The Magic of Poetry
Part one of an investigation of the concealed wisdom in sublime poetry
Wisdom in Poetry
In our introduction (see right) we discuss the differences between poetastery, dragged up from Below, uplifting poesy penned by such poets as Emily Brontë, and sublime poetry inspired from Above. We suggest you read this first or you may not reap the full benefits of our investigation.
Omar Khayyám
We begin with Omar Khayyám. Very little is known about his life and work, but he was certainly not a drunkard, in spite of his many verses in praise of wine. For one can presumably be a philosopher without being a teetotaller! Moreover, not all Omar's references to wine should be taken literally, for you will remember that Jesus turned water into wine. Not as a convenient 'miracle' to save his hosts the trouble of getting in sufficient stocks of Vin Ordinaire but as a metaphor for transmuting intellectual reasoning into Divine Wisdom. Actually, turning H²O into wine is not that difficult if one knows somewhat of Alchemy, whereas changing the material thinking of the average specimens of humanity into spiritual understanding is much harder! Perhaps this is what Omar was thinking when he penned the following verse?
"Of Friends with whom to drink, you must take care;
But, mark the kind of wine you drink, and where,
Then drink at will. The men with Wits enough
To note these rules, I find are somewhat rare."
Omar Khayyám was born at Nishapur in north-eastern Persia (modern Iran) in 1048, and later moved to Samarkand to obtain an education there. Afterwards he moved to Bukhara and became established as one of the leading mathematicians and astronomers of the time. One of the Poet's contemporaries has left us the following description of him. "He was wont to exhort men to seek the One Author of all, by purifying the bodily actions in order to sanctify the Soul. . . . When the men of his time anathematised his doctrines, and drew forth his opinions from the concealment in which he had veiled them, he went in fear of his life, and placed some check on the sallies of his tongue and pen. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca, but it was from accident rather than piety, still betraying his unorthodox views."
Most readers will be familiar with the following Quatrain, which Edward FitzGerald has rendered into English so beautifully.
"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
'Moving on' has become something of a trite homily nowadays. We are told to 'move on' when life knocks us down or things do not work out as we had hoped or wished in our career, health or relationships. But how many do? Is it not true that most cling desperately to the past, filled with regrets and dwelling in sorrow on the 'might have beens' and 'if onlys' of earlier times? It is said in The Quest of Ruru that "Grief is the key of the Gods with which they unlock the portals of our Minds, so that we may behold the Higher things of the Spirit." Those who know the truth of these words will also understand the following Quatrain.
"I sent my Soul through the invisible
Some Letter of that After-life to spell
And by and by my Soul return'd to me
And answered 'I Myself am Heaven and Hell."
Omar's philosophy on Life is admirably summed up in the following verses.
"You know how short the Time we have to stay,
And yet, with useless Trifles waste the Day.
The Mysteries of Life you fail to solve,
Then burdened with regret, you steal away.Why weep in vain and sink into despair
Where nothing is? For Grief is but a snare
To catch and hold its Victim, as he grasps
An empty Bubble floating in the air.I tell you this—Twin Compasses are we
United at one end, yet partly free.
We travel round a certain central point,
The Thee in Me, joined fast to Me in Thee.
Always together, yet ever apart,
Circling around to the place whence we start.
A Master hand holds us, but who can say
What the design is, or who keeps the Chart."
Aside from the concealed references to the Higher and lower selves, this Quatrain contains so many wise teachings that it would be possible to write a large book about them, but as there are many other poems we would like to share with you we must reluctantly leave Omar and pray that Allah may ever watch over his beautiful soul. But ere we pass on we cannot resist quoting two final Quatrains which got the Poet into such hot water with the Imams during his lifetime and are especially relevant today when true religion is distorted to serve the worst instincts of fanatics and zealots.
"In Paradise, they tell us, Houris dwell,
And Fountains brim with wine and oxymel.
If these be lawful in the world to come
Why should we not enjoy them here as well?Many believe in that vain phantasy
Of Houris, who in Paradise will be.
But when the veil is lifted they will find
How far they are from Thee, how far from Thee!"
Shakespeare
The Immortal English Bard needs no introduction, though it is true to say that few know just what he concealed in plain sight in his plays and sonnets. We discuss two of his poems in our Religious quotes page, in which we say that Shakespeare was an occultist. Or rather, Francis Bacon was, for it is he, and not the jobbing actor from Stratford-upon-Avon who was the real author of the dramas and sonnets that bear Shakespeare's name. If you wish to learn more about this please refer to our Further Reading list in the sidebar, for the question of authorship forms no part of our present purpose, which is to reveal something of the hidden wisdom in sublime poetry. So let us see what we may discover in the following sonnet, which is generally considered to be a plea directed toward a woman (or man!) with whom the Poet was in love.
