. But even in the earliest days of Christianity, the exotericists were ill-equipped to understand the profound spiritual truths intended in esoteric Christianity. And so, in the very earliest days of Christianity, the view arose in exotericism that events which initially unfold in the spiritual realm for the sake of world evolution—events that are recognizable and perceptible to those who can look into the spiritual worlds—that such purely spiritual processes were supposed to play out outwardly in material cultural life. And so it came to pass that, while the writer of the Book of Revelation expressed the results of his initiation his Christian initiation, the others understood them only exoterically and were of the opinion that what the great seer had beheld—and what the initiate knows takes place spiritually over millennia—must take place in the very near future in outward, sensibly perceptible life. Thus the view arose that the writer had meant something like a descent or return of Christ Jesus taking place in the physically perceptible clouds in the near future. When that did not happen, people simply extended the timeframe and said: Well, with the appearance of Christ Jesus, a new era has begun for the Earth in contrast to what had been the old religiosity. But it will—and this, too, was interpreted in a sensory way—last a thousand years, during which the next events described in the Apocalypse will unfold in a physical and sensory manner. — And so it came to pass that, as the year 1000 drew near, many people were indeed awaiting the arrival of some power hostile to Christianity—an Antichrist who was to appear in the physical world. And when that, in turn, did not come to pass, a new extension of the deadline was set, so to speak; at the same time, however, the entire prophecy of the Apocalypse was elevated to a certain level of symbolism, whereas among the crude exotericists this prophecy had been imagined in rather concrete terms. With the rise of a materialistic worldview, these matters came to be understood in a certain symbolic light. People saw symbolic hints in external events.

[ 6 ] Thus, in the twelfth century, there arose Joachim of Floris—who died at the beginning of the thirteenth century—who offered a remarkable interpretation of this mysterious document of Christianity. He held, in fact, that a profound spiritual power lay at the heart of Christianity, that this power must spread ever more widely, but that external Christianity had always trivialized this esoteric Christianity. And so, for many, this man’s view gained traction—namely, that within the papal church, in this externalization of Christianity’s spirituality, something antichristian, something hostile, was to be found. And this view was particularly fueled in the centuries that followed by the fact that great value was placed on the spiritualism of Christianity and on the contemplative, spiritual element found in certain religious orders. Thus, Joachim of Floris found followers within Franciscan circles who saw in the Pope something like the embodiment of the Antichrist. Then, during the Protestant era, this view spread to those who regarded the Roman Catholic Church as a renegade from Christianity and saw the salvation of Christianity within Protestantism. They saw the Pope all the more as the symbol of the Antichrist, and the Pope retaliated by, in turn, seeing Luther as the Antichrist.

[ 7 ] Thus, the Apocalypse was interpreted in such a way that each faction used it to support its own viewpoint and opinion. The opposing faction was always the Antichrist, and the faction to which one belonged was identified with true Christianity. This continued right up to more recent times, when modern materialism emerged—a materialism so crude that even it cannot be compared to the materialism I have described to you regarding the first centuries of Christianity. For back then, there was still a spiritual faith, a certain spiritual perspective. People simply could not understand it because they had no initiates among them. A certain spiritual sense was present, for even if one imagined in a crude, literal way that a being would descend in a cloud, this still involved a spiritual faith. Such a spiritual life was no longer possible amid the crude materialism of the nineteenth century. The thoughts that a true nineteenth-century materialist has about the Apocalypse can be characterized something like this: No one can see into the future, for I myself cannot. No one else can see anything other than what I see. To speak of initiates is an old superstition. Such a thing does not exist. Therefore, what I know is the standard. I can barely see what will happen in the next ten years, so no one can say anything about what is to happen over the course of millennia. Consequently, if the author of the Apocalypse wants to be taken seriously as an honest person, he must have been referring to something he had already seen, for I, too, know only what has already taken place and what has been recorded in documents. Therefore, the author of the Apocalypse could not have seen anything else either. What, then, can he recount? Only what had happened up to his time. Consequently, it goes without saying that in the events of the Apocalypse—in the conflicts between the good, the wise, the beautiful world and the ugly, the foolish, the evil world—one must see in that dramatic juxtaposition nothing other than what the man himself had experienced, what had already happened. — So speaks the modern materialist. He believes: The apocalyptic writer describes things just as I do.

[ 8 ] What, then, was roughly the most terrible thing for a Christian of the first centuries? For him, this most terrible thing must have been the beast that rears up against the spiritual power of Christianity, against true Christianity. Unfortunately, some people have heard the bells ringing a little, but have not sensed their true clanging.

