The New Jerusalem

Today I am going to read you the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation of St John1.

1 The Book of Revelation is discussed in detail in vol. 230 in the Izvor Collection.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.' And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.' Then he said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.'

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.' And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, one hundred forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anybody who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are in written in the Lamb's book of life.


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From earliest antiquity there has always been one great initiatic centre on earth which commanded all others. All the lesser centres were branches of this unique centre, whose light has never ceased to shine throughout the centuries.

To guarantee the continuity of this flame, there had to be a being who possessed all powers and all knowledge, a being who could be God's representative on earth, a being who would never die. And such a being actually exists. He is mentioned in the Bible and, under different names, in all the spiritual traditions of the world; there can be no doubt as to his existence. In the Hebrew tradition he is known as Melchizedek. In Genesis Moses tells us that Melchizedek brought bread and wine to Abraham and that Abraham gave him the tenth part of his spoils of war. St Paul also speaks of Melchizedek in his Epistle to the Hebrews:

This King Melchizedek of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham as he was returning from defeating the kings and blessed him; and to him Abraham apportioned one-tenth of everything. His name, in the first place, means 'king of righteousness'; next he is also king of Salem, that is, 'king of peace.' Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

You will ask, 'But if he had no father or mother, how was he created?' A being who is God's representative on earth is all-powerful in respect to matter. He can form an etheric body that is capable of lasting until the end of time, and he can also disintegrate it at will. Of all God's representatives it is Melchizedek—whose name means 'king of justice'--who has the most important role to play on earth. He is the judge of the living and the dead, and all decisions concerning the destiny of mankind come from him. All the high initiates received instruction from him: Hermes Trismegistus was an aspect of Melchizedek, and Orpheus, Moses, Pythagoras,Plato, Buddha, and Zoroaster. All the greatest initiates were taught by him—even Jesus. It was Melchizedek who delegated the three Magi to represent his kingdom in paying homage to Jesus, because Jesus was the incarnation of the Divine Principle, of the Word made flesh. But Melchizedek, representative of the living God, who has neither beginning nor end, has a different role to play.

Jesus took the flesh and blood of a man, and this means that he had a mother and a father. But he spent the eighteen years of his life about which the Gospels are silent (from the age of twelve to the age of thirty) in the kingdom of Melchizedek, king of justice and of peace; and there, in the company of all the highest initiates, he did tremendous work for the whole world. He was about thirty when he returned to Palestine to accomplish his mission and extend to his own disciples his close relationship with the kingdom of Melchizedek. There is a tradition common to all religions that a mysterious kingdom exists in an inaccessible region known as the 'land of the immortals' or 'land of the living'. This mysterious kingdom is the kingdom of Melchizedek, but only a few initiates with close links to Melchizedek have firsthand knowledge of it.

No initiate can reach the summit without going through the school of Melchizedek. It is he who gives human beings access to the Sephirah. Kether, for he possesses the knowledge of all the angelic hierarchies; he moves freely from one to the other and has millions of angels at his service. He watches over the evolution of mankind, guiding it according to God's plan and intervening to restore order when human beings stray from the path laid down for them. And as the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—are at his service, he has all powers. This, then, is the being whom St John saw and whom he describes at the beginning of Revelation: 'In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword.' This communication between St John and Melchizedek came about because Jesus put them in touch with each other. Of course, details of this kind are never mentioned by the established religions, but anyone who is capable of doing some research in the archives of initiatic science will find them recorded there.

The being whom St John saw in his vision, therefore, the being who declared, 'I am Alpha and Omega... the beginning and the end,' was none other than Melchizedek. He is called by different names according to the cycles of the ages because his name is magic. And behold, the first seal of the Apocalypse is open. It is very important that you should know who this great being was, for St John was transported to his kingdom of Salem so that he should be capable of writing the Apocalypse. It was there that he was shown the depths of the earth and of the seas; it was there that he saw how the spirits do their work in nature by means of the four elements; and it was there that he contemplated the angelic hierarchies. It was at the orders of Melchizedek, therefore, that he wrote the Apocalypse, which will be deciphered in the last days.

