One of the most popular images in the biblical Book of Revelation is the Four Horsemen. The Four Horsemen are released at the End of Days as the first four of the Seven Seals are broken. Of them, Relevation says:
[...] there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.
[...] Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.
[...] I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand.
[...] there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
I was looking at a Rider Waite tarot deck earlier today, and I was suddenly struck by how closely these Four Horsemen correspond to the Knights of the Minor Arcana in the tarot deck.
On the black horse we have the Knight of Pentacles. On the red horse we have the Knight of Wands. There are two knights who ride either white or “pale” horses, depending on your interpretation: the Knight of Cups and the Knight of Swords.
If you look at the Major Arcana, you can see some further correspondences. First of all, the Death card is also riding a horse. The pose his horse is in is virtually identical to that on the Knight of Cups - which would lead me personally to believe that there is supposed to be a correlation between the two figures, and that this then is the “pale” horse. The meaning of the Knight of Cups card also has to do with introversion and looking inward - perhaps a further correlation to death. Does this mean then that the Knight of Swords is the First Horseman, on the white horse?
Another interesting connection: the black rider in Revelations holds a scale, and is generally called “Famine.” The suit of Pentacles relates to both the earth, and to money - a form of measuring. In the Major Arcana, we see a figure with scales, Justice. Justice also has a crown on her head - such as given to the first rider, and a sword, such as given to the second rider. The Four Horsemen are released upon the world as part of God delivering Justice to the world.
WHOA! This is crazy… while I was in the middle of writing this, somebody sent me a link to a website about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and how they actually represent various things symbolically. It’s not a precise fit to my scheme above, but it’s close enough that it’s uncanny (nevermind the timing!). The site says:
The White Horse is what we refer to as your spiritual nature. This is Pegasus which is connected to the Hippocampus of the Brain which is responsible for memory. Here you begin to open the line back to your origin in light. The bow which is the constellation vela is the promise, the crown is the higher mind and the conquering is overcoming the lower nature.
The red horse is the emotional nature. That is what takes peace from the earth . This horse is responsible for the pride that compels people to go to war and do terrible things. Of course emotions can also give us great feelings of peace and joy but Revelation is discussing the four seals that are opened and their damage to us overcome.
[...] The Black Horse is the intellectual nature. Notice that there is a pair of balances in his had. This indicates decision making that comes from the black horse. Weighing decisions. Looking at both sides. A measure of wheat for a penny, don’t hurt the oil and the wine. All of this points to the intellect which functions in buying and selling, being careful in producing products for sale. The third sea, the intellect is now overcome by the higher the cosmic light.
[...] This is the fourth seal. The pale horse which is the physical. Death and Hell follows the physical as we all know. Notice how it is the physical that hungers and dies and must tangle with the beasts of the earth.
Another fun correspondence: there are 22 chapters in the Book of Revelations and 22 tarot cards in the Major Arcana. I found a guy who has a book which goes into more detail about the correspondences between the two systems. Plus we have the correspondence between the 22 Major Arcana and the 22 paths on the Tree of Life in the Kabbalah.
One other interesting esoteric reading of the Book of Revelation comes from the “Sleeping Prophet” Edgar Cayce. He is said to have channeled a great deal of information about it which says that the book is not about the literal end of the world, but about a secret spiritual system whereby man can uncover the divinity within himself, and re-unite with God.
This is exactly the power that symbols have: they can be connected up to a never-ending stream of meanings. The are nexus points. They are not exact one-to-one connections. The whole field of the occult seems to deal pretty heavily with this idea of taking one system of meaning and overlaying across others to reveal deeper levels of connection. It relies very heavily upon being able to play with models - which is why the field of conspiracy theory so often delves into weird occult areas; they both share that characteristic. As Robert Anton Wilson would say: involvement in these fields forces you outside of your own reality tunnel. To me, the trick is that once you leave your restrictive reality tunnel behind, don’t just replace it with another one. Replace it with all of them. Truth is much bigger and more complicated than any one system of interpretation or model of reality will ever be able to account for.
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2 Comments
You should check out the 60’s psych rock band Aphrodite’s Child. All of their songs are about the apocalypse, and the book of revelations.
Here’s a random connection between your two recent fascinations:
Behold a Pale Horse, a must-read for conspiracy theorists, and the title imagery is a cool coincidence.