The Apocalypse Code

The Apocalypse Code

Kevin Dann

Though it is rarely considered such, St. John's Book of Revelations -- like the Mayan Long Count -- is both a calendar and an instrument of prophecy, and like the Long Count, its chronological clairvoyance derives from its intimacy with the stars. . . The "clock" that measures out these cycles of seven in John's Revelations is the same one that plays into the Mayan calendar -- the precession of the equinoxes, caused by the wobble of the earth upon its axis, against the background of the starry heavens.

The Earth's axis falls back through the fixed stars, 1° every 72 years; since there are 30° in each zodiacal sign, it takes 2160 years (30 x 72) for the Sun's position at the vernal equinox to pass through each zodiacal constellation. A "zodiacal year" (also known as a Great Year or Platonic Year, since Plato was one of the first to refer to it) thus lasts 25,920 (12 x 2160) years. Our present cultural age -- of Pisces -- began in the year AD 1414. The Piscean cultural age will end in AD 3574; the two following cultural ages will bring the calendar to the year AD 7894. This brings humanity to the end of the seven letters of John's Revelations. The period of seven seals (7 x 2160 = 15,120) brings the date to AD 23,014; the final period of seven trumpets carries this apocalyptic calendar to AD 38,134, denoting the end of Earth evolution, when the great purging (seven vials of wrath) will commence. Surrounded as we are by an array of doom-saying prophets who anticipate that the year 2012 will bring global catastrophe, John's Book of Revelations is a comforting calendar, since it looks forward 36,000 years into the future!

Before this end date is reached, however, humanity must pass through many trials; this is the central message of Revelations. The exact meaning, and the exact timing, of these trials, has confounded readers of Revelations for nearly 2000 years. Expressed in imaginative pictures from a long lost clairvoyant experience, in the same way that the pictures came to the prophets of the Chilam Balam, the prophetic pictures of Revelations elude the modern mind. In addition, the many centuries of erroneous and largely ideologically-driven interpretive exercises have severely lessened the sense that we might have as moderns that this extraordinary text could still have any relevance for us. That its main students in our own time tend to be fundamentalists anticipating an imminent Rapture makes Revelations that much less appealing as a source for understanding the signs of the times. Yet if we can muster such titanic effort to penetrate the mysteries of the Mayan calendar, can we not bring similar effort to the archetypal work of Christian prophecy?

Linda Schele and her fellow Mayanists working in the late 20th century to crack the code of Maya hieroglyphics needed a "Rosetta Stone" to help them break through to a full understanding of ancient voices. . . John's Apocalypse demands a similar Rosetta Stone. The precessional clock is the "hour hand," allowing only the broadest of correlations between the pictures of the Apocalypse and historical events since John first recorded his visions. A "minute hand" is needed if these pictures are to serve at all as guides for the present and future. Since we are deciphering Christian "Long Count" prophecy, it is not surprising that we can find both the "Rosetta Stone" and the "minute hand" by following the chronology of the life of Christ to understand the present moment in history. The life of Christ - especially the time from the baptism in the Jordan through to his death and resurrection, together referred to as the Mystery of Golgotha - can be thought of as an embryonic period, a seed from which the future course of world history grows and bears fruit. Every deed performed by Christ has eternal significance, so that the rhythm of his life -- like the Mayan Long Count -- does not end, but perennially repeats in new cycles of Time.

The period between the Baptism and the Mystery of Golgotha we can liken to the period between conception and birth. The conception took place at the Baptism in the Jordan, on September 23, AD 29, when Christ incarnated into the physical body of Jesus. From that date through to Easter Sunday on April 5, AD 33 is a period of 1290 days. It is also the period mentioned by Daniel in the last chapter of the Book of Daniel. Each one of these days was a preparation for the unfolding of the future history of humanity. The key -- the "Apocalypse Code" -- to this unfolding of the Christ impulse is that one day in the life of Christ corresponds to 29½ years of history. Readers familiar with astronomy will know that this is the period required by Saturn to make one orbit of the zodiac. Applying the Apocalypse Code, the first day following on from the Baptism relates to the first 29½ years of history following the Mystery of Golgotha in AD 33, the second day to the second 29½ years, and so on. Applying the Apocalypse Code, we can thus actually determine when the end of the earth will take place. That is 1,290 times this Saturn rhythm of 29½ years, which takes us up to the year AD 38,000. This date is confirmed by the date -- AD 38,134 -- mentioned earlier in relation to the precessional cycle.