"When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate;Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."(Sonnet 29)
One critic asks: "It would be helpful if we could establish when the sonnets were written and to whom." Another declares that the lark mentioned in the third verse "epitomises the poet's delightful memory of his friendship with a young man." Thus does the lower self reason in the darkness of its circumlocutory caperings; forever speculating, analysing and dissecting, without ever arriving at truth. For truth is beyond the reach of the scalpel of the intellect, however refined by practise or sharpened by education.
She whose 'sweet love remembered such wealth brings' is no mystery to those who are familiar with the keys of allegory and symbolism, for her name is Wisdom. Once we know this, the rest of the sonnet is an open book, which in a few lines describes the condition of every seeker after truth at moments in their long pilgrimage from darkness to light and ignorance to knowledge. Yet who, having once supped on the wine of Wisdom, would exchange that priceless beverage for the sour taste of worldly status, fame or riches? This will also reveal to you who the mysterious 'dark lady' of the sonnets is about which so much nonsense has been written over the centuries. Whether we regard her as the personification of Wisdom or an actual Master who taught the Poet all he knew, amounts to the same thing. For as Heraclitus tells us, "Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by which all things are guided."
But there is poetry in the Shakespeare plays too, as well as a treasure-trove of concealed wisdom, as the following verse from The Merchant of Venice reveals.
"Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."(The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene 1)
No further comment is needed for the meaning of this verse is clear. This is also true of our final example from the golden pen of the Immortal Bard.
"Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."(The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1)
Edmund Blair Leighton — detail from Abelard and his pupil, Eloise — oil on canvas, 1882
John Keats
Keats died at the tender age of 25, worn out and broken-hearted by the repeated, malicious attacks of the literary critics of the time, one of whom called him "the meanest, the filthiest, and the most vulgar of Cockney poetasters." In his short lifetime Keats employed a wide range of poetic forms from the sonnet, to the Spenserian romance and the Miltonic epic, imbuing each with his own distinctive genius and making them a vehicle for many occult truths, as the following poem illustrates.
"Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Doubled-lived in regions new?Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, trancèd thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber'd, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away."(Ode on the Poets)
Here, as we said in our introduction, we behold the mind of the God-inspired Poet reaching out in thought to the Higher realms of Light, and inscribing what he sees in golden words that leave no doubt as to the truthfulness and accuracy of his vision. Do we not all live a 'double life' in more senses than one? There is the life of the Higher and lower self, each pulling us in opposite directions. There is the mask we all wear which hides both selves from all but our nearest and dearest. But above all, there is the true Soul which we discuss in our occult studies course, which never incarnates on earth; the positive half of the negative Higher Self which truly dwells in 'Heaven'.
In the second verse the Poet gives us a glimpse of that Heaven 'where the daisies are rose-scented, and the rose herself has got Perfume which on earth is not.' Did Keats behold this beauteous paradise in a moment of exaltation? It is very possible, for his description coincides perfectly with that given in The Golden Star. Note how in the third verse Keats hints at the knowledge and comfort we may derive from spiritual communion with those of our kin who dwell in Heaven, who 'teach us, every day Wisdom though fled far away'. And this is the Poet called a vulgar poetaster by his ignorant critics!
John Milton
It is noteworthy that one of Milton's most frequently quoted lines is almost identical to the sentiments expressed by Omar Khayyám: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n." This famous line is from Paradise Lost, which few now read and even fewer understand, put off by its length (it runs to nearly 80,000 words) and the Poet's archaic style. This is a great pity for we know of few books which contain more wisdom, if we can recognise it when we encounter it, for we must bear in mind that Milton composed his epic during the English Civil War when the odium theologicum was raging and the bigoted dogmas of Puritanism were in the ascendant. Like Omar Khayyám before him, he was compelled to curb the 'sallies of his tongue and pen' and keep his unorthodox theological views hidden, lest he end up feeding the fires of the Church!
