the earth which the initiate experiences through the trumpets.

Thus the initiate prophetically goes through what is to happen. And
the Christian initiate learns how the Christ-impulse interposes and
works on in earthly evolution. After it has been shown how all that is
too much attached to perishable things perishes to attain true
Christianity, there appears the mighty angel with a little book open
in his hand, which he gives to St. John. "And he said unto me, Take
it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be
in thy mouth sweet as honey" (x. 9). St. John was not only to read the
little book, he was to absorb it and let its contents permeate him.
What avails any knowledge unless man is vitally and thoroughly imbued
with it? Wisdom has to become life, man must not merely recognise the
divine, but become divine himself. Such wisdom as is written in the
book no doubt causes pain to the perishable part of man, "it shall
make thy belly bitter," but so much the more does it make happy the
eternal part, "but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey."

Only by such an initiation can Christianity become actual on the
earth. It kills everything belonging to the lower nature. "And their
dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which
spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was
crucified." By this is meant the followers of Christ, who are
ill-treated by the temporal powers. But what is ill-treated is only
the mortal part of human nature, which they will afterwards have
conquered. Thereby their fate is a copy of the prefiguring fate of
Christ Jesus. "Spiritually Sodom and Egypt" is the symbol of a life
which cleaves to the outer and is not changed by the Christ-impulse.
Christ is everywhere crucified in the lower nature. When the lower
nature conquers, all remains dead. The dead bodies of men lie about
in the public places of cities. Those who overcome the lower nature
and awaken the crucified Christ hear the trumpet of the seventh angel,
"the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and
of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever" (xi. 15). "And
the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his
temple the ark of his testament" (xi. 19).

In the vision of these events, the initiate sees renewed the old
struggle between the lower and the higher natures. For everything
which the candidate for initiation formerly had to go through must