How can we apply the Apocalypse Code to answer the question: Where do we stand now, at the present point in time, in relation to the seed embryo of the life of Christ? Can we correlate the pictures of John's Book of Revelations as precisely as the Mayan prophetic calendar anticipated the Galactic Alignment on December 21, 2012, during the "2012 Window" from 1980 to 2016?

In applying the Apocalypse Code, each 29½-year period of history since the Mystery of Golgotha in AD 33 reflects the corresponding day in the life of Christ between the Baptism and the Resurrection. Thus, at present we are in the period described in the Gospels as the forty days of temptation in the wilderness. Historically, the period of temptation started on the evening of the Sabbath, Friday, October 21, AD 29. (The exact period of Saturn's orbital revolution is 29.4578 years. It is this exact period of 29.4578 years which is used in applying the Apocalypse Code, even if for the sake of simplicity the period is referred to as 29½ years.) The interval between the Baptism and the start of the period of temptation was 28 1/3 days. Taking this correspondence - 1 day = 29½ years, 28 1/3 x 29½ = 836 years -- we have to add this to the year 33, which is the starting point, AD 33 being the year of the Mystery of Golgotha. In terms of our calendar, therefore, the beginning of the temptation of humanity started in the year 869 (= 33 + 836). This was the year of the eighth Ecumenical Council, which took place in Constantinople, when the split began between the Eastern and the Western Churches.

At that point in time, Saturn was in sidereal Sagittarius. Every time that Saturn returns to sidereal Sagittarius we have a further day in these forty days of temptation. If we take the forty days and reckon 40 x 29½ = 1178 years, and add this onto 869, we find that the end of the period of temptation is in the year 2047, in the middle of the century.

We can be even more precise. The last day in the wilderness, the fortieth day, was the day on which Christ had overcome the temptations. In the Gospel of St. Matthew and the Gospel of St. Luke only three temptations are described. The overcoming of the three temptations is at the same time the overcoming of the forces of destruction. Fundamentally the whole of history is the story of humanity's wrestling with the three temptations. The culmination of the period of temptation was on the 39th day. The temptations lasted throughout almost the whole of the forty days, but the three temptations described in the Gospel of St. Matthew and the Gospel of St. Luke took place on the 37th, 38th, and 39th days. The 40th day was the day on which, as described in the Gospels, "Angels came and ministered unto him." Going back one Saturn revolution from AD 2047, we arrive at the start of the last day, the fortieth day, in the year 2018, when Saturn will next be in Sagittarius in the sidereal zodiac. Now we are already in the period of the 39th day. The 39th day commenced with Saturn in Sagittarius in 1988. At the present moment in time, from its present location in the zodiac, Saturn will pass further around the zodiac to be again in sidereal Sagittarius in the year 2018. Clearly, the Apocalypse Code (39th day: 1988-2018) leads to almost exactly the same historical time frame as the end of the Mayan Long Count, or, rather, the "2012 Window" from 1980 to 2016.
What do the Gospels say took place on the 39th day in the wilderness? This was the day of the third temptation, the temptation of turning stones into bread. This is basically the temptation of materialism, when the material world replaces the spiritual reality of existence, expressed in the words, "turning stones into bread." Christ's reply to this temptation was, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God." In other words, Christ directs our attention to the spiritual, to the divine Word which proceeds from the spiritual realm. Thus, our challenge is to honor the spiritual above the material. It is interesting that Christ says, "Man does not live by bread alone." It is clear we do need bread. We need the material, and we have to respect the material world, but it should not be the sole focus of our attention.

There is, however, a more subtle level of this third temptation, which it is important to understand. At the third temptation on the 39th day in the wilderness, the command of Satan/Ahriman to Christ was to turn stones into bread. For humanity as a whole, this can be interpreted as substituting something lifeless and mechanical for the living, and it is this that our modern civilization, with the help of technology, has perfected. It has now come to the point where millions of people around the world prefer the television or computer screen to the real world around us. Briefly, then, virtual reality is the modern form of turning stones into bread, where the images on the screen appear to be living, although they are actually dead and lifeless. It is this that is referred to in Revelations as "worshiping the image" (Revelations 13:13-15).

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