“The spirit of the stout beast is the hellish worm; the crowned bride that sits upon it is the false Woman (or Whore) Babel: She drinks only out of the cup of Whoredom and Abomination, her drink in that cup is the fierceness of the Anger of God of which the people drink, and become drunk, and so in their drunkenness they become murderers, robbers, thieves, mockers, jesters, scorners, proud, high-minded, self-honorers, stern malicious people. There is no end to the number of those that hate one another; everyone supposes his way is right, and that he walks in the right path; if his brother and sister go not in the same way with him, he scorns them and calls them heretics, and so one Wolf bites another; his Way is in his own opinion, as his Master teaches him, who yet never regrets anything. Thus one hypocrite deceives the other, and they are scorners and prosecutors one of another among themselves and one is a Wolf as much as another; and the poor Able who stands in true resignation, and relies upon God) must continually be their footstool, and is continually murdered in a twofold manner.

“One is that he is deceived [by the Wolfs], and goes along into Babel, and is murdered, as to the Kingdom of Heaven. The other is that, if he remains constant, then the Devil (with Cain) will not endure him, but murders him outwardly, as to the body, or takes away his good name and credit, and covers him so that he may not be known, that so the Kingdom of Cain and the Antichrist may remain in Babel of which we know well by our own experience. But it fares well with our Abel, and our being scorned springs up in the Blosominf of the lily, whereat we will rejoice when we return from Jerico to Jerusalem and to our Father. ~Jacob Boehme

The Hellish Worm

Calling the spirit of The Beast a Hellish Worm is an interesting way to put it. I think in Boehme’s day, worms were thought of as filthy creatures because they lived in dirt. Many early descriptions of dragons refer to those beasts as great worms rather than giant lizards as they are generally depicted today. The addition of the “crowned bride” who is the whore of Babel is a new addition to the tail. First, it tells us that this is no ordinary garden worm, but one of great size like a dragon. But why is a woman wearing a crown riding it? I think the idea is that she is a very vain woman, that is why she wears a crown, one she has probably awarded herself. She drinks from the cup of abomination and becomes “drunk” on the lies of the dark beings and forces who supply that allegorical drink.

Anger of God of Which the People Drink

Sadly, the woman on the hellish worm is not alone in drinking from the cup of abomination, allegorically speaking, of course. Many people drink from that cup regularly, while others drink it only occasionally. There are very few who never drink from that cup. Drinking from this cup often makes people angry with God, because God doesn’t do what they want him to, as if God was their servant and not the other way around. Others lose all belief in God because God doesn’t answer their prayers. They don’t understand that God is all about the spiritual and answers spiritual prayers, but not materialistic ones.

Wolf Bites Wolf

Because those who drink from the cup of abomination usually think that their path of religion or spirituality is the one true path, for no particular reason except that it is the path they have chosen, they often argue, fight, and even wage war against those whose beliefs are different. They don’t realize that the ones they are fighting are also ones who drink from that cup, so it is a case of a wolf fighting another wolf.

The Poor Able

Here Boehme is using Cane and Able as examples of good and bad people, with Able representing the good ones who believe in God and who practice spiritual development as Jesus taught the apostles to do. Cane represents those wolves who have lost The Way and are either making no effort to find it, but embracing materialism instead, or they are clinging to a false path as taught by a materialistic church that has lost its way.

If you think war is a good thing, if you think some people should be hated because of their religion or nationality, if you think some people are better than others, you are one of the wolves, one of the tribe of Cain. Hopefully, more of us will awaken and turn to the truth of the tribe of Able.

“This is what I have read in the faces of men and women, in the book of the world, and in the scroll of the heavens, which is writ with stars The great lesson to be learned is the truth of the Oneness of All. This knowledge carries with it all the rest.

“It causes one to follow the precept of the Son of Mary, who said: ‘And thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength;’ and ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ When Man grows into a consciousness of the truth that All is One – that when one loves God he is loving the Whole Thing that his neighbor is indeed himself – then he has but a few more classes to pass through before he passes into the ‘High School’ of Spiritual Knowledge.

“This conviction of the Oneness of All, carries with it certain rules of action – of Divine Ethics – which transcend all written or spoken human laws. The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man become a reality rather than a mere repetition of meaningless words. And this great lesson must be learned by all – and all are learning it by degrees. And this is the aim of the present stage of Spiritual Evolution – to know God as He is: to know your relationship with others – to know what we are. There are greater schools, colleges, and universities of Spiritual Knowledge beyond us, but these are the lessons taught in the grades in which we are at present.” ~William Walker Atkinson (aka Yogi Ramacharaka)

Scrolls of Heaven

When Mr. Atkinson speaks of a Book of the World and the Scrolls of Heaven that are “writ in the stars,” it is an obvious allegory. Studying the world, the stars, or both, will very likely not gain you much spiritual knowledge. Not much real spiritual knowledge is found in books or any other worldly things unless you can look beyond the physical and the literal to see the spiritual meaning hidden in allegory. Even then, the knowledge is only partial. So there are no actual scrolls in Heaven, but there is great Spiritual Knowledge to be found there. To gain such knowledge, we must raise our levels of consciousness. We must also practice Divine Ethics by at least trying to practice the truth that All is One and we are part of that All.

A Consciousness of Truth

It is the goal of spiritual development to reach that level of consciousness where Truth is known and the most important part of that Truth is that we are all part of the One. When we reach that level of consciousness, even temporarily, we don’t just believe that All is One and we are part of The One, we Know that we are. There is a big difference between believing something and knowing that it is true. Many of us often behave in ways that are contrary to such beliefs, but when they become Knowledge instead of beliefs, acting in violation of such Divine Knowledge is unthinkable.

Love Thy Neighbor

It is hard to love thy neighbor when thy neighbor robs us or is a rapist or murderer. We know we should love everyone, but we often find we can’t love those who do evil things. We also find it difficult to love those in a foreign country who wage war against us. But when we have truly become One With The All, there are no foreign countries, there are no enemies, there are no species of being that is against us because we are One with all of them. So just as we continue to love ourselves when we do something wrong, we will love all people, all beings, all of The One, because it is ourselves doing all those things.

“Seek not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” ~John Donne

John Donne was talking about the bell at a church that would ring when someone died. The general interpretation of what he said is that we are all going to die eventually, so that is why the bell tolls for thee. That is not quite correct. What it really means is that we are all part of The One, so when any person dies, a part of us dies. When we reach the level of consciousness that allows us to Know that Truth, we will understand. Until then, we must practice ethics, live in peace and love as much as possible, and also practice our spiritual development techniques to help us move closer and closer to that level of consciousness.