Encyclopedia of Prophecy

xiv—Running Foot

Encyclopedia of Prophecy

Geoffrey Ashe

BSanta Barbara, California

Denver, ColoradoOxford, England

Copyright © 2001 by Geoffrey Ashe

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, inany form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for theinclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataAshe, Geoffrey.

Encyclopedia of prophecy / Geoffrey Ashe.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 1-57607-079-4 (alk. paper)—ISBN 1-57607-528-1 (e-book)

1. Prophecies (Occultism)—Encyclopedias. I. Title.BF1786 .A84 2001133.3'03—dc21

2001001067

06 05 04 03 02 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an e-book.Visit abc-clio.com for details.

ABC-CLIO, Inc.130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911

This book is printed on acid-free paper I.Manufactured in the United States of America

v

CONTENTS

Preface, viiAcknowledgments, ix

Encyclopedia of Prophecy

Adams, Evangeline, 1Angelic Pope, 1Antichrist, 2Apocalypse, 5Apollo, 7Aquarius, Age of, 7Armageddon, 8Arthur, King, 9Astrology, 13Atlantis, 16Augustine, Saint, 18Bacon, Francis, 21Bahais, 23Barton, Elizabeth, 24Bellamy, Edward, 25Benson, Robert Hugh, 26Besant, Annie, 27Biblical Prophecy (1)—Israelite and

Jewish, 28Biblical Prophecy (2)—Christian, 31Blake, William, 34Brahan Seer, The, 36British-Israel Theory, 37Camisards, 39Cassandra, 41Cathbad, 42Cayce, Edgar, 43Cazotte, Jacques, 45Channeling, 47Cheiro, 48Chesterton, Gilbert Keith, 49

Daniel, 53Dante Alighieri, 55Day of the Lord, 60Delphi, 61Divination, 63Dixon, Jeane, 65Dreams, 66Dunne, J. W., 68Elijah, 73Eliot, George, 76End of the World, 76Ezekiel, 81Fatima, 83Fifth Monarchy Men, 86Forster, E. M., 86Frederick Barbarossa, 90Garnett, Mayn Clew, 93Glastonbury (Somerset, England), 93Guglielma of Milan, 96Hanussen, Erik Jan, 99Harbou, Thea von, 100Herzl, Theodor, 101Hildegard of Bingen, Saint, 103Huxley, Aldous, 104Isaiah, 107Jeremiah, 111Jesus Christ, 113Joachim of Fiore, 116Johanson, Anton, 119John, Saint, 119John the Baptist, 121

Jonah, 121Kalki, 125Krafft, Karl Ernst, 125Lawrence, D. H., 129Lemuria, 129Lilly, William, 131Macbeth, 133Mahdi, 134Maitreya, 135Malachy, Saint, 135Maya, 138Mercier, Louis-Sébastien, 139Merlin, 143Messiah, 147Micah, 150Milton, John, 151Monmouth, James, Duke of, 156Moore, Francis, 157Morris, William, 157Muhammad, 159Napoleon, 161Nazi Germany, 161Newspaper Astrology, 165Newton, Isaac, 165Nixon, Robert, 167Nostradamus, 168Oracles, 177Orwell, George, 178Palmistry, 181Parapsychology, 182Partridge, John, 182Peden, Alexander, 183Premonitions, 185Promised Land, 186Prophecy, Theories of, 188Psychics, 195Pyramidology, 196

Quetzalcoatl, 199Revelation, 201Robertson, Morgan, 208Sabbatai Zevi, 211Savonarola, Girolamo, 213Scrying, 214Second Charlemagne, 216Second Isaiah, 218Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 221Shamanism, 221Shambhala, 222Shaw, George Bernard, 226Shipton, Mother, 228“Sibyl” (Norse), 230Sibyls and Sibylline Texts, 231Simeon and Anna, 233Smith, Joseph, 233Solovyev,Vladimir, 235Southcott, Joanna, 237Sphinx, 238Spurinna, 239Stapledon, Olaf, 240Stead, W. T., 243Tarot, 245Tecumseh, 249Tennyson, Alfred, 250Thaxter, Celia, 250Theosophy, 251Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 253Thomas the Rhymer, 254Titanic, 255Virgil, 257Wandering Jew, 259Wells, H. G., 260Witchcraft, 265Zamyatin,Yevgeny, 269

CONTENTS

vi

Bibliography, 271Index, 275

About the Author, 291

vii

The word prophecy originally meant“inspired utterance.” A god or goddessor spirit or, at any rate, some unseen beingother than the person inspired, spokethrough that person. At first, prophecy didnot imply foretelling the future, but thatmeaning developed, especially in Greece andin ancient Israel. Largely because the Israeliteprophets’ predictions were preserved in theBible and because the Bible became a sacredbook for many nations, the predictive mean-ing of prophecy came to predominate in theWestern world.

Prophecy in the predictive sense, with orwithout a claim to inspiration, is the subjectof this encyclopedia. A distinction is neededat the outset. The encyclopedia is not aboutintelligent anticipation or rational forecast-ing, such as that attempted by political jour-nalists, economic prognosticators, statisti-cians, and scientists who project what theyregard as historical and current trends intothe future. Activity of this type enjoyed aspecial vogue between about 1965 and 1975,under the name of futurology. It is not con-sidered here or is considered only margin-ally. One justification for considering othersorts of prediction is that the would-berational sort has not been conspicuously suc-cessful. A fiasco that had repercussions wasthe failure of rational forecasters to forecastthe downfall of the Communist empire in1991. Most of them thought it would gofrom strength to strength. It is fair and rele-vant to add that on this great issue, whennearly all the experts were wrong, an obscure

Portuguese visionary (whose story is in thisbook) was right.

From the experts’point of view,most of thecases surveyed here would doubtless count asirrational. People are supposed to haveacquired knowledge of the future throughprocesses that may be closer to the old conceptof inspiration: through a rapport with somedivine or supernatural being, through clair-voyance, through dreams, or through someparanormal technique such as astrology. In allsuch cases, the encyclopedia is concerned withfacts. It makes no prior assumption as towhether knowledge of the future really occursor can occur. Sometimes the facts, uponexamination, may be thought to favor thatpossibility. Sometimes they evidently do not.There are also prophecies where the maininterest lies in the way they reflect hopes oraspirations or ways of thinking, so that theyhave a place in the history of ideas eventhough the predictions may be obsolete.

There is not much in the encyclopediaabout science fiction, although, of course, itoften has a future setting. The volume ofmaterial is too vast to accommodate, and thebest of it is rooted in rational anticipation,however fancifully extended. Writers of sci-ence fiction do not pretend to have actuallyhad visions or to have seen ahead by divina-tion. However, a few classics are included inwhich the authors are not so much makingforecasts as making points. They are usingfuture scenarios to satirize the world theylive in or to fabricate myths and nightmareswith a bearing on it. Their imagination is so

PREFACE

rich and influential, even with no impliedparanormal factor, that their writings deservea place in this volume. These are listed underthe authors’ names. An author—H. G. Wells,for instance—may have written many otherthings, and, if so, the nature of this output issummarized, but the focus of the article is ona particular work. In one case, that of OlafStapledon, the author’s mythmaking raises aninteresting question about the nature ofprophecy itself.That alone would be enoughreason for inclusion in this book.

The first requirement for coming toterms with the topics in the encyclopedia isan open mind. If the materials areapproached in that spirit, I believe enoughprobabilities emerge to justify a discussion ofhow foreknowledge may happen. That dis-cussion appears in its place. There is cer-tainly no easy answer, but the alternativeeasy answer of simply denying everythingdoes not work.

Geoffrey Ashe

PREFACE

viii

ix

A book that ranges as widely as theEncyclopedia of Prophecy, reflecting so muchthinking and discussion over a long stretch oftime, must owe obligations to more peoplethan could ever be recalled or named indi-vidually. However, my supreme thanks aredue to my wife, Patricia, who made a truly

extraordinary contribution by taking on for-midable tasks of copying, revision, and com-munication and by helping with the some-times harder business of establishing the besttext and illustrative matter. These thingswere done nobly and with an outpouring ofeffort that cannot be praised too highly.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1

ADAMS, EVANGELINE(1865–1932)Practitioner and publicist of astrology, cred-ited with giving it respectable status in theUnited States. She belonged to a prominentfamily in Massachusetts and was descendedfrom John Quincy Adams, the sixth presi-dent. During convalescence from a long ill-ness, she met Dr. J. Heber Smith, a physicianwho used horoscopes as a diagnostic aid.He studied hers, told her she could be anoutstanding astrologer, and trained her inthe art.

She took him at his word and set up as aconsultant, moving in 1899 to New YorkCity, where her warning of impending dis-aster for a hotel where she stayed (it wasburnt the following day) was widely re-ported and established her reputation. Sheoperated from a studio in Carnegie Hall,and secured the repeal of a city statute ban-ning fortune-telling.

Her social contacts brought in richclients and substantial fees. One of herdevotees was the film star Mary Pickford. J.P. Morgan Jr. used her advice in the conductof his banking business. In 1930 she begangiving radio broadcasts, and soon afterwardsshe published a manual, Astrology for Every-one. Her fame contributed to the birth ofnewspaper astrology.

Though she impressed individual clients,her successful forecasts of public events wereonly occasional. In 1931 she predicted thatthe United States would be at war withineleven years—correct, and mildly interest-

ing, since eleven is a curious number tothink of, and the natural ten would not quitehave extended to December 1941. About

the same time she made some observa-tions on Edward, Prince of Wales, saying

he was liable to run into trouble be-cause of an interest in married

women who would not be able toshare his throne when he became

king. Thus it turned out fiveyears later when, as Edward

VIII, he determined to marry an Americannamed Wallis Simpson quickly after her di-vorce was finalized. The British governmentand the royal family refused to accept her asa potential queen, and he was forced to ab-dicate after reigning less than a year.

