Theos-Talk Archives (May 2006 Message tt00778)

Although my new book, The Revelation of Saint John (Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006), 
has just been published, a few reviews are now available.

Some of you may be familiar with Richard Smoley. He is the author of Inner 
Christianity, and of Forbidden Faith: The Gnostic Legacy from the Gospels to 
the Da Vinci Code. Richard is a "consulting editor" of Parabola Magazine and 
was the keynote speaker at the Theosophical Society in America's 
Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference called "Globalization and Spirituality: 
Creating a Language of Possibility." Regarding my book, Richard stated: "A 
powerful and indispensable guide for those who want to explore the deepest 
mysteries of Revelation. Just as importantly, it rescues this holy text from 
the clutches of insane prophets of doom."

Here is the "editorial review" given on the Amazon site:

"The Revelation of St. John, the last book of the canonical Bible, has been 
a mystery since it first appeared. No other part of the Bible has caused 
more controversy. Traditional interpretations of the book fall into one of 
three categories: the major prophecies that are supposed to have been 
fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.; the historical view 
that Revelation predicts the course of human events from the founding of 
Christianity to the end of the world; or the futurist view that Revelation 
predicts events that will occur at the end of the world.

It's actually none of the above, writes Zachary F. Lansdowne, a leading 
expert in the field of spiritual initiation. In the Introduction to this 
rich and complex interpretation, he writes, "According to its own verses, 
the Revelation is concerned with the present time, which is whatever time we 
happen to be reading it, and contains information that we can apply 
immediately to become blessed."

This is not a book about "end times" or Armageddon and when it might come. 
This is a book written entirely in symbols, concealing a path for early 
Christians, and for the contemporary reader. Lansdowne has applied a unique 
psychological method of interpretation that takes each symbol as depicting 
some aspect of human consciousness rather than an eternal event, thus 
showing that the Revelation is actually a detailed instruction for the 
spiritual journey-a map to the wakening of higher consciousness. Moreover, 
while the Revelation appears in the great lineage of Judeo-Christian 
tradition, Lansdowne shows that its instruction can be appreciated and 
applied to seekers from any tradition.

Lansdowne's line-by-line and verse-by-verse interpretation-presented here in 
an easy-to-read side-by-side format-is a manual for the true seeker who 
would follow teachings of Jesus as they were and are laid out, rather than 
as they have been interpreted by theologians and biblical historians. The 
Revelation of St. John, when unlocked by the key of psychological 
methodology, is revealed to contain ideas from many diverse wisdom 
traditions and philosophies-archangels in Judaism, chakras and kundalini in 
Hinduism, Buddhist mindfulness, the redemptive power of love in 
Christianity, and absolute standards of comparison in Platonic philosophy. 
Zachary Lansdowne's revelatory text makes these teachings of the path to 
true soul initiation available to seekers from every spiritual tradition."