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This episode of Living Myth begins in the year AD 96 on a remote island in the Aegean Sea. It was a period of great cultural upheaval, similar to the times in which we now live. Like the present era, extreme beliefs and conspiracy theories were battling with the dominant political systems and traditional religious values.

While in exile on the island, a man who came to be known as John of Patmos recorded a series of radical visions and prophecies about the impending “end of days.” The fiery text began with an old Greek word, apocalypse and the narrative became known as the Book of Revelation.

John had been exiled for rabble-rousing and preaching both revolution and revelation. While in isolation he wove threads of old apocalyptic stories with his own wild visions and prophecies of The End. Although many believed those prophecies at the time, the fiery end of the world never came. To this day however, when people are faced with upheaval and uncertainty the old images of apocalypse stir again, wild visions arise, and fantastic theories abound.

The ideas and the images of a final drama between the forces of good and evil leading to a fiery end of everything is deeply embedded in the human psyche. The problem way back then, which has become an increasingly mainstream issue now, is that people take literally what appears metaphorically and would be better understood psychologically.

Michael Meade shows how understanding the deeper sense of the “archetype of apocalypse” reveals how the world as we know it does come to an end. Yet, as has happened time and again, the world also becomes restored. The message of renewal turns out to be an essential component of radical change and a critical issue for understanding revelation here on earth.

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