Like another popular prophet, JeaneDixon, Evangeline Adams made severalfairly accurate forecasts of the death ofwell-known people. These included thegreat operatic tenor Caruso, and, appar-ently, herself.

See also: Dixon, JeaneFurther ReadingWallechinsky, David, Amy Wallace, and

Irving Wallace. The Book of Predictions.New York: William Morrow, 1980.

AGHARTISee Shambhala

ANGELIC POPEAn ideal pope, recurrently prophesied in theMiddle Ages and Renaissance.

The Angelic Pope is mentioned first in1267 by the Franciscan polymath RogerBacon, who refers to a revelation some un-named person had about him. The prophecyhas been current, Bacon says, for forty years.This pope will reform the Church, gettingrid of corruption and internal strife, and im-press the world by his goodness and justice.Thanks to his influence, the breakaway

A

Greek Christians will return to the Romanfold; the Jews will acknowledge Christ; andthe Tartars and Saracens will cease to troubleChristendom. A brighter day will dawn, and,Bacon believes, in his own lifetime.

This glorious pontiff was adopted by thefollowers of Joachim of Fiore, who had al-ready prophesied an Age of the Holy Spiritand now added the Angelic Pope to theirprogram, as its inaugurator. In 1294 itseemed for a moment that he might have ar-rived. Pietro di Morrone, a humble andsaintly hermit from Naples, was elected asPope Celestine V. Public enthusiasm wastremendous, but he was unequal to the tasksof administration and soon resigned withouteffecting any reforms.

He became, however, a sort of prototypein Joachite imagination, and a true AngelicPope was still hoped for. There might evenbe a succession of good popes, associatedwith another prophetic figure, the SecondCharlemagne. These speculations were em-bodied in a series of symbolic pictures, theVaticinia de Summis Pontificibus (Prophecies ofthe Supreme Pontiffs), culminating in theAngelic Pope.

When the Renaissance unleashed awave of freelance preachers and prophetsand the spread of printing created an en-larged audience for them, some of themspoke of fulfilling such predictions. In1516 Fra Bonaventura, under Joachite in-fluence, announced that he actually wasthe Angelic Pope and took it upon himselfto excommunicate the real one, Leo X. In1525 Pietro Galantino, an astrologer, like-wise under Joachite influence, seems tohave regarded himself in much the samelight. The official Church tried to bringsuch outbreaks under control; the FifthLateran Council was censorious, thoughwithout denying that revelations of the fu-ture could happen and, by implication,might have happened for the Joachites.Guesswork of a more responsible kind fas-tened briefly on other candidates, includ-

ing Leo himself, an unfortunate choicesince, far from bringing harmony, he pro-voked the Reformation. Marcellus II,elected in 1555, may have inspired hopes,but he did not live long enough to showwhether he was angelic or not.

After Marcellus, the atmosphere of theChurch was unfavorable to such speculation.Nevertheless, towards the end of the six-teenth century, further prophecies becamecurrent that led up, like the Vaticinia, to anAngelic Pope in an indefinite future. One ofthem, attributed to Saint Malachy, has an in-terest of its own as containing—arguably—anumber of fulfilled predictions.

George Eliot mentions the Angelic Popein her historical novel Romola.

See also: Eliot, George; Joachim of Fiore;Malachy, Saint; Second Charlemagne

Further ReadingAshe, Geoffrey. The Book of Prophecy. London:

Blandford, 1999.Reeves, Marjorie. Joachim of Fiore and the

Prophetic Future. New York: Harper andRow, 1977.

Reeves, Marjorie, ed. Prophetic Rome in theHigh Renaissance Period. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1992.

ANNASee Simeon and Anna

ANTICHRISTA future archenemy of God who figures inChristian prophecy or, rather, speculation.

He has a pre-Christian prototype, Anti-ochus Epiphanes, a Greek king of Syria whopersecuted the Jews from 167 to 164 B.C.Antiochus installed a statue of Zeus in theTemple, stopped the sacrifices and other cer-emonies, and tried to suppress Judaism en-tirely or at least destroy its distinctive char-acter. Some Jews collaborated with him;others held firm and endured the firstknown martyrdoms for a religious cause.The biblical book Daniel denounces Anti-

ANNA

2

ochus and foretells his downfall. This crisisprovoked a rebellion led by the Maccabeebrothers, which created a Jewish kingdomthat survived until the region fell underRoman dominance.

Having endured one persecution, Jewscorrectly expected more.They hoped for theMessiah, a future God-given champion whowould bring lasting deliverance. While theywere not so specific about a chief enemy, anew Antiochus, their scripture had longforeshadowed such a person in Ezekiel38–39, which predicts that an evil northernruler called Gog will invade the Holy Landand attack the Chosen People.

When Christian writers foretell an arch-foe of Christ, he is not at first given the nat-ural title of Antichrist, but the New Testa-

ment does coin that word. He makes hisdebut in Saint Paul’s second letter to theThessalonians. Its authenticity has been ques-tioned, but the main point is not affected,and the author may be accepted as Paul inthe absence of proof to the contrary. He hasheard that some of his converts are expectingChrist’s Second Coming at any moment andhave stopped working in the belief thateverything will be different. These holydrop-outs, Paul says, should be disowned;Christians must carry on with the ordinarybusiness of life. Not only is the time of theLord’s return unknown, something else musthappen before it occurs:The “Man of Sin”or“Lawless One” must be manifested. He willset himself up as divine; he will work bogusmiracles with the devil’s aid and deceivemany, including Christians who are not firmin the faith.After this time of testing, like theone inflicted on the Jews by Antiochus,Christ will return indeed and destroy him.

Paul suspects, perhaps, that normal lifemay still be disrupted by an expectation thatthe Lawless One will appear soon, eventhough Christ may not. He explains that thisAntichrist has a prerequisite himself. Some-one or something is acting to restrain him,and he will not be manifested until that isgone. Paul’s meaning is uncertain. An earlyguess is that he is thinking of Roman poweras a deterrent to any too-spectacular upstart.Rome, however, began to look sinister itself.When a fire devastated the city in the year64, the emperor Nero, who was suspected ofstarting it, tried to shift the blame to theChristians. Many were tortured and put todeath as incendiaries. This was not strictlypersecution, since they were not being mar-tyred for their religion, but the Church re-garded it as such ever afterwards. In practicethe distinction was hard to draw; it was theirreligion, which most Romans detested, thatNero was able to exploit. He became one ofthe archvillains of Christian tradition. Afterhis death he was rumored to be still alive, andsome Christians believed, even centuries

ANTICHRIST

3

A fifteenth-century fantasy of the battle with God’smonstrous archenemy, who was to afflict humanity inthe last days. (Ann Ronan Picture Library)

later, that he would return and himself be theAntichrist.

The last book of the New Testament, theRevelation or Apocalypse ascribed to theapostle John, symbolizes the Roman Empireas a terrible monster, its anti-Christian char-acter expressed in Nero and in the later em-peror Domitian,who was widely regarded as,in effect, Nero over again. Revelation is notexplicit about an individual Antichrist yet tocome, and in two epistles also ascribed toJohn, the term antichrist is applied more gen-erally to opponents of Christian orthodoxy.But in the writings of Fathers of the Churchsuch as Tertullian, such minor antichrists areseen as precursors of a great one who willappear finally.

Several anticipatory notions became cur-rent. Paul’s warning about Antichrist’s pre-tense of divinity and his deceptive wonder-working caused him to be imagined as asatanic parody of the true Saviour. Owing tothe Jews’ supposed guilt in the death of Jesus,many thought that Antichrist would be Jew-ish himself. One persistent idea was that hewould belong to the Israelite tribe of Dan.Genesis 49:17 makes an ominous prophecy—“Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper bythe path”—and in Revelation 7:4–8, Dan ismissing from a list of the tribes that implies di-vine favor towards the others.A difficulty hereis that Dan was one of the northern tribes thatwere deported by the Assyrians and lost toview, so that it was not part of the main Jew-ish body. However, these Lost Tribes were stillbelieved to exist somewhere, so a Danitemight emerge from concealment and lead hisfellow Israelites.

Pseudo-Sibylline writers invented a fullerAntichrist scenario. History would rise to abrief climax with a “Last Emperor” whowould bring universal peace and a generalChristian triumph. After him, Antichristwould appear and assail Christians with theworst persecution ever. Christ’s SecondComing would follow. During the MiddleAges the Last Emperor was seriously hoped

for. With or without him, there were recur-rent rumors that Antichrist was near andeven that he had been born already.

The witch mania of the sixteenth and sev-enteenth centuries, by promoting fancies ofsupernatural evil, made such rumors morespecific. In 1599 Antichrist was reported tohave been born in Babylon. In 1600 he wasborn near Paris to a Jewish woman impreg-nated by Satan. On May 1, 1623, he was al-legedly born near Babylon again. Protestantscontributed the theory that Antichrist wasthe Pope, not any particular one, but thePope in general. A by-product of this antipa-pal motif was a story that Antichrist had beenborn long before, as the son of the legendaryfemale pope Joan, and was biding his time insome mysterious retreat, as some had saidNero was.

Russians had ideas of their own. In Napo-leon’s time, many of the Orthodox clergysaid the French emperor was Antichrist, aview echoed by one of Tolstoy’s characters inWar and Peace. Another Russian, the philoso-pher Vladimir Solovyev (1853–1900), wrotea story with touches of Dostoyevsky, present-ing Antichrist as a megalomaniac reformerearly in the twenty-first century. He be-comes president of the United States of Eu-rope, solves—or appears to solve—majorworld problems, and wins over all Christiansexcept a remnant and practically all the Jews,who accept him as the Messiah. A few res-olute Christians see through him, and so dothe Jews when he declares himself “the soletrue incarnation of the Supreme Deity of theuniverse.” A Jewish-led revolt drives him toruthless measures of repression that break thespell, and he comes to his end. A novel byRobert Hugh Benson has a theme similar toSolovyev’s.

