Ancient Prophecy
Many people are reverting to ancient prophecy to try to understand this time. Others are giving prophecy and making predictions. Therefore, this is a good time to try to understand what prophecy really is and not give it more power than it needs.
We all need to to understand that we can have an affect on the current circumstances and situation. We must not accept this as some pre-ordained, predetermined, unchangeable outcome.
We must hold on to our power, not give it up to ancient prophecies, fear or corrupt, manipulative political and spiritual leaders. Now, more than ever, we must remain grounded in our bodies and connected to the Earth. We must listen to the trees, deeply and often, for they are rooted in truth and can offer that to us as well.
Prophecy Illuminates Potentialities
The first thing for us to understand and remember is that prophecy, like divination is engaged in to understand potential outcomes that arise out of the present moment. The information is accessed so that one or many can choose which potentiality to activate.
It is important to accentuate that prophecies arise out of a set of circumstances that are current to the time the prophecy is given. Prophecy is a snapshot of the moment. Because of this, it is perhaps not a helpful practice to be re-quoting prophecies that were issued a long time ago and in a context that no longer exists.
There can be similar overtones and resonant issues with a time a prophecy was issued in the past but we must remember we are dealing with a whole new set of circumstances. Prophecies can come with a warning, if you do not change or alter this course of action, this potentiality will be activated, but should not be considered a set and rigid decree that is non-alterable.
Another factor to watch for is that we do not take along and repeat prejudices and propaganda that were promoted in ancient prophecies. One example is people’s opinions of snakes, serpents and dragons and how these have changed through time. Most people no longer want to demonize these energies. In fact many see dragons as magical these days, not satanic and demonic. A prophecy that has an evil snake or dragon must be re-evaluated. Also the connection between the color black and darkness with evil must not be allowed to continue. It is inaccurate, inappropriate and often hurtful. It has taken humans a long time to try to remove these prejudices and others. We must not let this time of crisis reawaken them.
If we are trying to move out of a polarizing worldview and return to one of interconnectedness and oneness, then it is not good practice to depend upon old prophecies to guide us in our current circumstances.
The Book of Revelation
When people began talking about the prophecy of the “end times” in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament and stating that the apocalypse foretold there was upon us once again, I turned to scholar Elaine Pagels for perspective and context.
Many have interpreted this “book” as an accurate vision and prophecy of the end of the world. It portrays a gruesome battle of good and evil that includes 7 headed monsters and beasts, whose ultimate outcome is non-believers in Christ dying horrible deaths and believers being allowed into the New Jerusalem.
In, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation, Pagels informs us that the Book of Revelation is a prophecy given by John of Patmos. John was a Jewish prophet residing on the island of Patmos, near Ephesus, about 90 C.E., who “likely fled from a war that had ravaged Judea, his homeland.” John of Patmos “belonged to the second generation of Jesus followers.”1
Pagels classifies this as wartime literature and states that we must understand it as such. Pagels explains that there were many prophecies given at that same time that the Revelation of John of Patmos appeared.
Along with the Gnostic Gospels discovered in Egypt in 1945, “about twenty other “books of revelation”—most of them quite different from the New Testament Book of Revelation,” were found. “Many of them speak less about a Judgment Day at the end of the world than about finding the divine in it now.”2
Pagels shows how the images in John’s visions were not new, they had been seen by prophets before him. Many of the archetypes detailed in the vision were popular ones, well known to people of the time.
“What John did in the Book of Revelation, among other things, was create anti-Roman propaganda that drew its imagery from Israel’s prophetic traditions—above all the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.”3
She goes on to detail how this prophecy became elevated above the others, retold and re-prophesized by other prophets through the centuries and has been repeated over and over in various art forms, poetry, books and film up and through the modern era.
It has been repeated so much that it is part of the collective consciousness of humans that can be activated and used to manipulate the masses quite easily and effectively.
