My writing was initialised by reading the book of Revelation by John; the quotations are based on the Holly Bible. Everything I describe here applies to all prophets and prophecies, in past and future. 

Prophecies and predictions - like religions - share humanity into believers and nonbelievers. That is why some people believe everything, while the majority of people reject everything. Yet predictions and prophecies are as much a part of our culture as poems and novels, and our job is to learn from them, to understand their meaning. Everything that we study in the outside world, in the macrocosm, ultimately leads to a deeper understanding of ourselves, of our own personality, our own mind, our microcosm. Therefore, we cannot exclude anything from the scope of our investigations, because everything, the whole cosmos around us, serves the purpose of bringing us closer to ourselves. 

However, for the comprehension is not enough to try to observe and understand phenomena with our minds, because the mind does not allow objective perception. We deceive ourselves countless times if we judge things from the level of the mind. How to look at things from other levels has to be learned, just like how to read or write. 

The first question that arises in connection with the subject in question is: how suitable are the persons who have given (are giving) prediction or prophecy about the future of man (humanity) for this task? My answer: more or less. Religious people would probably cite absolute faith in God as the number one condition for someone to be credible as a prophet. In my opinion, however, the number one condition is "purity". What should be pure? The mind should. That means no karmic germs in the mind at all (or at least not related to what is prophesied). Karma germs are unprocessed (unconscious) information that influences the prophet's vision. If we look at past prophets with this eye, not many of them meet the condition. The result is that at best, only half of their claims may be true, and we don't even know which half. What do we do with such prophecy? Throw it in the bin? Until there is no better one, in no case. Let us try to understand human nature better through it. 

Most contemporary "prophets" having Christian or similar approach base their prophecies on the book of Revelation, trying to unfold it with varying degrees of success, which then becomes a prophecy of the end of the world. I will now make an attempt to explain the working principle of prophecy, without undermining anyone's faith in what they believe.
 

What is the purpose of prophecy and the prophet?

A prophecy is a vision that the prophet experiences in an altered state of consciousness. The vision may be about the future of humanity, a revelation of God's will, the initiation of a task. The clairvoyant prophet must be without intention (at least at the moment of prophecy), because having a purpose already gives a certain orientation. In John's case, the purpose is clearly visible: 1) to confirm the early, persecuted Christians in their faith by promising them election and salvation in the Kingdom of Heaven, 2) to influence the persecutors, the unbelievers (Gentiles, i.e. all non-Christians), by envisaging for them punishment, suffering, even hell beyond death, 3) to exalt Jesus. 

These are the natural, conscious and subconscious intentions of a devout prophet. The prophets' job is to strengthen the weak in their faith. They are also fond of scaring people with God's punishment in order to achieve their goal of making more people convert or making change their behaviour. It is important to note that in this writing John testified of Jesus as the Saviour (the Lamb) before whom the whole world bowed down, because only He was worthy to open the seventh seal of the sealed book. 

Unintentionality would mean that the prophet surrenders himself to the Almighty Universal God (as Jesus did) so that God manifests through him. At this point, I need to clarify my purpose too. Well, my purpose is to make the workings of the human mind aware. I am not committed to any religion, I do not want to convert anyone, I just want to see the facts clearly and show them. But I am committed to the service of the Almighty Universal God and to the truth, independent of religion. This defines my approach.
 

How is prophecy arising?

The altered state of consciousness above the mind that gives rise to a vision can occur spontaneously or consciously. In John's case, it was a state in which the gates were opened for him to see into another dimension. John, or his followers, interpreted what he had seen, as the future, and so it became a prophecy. 

My first comment on this is that one of the biggest challenges of visions is the perception of time. Anyone who has ever been in an altered state of consciousness knows that in this state there is no time. Time is a product of the mind. In visions, past, present and future are perceived simultaneously. The mind can arrange events in a chronological order according to some logic when one returns from the altered state of consciousness to the ordinary, mind-conscious state. In John, we observe that he did not even attempt to put what he saw into chronological order, so that his vision can at best be regarded as a partial prophecy. For much of the vision he contemplates the play of symbolic apparence of future and contemporary events from a different state of consciousness (dimension).
 

What do we see when we have a vision?

As I mentioned, the vision come into being in the state above the everyday mind-consciousness. In order to understand what we see, we need to know at least the layers of ordinary consciousness, the unconscious, the collective unconscious, the superconscious and the collective superconscious. And these are still only layers that can be related to the mental level, which only indirectly connected to the Transcendent (insofar as they are a narrowed projection of it). John could hardly have been aware of them, nor could he have had any real yoga training to control the centre of the vision. The yogi learns to control his consciousness; to shift his attention and concentration to a specific centre of consciousness, even to raise it outside himself/herself, and to maintain these states stably. This is how the yogi's clairvoyance comes into being, which in this way is no longer a spontaneous visionary mixture, but a conscious contemplation and understanding of the world of the present (or future). 

So, what did John see, and do we have anything to do with it here and now? John has glimpsed the layers above and below the collective consciousness. He saw that the majority of people were motivated by dark and unconscious forces (Satan) of subconsciousness, in the past, these forces are acting in the present and will act in the future, and that their consciousness was being pulled back to the deep astral planes (hell realms) by these mental forces. He also saw that from these states of consciousness (worlds), faith in angels, Jesus, God, could lift people into higher states of consciousness (worlds, e.g. the Kingdom of Heaven). And this applies both to their life and to their state after death. In other words, there is a continuity of consciousness; the state of consciousness you reach at the moment of death continues after death!

All these statements can only be found between the lines. It may be that the essence was lost in the storms of history, or that John understood that only so much of his vision, or that he was able to convey only that so much to the people of his day. Here are some quotes:

17.8. "The beast which you saw, was and is not; and it comes up out of the abyss.... The inhabitants of the Earth wondered when they saw the beast that was, and is not; though it is."

17.9 "Lo is the mind in which is wisdom." 

17.8. The beast, the Satan that is, though there is not, emerges from the depths of our own subconscious, representing the motivating forces of our own ignorance, our own darkness. That is why it is, though it is not, because if we clear the mind, it ceases to exist. 17.9. contains the gist, but we can think that the sentence seems to be not finished. Although yes. The mind in which there is wisdom (no unconscious, dark motivating forces) is victorious over Satan. But if a person does not develop this wisdom, then his/her faith is the only thing he/she can hold on to. (I disregard from further literal analysis of the text.) 

But what is the book with seven seals, the seventh seal of which only Jesus can break? The interpretations so far have interpreted the book of seven seals as a description of the future of mankind, which will take place until the Last Judgement. 

My opinion is different. The book with the seven seals is the book of Cosmic Lows. Everything that happens to mankind is the result of operation of divine Cosmic Laws, not divine punishment. The vision wanted to show John the workings of the Laws. According to the law of repercussion (karma), everything you do to others you do to yourself, because ALL IS ONE. If you ignorantly separate yourself from the Oneness view, you exclude yourself from the Oneness, and to be excluded from the Oneness is hell itself. In this sense, it becomes clear why Jesus is the one who saves. From what does he deliver? From the effect of Cosmic Law, in a narrower sense from the law of karma. What did Jesus represent? Christlike love!

So, Christlike love is the only thing that breaks the wheel of karma, that is, it overrides the Law! This is the most important meaning of the book of Revelation. It is useless to wait for Last Judgment or fear of it, because it is happening all the time. Instead, "Seek ye rather the kingdom of God."

Margaret Rhasoda-Varga
UCCM head-master
(The sky touches the earth, excerpt)