See also: Benson, Robert Hugh; Daniel;Messiah; Revelation; Sibyls and SibyllineTexts; Solovyev,Vladimir

Further ReadingAshe, Geoffrey. The Book of Prophecy. London:

Blandford, 1999.

ANTICHRIST

4

Baring-Gould, S. Antichrist and Pope Joan.Caerfyrddin, Wales: Unicorn, 1975.

APOCALYPSEA type of Jewish prophetic writing that pro-fessed to disclose divine secrets and unveil aspectacular future. Most of it is later thancanonical Jewish Scripture.

The word apocalypse means “revelation.”The best-known example is the last book ofthe New Testament, written by a JewishChristian, but its ancestry is more than twocenturies back. The apocalyptic genre has itschief prototype in Daniel, composed about165 B.C. This has been described as a mani-festo of the Hasidim, the “pious” or“saints”—Jews who stood firm under perse-cution at the hands of Antiochus IV (alsocalled Epiphanes), a descendant of one ofAlexander’s generals who ruled over Syriaand Palestine. He pursued a very un-Greekpolicy of religious conformity, which led toviolence. The Jewish high priest Onias wasmurdered by Menelaus, a nominee of theking, and Menelaus’s brother robbed theTemple in Jerusalem. Antiochus installed astatue of Zeus in the sacred precinct,stopped the daily sacrifice, and made it acrime to own copies of Scripture. Jews whoopposed him were subjected to tortures andhumiliations. A resistance group escapedinto the wilderness. These were the Ha-sidim, and they inspired a revolt that endedthe persecution.

Daniel was written during these troubles.Its central character, ostensibly the author ofparts of it, is a legendary sage. The bookplaces him, in his youth, among the Israelitesdeported to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in597 B.C. Several episodes show the superiorwisdom of the Chosen People and the divinefavor they enjoy. Daniel interprets symbolicdreams and has dreams of his own, fromwhich the main apocalyptic themes develop.By putting the story in the sixth centuryB.C., the author makes Daniel “foretell”

events that have already happened at the realtime of composition. Some passages, how-ever, genuinely look ahead. A repeatedprophecy is that Gentile empires—Babylon-ian, Median, Persian, Greek—will be re-placed by a “kingdom of stone” that will beeverlasting. Antiochus himself is denouncedand consigned to destruction. The stonekingdom is the triumphant Israelite kingdomthat will arise from the debris of the rest.

In Daniel, the figure of the Messiah hasnot yet emerged, but the author introduces acharacter who foreshadows him. Daniel has avision of the Ancient of Days—God—pro-nouncing doom on the Gentile powers.

And behold, with the clouds of heaven therecame one like a son of man,

and he came to the Ancient of Days andwas presented before him.

And to him was given dominion and gloryand kingdom, that all peoples,

nations, and languages should serve him; hisdominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away, and his kingdomone that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13–14)

This being, human yet more than human,probably personifies Israel. The fall of theempires and the rise of the stone kingdom tosupremacy are acts in a God-directed dramaleading towards the end of the present age.The author gives a new prominence to an-gels and, for the first time in Jewish Scrip-ture, speaks of a resurrection of the dead(Daniel 12:2–3).

After Daniel, several Jewish writers pro-duced books on similar lines, in which theapocalyptic element grew more fanciful.They took up hints from authentic Scriptureand unfolded what were supposed to be se-cret meanings. Much of this literature was“pseudepigraphic”: to give their books aspurious dignity, in the same manner as withDaniel, the authors ascribed them to reveredfigures in the past.Apocalyptic matter occursin books alleged to be written by Ezra, bythe ancient patriarch Enoch, and even by

APOCALYPSE

5

Adam—an extreme of seniority. Such pro-ductions were not admitted to the Bible, yetthe fictitious visions they contained did notpart company altogether with recognizedtradition.

The effects of the Antiochus ordeal lastedfar beyond the ordeal itself. After it, Jews hada heightened awareness of hostile forces. TheSyrian tyrant became an archetype of evil.The revolt against him had created an inde-pendent Jewish state, which survived forabout 100 years but failed to realize thehoped-for glories of the “kingdom of stone”and succumbed to Roman conquest in 63B.C. Hopes were continually being disap-pointed. Some apocalyptists detected the rea-son in a supernatural conflict that derivedfrom Babylonian and Persian myth but hadhitherto been excluded from Jewish belief.Devils were now discovered; they were madeout to be fallen angels headed by Satan, pre-viously a minor spirit and barely mentionedin Scripture, but now beginning to be pre-sented as an adversary of God, troubling hu-manity and particularly the Chosen People.A dragon-monster called Beliar also mademischief. Against these powers of evil, angelswere ranged, with names and relationshipsand political roles; Michael being the protec-tor of Israel.

Human agency, it was implied, could notbring final peace. Apocalyptists enlarged ontexts in canonical prophecy about a comingDay of the Lord. It would be terrible, but itwould end in the overthrow of Israel’s ene-mies, human and otherwise. One of thesebooks, the Testament of Naphtali, declares:“God shall appear on earth to save the raceof Israel, and to gather the righteous fromamong the Gentiles.”

The victory could be expected to involvecataclysms, foreshadowed by the long-agodrowning of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea.It could also be expected to involve the ac-tivity of a special divine champion. Some au-thors took up Daniel’s image of the “Son ofMan” and made him an individual, heading

Israel rather than personifying it. In the Bookof Enoch, he is the Righteous Elect One, acelestial viceroy who will sit enthroned rul-ing all, judging all, and enlightening theGentiles. Other speculation developed theidea of the Messiah, a more earthly figure, aprince of the House of David who wouldreestablish Israel’s kingdom in unassailableglory. The Messiah was not identified withthe Son of Man before Christianity. How-ever, one Jewish school of thought harmo-nized the conceptions by saying that a Da-vidic kingdom would come first and anapocalyptic world-transformation later.

All such anticipations looked towards aworld to come, a golden age not in the pastwhere most mythologies placed it but in thefuture. After the upheavals and the defeat ofevil, the sun would shine brighter, wasteplaces would bloom, and living creatureswould cease to harm each other. A stream ofpurifying water would flow from MountZion, and Jerusalem, rebuilt and resplendent,would be the world’s capital. At some stagein this universal healing, the Lord would pro-nounce judgment on humanity, and allwould receive their true deserts. As Danielhad foretold, there would be a resurrectionof the dead: perhaps only of a select few, per-haps of the dead in general. If the latter, thegood would dwell in an eastern paradise,GanEden, and the wicked in a western countryof sorrow, Gehinnom.

This Jewish literature does not includeany major, definitive work, but it influencedthe community that produced the Dead SeaScrolls, and it supplied motifs for Revelation,the great apocalypse at the end of the NewTestament.

See also: Antichrist; Daniel; Day of the Lord;Messiah; Revelation

Further ReadingAshe, Geoffrey. The Land and the Book.

London: Collins, 1965.Brown R. E., J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E.

Murphy, eds. The New Jerome BiblicalCommentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1990.

APOCALYPSE

6

APOLLOGod of prophecy who, as portrayed in classi-cal literature, is the most Greek of deities.

However, he is a composite figure, and theearliest records indicate that Apollo was firstworshiped outside Greece. One of severaldistinctive features is that he has close linkswith a mysterious people called the Hyper-boreans, whom different authors shift aboutover a wide area but who seem, in reality, tohave lived in north-central Asia. Apollospends three months of each year amongthem. This far-off connection, coupled withother clues, suggests that his nucleus (so tospeak) may have been a god of Asianshamans who communicated with them intheir self-induced ecstasy. Such a god, carriedwestward and southward in folk migrations,may have blended with other deities in partsof Asia closer to Greece.

Apollo, credibly a result of this fusion, isfirst recognizable in Asia Minor. At Troy hewas worshiped together with his sisterArtemis, who also had northern affiliations.A prophetic element in him, whethershamanic or otherwise, remained potent.Legend tells how he enabled the Trojanprincess Cassandra to share the gift, withunhappy consequences. His inspired Sibylswere said to flourish in the same generalarea.

Apollo, in some form, crossed the AegeanSea with Artemis. A new myth gave thetwins a Greek birthplace on the island ofDelos, linking them with Zeus’s family ofOlympians. In Greece, Apollo grew civilizedand complex. He became the patron of heal-ing, music, and mathematics and (though notuntil long afterwards) a sun god. On thewhole, he stood for harmony and rationality,but the prophetic element in him neverceased to be active. He had oracular shrinesat various places—Delphi was the most im-portant—and spoke through priestesseswhom he inspired, giving advice andwarnings to those who consulted him, withoccasional glimpses of the future, or so it was

believed. Sometimes, his messages were opento more than one interpretation, and in hisoracular role, he was known as Loxias, theAmbiguous. Inquirers went on coming untilthe oracles ceased to function in the fourthcentury A.D.

A special aspect of Apollo, strengtheningthe case for shamanic antecedents, is his as-sociation with the number seven. One of histitles is “Commander of Sevens”: the mean-ing is uncertain, but probably calendric. Inthe Delian myth, he was born on the sev-enth day of the month Thargelion, aboutMay 20. His Delphic oracle could only beconsulted on the seventh day of a monthwhen he was in residence. Most of his festi-vals were held on seventh days. There arefurther sevens in his mythology. The mys-tique of seven does not occur in conjunc-tion with any other Greek god. It is promi-nent, however, in India’s Vedic hymns, inSumer and Babylonia, and, of course, in Is-rael, as the Bible shows. The motif is trace-able in shamanic cults of Siberia and mayhave originated there. Conjecturally, it wasrooted in an ancient reverence for the seven-starred constellation Ursa Major, still at-tested by modern anthropologists; andApollo’s sister Artemis had a mythic linkwith that constellation.