Why was this prophecy elevated and repeated over others? Good question. Who would benefit from this prophecy being paid attention and others left to obscurity?
Beware Prophecy Given from the 4th Dimension
In The Alchemy of the Nine Dimensions, Barbara Hand Clow details the 9 dimensions of the World Tree that all humans have access to. She recommends that we familiarize ourselves with them to be more fully embodied. For more on the 9 Dimensions of the World Tree, see this link.
In this template, the fourth dimension is the one a diviner, prophetess, prophet must be careful he or she is not getting caught in and channeling from. Here is where the collective consciousness of the planet and humans hangs out and where this screen can be read. But reading this screen offers no glimpse into the truth, it simply allows one to read the collective consciousness of the planet, and so is only reflecting human fears, hopes and dreams back to them. Easily could a story of mass destruction and evil overtaking the land be accessed here since this story has been alive in the collective consciousness for so long and given so much energy.
To give prophecy, one must be able to get beyond the screen of the 4th dimension and access the 5-9th dimensions. The way to do this, Hand Clow instructs, is by being deeply grounded into the Earth and in our own physical bodies so we can determine the truth of the energies we are processing. We must use our well-grounded bodies as the main tool.
As medicine people, if we get stuck in the 4th dimension, where the battle between good and evil is the dominant story, all our energy goes to “the battle” and not the place where we can affect true change. We have to be especially careful now not get caught up in expending energy in a place that is ineffective and not to put out prophecy that furthers the polarity operating on this planet. As long as things are in opposition, the energy is given to this illusion of opposition, polarity, separation, and not to the place of real healing (connectedness, oneness).
Once again I urge people to be careful not to put their power outside of themselves. Trust your gut and your instincts and your own ability to understand signs and signals about how to navigate these times.
The Power of Prophecy
In the novel, Ode to Minoa, the main character, Aureillia, is a Snake Priestess in Bronze Age Crete who gives a prophecy based on a series of trance visions she receives in her role as Priestess of the Snake. Changes are occurring in her world and she is shown a future that is grim. She gives a prophecy telling what she saw, then retreats.
When she returns to her community and her role in the follow up book, Stories They Told Me, she begins to see how the prophecy itself changed her community. Believing in her prophecy seems to be bringing about the very changes she had foretold. She is left wondering about the nature of prophecy. She worries that she herself has ushered in an upset and change by delivering the information in prophecy. She struggles to understand.
At the end of the book, she retreats once again to the cave by the sea where she encountered the Bird Goddess Lilith years before. Lilith returns to her and tells her that it is the way she told the prophecy that is the problem. She told it as an absolute. She did not give her community any other alternative or even imply that there could be one.
“It is the story,” the Bird Goddess Lilith replies when Aureillia confides in her about what has happened since she gave prophecy, “The way you told the story. The prophecy offered no other way. They cannot let go of an absolute.”
“But there is no other way,” Aureillia responds. “That is the prophecy.”
“Aureillia, there is always another way,” Lilith says, correcting her. “You must tell them a different story.”4
Aureillia changes the prophecy to reveal what might happen if they choose a certain trajectory while also offering them another way to choose for a different outcome. She then retells her prophecy.
Aureillia is left with a deeper understanding about the stories we tell ourselves, stories we hear and are told, the power of story and how we can always change a story.
This is an important message for our time. What to believe, what not to believe, what story we want to tell and what story we want to live. And that it is up to us to choose with our intentions and actions, not any prophecy, prophet or prophetess.
Each one of us need to finally own our or power. And that is the one prediction from the 2012 oracles and prophecies that may actually be coming to true fruition here.
~Theresa C. Dintino
©Theresa C. Dintino 2017
1 Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation, Elaine Pagels, (Penguin, N.Y. 2012), p.8
2 Ibid., p.8
3 ibid., p.16
4 Stories They Told Me, Theresa C. Dintino, (Wise Strega Books, CA, 2003) p.250