Ever since it was published in 1667, attentive readers have noticed the presence of a hidden thread within the narrative of Paradise Lost that runs counter to the obvious meaning of the text. This suggests that Milton employed the time-honoured device of occultists to conceal esoteric truths within his poem in an invisible, but nonetheless real, subtext. He probably did this deliberately and consciously, unlike Shelley or Keats, who did so fortuitously and unconsciously in response to the inspiration they received from Above. Those who recognise this subtext have observed that the Poet's judgments diminish what his representations magnify and that his characters contradict his condemnations and justifications. So they do, confirming our suggestion that his magnum opus is no less a work of concealed wisdom than the Bible, or the plays of Shakespeare.
Does this make Milton one of the concealed occultists we mentioned in our introduction? We have no doubt of it, for the extensive knowledge of demonology he displays in the first book of Paradise Lost cannot have been obtained without very wide study and considerable acquaintance with the occult sciences. Moreover, as we shall see, he reveals several important occult truths throughout the poem. So, without further preamble, let us sit at his immortal feet and see what hidden meanings we may discover in Paradise Lost. We begin with Book 1, which opens with the following lines:
"Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime."
Here the Poet echoes the Platonic teaching that the Higher Self dies when it enters corporeal existence. Until it hearkens to 'one greater man'—the true Soul—who alone can restore it to its former state. The 'secret top' reminds us of the Great Pyramid of Egypt within whose hallowed interior the Hierophant, or 'shepherd' instructs his disciples—'the chosen seed'—those who are ready and able to hear the great truths. Note too, that Milton confirms the occult scientific teaching that the manifested universe arose from Chaos, or the mother principle.
A little later on the domain of Satan is said to be: "As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n as from the Centre thrice to th' utmost Pole." This suggests that Milton knew the number and arrangement of the invisible realms surrounding our earth. These are said to be three in number, which Theosophists call the astral, mental and spiritual planes. So the third of these would correspond to the lowest astral plane, or 'hell'.
"Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,
All that of men can die, yet, that debt paid,
Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave
His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul
For ever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise victorious, and subdue
My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil."
Here the Poet refers in a hidden manner to the Higher and lower selves of man and the battle for mastery between them which rages so long as the Higher self dwells in the 'loathsome grave' by which he means the physical body, echoing the words of Hermes Trismegistus, who called our fleshy tabernacle "the living Death; the sensible Carcass; the Sepulchre, carried about with us; the domestical Thief, which in what he loves us, hates us, envies us."
Edmund Spenser
We know only as much about Spenser as he chose to reveal in his own writings. This has led some scholars to suggest that he was another of the masks worn by Francis Bacon. There is much evidence to support this view, not least the fact that the first we hear of him is when his poem, The Shepheardes Calender, is published anonymously in 1579, the same year Bacon returned to England from France. This poem includes a verse dedicated to 'Immerito' which is worth quoting in full. 'Immerito' is the Latin for 'without merit' or 'undeservedly', reinforcing the hypothesis that 'Edmund Spenser' was an invention designed to conceal Bacon's authorship.
"Go, little Book; thy self present,
As Child whose Parent is unkent,
To him that is the President
Of Nobleness and Chivalrie:
And if that Envy bark at thee,
As sure it will, for Succour flee
Under the shadow of his Wing.
And, asked who thee forth did bring,
A Shepherd's Swain say did thee sing
All as his straying Flock he fed:
And when his Honour hath thee read,
Crave pardon for thy Hardy-head.
But if that any ask thy Name,
Say, thou wert base begot with blame:
Forthy thereof thou takest shame.
And when thou art past Jeopardy,
Come tell me what was said of me,
And I will send more after thee.
IMMERITO."
Many things strike us in these lines. Firstly the reference to the 'unkent' parent or unknown author, who dedicates his work to the 'President'. Whether we regard this as a concealed reference to Bacon, or to the 'author' of All, namely God, amounts to the same thing. The Poet is telling us that Truth comes from God, not man. The author compares himself to a 'Shepherd's Swain'. Now 'swain' meant a young lover or suitor in old English. When we consider that both Hermes in Egypt and Jesus in Palestine styled themselves 'The Shepherd of Man', the meaning of these cryptic lines becomes clearer. Every true spiritual teacher is a shepherd who 'sings' (teaches) his 'flock' of disciples, who having heard ('past Jeopardy') give thanks for the glad tidings received and so qualify themselves for further revelations.