See also: Cassandra; Delphi; Oracles; Sibylsand Sibylline Texts

Further ReadingAshe, Geoffrey. Dawn behind the Dawn. New

York: Henry Holt, 1992.Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. 2 vols.

New York: Penguin Books, 1960.

AQUARIUS, AGE OFAn era of transformation when, it is alleged,humanity will come under the influence of anew sign of the Zodiac.

The notion that the Earth passes throughastrological phases is a product of its oscilla-tion. Because of this, the stars go through agradual change of position in the sky, about

AQUARIUS, AGE OF

7

one degree every seventy-two years. It hasbeen asserted that history falls into equal pe-riods, each ruled by whichever sign of theZodiac the Sun is in at the spring equinox.Acomplete revolution of the heavens takes25,920 years (360 × 72); therefore, sincethere are twelve signs, the Sun is in any givenone at the equinox for one-twelfth of thisperiod, that is, 2,160 years. It then passes intoanother sign, and it will be that one’s turn toexert a dominant influence.

At present the Age of Pisces, the Fishes, issaid to have lasted for more than 2,000 years.Since the fish is an ancient Christian symbol,the Age of Pisces is understood to encompassthe Christian era. The Age of Pisces willpresently be left behind, and Christianitywith it. According to different exponents ofthis theory, the world is moving—or hasmoved—or is on the verge of moving—intothe Age of Aquarius, with the Sun in thatsign in spring. While it is not clear whetherthe shift has happened yet, it is certainly notfar off.

The “dawning of the Age of Aquarius”was proclaimed by pop culture in the 1960s.By the 1980s, belief in it was a virtual ortho-doxy in some quarters, and there was talk ofan “Aquarian conspiracy,” meaning a net-work of individuals absorbing and propagat-ing the new influences and sowing the seedsof a transformation of human consciousness.The Age of Aquarius is to be a time of in-creasing harmony, understanding, and spiri-tual growth. It appears that spiritual growthwill cover a vast range of “fringe” ideas andactivities.

Further ReadingCampbell, Eileen, and J. H. Brennan. The

Aquarian Guide to the New Age.Wellingborough, England: The AquarianPress, 1990.

ARMAGEDDONScene of a final conflict between good andevil.

Armageddon occurs in the vista of the fu-ture portrayed by John (perhaps the apostle,perhaps someone else) in his Revelation orApocalypse, the last book of the New Testa-ment. The powers of evil, headed by Satan,send out demonic spirits to summon thekings of the world for battle “on the greatday of God the Almighty.”“And they assem-bled them at the place which is called in He-brew Armageddon” (Revelation 16:16). Thebattle does not begin at this point in the nar-rative. John takes up the thread again inchapter 19, where Christ returns in majestywith “the armies of heaven” and wins thevictory.

The place intended is Megiddo in north-central Palestine: “Armageddon” is har-Megiddo, or Mount Megiddo. Strategicallylocated, Megiddo has several associationswith warfare. Here the Canaanite king Jabinwas defeated by the Israelites under the lead-ership of Deborah and Barak. Here also KingJosiah fell in 609 B.C. opposing an Egyptianarmy, an event recalled in Jewish tradition asa bitter tragedy. However, the chief scripturalprecedent for John’s battle is Ezekiel 38–39,foretelling an attack on the Holy Land by thenorthern ruler “Gog of the land of Magog,”with a huge composite host drawn from amedley of nations. Ezekiel prophesies thatthe Lord will destroy Gog’s multitude “uponthe mountains of Israel.” John’s addition of“mount” to “Megiddo” probably echoes thispassage.

Some interpreters of Revelation, awarethat the Gog prophecy has never been ful-filled, have taken it as referring to the samefuture battle that John refers to. They havealso seen Armageddon as an immediate pre-lude to the end of the world. Revelationdoes not support either opinion. Christ’s vic-tory in chapter 19 brings the present age toa close, but the story goes on after that. Anangel “binds” Satan and shuts him in a sub-terranean prison for 1,000 years. During thesame period, Christ is to dwell on Earth,reigning over a kingdom of resurrected mar-

ARMAGEDDON

8

tyrs and other saints, seemingly in the HolyLand. A time of renewed trouble ensues(Revelation 20:7–9), and here, not earlier, wefind Ezekiel’s sinister names. “Satan will beloosed from his prison and will come out todeceive the nations which are in the fourcorners of the earth, that is, Gog and Magog,to gather them to battle; their number is likethe sand of the sea. And they marched upover the broad earth and surrounded thecamp of the saints and the beloved city; butfire came down from heaven and consumedthem.”

This does not cancel the military finalityof Armageddon because no actual battle isfought. Satan’s army is annihilated, he is castinto hell, and that is truly the end. There is ageneral resurrection of the dead, followed bythe Last Judgment. The present world ceasesto exist, and the blessed enter into a gloriousNew Jerusalem.

John’s concept of Armageddon is not fullyanticipated in previous writings, but theDead Sea Scrolls foreshadow a “War of theSons of Light against the Sons of Darkness”that will have a decisive outcome. Thoughwaged with God’s blessing, it is envisaged ona more human level than Armageddon, andthe Jewish Messiah plays no part in it. Hence,it is more like a real war, and the text gives asurprising amount of military detail, some ofit Roman-inspired.

Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia speaksof a coming “War of Shambhala,” which isalso to be a clash of good and evil, with goodtriumphant. Shambhala is a legendary holyplace, conjecturally concealed in the AltaiMountains, and a messianic figure is toemerge from it. During the 1920s, this hopewas taken up by Mongolian nationalists. Theemerging leader was identified with Gesar,an epic hero, and the prophecy became in-volved with hopes of Asian resurgenceagainst imperialist powers. After this phaseblew over, the War of Shambhala lost itsquasi-political character and receded into anindefinite future.

See also: Revelation; ShambhalaFurther ReadingBrown R. E., J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E.

Murphy, eds. The New Jerome BiblicalCommentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, 1990.

ARTHUR, KINGBritish monarch in a vague medieval past,who was supposed never to have died, andwhose return was prophesied.

The Arthurian Legend, one of the great-est themes of romance, is rooted in the Celticpeople who inhabited Britain before the ar-rival of the Anglo-Saxons, ancestors of theEnglish. These Britons, after being subjectsof the Roman Empire for more than threecenturies, became independent around theyear 410. The Anglo-Saxons from the conti-nent seem to have entered the country firstas auxiliary troops, employed by the inde-pendent Britons. More followed without au-thorization. Reinforced, they got out of con-trol and gradually expanded theirsettlements.After an era of shifts and changeslasting several centuries, they achieved dom-inance over all of what is now England.

Celtic Britons remained unsubjugated inWales and some northern areas, as well as inBrittany across the English Channel, whichthey had colonized. These handed downtales of the early post-Roman period whenBritish leaders were still active, resisting thenew people and winning temporary victo-ries.The balance of probability favors the ex-istence of a real Arthur figure among them,in the second half of the fifth century or pos-sibly a little later. One or two of them areknown to have had Roman names, showinga slight survival of imperial culture, and thename Arthur is a Welsh form of the Romanname Artorius. The Arthur of legend and ro-mance is, of course, an immense expansion ofany credible individual and may have ab-sorbed traditions of other men, even perhapsother men called Arthur.

ARTHUR, KING

9

At some unknown stage in legend-weav-ing, Arthur joined the select company ofhistorical characters who have been re-ported alive after they were presumed to be

dead. Such persons need not be popular he-roes; they can be either good or bad. Thelist includes the Mexican peasant leader Za-pata, the British military chief Lord Kitch-

ARTHUR, KING

10

King Arthur, depicted as one of the Nine Worthies, heroes of medieval tradition. Reputedly he was not dead, andhe would return. (Ann Ronan Picture Library)

ener, and even President Kennedy; it alsoincludes Nero and Hitler. Normally, therumor fades out when its subject cannotpossibly have survived so long. But that isnot always so. A medieval German emperor,Frederick Barbarossa, was believed to beasleep in a mountain cave centuries after hisdeath. The Portuguese king Sebastian, offi-cially killed in battle in 1578, was reputed tobe alive for many years afterwards, and thecredulous hoped for his return as a nationalsavior as late as 1807, when NapoleonBonaparte’s army overran Portugal. Theundying Arthur may have begun his careeras a British Sebastian.

He is first clearly documented in the earlytwelfth century by references to folk beliefsabout him in Cornwall and Brittany. Corn-wall remained predominantly Celtic longafter the rest of England was English. A partyof French priests, visiting the Cornish city ofBodmin in 1113, were told by one of the lo-cals that King Arthur was alive.They laughedat him but found to their surprise that thebystanders agreed, and a fight broke out.Thefirst known mention of the prophecy of anactual return is in 1125, when the historianWilliam of Malmesbury says: “The tomb ofArthur is nowhere seen, whence ancient dit-ties fable that he is yet to come.” That ex-pectation is on record as the “Breton hope”a few years later.

There are two principal conceptions ofthe secret retreat where Arthur lives on. Ge-offrey of Monmouth, who wrote a famouspseudo history bringing him in, says thatafter his last battle, he was “carried off to theIsle of Avalon for his wounds to be attendedto.” According to some romancers, he is stillin that enchanted place (not originallyequated with Glastonbury in Somerset).Theother principal story is that he is asleep in acave. The cave legend is found in Wales, inwestern and northern England, and in Scot-land. It has at least fifteen locations, includ-ing Cadbury Castle, an ancient Somersethill-fort, which was refortified in the

“Arthur” period and is thought to be theprototype of Camelot so far as anything is.John Masefield’s poem Midsummer Night isbased on the Cadbury tradition. In mostcases, the cave is not a real one that can beexplored in the normal way. It is magicallyhidden and only revealed to the occasionalvisitor, sometimes by a mysterious strangerwho may be Merlin himself. Arthur mightvoyage back from Avalon, or he mightemerge from his cave.