Today, I want to talk to you about the New Jerusalem. What did St John mean when he spoke of 'the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God?' It is true that it will come down from heaven, but great upheavals and transfor-mations must take place before this can come about. You yourselves will witness all this, for it will happen in our times. St John speaks of a 'New Jerusalem' because there was another Jerusalem, which was destroyed. Why was the first Jerusalem given a name similar to Salem, the city of which Melchizedek was king? Because those who named it knew about Melchizedek. They had been initiated by Moses, who had himself received initiation from Jethro, his father-in-law. When Moses fled from Egypt he took refuge in the land of Midian, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of the high priest of the land. For years, Moses studied under the guidance of Jethro, his father-in-law. It was he who put him in touch with Melchizedek, and it was Melchizedek who gave Moses the mission to take to the world that great and terrible religion of the one true God, and to impose it by force.

In Genesis, Moses tells the story of Abraham, and it is in this context that he mentions Melchizedek. He does not say very much about him, but later, when he gave the key to his five books to the seventy Ancients of Israel, he revealed the existence of that initiatic centre that controls everything from the unknown place that represents the lost paradise, or Pardes, as it is called. This great science, in which Abraham and Jacob had been initiated before Moses, was also known to David and Solomon, whose name in Hebrew, Shlomo, has the same root as shalom, peace—which is also found in Yerushalaim, the Hebrew name for Jerusalem.

Solomon was told to build the temple of Jerusalem, the dimensions and architectural design of which, as well as all the objects it contained, corresponded to a science handed down by tradition. But this first temple was destroyed by the armies of Titus in order to punish the Jevvs for breaking the law. The temple was destroyed and the Jewish people scattered to the ends of the earth, because at that time the Jevvs had abandoned the spirit of their religion and refused to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. The old Jerusalem was the initiatic centre that contained the seed of the humanity of the future, but this centre failed in its mission. This is why a new one must now be created to take its place. The New Jerusalem will be built on the pattern of Salem, the city in which Melchizedek dwells surrounded by all those extraordinary beings of history and legend who are still alive and who, it is said, will one day return to the world. Many cabbalists and alchemists dwell there. Even Nicolas Flamel, the famous alchemist who never died, is there in the kingdom of the initiates, the kingdom of Melchizedek.

The New Jerusalem—what it is and how it will come to the world—this is what I have to reveal to you today. The picture of the New Jerusalem as St John describes it—its dimensions, its gates, its foundations of precious stones—is quite clear, and it can be understood in different ways: as a city, as a way of life, and as a human being. The New Jerusalem cannot come until there are enough human beings built on the same pattern, symbolically speaking, for the twelve gates of pearl and the foundations of precious stones symbolize virtues and qualities. You will perhaps ask why the city has twelve gates. Because it is an image of the universe and also of a human being, for a human being possesses twelve gates or doors.

Let us have a look at these gates and see where they are. There are the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and the mouth; that makes seven (and it is no coincidence that they are all in the head). Then there are five more: the two breasts, the navel, and two more which I will leave you to find for yourselves... So, twelve gates—not eleven, not thirteen: exactly twelve. It is amazing to see how intelligent and exact it all is, and how full of meaning. Human being were built in the workshops of the Lord in such a way as to be capable of communication and exchange with heaven and earth and the whole universe. This is why their gates must be kept open so that the currents may circulate.

Every detail of St John's description of the New Jerusalem is symbolic. He speaks of it as a cube, for instance, because the cube symbolizes something stable, something complete. It is also the symbol of justice, and Melchizedek is the king of justice. By developing a cube you get a cross, and the cross represents a human being with outstretched arms. I am sure that you can see the correspondences.

It is no good expecting to see the New Jerusalem coming down as a ready-made city from heaven. No such city will fall on us from heaven. The New Jerusalem will 'come down' only when human beings are new. Yes, the New Jerusalem is the new human being; it is all the 'new' men and women who have undertaken a gigantic work of transformation in themselves. And this work of transformation is nothing less than the transformation of the old Adam into Christ, of the old man into the new, or, to put it in alchemical terms, the transformation of the red into blue. The parallel is very clear in Hebrew: Adam is the red man (adorn, red), who was taken from the earth (adamah, earth), and the red man of earth must transform himself into Christ, the blue of heaven, the symbol of peace. For anyone who is familiar with the language of symbolism these correspondences are very clear. As red is the colour of the spectrum that has the lowest vibrational frequency, it represents man's physical impulses: vitality, sensuality, anger, aggressiveness, even drunkenness. But each colour has different shades (love has hundreds of different shades; life also). All these tendencies represent thousands of different shades of red.