The next lines confirm our interpretation for when the pupil truly attends upon the words of his teacher ('when his Honour hath thee read') his previous errors and ignorance ('Hardy-head') are truly 'pardoned', for they are dispelled by the Light of the true teachings. These lines also remind us of the words of Jesus when he "charged his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ" (Matthew 16:20). In other words the Poet is telling us to take no account of personalities—as we do in so many of our articles—for earthly personalities, however famous or eminent are all 'base begot with blame'. It is the spirit within that illuminates the outer man or woman who themselves neither deserve nor merit our praise, much less worship.
Spenser's Faerie Queene has been called the greatest poetic allegory in the English language. It is also the most incomplete. Composed between 1580 and 1590, only six books (plus two cantos of a seventh) were ever published out of the complete series of twelve envisaged by the Poet. The poem has been criticised as being long, complex and notoriously difficult to understand, in part because of the deliberately archaic language employed by Spenser who wished to emulate the poetic style of the medieval poets. But the greater difficulty for readers is how to interpret the allegories in the poem, which Spenser called a 'dark conceit'. Conceit in the sense that he used it did not mean pride as it does today, but an elaborate metaphor constructed to deliberately conceal something. And there is a very great deal indeed concealed in the Faerie Queene.
The poem begins with a knight, Redcrosse, accompanied by an unnamed lady, later revealed as Una, embarking on a great adventure. Lagging behind her is her strange companion described by the Poet simply as a dwarf. Just as in Dante's Inferno, which we shall examine shortly, they get lost in a forest, where the knight meets and gives battle to a dragon. The symbolism in both poems is the same: the Higher self lost amidst the illusions of the material world from which it must extricate itself through its own efforts by slaying the 'dragon' of ignorance and error. We have selected just a few lines from these opening verses to set the scene and help us discover the hidden meaning behind them.
"Upon a great adventure he was bound. . .
A lovely Lady rode him fair beside,
Upon a lowly Ass more white then snow,
Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide
Under a vale, that wimpled was full low,
And over all a black stole she did throw,
As one that inly mourned: so was she sad,
And heavy sat upon her palfrey slow:
Seemed in heart some hidden care she had,
And by her in a line a milk white lamb she led.
"So pure and innocent, as that same lamb,
She was in life and every virtuous lore,
And by descent from Royal lynage came. . .
Behind her far away a Dwarfe did lag. . .
So we have a knight, an innocent lady, royal by birth, and filled with 'virtuous lore', that is, wisdom, and a dwarf who lags behind them. Here we have the three main principles of man; the higher self (the lady), the lower self (the knight) and the body (the dwarf). These three may also stand for the True Soul (lady), the higher self (knight) and lower self (dwarf), it all depends how one reads the allegory. But however we read it, it is clear that Spenser's epic poem is a tale of initiation, of tests, trials and temptations. Of battles won and battles lost, of the difficulties and obstacles which beset us on the thorny path to the Light and the virtues needed to overcome them.
In Book II, Canto IX, the Poet describes the plan of the House of Alma which is generally interpreted as an allegory for the human body and soul in architectural language. But it is very much more than this, as we shall see. Here are those verses:
"The frame thereof seemd partly circulare,
And part triangulare, a worke divine;
Those two the first and last proportions are,
The one imperfect, mortal, feminine;
Th'other immortal, perfect, masculine,
And twixt them both a quadrate was the base,
Proportioned equally by seven and nine;
Nine was the circle set in heavens place,
All which compacted made a goodly Diapase."
'Diapase' is an archaic word for 'diapason', which the musicians among our readers will know means a full, rich, outpouring of melodious sound comprising the full range of a voice or instrument. It may also refer to the two principal stops of a pipe organ, one a full, majestic tone (open diapason, emblematic of the Higher self) and the other a strong, flute-like tone (stopped diapason, emblematic of the lower self). In this verse Spenser recapitulates the Greek concept of the seven-stringed lyre as an allegory for the septenary constitution of man as a spiritual and material being as well as referring in a concealed manner to the seven sacred planets of our Kosmos whose combined motions produce 'a goodly Diapase' which Pythagoras made the subject of his teachings on the 'Harmony of the Spheres.'
The geometrical forms Spenser employs: the circle, triangle and square, one 'imperfect, 'mortal' and 'feminine' (the square or body), the other two (triangle and circle), 'perfect', 'immortal' and 'masculine' correspond with the higher and lower principles of man. Note too the reference to the number seven—the most sacred of all numbers—and nine, the emblem of matter, whose form ever changes but whose essence is never destroyed. Nine may also be a concealed reference to the nine planets in our solar system. If it is, how did Spenser know of the existence of Neptune (discovered in 1846), Uranus (discovered in 1781) and Pluto (discovered in 1930) when he composed his epic in 1580? We leave you to ponder that mystery.