In either scenario he would have beenpictured first as a Celtic warrior-messiah,leading the Welsh and others against the En-glish. During the Middle Ages, however,when Arthurian romances became popularthroughout Christendom, he was trans-formed into a king of England as well asother lands, the lord of a past golden age, asort of chivalric Utopia. Plantagenet sover-eigns such as Edward I took him seriously asan illustrious forebear, and his prophesied re-turn became more of a national motif. If hecame back, perhaps in an hour of specialneed, his glory would revive.

Sir Thomas Malory, in his famous versionof the legend, mentions the prophecy,though he is noncommittal himself. “Somemen say in many parts of England that KingArthur is not dead, but had by the will ofOur Lord Jesu into another place; and mensay that he shall come again. . . . Many mensay that there is written upon his tomb thisverse: ‘HIC JACET ARTHURUS, REX QUONDAMREXQUE FUTURUS.’” The Latin line, “Herelies Arthur, king that was and king that shallbe,” suggested the title of T. H. White’s four-part novel The Once and Future King. SinceMalory asserts that it was written on a tomb,it is not clear in what sense Arthur could befuture.

Malory’s book was published in 1485.That year marks a transition, when Arthur’sreturn began to be symbolic rather than lit-eral. Henry Tudor defeated Richard III atBosworth and became King Henry VII. Hewas part Welsh, claiming a pedigree that took

ARTHUR, KING

11

his ancestry far back towards Arthur, and hisarmy flew a Red Dragon standard emblem-atic of Wales. Tudor publicists developed amyth that he was restoring the true “British”monarchy and bringing back harmony aftercenturies of usurpation and strife. Henry hadhis firstborn son baptized at Winchester,which Malory said was Camelot, and namedhim Arthur with the apparent intention thathe should reign as Arthur II, sufficiently ful-filling the prophecy. Prince Arthur diedyoung, and his brother became king asHenry VIII. He did not make so much of thenotion, but he kept it alive, and John Leland,the court antiquary, hailed him in verse as“Arturius Redivivus,” or “Arthur renewed.”

The Tudor Myth rose to a new heightwith Elizabeth I. Edmund Spenser, in his al-legorical poem The Faerie Queene, suggeststhat her realm was, in effect, Arthur’s idealBritain reconstituted. In his poem he imag-ines Merlin delivering a long prophecy aboutBritain’s future, leading up to a climax withthe Tudors. Even after the dynasty ended andthe Stuarts came in, the propagandist themeof Arthurian revival made further appear-ances and was some time dying away.

Since then, while King Arthur has in-spired a vast amount of literature, his returnhas been a topic for poetry and fantasy ratherthan literal hope. However, the prophecy hasan enduring psychological interest. It givesmythic expression to a definable way oflooking at things and a syndrome that recursamong religious and political activists. Theyshow a tendency to conceive a movementtowards reform or revolution not as a simplestep forwards, but as a revival. When thishappens, they evoke a long-lost glory orpromise and regard it as not permanentlylost. It is still potentially “there,” so to speak,as the Arthur of legend still secretly exists; itcan be reinstated for a fresh start, with inter-vening corruption swept away, as the Arthurof legend will return in glory.

Among several historic instances, a no-table one is the movement for Christian re-

form in the sixteenth century. Reformers,both Catholic and Protestant, agreed that theChurch had grown corrupt and that radicalaction was required. But neither party spokeof this in terms of development or progress.Both appealed to the past. In the golden ageof the apostles and early saints, Christianitywas pure.The reformers aimed to abolish thecorruption, restore the true gospel, recapturethe pristine purity.

This kind of thinking sometimes appearscompulsive. The lost-but-recoverable goldenage simply has to be real, even if there is nogood evidence for it. Rousseau in the eigh-teenth century was a major inspirer of theFrench Revolution, but not by preachingprogress. He taught that humanity had oncebeen free, equal, and moral in a natural state.Civilization had created tyranny and misery.The proper course was to get rid of the up-holders of the evil system and create a socialorder that would enable natural goodness toreassert itself. Significantly, Rousseau admit-ted that his natural golden age might neverhave existed, but, he said, we need to imag-ine it “in order to judge well of our presentstate.” It is a necessary myth.

The early growth of Communism sup-plies an even more remarkable case history.Marx and his collaborator Engels, in spite oftheir claims of objectivity, yielded to thesame compulsion. More than thirty yearsafter their first Communist Manifesto ap-peared, they invented a long-ago and dubi-ous era of “primitive communism” andtacked it on at the beginning of their versionof history. It was a classless golden age, an ageof “simple moral grandeur” that had beensubverted by “vulgar covetousness, brutallust, sordid avarice, selfish robbery of thecommon wealth.” Thousands of years ofconflict and oppression ensued, but the Rev-olution would—eventually—restore the an-cient classless society on a higher plane. Theoriginal Communist Manifesto of 1848 hadnot contained anything of the kind. When anew edition came out in 1888, Engels had to

ARTHUR, KING

12

add this new notion as a prelude. Even in thematerialistic context, the long-ago goldenage had reasserted itself, and so had theprophecy of its resurrection, a “Return ofArthur.”

See also: MerlinFurther ReadingAshe, Geoffrey. The Book of Prophecy. London:

Blandford, 1999.———. King Arthur:The Dream of a Golden

Age. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990.Lacy, Norris J., ed. The New Arthurian

Encyclopedia. New York and London:Garland, 1991.

ASTROLOGYThe art of judging the influence of planetsand stars on human beings—in the past, inthe present, and, by extrapolation, in thefuture.

India and China have had astrological sys-tems for a long time. These are highly de-veloped, and regarded with respect. TheWestern version has its ancestry in Babylo-nia, where astronomers were listing constel-lations and prominent stars in the secondmillennium B.C. With the passage of time,they came to distinguish seven “planets,”counting the five true ones visible withouttelescopes plus the Sun and Moon—inother words, the seven bodies that were notfixed like stars. All seven were associatedwith divine beings. They were seen to travelthrough sections of the sky that astronomersdefined by twelve constellations, the signs ofthe Zodiac.

In the sixth century B.C., Babylonians de-veloped a theory that these celestial orbs in-fluenced the world below. Greek advances inastronomy presently refined the possibilities,and the Western form of astrology tookshape. Earth was located at the center of theuniverse, with seven transparent spheres ro-tating around it, one outside another, eachcarrying a planet. The Moon’s was nearest toEarth; concentrically outside it, in order,

came the spheres carrying Mercury, Venus,the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. OutsideSaturn’s sphere was a larger one bearing thestars, and outside that was an even larger onethat imparted motion inward to all the oth-ers. The planets exerted influence on theworld at the center, and, in their varying re-lations to the Zodiac and each other, were“interpreters” of destiny. As in Babylonia,deities were associated with them. “Mer-cury,” “Venus” and the rest are the Romannames of the divinities that were assigned tothese planets by classical astrologers becausethey were thought to be the appropriateones. The fifth planet’s influence, for exam-ple, tended towards strength, assertiveness,and anger, so it was taken to be the planet ofthe war god Mars.

Astronomically, the system is no longer vi-able, and astrologers are quite aware of thefact. But they still tacitly assume it, in its es-sentials, as a kind of operating fiction, its usejustified by results. In practice—supposedly—it does work. A horoscope can be drawn upon the basis of the planets’ positions at some-one’s birth. The most important is the Sun,which is in Aries (the Ram) during part ofMarch and part of April, then in Taurus (theBull) during the rest of April and part of May,and so on. The date of birth determines theperson’s Sun-sign or birth-sign: Aries, for in-stance, if the Sun was in that portion of thesky at the time, Taurus if it was in the nextportion, and so on. The Sun-sign is said tohave a crucial bearing on the personality.

Complex calculations about the positionsof the other six planets—sometimes, today,computerized—can be expressed on a birth-chart, and add further insights into the indi-vidual’s character and destiny. On the basis ofthe inferred destiny and perhaps also of theplanets’ foreseeable positions at some futuretime, events yet to come can be predicted; or,at any rate, probabilities—the celestial bod-ies, to quote an astrologer,“influence but donot compel.” Auspicious and inauspiciousdays can be identified in advance for some

ASTROLOGY

13

important action. The technique is not con-fined to individuals. It can be applied tocities, states, institutions, or whatever, prefer-ably at the time of their foundation, theequivalent of birth. Projections into the fu-ture can be made similarly. A horoscope ofthe city of Liverpool, in England, is said tohave shown that it will become the capital ofEngland in the twenty-third century—anextreme case but not inconsistent with thelogic of the system.

To revert to history, Romans were hesi-tant about embracing this production of

Greek cleverness, but early in the Christianera, it was growing popular at high social lev-els, and the casting of a horoscope at a child’sbirth was becoming customary.An astrologernamed Thrasyllus was an adviser to the em-peror Tiberius. When some of his predic-tions failed, Tiberius lost patience and wasabout to push him off a cliff, but he managedto make a good one just in time.

After the Roman Empire became offi-cially Christian in the fourth century, astrol-ogy began to be frowned upon. Augustine,the most influential of the Church fathers,

ASTROLOGY

14

An astrologer casting a client’s horoscope in 1617.The progress of astronomy was beginning to raise doubts aboutastrology, but astrologers were still being consulted. (Ann Ronan Picture Library)

offered rational arguments against it and ar-gued that even when astrologers got predic-tions right, this was probably due to inspira-tion by evil spirits. For a long time, it was indisfavor. However, it began to come back inthe early Middle Ages as a quasi-scientifictechnique. Planets could no longer be gods,but in some mysterious way, they might stillplay a part in earthly affairs. Scholars in theChurch kept it off the list of forbidden arts,and Saint Thomas Aquinas, the leading me-dieval philosopher, allowed it a strictly lim-ited validity. Its practitioners worked freely,though they stressed character reading andmedical diagnosis rather then prediction. Itbecame very popular in the sixteenth-century Renaissance. John Dee, in England,was allowed to draw up horoscopes for roy-alty and to set a date for Elizabeth I’s coro-nation. Nostradamus, in France, publishedhundreds of prophecies, some of them re-markable, though for him, astrology seems tohave been subordinate to another method offorecasting that remains obscure.