Jesus made it very clear that it was possible for the physical body to be transformed into light; he showed us this in his transfiguration on Mount Thabor. The Gospels tell us that his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as light, and Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with him. Why were Moses and Elijah there? Their presence at this moment in Jesus' life was highly significant. It means that their spirit entered into him. Moses came to give him strength, for he was the master of strength; and Elijah came to give him his foremost quality, knowledge. The teaching and prophecies of Elijah are so highly renowned and esteemed that, even today, it is said that he never died and that he will come again in the last days. At the moment of his transfiguration, therefore, Moses and Elijah took up their abode in Jesus. Jesus was not a single spirit; he was a collective being. All the great initiates before him had given him something of themselves, something that he needed in order to accomplish his mission.

At this point, you might begin to wonder whether it is possible for all human beings to be transfigured in this way, and the answer is yes. Such a transfiguration is possible for all those who succeed in purifying and sublimating their physical body. For it is not only in our souls and spirits that Christ must be born, but in our physical bodies as well. This is the symbolism of the manger, which I explained to you on Christmas Day2. When human beings work consciously for a long time with faith, hope, and love, their body becomes so pure and so sublimated, and all their particles vibrate with such intensity, that transfiguration becomes possible for them, just as it was possible for Jesus. And this is the New Jerusalem.

2 See chap. 1 of Christmas and Easter in the Initiatic Tradition, Izvor Collection, N°. 209.

The New Jerusalem is the perfection of an initiate, a master, in whom Christ is born, in whom Christ lives and breathes and manifests through those twelve gates, those twelve openings. The New Jerusalem is preparing to come into the world; it is on its way from heaven. Angels are already active in the world, working to perfect human beings and make them truly beautiful. Every day and every night the ponderous, dark, discordant particles of our beings are swept away and replaced by particles that are light, supple, and luminous. Thousands of new Jerusalems are getting ready to unite in forming the one great New Jerusalem in which God himself will dwell, in which there will be no more tears and no more suffering.

The New Jerusalem embraces all the children of God, all those in whom Christ is born. This means, of course, that it is a perfect society in which all human beings live as brothers and sisters. And, finally, the New Jerusalem is this initiatic centre that has always existed just as St John described it, with all its gold, and pearls, and precious stones. For all this already exists in the world above, and all the truths, all the elements that exist above must one day exist materially on earth.

If you study the earth you will, of course, find that it is made up of layers of dark, dull matter, but a multitude of creatures is working to purify that matter from within. Indeed, gems and precious metals are earth, but earth that has been transformed and sublimated to an extraordinary degree. A precious stone is the quintessence of all that is purest in the earth, and the initiates are the precious stones of mankind, the quintessence of the human race. The custom of adorning the crowns of kings or the sacred vestments of priests with gems stems from the knowledge that they represent the qualities and virtues of the most highly evolved beings, and that each stone symbolizes a particular virtue. A wise and intelligent man for instance is a topaz; a man of peace is a sapphire; someone who is enthusiastic and ardent is a ruby, and so on. If human kings wear jewels in their crowns, it is because there are jewels in the crown of the Almighty. God wears a crown, and in that crown are archangels and divinities, the jewels of creation.

The New Jerusalem is the perfect man, perfect universal life; it is Melchizedek's kingdom of justice and peace. This New Jerusalem is coming into the world. All those who have spoken of its coming say that it will come before the end of the century, and the reality will be something you cannot even imagine. In it will be a temple with the twelve precious stones described by St John. These precious stones—mountains of precious stones—are being kept for this age in the dwelling place of the king of justice and peace. Believe me or not as you please, it is all the same to me, but I tell you that you will see all this. Some of you will see it.

First and foremost, however, it is we ourselves who must become the New Jerusalem with our twelve gates in perfect working order, so that there may be an uninterrupted flow of exchange, and we may be transfigured. For, as I have already explained, the most important thing to understand is the symbolism of the New Jerusalem.

St John says that the heavenly city was surrounded by a great and high wall. A wall is a protection; the symbol of a powerful aura that surrounds and protects man. Those who possess a powerful aura are protected by the radiance of their own light.

This city had twelve gates. 'And at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites.' These twelve tribes represent the twelve functions, for behind each gate (the eyes, the ears, the mouth, and so on) stands an angel. And now I ask you to listen in a spirit of great purity to what I have to tell you. Each of the twelve gates of every man and woman who is sufficiently purified to become a New Jerusalem is guarded by an angel whose function is to receive and transform all that enters through that gate. This means that when a woman who has really purified herself wishes to conceive a child, the angel at the gate works on the sperm she receives, and the child that is born to her will be genius or a divinity. But if a woman is impure, a demon, an angel of darkness lurks behind that gate, and her child will be an idiot or a monster.