You will recall that we said earlier that Spenser intended to divide his epic into twelve parts, but never completed this scheme. Some scholars believe that these were intended to portray the twelve moral virtues defined by Aristotle. Unfortunately, Holiness and Courtesy, symbolised in the poem by Redcrosse and Calidore respectively, are not Aristotelian virtues, so we may dismiss this ingenious but wrong notion. Since Spenser was well acquainted with the Pythagorean science of numbers, it seems more reasonable that these twelve divisions were intended to correspond to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, each of which have their virtues and vices as every astrologer knows. The published poem certainly seems to confirm this suggestion, though we must leave it to the judicious reader to follow up these correspondences if they are minded to do so.
Dante
Dante Alighieri has been called one of the greatest poets of all time. If you have never read his Divine Comedy, completed just a year before his death in 1321, now is the time to remedy the omission, for there exist few more vivid or accurate depictions of the lower and higher dimensions of the astral world than his epic poem, either in verse or prose. There are many different translations of Dante's allegorical drama to suit all tastes, each of which has its merits and demerits, though our personal favourites are those by H .F. Cary and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. We will begin our investigation at the beginning of the poem, using Cary's translation, which despite its many deficiencies, has the virtue of preserving the simplicity of the original and its hidden meaning.
"In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct: and e'en to tell,
It were no easy task, how savage wild
That forest, how robust and rough its growth,
Which to remember only, my dismay
Renews, in bitterness not far from death.
Yet, to discourse of what there good befel,
All else will I relate discover'd there."How first I enter'd it I scarce can say,
Such sleepy dulness in that instant weigh'd
My senses down, when the true path I left;
But when a mountain's foot I reach'd, where closed
The valley that had pierced my heart with dread,
I look'd aloft, and saw his shoulders broad
Already vested with that planet's beam,
Who leads all wanderers safe through every way."
Those of you who have read the second of the articles in our occult studies course will recognise the 'gloomy wood' in which the Poet lost his way. A time comes for all seekers after Light when they too 'look aloft' and glimpse the radiant Sun of Truth beaming upon them from afar, and if they follow his beams they will find their way out of the wood and enter the narrow way that leads them safely to their Heavenly Home. But ere they do so, they must taste the bitter fruits of experience that 'pierce the heart'. Only then will they be ready and worthy to meet the true teacher, whether an actual personage, like Virgil, whom Dante encounters in the wood, or the true teachings, in whatever way or form they may announce themselves. At the end of the first Canto Virgil tells Dante that:
"...I, thy guide,
Will lead thee hence through an eternal space,
Where thou shalt hear despairing shrieks, and see
Spirits of old tormented, who invoke
A second death. . ."
Here Dante refers in a concealed manner to the death of the astral 'shell'—the remains of the erstwhile personality of the deceased which survives the death of the physical body but is doomed to 'die', or rather fade gradually away, so that the Higher Self may take on a new role in its next incarnation. In the second book, Purgatorio, we find the following enigmatic lines:
"Time passes, and a man perceives it not.
For that, whereby we hearken, is one power;
Another that, which the whole spirit hath:
This is as it were bound, while that is free."
Here we find a concealed reference to the two parts of the soul: one bound in a body, the other free to acquire all wisdom and truth so far as it is willing and capable to receive them. This reminds us of the metaphor of the twin compasses employed by Omar Khayyám we discussed earlier. Is it not strange how these themes repeat themselves in the works of so many poets separated in time and culture?
"Mine eyes a flower-besprinkled mead have seen;
Though veil'd themselves in shade: so saw I there
Legions of splendours, on whom burning rays
Shed lightnings from above; yet saw I not
The fountain whence they flow'd."
This is the heavenly realm Dr Michaud describes in The Golden Star we mentioned earlier when we discussed Keats' poetry. It is interesting that Dante does not see the source of the 'fountain' of light which illuminates this golden land—the spiritual Sun. This reminds us of the verse from Revelation, which tells us that: "And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof" (Revelation 21:33).
If you have enjoyed and profited from this investigation, read part two: Prometheus unveiled, in which we investigate the esoteric meaning in Shelley's metaphysical drama Prometheus Unbound and the mythology which inspired him to compose it.
© Copyright occult-mysteries.org. Article published 5 January 2017. Updated 9 September 2021.