The waning of Earth-centered astron-omy was naturally adverse to astrology, andit declined again, but it never expired, andeventually, it began to recover. It could berationalized, as it still can, by the argumentthat it reads the heavens as they appear to be,and no astronomical proof of what they ac-tually are can make any difference. Its West-ern revival had its origin in Theosophy. He-lena Petrovna Blavatsky, the founder of themovement, endorsed it in her book Isis Un-veiled, published in 1877. One of her fol-lowers, writing under the name Alan Leo,was its first popularizer and produced ahandbook entitled Astrology for All. In En-gland, France, and the United States, inter-est gradually revived. However, it was onlyin Germany that astrology became a seriousfield of study, thanks partly to anotherTheosophist, Hugo Vollrath. The sufferingsof Germans in the great inflation of1923–1924 and in the ensuing years of massunemployment contributed to a longing for

a doctrine that would make sense of eventsand perhaps foreshadow a better timeahead. An Astrological Congress in Munichwas the first of a series. Germans of aca-demic standing tried to make astrology anauthentic system.

During this interwar period, astrology alsoenjoyed a vogue on radio and in newspapers.Exponents in English-speaking countries,such as Evangeline Adams and R. H. Naylor,made forecasts on topics of public interest.However, their occasional successes wereoutweighed by numerous failures. Later inthe twentieth century, while astrology of asort still flourished in the press, it was morecautious and largely confined to minihoro-scopes for the day (or week or month) giv-ing vague advice to readers born under eachsign and avoiding specific detail about thefuture. In 1967, a well-informed writer onastrology, Ellic Howe, pronounced, in thelight of his own negative findings, that pre-diction was its “Achilles’ heel.”

The astrology of a more responsible kindthat continues to be practiced is concernedchiefly with character and destiny. Howe’sadverse verdict on prediction might be al-lowed to stand if it were not for an excep-tional case history, that of Germany underthe Nazi regime, from 1933 on. Seemingly,the activities of Vollrath and other enthusiastsshowed predictive results that cannot be dis-missed. Someone had cast the horoscope ofthe German republic on the basis of the dateof its proclamation in 1918, and several at-tempts had been made to cast Hitler’s. Thereis evidence—some of it indisputable, some ofit circumstantial but good—for correct long-range forecasts of Hitler’s career and the for-tunes of Germany in World War II and its af-termath. Hitler, it was foretold, would betriumphant at first, and Germany would bevictorious for two years, but in 1941, the tidewould begin to turn. There would be majordisasters in 1943 and a cataclysmic end, in-cluding the Führer’s downfall, in 1945,though a recovery would be under way after

ASTROLOGY

15

three years of peace. All of this was right.Hitler did not believe in astrology, but hisawareness of its prediction for 1941 as athreat to morale was shown by a clampdownon astrologers in June of that year.

The German successes raise a problem.Can astrology predict after all? If so, how tomake sense of these facts? Whatever as-trologers may say in defense of their art, it re-mains the case that the universe is not whatit looks like from below. They have donetheir best to fit in the three planets added tothe traditional seven, but much more is in-volved than that. The crystal spheres andtheir resident deities have gone. Mercury,Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, togetherwith the three latecomers, are barren globesmoving through a void at vast distances fromEarth and from each other. Medieval astron-omy recognized greater distances than iscommonly thought, but came nowhere nearthe remoteness of the stars, which are notonly remote but in spatial relationships toeach other that have nothing to do with theZodiac: its constellations would disappear foran observer from a different vantage point.

An astrologer today might speak of corre-lations or synchronisms rather than influ-ences. If such a claim were borne out by re-sults, it would deserve to be investigated, butresults are lacking. The German phenome-non may be thought to hint at some quiteseparate factor.The same could be said of therare but documented triumphs of characterreading by horoscope (or ostensibly by horo-scope), such as one recorded at the Univer-sity of Freiburg, where an astrologer namedWalter Boer diagnosed the problems of a ju-venile delinquent unknown to him in virtu-ally the same way as a team of psychologists.Ellic Howe, who draws attention to this case,takes the view that such successes are notreally produced by the subject’s birth-chart assuch but by a kind of intuition making use ofit, which few would-be astrologers are capa-ble of. Jung, as is well known, took an inter-est in astrology, but he used patients’ horo-

scopes chiefly as therapeutic aids rather thansources of information.

One quasi-astrological finding has stoodup to scrutiny, often very hostile. In 1955, aFrench statistician, Michel Gauquelin, provedthat a significant number of people with cer-tain abilities were born when certain planetswere either just clearing the horizon or atthe apex of their passage across the sky. Manyoutstanding athletes, for instance, were bornwhen Mars was either rising or “culminat-ing.” Jupiter seemed to be connected withfamous actors in the same way. The ironicfact is that Gauquelin’s correlations are to-tally unrelated to traditional astrology, forwhich he found no support whatever.

See also: Adams, Evangeline; Hanussen, ErikJan; Krafft, Karl Ernst; Nazi Germany;Newspaper Astrology; Theosophy

Further ReadingAshe, Geoffrey. The Book of Prophecy. London:

Blandford, 1999.———. Dawn behind the Dawn. New York:

Henry Holt, 1992.Campion, Nicholas, and Steve Eddy. The New

Astrology. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.Cavendish, Richard, ed. Man, Myth and

Magic. London: BPC Publishing,1970–1972. Article “Astrology.”

Howe, Ellic. Urania’s Children. London:William Kimber, 1967.

ATLANTISIsland-continent that is reputed to have sunkbeneath the Atlantic Ocean and that someexpect to reappear.

Atlantis is widely assumed to have beenreal, but almost everything said about it de-rives ultimately from one author, the Greekphilosopher Plato (c. 428–348 B.C.), whowas not a historian. He cites an allegedEgyptian tradition handed down for 9,000years. Atlantis was a landmass occupying alarge part of the ocean west of Gibraltar. Itsrulers were descended from gods, and it wasa realm of great splendor, where justice andwisdom flourished. The Atlanteans had

ATLANTIS

16

colonies in Europe and Africa and in a con-tinent on the far side of the ocean (it istempting to see a reference to America here,but that idea must be treated with extremecaution). Eventually, the divine element inthe rulers decayed, and they embarked onwars of conquest. Their conduct broughtretribution from Zeus, the chief god. Thefree men of Athens drove back their army,and Atlantis vanished in a single day andnight of earthquake and flood.

As it stands, Plato’s story is impossiblydated and geologically incredible. His mainpurpose was probably to create a myth show-ing the superiority of small, well-orderedstates over aggressive empires. However, hisfertile imagination carried the conceptiontoo far: he said too much about Atlantis, andmade it too interesting. Though few in clas-sical times took it literally, attempts weremade in the Age of Discovery to relate it toAmerica. Authors in the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries tried to prove that it wasreal and more or less as described.

The first such study was by Ignatius Don-nelly in his book Atlantis: the AntediluvianWorld, published in 1882. Others have fol-lowed. The favorite line of argument is thatcultural similarities on both sides of the At-lantic imply a common source betweenthem. Thus, Mexico has pyramids and Egypthas pyramids, so there must have been At-lantean pyramid builders who traveled inboth directions founding ancient civiliza-tions. But independent invention is perfectlypossible, and Mexico and Egypt are too farapart in time to have had a common origin.“Proofs” based on parallels in myth and reli-gion are no more effective.

It has been argued that although Plato waswriting fiction, he used traditions of real an-cient civilizations and natural disasters, some-where else altogether—in the Aegean area,maybe. It has also been argued that he did

ATLANTIS

17

A map by Athanasius Kircher (1678) conjecturally showing the lost land of Atlantis before it sank. Somewhatconfusingly, north is at the bottom. (Ann Ronan Picture Library)

know of land across the Atlantic, discoveredby unrecorded voyagers: nothing on the scaleof his mythic conception but real as far as itwent. A serious case has been made out forthe West Indies.

Whatever may be thought of Plato’ssources, the idea that his Atlantis not onlyexisted but may rise again is due chiefly to itsinclusion in the schema of world historytaught by the Theosophical Society. MadameBlavatsky, the founder, produced a bookcalled Isis Unveiled in 1877. In this, she men-tioned Atlantis and was perhaps the first tohit on the argument from cultural andmythological parallels between the OldWorld and the New, though it was left toDonnelly to develop it. In 1888, she broughtout The Secret Doctrine. Donnelly’s book hadappeared in the interval, and she cited himwith approval but laid more stress on herown claims to knowledge drawn from occultrevelations and mysterious manuscripts. Sheexpounded a panorama of history coveringmillions of years and tracing humanity’s evo-lution through a series of “root-races.” At-lantis was the home of the fourth root-race,very tall and highly civilized. As Donnellyhad conjectured, they were the founders ofseveral civilizations known to ordinary his-tory. Atlantis, however, sank. After MadameBlavatsky’s death an “astral clairvoyant,”William Scott-Elliot, pursued the story ofAtlantis and also that of Lemuria, anotherTheosophical sunken land.

For enthusiasts, Atlantis is apt to be a kindof Utopia with golden-age qualities, thehome of an advanced society with knowl-edge and powers of magic that have beenlost. One legacy of Theosophy, whether rec-ognized or not, is a belief in huge changes ofthe earth’s surface over geologically short pe-riods of time, allowing an expectation thatthe process will continue and lost lands willresurface. Fantasies of this sort have encour-aged notions of the future reappearance ofAtlantis itself, a hope akin to the return ofKing Arthur and similar prophetic motifs.