So many truths still remain hidden. But they will all be revealed in time. Be patient! You still have no real understanding of what men and women are—of their structure, of the forces at work in them, or of the way they must live in order to be true tabernacles of the living God, New Jerusalems. It is toward this that I have been leading you for years and years: that you become New Jerusalems. And those who refuse to understand today will be obliged, whether they like it or not, to understand in the long run, but by then it will be too late. Human beings are completely indifferent to what might be happening behind their gates. A man is satisfied as long as he has a woman who will let him enter. He neither knows nor cares whether what goes in is demonic or not. And the woman neither knows nor cares whether what she lets in is received by a demon or by an angel. But one day they will be obliged to take the question seriously, for it is very important.

'I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.' Once again we have the confirmation that the New Jerusalem is a temple, and this means that each human being is a temple. As St Paul says, 'You are the temple of the living God.'

The New Jerusalem is the new human being in whom all is gold, pearls, and precious stones. And thelight shines within. Each one of you must become the New Jerusalem. For two thousand years there has been a succession of occult groups that claimed to be the New Jerusalem—and there are still some today. But how can anyone delude themselves that they are the New Jerusalem when these things are still so far beyond their comprehension, when they are still prisoners of the old forms, still looking for the keys to the book of life? Only those who have these keys, the seven seals—those who have a profound understanding of the Scriptures—can be the New Jerusalem. To be the New Jerusalem it is not enough to be able to trot out a few scraps of initiatic science while continuing to be as puny, fearful, weak, irresolute, and vicious as ever. No, we can all become the New Jerusalem, but only with the help of this new light which opens all doors, and which must produce visible results. If you possess knowledge, there must be results to show for it. If there are no results, it means that your knowledge does not amount to much.

'And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it...' The sun symbolizes the intellect and the moon the heart. Those in whom divine light and divine love dwell will need neither the sun nor the moon; that is, they will need neither philosophy nor religion.

'Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.' When someone is illuminated there is no night in him. The light is always shining in those who are illuminated; even when they are asleep, there is no night for them. Whereas, others fluctuate constantly between night and day; at one moment they are in the light and at the next they are in darkness. But when illumination comes, the Holy Spirit is their light and they are no longer in darkness. Night is the lack of understanding. You must not take the phrase, 'there will be no night' literally. Use your imagination; if there were no night it would mean that the cosmic order was disrupted; the earth would no longer spin on its axis; one half of the world would be in perpetual light and the other in perpetual darkness. That is not possible. In another chapter of Revelations we read, `To the one who conquers I will also give the morning star.' The morning star is Venus. Does this mean that the celestial harmony of the heavens must be disrupted so that one who conquers may be given the planet Venus? What could he possibly do with it? Where would he put it? And suppose there were several who conquered—where could they find several other planets? No, it is obvious that all this has to be understood symbolically. So there is no need to worry; day and night will continue to exist. In this context, night symbolizes all that is negative. As long as night exists you will be full of hope one minute and in the depths of despair the next, full of faith one minute and full of doubts the next, and so on.

The New Jerusalem, therefore, is, first and foremost, the individual human being. Secondly it is a magnificent society, and thirdly it is the true Church of God, the Church of St John, the Church of the Spirit and of Truth, the Church of all the great initiates. No one can prevent this Church from coming, and when it comes all these things will be explained; everything will become clear, for Scripture tells us that God will dwell in human beings and write his law in their hearts. When this day comes, people will not need anyone to preach religion or morals to them; they will all know inwardly what to do, how to love, how to serve, and how to work. When a woman has a child she has no need of anyone to tell her how to feed and care for her child, to tell her that she must get up and look after it if it cries in the night; she knows all that because she has love in her heart. The Lord has written his laws in the hearts of mothers; they do not need rules or recipes from others. It is only when there is no love that we need rules. And even then they do not do much good.

As long as there is no love, there will continue to be religions, but the religions will never lead humanity to God. When love reigns there will be no more need for the religions. Religion will develop inwardly and express itself as kindness, radiance, sacrifice, sweetness, and light. I teach you as I have been taught. It was when love no longer dwelt with mankind that religion appeared and tried to make up for the loss. But when love returns, religion as we know it today will disappear again, for it will live once more in the hearts of men.

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