I’ve mentioned before that I was a kid when the Hal Lindsey ** you do not have permission to see this link ** ‘End Times’ kerfuffle seized the imagination of the fundamentalist evangelical church.  It’s hard to describe the excitement of those days when people were convinced the end was near.   I didn’t know anybody who actually ‘sold the farm’ and over time the fervor died down.  Looking back I thought that only evangelicals wrote those sorts of books.  But I was wrong.

Back in the days when I contributed to the late truly great ** you do not have permission to see this link ** blog, I was corrected by a member who pointed me to Fr Seraphim Rose, an Orthodox Hieromonk, no less.    Rose was an American, born Eugene Dennis Rose (August 13, 1934 – September 2, 1982).  Raised a Methodist, Rose converted to Orthodoxy in his twenties.  He was a member of the then schismatic Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) in San Francisco.  (ROCOR reestablished communion with the Church in 2006.) 

Rose seems to have had the enthusiasm of the convert.  He opposed Orthodox efforts at Ecumenism, considered himself a Creationist (Orthodoxy itself takes no officially dogmatic position on the issue) and had some interesting (and controversial) theological positions.  An example of the latter was his belief in what’s called ** you do not have permission to see this link **.  This is the idea that after death the soul must pass certain “houses” where you are challenged by demons before you may rise to heaven.   Now if you know your Gnosticism or your Jewish Merkabah mysticism, this idea won’t be completely novel!

Rose was academically talented and spent a lot of time translating texts.  The focus of this post is his own work, ** you do not have permission to see this link **.   

Of course Rose’s book is much more erudite than Lindsey’s but it’s all there.   The evil deceptions of Eastern religions, the New Age movement, the Charismatic revival, UFO phenomena, the Jonestown tragedy, and ecumenism.  Rose views contemporary spiritual practices like yoga, Zen, transcendental meditation, and Pentecostalism, as reflective of a coming global spirituality. Of course only the Orthodox Christian tradition offers the necessary framework for understanding and opposing these destructive modern spiritual trends.  Rose is not a dispensationalist of course, so no Tribulation or Rapture, but he does detect the aroma of AntiChrist. 

Rose’s interesting contention is that in reality modernism, secularism and atheism are not the real enemies.  No, what Satan does is to create replicas of faith, systems of belief that mirror the True Faith in all things save one, the core of true spirituality that only Rose’s own communion can provide. 

One can only imagine a meeting of Lindsey and Rose, each equally certain and each equally contemptuous of the other!

I will say I’m rather taken by the notion of the Aerial Toll House…

I sat up straight when I read about ATH.  The ATH follows fairly closely the idea of the “Palaces” (Hekhalot) in Jewish Merkabah mysticism.  For the mystic to reach the Divine Throne (Merkabah) they must make a dangerous journey involving the navigating of seven distinct palaces. Each palace is guarded by terrifying, hostile angels who prevent progress unless the mystic possesses certain divine names and magical passwords.  The ultimate goal is to behold God seated on his chariot throne (Merkabah)  located in the seventh, innermost palace.  In their paradoxical view, one descends to the throne.  The Hekhalot literature provides techniques for the journey: fasting, special postures, and hypnotic chants and angelic hymns.

I’m fascinated by this idea of a guided, directed mysticism.  Each seeker is expected to have similar experiences.  They’re not just tripping and then reporting back on what they saw, unique to the individual.   

What are some of the special postures?  Angelic hymns?

The postures resemble some types of yoga in that they are designed to regulate breathing.  One common posture is to sit with your head down between your knees. 

The chants and the hymns are attached to liturgies that incorporated guided meditations.  They were reported to be raucous affairs.  I imagine some equivalence to a full blown Pentecostal or Shaker service.   What’s interesting is that several of these hymns are still included in the Jewish prayer book.

The source texts are the Hekhalot Rabbati, “Greater Palaces” and the Maaseh Merkabah, “Work of the Chariot” in the Hekhalot literature.  There is also an interesting text from Qumran, the Sabbath Shirot, “Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice”.  

This subject is a vertigo inducing bottomless pit but if anybody is interested (like me!) the current critical translation/commentary is James Davila’s ** you do not have permission to see this link ** can be perused with satisfactory results.

Living in these decadent times I of course wondered if there was any hallucinogenic substance abuse associated with these practices.   It turns out that there is no evidence for it whatsoever.   Apparently the human biocomputer can be programmed without it. 

Addendum:  I realized I forgot to mention music.  Unfortunately none of the musical notation associated with the  Hekhalot songs survives since it was transmitted orally.   How often this must have happened in the past that rare and arcane traditions were lost because nobody thought to write them down!