This may take the modified form of a re-birth of Atlantean Ancient Wisdom, ratherthan a physical reemergence. On occult orparanormal grounds, caches of Atlantean se-crets are said to have been preserved for pos-terity. Edgar Cayce, the American “SleepingProphet,” asserted on the basis of a trance-revelation that the history of Atlantis was ina hidden underground chamber or hall ofrecords near the Sphinx in Egypt, whichwould come to light sooner or later. He evengave directions, though not very convinc-ingly. Colin Amery and others enlarged onhis ideas, suggesting that the hall of recordshad more in it than he envisaged and like-wise predicting its rediscovery.

However, some visionaries have foretold aliteral rebirth of Atlantis, partly or wholly.One who did so in a fairly restrained waywas Cayce himself. Others have venturedfurther. H. C. Randall-Stevens foretold, onthe authority of an “Osirian” group, that thelost land will rise above the ocean in 2014.At that time, a cache of its Ancient Wisdomwill be disclosed, as Amery and the rest haveindicated, but in the Great Pyramid.

See also: Cayce, Edgar; Lemuria; Sphinx;Theosophy

Further ReadingAmery, Colin. New Atlantis: the Secret of the

Sphinx. London and New York: RegencyPress, 1976.

Ashe, Geoffrey. Atlantis: Lost Lands,AncientWisdom. London: Thames and Hudson,1992.

Bramwell, James. Lost Atlantis. London:Cobden-Sanderson, 1937.

Bro, Harmon Hartzell. Edgar Cayce.Wellingborough, England: The AquarianPress, 1990.

Collins, Andrew. Gateway to Atlantis. London:Headline, 2000.

AUGUSTINE, SAINT (354–430)Christian philosopher and theologian whoseviews on prophecy established certain normsof interpretation.

AUGUSTINE, SAINT

18

Augustine was born in what is nowTunisia, at that time part of the Roman Em-pire. He taught in Rome, studied Neopla-tonic philosophy, was converted to Chris-tianity in 386, and returned to Africa, wherehe became a bishop. His immense literaryoutput molded the thinking of the Churchever afterwards. Best known of his works arethe Confessions, an autobiographical account

of his life and thought, and The City of God,a vast survey of history, the role of Christianrevelation, and its teachings about the destinyof humanity.

In The City of God, like other fathers ofthe Church, Augustine maintains that theOld Testament foreshadows the New andonly makes complete sense when read retro-spectively from a Christian standpoint. Inparticular, many of the Old Testamentprophecies were really about Christianity,even though they could not have been un-derstood in that sense when they were writ-ten. They were divinely inspired, and theirmeaning has been decipherable since thecoming of Christ; Augustine claims that theyhave been instrumental in making manyconverts. Other prophecies, likewise inspired,are in the New Testament itself, notably in itslast book, the Revelation or Apocalypse at-tributed to Saint John.

But what about prophecies unrelated toChristianity, by astrologers, for instance? Ifthey are not inspired by God, does their ful-fillment, when it happens, put a query overthe Christian monopoly? Augustine regardsthem as illusory and worse than illusory evenwhen they are right—especially when theyare right. He attacks astrology as a technique,stressing such rational objections as the diffi-culty raised by twins, who have the samehoroscope at birth but may go on to have verydifferent lives. However, he looks deeper thanthat. He acknowledges that astrologers some-times score, but he has a reason for rejectingtheir claims and advising Christians to mis-trust them.This reason has wider applications.

According to Augustine, successfulprophecy that is not of divine origin is dia-bolic, the work of “demons” or evil spirits.These beings can look ahead, if in a ratherhit-or-miss way: “The demons . . . havemuch more knowledge of the future thanmen can have, by their greater acquaintancewith certain signs which are hidden fromus; sometimes they also foretell their ownintentions. It is true that they are often de-

AUGUSTINE, SAINT

19

Saint Augustine, the principal Christian author inlate Roman times, who condemned astrology and wassuspicious of all prophecy except by divine inspiration.(Ann Ronan Picture Library)

ceived, while the angels are never de-ceived.” Human foreknowledge may besimply intelligent anticipation, but when itis more than that, it may be coming from“unclean demons” who are making use oftheir own foreknowledge to lead othersastray. In the case of astrology, they misleadmortals by creating a bogus impression ofvalidity. “When astrologers give replies thatare often surprisingly true, they are inspired,in some mysterious way, by spirits, but spir-its of evil, whose concern is to instil andconfirm in men’s minds those false andbaneful notions about ‘astral destiny.’ Thesetrue predictions do not come from any skill

in the notation and inspection of horo-scopes; that is a spurious art.”

Unhallowed prophecy, which may beplausible and even correct, but is communi-cated by evil beings for evil ends, reappears asa theme in the witch mania of the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries. It is a prominentmotif in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

See also: Astrology; Macbeth; Prophecy,Theories of; Thomas Aquinas, Saint;Witchcraft

Further ReadingAugustine, Saint. The City of God. Translated

by Henry Bettenson. Harmondsworth,England: Penguin Classics, 1984.

AUGUSTINE, SAINT

20

21

BACON, FRANCIS (1561–1626)English statesman, essayist, and writer on sci-entific method.

Bacon is remembered for his ground-breaking discussions of systematic experi-ment, observation, and induction in workssuch as The Advancement of Learning. He isalso unfortunately remembered for corrup-tion in office, leading to his dismissal fromthe royal service. Nevertheless, his place inthe history of science remains secure.

His Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moralpresents fifty-eight essays that cover a widerange of topics; some, such as “Friendship,”being of a general kind, and others, such as“Gardens,” being particular. The thirty-fifthessay is “Of Prophecies.” Bacon explains thathe is not talking of biblical prophecies,which are in a class by themselves. Hequotes several from classical literature, suchas a passage in which the dramatist Senecaforetells that the bonds of the ocean will beloosed, the whole world will be opened up,and new worlds will be discovered—aprophecy, one might think, of the discoveryof America. Most of Bacon’s more recentexamples are concerned with royalty. He re-calls the English king Henry VI as fore-telling the reign of a boy who unexpectedlybecame Henry VII. He mentions, interest-ingly, the prophecy of the death of theFrench king Henri II from a wound sus-tained in a tournament, a prophecy thatmade Nostradamus famous, though Baconquotes a different source.

As a child, he says, he heard theprophecy

When hempe is spunEngland’s done.

“Hempe” was taken to refer tothe initials of five successive mon-archs—Henry VIII, Edward VI,

Mary, her consort Philip, and Eliza-beth I. After them, it was feared, disaster

would befall England. It did not happen.What did happen was that Elizabeth wassucceeded by James Stuart, who united thecrowns of England and Scotland, so that therealm was known as Britain, and in that senseonly, England was done.

Bacon is thoroughly dismissive. Proph-ecies of the kind he is talking about “oughtall to be despised.” Despised, but not simplyignored, because they can do harm amongthe credulous, and governments should takenote of them and consider censorship. Whatis it that gives them their undeserved cre-dence? First, selectivity. People notice themwhen they are fulfilled, or seem to be, andforget any number of similar ones that arenot. This covers the case of dreams that sup-posedly come true. Secondly, a prophecymay echo a known conjecture, and whenthis is eventually fulfilled—more or less—itmay be seen in retrospect as more exact thanit was. When Seneca wrote about newworlds beyond the ocean, Greek authors hadalready speculated along those lines (Plato,for instance, in his account of Atlantis), andSeneca was not really doing any more; theapplication of his words to America was aproduct of later geography. Thirdly, many al-leged prophecies cannot be documented ashaving been made before the happeningsthey are alleged to predict. They were madeup afterwards.

Most of this criticism is sensible. Pseudoprophecy after the event is all too familiar.

B

Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England and writer on scientific method and other topics. He thoughtprophecies “ought all to be despised.” (Ann Ronan Picture Library)

The concoction of bogus sayings by Merlinis notorious. Seneca perhaps deserves betterthan Bacon allows. The argument from se-lectivity is more dubious. It does not dispose,for instance, of the anticipations of the Titanicdisaster by Morgan Robertson and others.Moreover, while a prophecy picked out assuccessful may be only one among many thatare not successful, that one may be so accu-rate and specific that it makes the notion ofchance difficult to sustain. In the classic caseof Nostradamus, it is true that only a few ofhis quatrains are clearly predictive, but eachcontains several interlocking forecasts withunique details—even personal names—thatrule out ambiguity. These quatrains, some ofwhich compress as many as five or six con-nected forecasts into four lines, are too com-plex to explain as mere lucky hits amonghundreds that are not lucky.

Bacon does not discuss astrology in thisessay. Elsewhere, he describes it as “pretend-ing to discover that correspondence or con-catenation which is between the superiorglobe and the inferior.” He is thinking of thetraditional system, with Earth at the center ofthe universe and everything else circlingaround it. He admits that in his own time as-trology is “full of fictions,” but he suggeststhat it might be given a rational basis in ob-served physical laws. If so, it could supplyforeshadowings of natural phenomena, wars,revolutions, and other great events and indi-cate favorable times for various undertakings.

See also: Merlin; Nostradamus; Seneca,Lucius Annaeus

BAHAISAdherents of a religion of nineteenth-cen-tury origin that prophesies a nonsectarian,cosmopolitan future.

The Bahai faith is based on a revelation thatoccurred in two stages. In 1844, Mirza AliMohammed, a young resident of Shiraz in thesouthwest of Persia (now Iran), declared him-self to be a manifestation of God. He assumed

the title of Bab—Arabic for “gate”—and pre-dicted a further manifestation yet to come,when someone greater than himself wouldusher in a new era. This future leader wouldbe called Baha-Ullah, Splendor of God.

