15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” 16 And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying,
“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
who is and who was,
for you have taken your great power
and begun to reign.
18 The nations raged,
but your wrath came,
and the time for the dead to be judged,
and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,
and those who fear your name,
both small and great,
and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”
19 Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
Rev 11:15-19
We have attained the seventh spiritual centre. With the charging of the Crown Centre, we are once again connected to the spiritual worlds.
The philosopher Plotinus, who lived in the third century after Christ, declared that only a portion of the soul descended into incarnation. The divine part of the soul remained in the spiritual worlds.
Before we come into incarnation the soul is given its template for this life. As we grow spiritually we have an increasing share in creating this template. For about a thousand years there was a disconnect between the soul which comes into incarnation and the part of the soul that is in spirit. The two were separated by clouds which made communication difficult. St Paul calls this, “seeing through a glass darkly.” Since the thirteenth century though, the seventh centre is being charged with a new energy. This new energy gives us the power to break through the clouds and reconnect with the divine self. Revelation puts it like this, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.”
The twenty-four elders represent the twelve sets of cranial nerves that convey sensory information to the brain. Since the thirteenth century two options are presented to us. We can continue to work with this transformation. More and more we can understand the information of the senses and the reasoning as a spiritual process. We become open to the messages of spirit. Our memory banks open and we start to remember previous lives, and we get in touch with our life purpose.
If we reject this process, then we close off to spirit. Our thinking and mental attitudes deny the reality of spirit. Our understanding becomes darker and darker. Currently we are in the midst of a great battle for the soul. One reason for the epidemic of depression in the Western world is that the soul has to make its way through the current materialistic thinking of our culture, without being sustained by the spiritual energies of a spiritual practice or being fed by a spiritual understanding.
Revelation tells us that our divine self has only begun to reign. There is a long way to go in human evolution before the outcome of the battle is decided.
God’s Temple in heaven, the portion of the soul that remains in the spiritual worlds, has opened. As we develop spiritual vision we will be able to perceive this aspect of self. We will be able to gaze upon the Ark of the Covenant, the divine seed which dwells within the soul as a promise. This is the promise: we are now able to look into the centre of our being and see there, the presence of God. If we choose to follow this path, then we enter more and more into Christ consciousness. We become individuals which means that we become undivided. We have left the group consciousness and entered the path of spiritual evolution. One day we shall become, as Christ promised, “like gods”. Our transformation from human beings to spiritual beings will be complete.
The image
The Bamberg Apocalpyse is another medieval manuscript. Here we see the angel blowing the final trumpet, the 24 elders, and John himself in the bottom left hand corner, reminding us that this is our vision.
Let us make today a day of vision. What is our vision for the future? What, or who, do we want to become? What are the possibilities open to us into the future? Today let us live in the vision of the best we might become.
Individualism by its very nature stands in opposition to group consciousness. You will find that there is a difference between those who prefer group consciousness, and to be safe and secure within the realms of society and live by the rules society lays down, and those who perceive precisely what is going on in society. They have therefore achieved a certain individualism within themselves. The premise on which this Centre is built is individualism. If ever you and I want to become that new city, that new Jerusalem, that is, Christ conscious (which is not a group consciousness, it is a Christ consciousness) then we have to keep that in mind.
Rev Mario Schoenmaker, The Book of Revelation, 1984 Lecture Series