[ 9 ] Within certain esoteric schools, a kind of numeric script was used. Certain words that people did not wish to convey in ordinary writing were expressed through numbers. And, like so many other things, some of the deep mysteries of the Apocalypse were also encoded in numbers—especially that dramatic event associated with the number 666. It was understood that numbers must be treated in a special way, particularly when they are so explicitly referenced as in the words: “Here is wisdom.” “The number of the beast is 666.” With such references, it was understood that certain letters must be substituted for the numbers in order to discern their meaning. Now, those who had heard something but didn’t really know anything figured out, based on their materialistic worldview, that if you substitute letters for the number 666, the word “Nero” or “Caesar Nero” emerges. And today, in much of the literature dealing with the interpretation of the Apocalypse, you can read: People used to be so foolish that they read all sorts of things into this passage, but now the mystery has been solved. Now we know that it refers to nothing other than Nero, “Caesar Nero,” and it is clear that the Book of Revelation was written at a time when Nero had already lived, and that the writer intended to say through all this that the Antichrist had appeared in the person of Nero; that is, what lies in this dramatic element is a culmination of preceding elements. Now one need only investigate what happened immediately beforehand. Then one comes to understand what the author of the Apocalypse intended to describe. It is reported that earthquakes occurred in Asia Minor while the conflict between Nero and Christianity was raging. So these are the earthquakes that the author of the Book of Revelation mentions when the seals are opened and the trumpets sound. He also speaks of locust plagues. Indeed, it is recorded that locust plagues also occurred during Nero’s persecution of the Christians. So he is recounting these events. — Thus, the nineteenth century has reduced the deepest document of Christianity to a purely materialistic interpretation, seeing in it nothing more than a description of what can be found through a materialistic view of the world. This is mentioned only to indicate how thoroughly this very document—the deepest and most significant of esoteric Christianity—has been misunderstood.

[ 10 ] And now let us save everything there is to say about the historical background of the Book of Revelation for a later time, when we have grasped what lies within the Book of Revelation; that is to say, let us postpone it until the final lectures. For anyone who has already become somewhat familiar with anthroposophy, there can be no doubt that the very opening words of the Apocalypse point to what it is meant to be. We need only recall that it says: The one from whom the content of the Book of Revelation originates was transported to a solitary island, which had always been imbued with a kind of sacred atmosphere, to a place of ancient mystery culture. And when we are told that the same one who provides the content of the Book of Revelation was in the spirit and that he perceived what he reveals in the spirit, this may initially serve as an indication to us that the content of the Book of Revelation originates from a higher state of consciousness, which the human being attains through the development of the inner creative capacity of the soul—through initiation. What cannot be seen or heard within the sensory world—what cannot be perceived by the external senses—is contained in the so-called Secret Revelation of John, in the form in which it could be communicated to the world through Christianity. Thus, what we have before us in the Apocalypse of John is a description of an initiation, a Christian initiation. We need only briefly—one might say, in passing—to call to mind what initiation is. We will, of course, delve ever deeper into this topic, into the question: What happens during an initiation? — and we will explore ever more deeply the question: How does initiation relate to the content of the Apocalypse? — But first we will sketch out something like a charcoal drawing in broad strokes, and only then will we proceed to fill in the details.

[ 11 ] Initiation is the development of the powers and abilities that lie dormant in every soul. If one wishes to form a picture of how this actually takes place, one must first and foremost clearly envision what the consciousness of the average person today is like; then one will also recognize how the consciousness of the initiate differs from that of the average person today. What, then, is the consciousness of the average person today? It is a fluctuating one. Two very different states of consciousness alternate with one another: that of waking during the day and that of sleep at night. The consciousness we have while awake consists in perceiving the sensory objects around us and linking them through concepts that can only be formed by a sensory instrument—the human brain. Then, every night, the astral body and the “I” emerge from the lowest members of the human being—the physical and etheric bodies—and with this, the sensory objects around the modern person sink into darkness for their consciousness; and not only these, for what is called complete unconsciousness prevails until reawakening. Darkness spreads around the human being. For the human astral body is today, in its normal state, organized in such a way that it cannot perceive for itself what is in its surroundings. It must have instruments. These instruments are the physical senses. Therefore, in the morning, it must re-enter the physical body and make use of the sensory instruments. Why does the astral body see nothing when it is in the spirit world during nighttime sleep? Why does it not perceive anything? For the same reason that a physical body lacking eyes and ears could not perceive physical colors and physical sounds. The astral body has no organs for perception in the astral world. In time immemorial, the physical body was in the same situation. It, too, did not yet possess what was later sculpted into it as ears and eyes. The external elements and forces chiseled it out, formed its eyes and ears, and thus this world—which had previously been a mystery to it—became revealed to it. Let us imagine for a moment that the astral body—which is today in the same situation as the physical body was in the past—could be treated in such a way that organs were incorporated into it, just as sunlight has sculpted the physical eyes and the world of sound has sculpted the physical ears into the soft mass of the physical human body. Let us imagine that organs could be worked into the malleable mass of the astral body; then the astral body would come to be in the same position as today’s physical body. That is what it is all about: working into this astral body—like a sculptor shaping clay—the organs of perception for the supersensory world. That must be the first step. If a person wishes to become clairvoyant, their astral body must be treated like a mass of clay by a sculptor: one must mold organs into it. This was, in fact, what was always done in the schools of initiation and in the Mysteries. The organs were sculpted into the astral body.