“Bab” was a recognized title in the Shiitedivision of Islam, and this one attracted alarge following, helped by his descent fromthe Prophet Muhammad through both par-ents. He opposed polygamy and the slavetrade. Orthodox Muslim divines were hos-tile, and the movement had to endure perse-cution. The Bab was imprisoned, then sen-tenced to be executed. On July 9, 1850,being about thirty years old, he confronted afiring squad. He was suspended by ropes, andthe volley of bullets only severed the ropes,so that he fell unharmed. The officer incharge refused to repeat the order, but a sub-ordinate did so, and this time, the Bab died.His remains were later transferred to MountCarmel, near Haifa in Israel.

The new leader whom the Bab had fore-told, Baha-Ullah, duly made his appearance.Aristocratic in his family background, he wasnamed Mirza Hussain Ali. He embraced theBab’s teachings. During a fresh wave of sup-pression, he was exiled to Baghdad, then inthe Turkish empire, and in 1863, at the age offorty-six, he declared himself to be theprophesied Baha-Ullah. The garden wherehe made this announcement became a sacredplace in the Bahai religion that grew from it.Trouble with the Turkish authorities ledeventually to Baha-Ullah’s imprisonment atAcre, where he died in 1892.

He had put his essential doctrines onrecord. According to the Bahai theology,God is unknowable, but he communicateswith humanity through manifestationsadapted to the context in which they occur.These have included the founders of severalother major religions—Zoroaster, Buddha,Jesus, and Muhammad. Baha-Ullah is themanifestation for the present age.

Since the religious founders have all beenmanifestations of the One God, who is the

BAHAIS

23

God of all humanity, there is really only onereligion,which they taught in forms suitable totheir time;differences have arisen through latermisinterpretation. The coming of Baha-Ullahis a sign that the human race has matured to apoint where social and ideological unity canbe realized.This unity is confidently predicted.The outgoing Bahai mission that spread tovarious countries was largely the work ofBaha-Ullah’s son Abdul-Baha (1844–1921).

Bahais recognize that the great step for-ward will not simply happen. They mustwork for it. They aim at the abolition of allforms of prejudice, whether based on race,nationality, class, or creed. This will pave theway to the “World Order of Baha-Ullah.”Men and women will be equal and there willbe equal educational opportunities for allchildren. There will be a world currency anda universal language, both perhaps auxiliaryto existing ones rather than replacing them.

The Bahai faith has no clergy. Its adher-ents seek to influence others by exemplaryconduct. They meet in “spiritual assemblies”that are subordinated to a “Universal Houseof Justice” in an imposing domed buildingon the side of Mount Carmel, where theBab’s remains are enshrined.

Further ReadingCavendish, Richard, ed. Man, Myth and

Magic. London: BPC Publishing,1970–1972. Article “Bahais.”

BARTON, ELIZABETH(1506–1534)English nun called the “Holy Maid of Kent”whose prophecies caused trouble in the reignof Henry VIII.

She attracted notice by her response to di-visive changes in England that Henry hadlaunched. He wanted to end his marriage tothe Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon,who had borne a daughter but no survivingson who could be his heir. Furthermore, hehad fallen in love with someone else, AnneBoleyn. He believed that there were grounds

for annulment of the marriage, but the popehad to rule on this, and negotiations draggedon for years with no decision. At last, Henryacted independently to resolve his maritalproblem, going beyond it in the process: hebroke away from Rome and declared himselfto be the head of the Church in England.None of this was done without arousing an-tagonism. Meanwhile, the Reformation wasadvancing on the continent. Henry wasnever inclined toward Protestantism himself,but it was gradually making converts amonghis subjects, and its progress, together witheconomic and social factors, was adding tothe public uncertainty.

This situation produced a flurry of free-lance prophecy. It was apt to be hostile to theking. He would be deposed, he would die inhis sins, his kingdom would be afflicted withwars and plagues. Several of the doomsayerswere women. During the past century or so,women mystics and visionaries had begun tobe heard more often. Elizabeth Barton wasone. In 1525, when she was a domestic ser-vant in Kent, she had a long illness and ex-hibited what some thought to be supernat-ural gifts. A monk named Edward Bocking,from a Benedictine community in Canter-bury, was impressed by her and accepted herclaim to be inspired by the Virgin Mary. Thenext year, her disease was miraculouslycured, as people supposed, and she entered aconvent in Canterbury under Bocking’s spir-itual direction.

Elizabeth had visions and went intotrances, sometimes lying on the floor, thrash-ing about, and uttering strange things. Bock-ing took some of these to be revelations andwrote a book about her. Others wrote pam-phlets. Her sayings, when intelligible, upheldthe Church’s doctrines and authority sofirmly as to be, by implication, critical of theking. A belief in her sanctity and miracleworking spread widely, winning friends andsupporters in several religious houses, no-tably Syon Abbey, which had a tradition offeminine devotion. The fame of the Holy

BARTON, ELIZABETH

24

Maid of Kent reached the court; Henry him-self granted her an audience, possibly in thehope of persuading her to stay withinbounds. Presently, however, she began to de-nounce his attempts to discard his wife. Sheeven wrote to the pope, urging him not tocooperate, and foretold that if Henry mar-ried Anne he would reign only anothermonth. This was a dangerous matter, butsome of his critics took her seriously andmade her prophecies known. Prominentmen who had misgivings about his policylistened to her, including Thomas More, thelord chancellor, and John Fisher, the bishopof Rochester. After reflection, More becamecautious, Fisher not so cautious, but bothwere impartially beheaded for refusing to ac-cept royal supremacy in the Church.

Before that, Barton’s prophetic career hadcome to an end. She was arrested andcharged with treason. Under interrogation,she virtually recanted, asserting that she hadbeen prompted and used by opponents ofthe king’s proceedings.There was some truthin this, but it is likely that she was not totallyfraudulent. She really had produced “in-spired” sayings, which conservative elementscould exploit but did not invent or put inher mouth.

On April 20, 1534, together with Bocking,she was hanged. In England this was an un-usual method of execution for a woman con-victed of treason. Later, it became the normaltreatment for women who were found guiltyof witchcraft. That, however, was not a rele-vant issue here; a satirist called Barton a witch,but only as a term of abuse. The contempo-rary seer famous as “Mother Shipton,” whomay have been a witch in a more serioussense, is reputed to have supported Henry andthus kept out of trouble. But in any case,Mother Shipton is very probably fictitious.There is no reliable evidence that she existed.

Further ReadingWatt, Diana. Secretaries of God:Women Prophets

in Late Medieval and Early Modern England.Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997.

BELLAMY, EDWARD (1850–1898)American novelist, author of Looking Back-ward, a Utopia offered to the public as a se-rious proposal.

Looking Backward, 2000–1887—to give itits full title—was the indirect inspiration ofWilliam Morris’s News from Nowhere, as ahostile retort by a writer of very differentoutlook, who reacted against it. Bellamy’sbook is not exactly a prophecy itself or evena prediction; it is a social program in fictionaldisguise. He means it. He originally put hisUtopia in the year 3000, then changed thedate to 2000, on a more optimistic assess-ment of the time that would be needed torealize it.

He presents it through an imagined char-acter, Julian West, a Bostonian who wakesfrom a trance in the year 2000 and learns thatthe United States has been transformed byadopting a Religion of Solidarity, withsweeping practical results.The Nation is nowabsolute and supreme. In its economic as-pect, it is a single colossal corporation thatowns everything and employs everybody. Itscitizens, male and female, are compulsorilyenrolled to do all the work in an “industrialarmy” under military discipline, from whichthe government itself is recruited; the presi-dent, elected on a restricted franchise, is thegeneral-in-chief.

Each year, the gross national product isadded up, a surplus is calculated, and every-body receives a share of it.These shares are allequal, an arrangement that is justified by theassumption that the workers do their best,and “doing one’s best” is the same for all andallows no gradations. (Those who don’t areput in jail.) It follows that there are no finan-cial incentives and no financial inequalities.

This, however, means very little becausethere is no money. Shopping is done by fill-ing out a form in a “sample-store” wheregoods are on view and paying with a creditcard on which one’s national share is deb-ited by the value of the purchase.The goodsare promptly delivered from a warehouse to

BELLAMY, EDWARD

25

the purchaser’s home through electric“tubes”; Bellamy has great faith in technol-ogy. The whole annual allowance must bespent. Anything left over at the end of theyear is confiscated by the Nation. So thereis no incentive to save, but, then, nobodywants to save when the Nation provideshousing, universal education, and completesocial security.

Public kitchens and laundries take care ofcooking and washing, and everybody eats atcommunal dining houses. Cultural needs aresatisfied by such measures as playing musicover the telephone. West, the observer fromthe past, comments revealingly that this is“the limit of human felicity.”

At the time, many found Bellamy’s Utopiaattractive, probably in reaction against theuglier aspects of unbridled capitalism. It hadsome influence on economic thinking, andin the United States, it inspired short-livedpolitical initiatives. Though Bellamy wascontemptuous of left-wing labor organiza-tion, some Socialists approved. After a cen-tury’s experience of totalitarianism in prac-tice, his program may be less alluring.

See also: Morris, WilliamFurther ReadingCarey, John, ed. The Faber Book of Utopias.

London: Faber and Faber, 1999.

BENSON, ROBERT HUGH(1871–1914)English Catholic convert, author of two fan-tasies picturing two opposite futures for theChurch.

Benson came from a distinguished literaryfamily. Ordained as an Anglican clergyman,he was received into the Catholic Church in1903 and spent the last years of his life inRome. He wrote several novels.

Lord of the World (1907), set in the twenty-first century, is reminiscent of A Short Story ofthe Antichrist by Vladimir Solovyev. Its chiefcharacter, Julian Felsenburgh—seen onlythrough the eyes of others—is, in fact, an

Antichrist figure, though Benson never actu-ally calls him so. An enigmatic genius, heachieves supreme power and establishes aworldwide regime of peace and welfare, orso it appears. He founds an enlightened Re-ligion of Humanity to replace all existingones. His success is overwhelming, but theregime’s true nature gradually becomes visi-ble. His