[ 12 ] What, then, is the process by which the organs are sculpted into the astral body? One might think that one would first have to have this body before one could sculpt the organs into it. One might say: If I could take the astral body out and have it in front of me, then I could fashion the organs into it. — That would not be the right way, and above all, it is not the way of modern initiation. Certainly, an initiate capable of living in the spiritual worlds could, when the astral body is outside at night, sculpt the organs into it like a sculptor. But that would mean doing something to a person without their knowledge; it would mean interfering with their sphere of freedom, excluding their consciousness. We shall see why this must never happen, not only for quite some time now but especially in the present day. That is why even in such esoteric schools as the Pythagorean or ancient Egyptian schools, everything had to be avoided that might have led the initiates to work from the outside on the astral body, which had been separated from the physical and etheric bodies of the person to be initiated. This had to be avoided from the very outset. The first step toward initiation simply had to be taken with the human being in the entirely ordinary physical world—the very same world in which human beings perceive through their physical senses. But how could this be done, since it is precisely physical perception—as it emerged in Earth’s evolution—that has drawn a veil over the spiritual world, which human beings were once able to perceive, albeit with a dim consciousness? How, then, could one act upon the astral body from within the physical world?

[ 13 ] We must bring to light what is really going on with this ordinary sensory perception that takes place during the day. What actually happens while a person is perceiving the world during the day? Think for a moment about your daily life; follow it step by step. With every step, impressions from the outside world reach you. You perceive them—you see, hear, smell, and so on. The impressions associated with this or that task come rushing at you all day long, and you process them with your intellect. The poet, who is not himself inspired, infuses them with his imagination. All of this is true. But none of it can, at first, lead to the supersensible-spiritual realm—which lies behind the sensory and material—coming into human consciousness. Why does it not come into consciousness? Because all this activity that a person engages in toward the external world does not correspond to the astral body of the human being, as it is today in its true nature. Back in the distant past, when the astral body inherent to human beings saw the images of astral perceptions rising up—those images of pleasure and pain, of sympathy and antipathy—the inner impulses were present, the spiritual impulses that caused what formed organs to arise within the human being. These were extinguished back then, when human beings became capable of allowing all external influences to flow into them. Today it is not possible for anything from all the impressions a person receives during the day to remain in the astral body in a form that is malleable and plastic for them. The process of perception is as follows: Throughout the day, impressions from the external world reach us. These impressions act through the physical senses on the etheric and astral bodies until they become conscious to the “I.” In the astral body, the effects of what is exerted upon the physical body are expressed. When light impressions occur, the eye receives them. The light impression leaves an imprint on the etheric and astral bodies, and the “I” becomes conscious of this impression. The same is true of the impressions on the ear and the other senses. This entire daily life therefore acts upon the astral body throughout the day. The astral body is always active under the influence of the external world. Now, in the evening, it steps out. At that time, it possesses no powers within itself to make the impressions that are now present in its surroundings become conscious. The ancient powers of perception from the distant past were extinguished upon the first perception of the present sensory world. At night, it has no powers because the entire daily life is unsuited to leaving anything behind in the astral body that could have a formative effect on it. All things, as you see them all around you, exert effects right down to the astral body. But what is brought about there is not capable of creating forms that could become astral organs. This must be the first step of initiation: to allow the human being, during the course of daily life, to do something—to allow something to unfold within his soul—that continues to have an effect when the astral body is drawn out of the physical and etheric bodies at night. So imagine, figuratively speaking, that while the person is fully conscious, they are given something to do, something to let unfold within themselves—something chosen and structured in such a way that it does not cease to have an effect once the day is over. Imagine this effect as a tone that continues to ring out after the astral body has left; this lingering resonance would then be the forces that now act upon the astral body, working upon it as vividly as the external forces once worked upon the physical body. This has always been the first step of initiation: to have a person perform something during their waking life that continues to resonate into their night life. All that which has been called meditation, concentration, and the other exercises that a person has undertaken during their daily life are nothing other than activities of the soul whose effects do not cease when the astral body departs, but rather continue to resonate and become forces that take shape in the astral body during the night.

[ 14 ] This is called the purification of the astral body—the purification of whatever is not appropriate for the astral body. That was the first step, which was also called catharsis, or purification. It was not yet work in the supersensible worlds. It consisted of exercises for the soul that a person performed during the day, like a form of training for the soul. It consisted of adopting certain ways of living, certain attitudes toward life, and a certain way of approaching life so that its effects could linger; and this worked on the astral body until it had been transformed, until organs had developed within it.

[ 15 ] Once human beings had reached the stage where these organs had been separated from the astral body, the next step was for everything that had been formed within the astral body to be imprinted in the etheric body. Just as the impression of a seal is imprinted in sealing wax, so everything that had been worked into the astral body had to be imprinted in the etheric body. This imprinting is the next step in initiation: it was called enlightenment. For with this, a significant moment in the initiation had arrived at the same time. A spiritual world then appeared in the human being’s environment, just as the sensory world had been present before. This stage is also characterized by the fact that the processes of the outer spiritual world do not express themselves in the same way as physical-sensory things do, but rather in images. At this stage of enlightenment, the spiritual world expresses itself first and foremost in images. The human being sees images. Think of the ancient initiate whom I mentioned yesterday, who saw the group soul of a people. When he had reached that stage, he initially saw this group soul in images. Let us consider, for example, an initiate such as Ezekiel. When his enlightenment began, spiritual beings approached him as national or group souls. He felt himself in their midst. Group souls in the form of four symbolic animals came before him.

[ 16 ] Thus, the spiritual world first approached human beings through meaningful images. That was the first stage. This was followed by a further immersion into the etheric body. What was initially present as a kind of seal impression was followed by a further immersion into the etheric body. At this point, what has been called “sphere music” begins to join the images. The higher spiritual world is perceived as sound. After perceiving the spiritual world in images through enlightenment, the higher initiate begins to listen spiritually for those sounds that are perceptible to the spiritual ear. Then we come to the subsequent transformation of the etheric body, and there, in an even higher sphere, something else presents itself to us. You can still hear sounds, for example, if you have a screen here and a person is speaking behind it whom you cannot see. It is much the same with the spiritual world. First it appears in images, then sounds reach us, and the final veil falls away—as it were, as if we were to remove a screen behind which a person stands and speaks: we see the person themselves—we see the spiritual world itself, the beings of the spiritual world. First we perceive the images, then the sounds, then the beings, and finally the life of these beings. After all, what exists as images in the so-called imaginative world can only be hinted at by using images from the sensory world as symbols. One can only convey an idea of the harmony of the spheres through comparisons with sensory music. What, then, can be compared to the essential expression on the third level? It can only be compared to what today constitutes the innermost essence of the human being: his or her activity in accordance with the divine will of the worlds. If a human being acts in accordance with the will of those spiritual beings who advance our world, then the being within him or her will become like these beings, and then he or she will perceive in this sphere. That which in him resists “world evolution”—that which holds the world back in its progress—he perceives as something that must be eliminated from this world, something that must fall away like a final shell.

[ 17 ] Thus, human beings first perceive a world of images as the symbolic expression of the spiritual world, then a world of spherical harmony as the symbolic expression of a higher spiritual sphere, and then a world of spiritual beings, of which he can form a conception today only by comparing them with the innermost part of his own being—with that which acts within him in the sense of the good forces or, conversely, in the sense of the evil spiritual forces.

[ 18 ] The initiate passes through these stages, and these stages are faithfully depicted in the Book of Revelation. The starting point there is the physical world. What must first be said using the means of the physical world is conveyed in the seven letters. Whatever one wishes to accomplish within physical culture, whatever one wishes to communicate to those who are active in the physical world, is conveyed to them in letters. For the word expressed in a letter can exert its effect within the sensory world. The first stage provides symbols that must be related to what they express in the spiritual world: Following the seven letters comes the world of the seven seals, the world of images, the first stage of initiation. Then comes the world of spherical harmony, the world as perceived by one who can hear spiritually. It is represented by the seven trumpets. The next world, where the initiate perceives beings, is represented by what appears as beings at this stage and which sheds the husks of the forces that are opposed to the good. The opposite of divine love is divine wrath. The true form of divine love, which propels the world forward, is perceived in this third sphere by those who have cast off the seven bowls of wrath from the physical world.

[ 19 ] Thus, the initiate is gradually led upward through the spheres of initiation. In the seven letters of the Book of Revelation, we find what belongs to the seven categories of the physical world; in the seven seals, what belongs to the astral-imaginative world; in the seven trumpets, what belongs to the higher Devachanic world; and in the seven bowls of wrath, that which must be cast off if the human being is to rise into the highest spiritual realm—the one that is initially attainable for our world, because this highest spiritual realm is still connected to our world.

[ 20 ] Today we wanted to outline only the basic structure of the Book of Revelation. These are just a few brief, fleeting strokes that suggest to us that the Book of Revelation is a book of initiation. Tomorrow we will begin to take the first steps toward fleshing out this rough sketch.