The New Testament, particularly the Book of Revelation, holds a grip on the Western imagination like no other work. Its images and themes-the Beast, the Whore of Babylon, the number 666, the Four Horsemen-have long since soaked into the popular imagination. Revelation has been used so often, and in so many ways, that certain facts have become obscured.
This article explores the intriguing connections between the seven candlesticks mentioned in the Book of Revelation and the seven chakras, drawing on historical context, esoteric interpretations, and spiritual practices to illuminate their deeper meanings.
The Seven Chakras
The Seven Candlesticks in Revelation
In the Book of Revelation, John has a vision of the “Son of man” among seven golden candlesticks, which represent seven churches, all of them in Asia Minor. He also sees “seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.”
The number seven is repeated and emphasized to an almost maniacal degree. This has to do with the realms of the seven planets, which were believed to be inhabited by corrupt forces, including evil angels. The opening of the seven seals and the blast of the seven trumpets culminate in a war in which all of them, led by Satan, are cast down from the heavens onto the earth.
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Ancient Cosmology and the Seven Heavens
To understand the implications of this fact, it might be best to begin with the cosmological worldview that was current in the first century CE. It is based on the seven planets as known at that time: the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They were believed to revolve around the earth, each in its own crystalline sphere.
The physical heavens were identified with the levels through which the soul had to ascend after death. Each of these planets had a vice associated with it, which is where we get the concept of the seven deadly sins. The soul could only ascend if it shed these vices.
The New Testament also taught that these planetary spheres were ruled by corrupt forces. In fact, among the early Christians-at any rate among the ones who wrote the New Testament-there was a widespread belief that the celestial realms were occupied by evil forces. This theme too appears throughout the New Testament.
The authors of the New Testament believed that somehow Satan and the forces of “spiritual wickedness” had ensconced themselves in the celestial spheres, and that it was the task of Christ (and his followers) to cast them down.
Christ, the Lamb, is slain and resurrected. He ascends into heaven and purges the seven heavens of evil influences, led by Satan. The seven heavens are inhabited by corrupt forces, including evil angels.
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The Seven Chakras
Traditional Indian medicine and spiritual science state that the energies of the subtle body are said to flow and connect at special points of intensity called Chakras. The seven chakras are defined as energy wheels that govern a magnetic center within the human organism.
The names of the magnetic centers that are governed are the root chakra which is the magnetic center containing the root kundalini energy of the monad at the Coccyx located within the chakra; the Prostrate; the Solar Plexus; the Heart; the Spine/Throat; the Third Eye and the Crown Chakra located at the top of the head.
The Sanskrit names and colors are as follows respectively: Muladhara- red; Svadhisthana- orange; Manipura- yellow; Heart chakra Anahata- green or pink; Vishuddha- blue or indigo; Third Eye chakra Ajna- Purple and the crown chakra at the very top of the head the Sahasrara- violet or white.
These chakras are points located on the spinal column of the human organism considered the lampstand in esoteric language. It is at the Muladhara chakra that the kundalini energy is formed the spark that enlivens the other chakras and animates the human body.
Chakra System Table
| Chakra | Sanskrit Name | Color | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Root Chakra | Muladhara | Red | Coccyx |
| Sacral Chakra | Svadhisthana | Orange | A few inches beneath the navel |
| Solar Plexus Chakra | Manipura | Yellow | Solar Plexus |
| Heart Chakra | Anahata | Green or Pink | Heart |
| Throat Chakra | Vishuddha | Blue or Indigo | Spine/Throat |
| Third Eye Chakra | Ajna | Purple | Frontal Cortex/Forehead |
| Crown Chakra | Sahasrara | Violet or White | Top of the Head |
Connecting the Candlesticks and the Chakras
The Theosophist James Morgan Pryse (1859-1942), an associate of both H.P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, offered an esoteric interpretation of Revelation in his 1910 book, The Apocalypse Unsealed. For Pryse, Revelation is about initiation-indeed he translates the Greek word apokálupsis as “initiation.” Here too initiation is a liberation from the spheres of the seven planets. They are embodied in us as the seven chakras, which he connects with the seven principal ganglia of the nervous system.
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He took the perfect world number FOUR and added to it the perfect divine number, THREE, and got SEVEN, the most sacred number to the Hebrews. It was earth crowned with heaven, the four-square earth plus the divine COMPLETENESS OF GOD. So we have SEVEN expressing COMPLETENESS through union of earth with heaven.
The apostle John in his vision concerning the Son of God returning to the Earth in its final epoch days are warnings which concern the need to take proper care of the chakras (candlesticks) of the lampstand meaning the entire organic chakra system of man. He calls each chakra by the symbolic term “Churches”.
Initiation and Ascent Through the Spheres
As is often said, initiation is a kind of death and rebirth. On the simplest level, this has to do with a death to one’s former life and a birth to a new, higher life. But there is more to it than that. This theme keeps appearing around the ancient mysteries. They have to do with death, not merely in a symbolic sense, but in a highly practical one.
In some way they prepare the candidate for death; they make the process that he undergoes in the afterlife easier and more assured of success. It seems likely to me that the pagan mysteries had more than a little to do with this process.
Christian baptism, viewed esoterically, raises the candidate up beyond the levels of the seven planets, which rule fate. Thus, at least for some early Christians, baptism was correlated with a liberating ascent through the realms of the planets, whose associated vices had been made inoperative.
Initiation is an ascent through these spheres of the planets-again, the chakras.
The Kundalini and the Chakras
By way of the “Kundalini” located at the magnetic center or Church of Ephesus at the root (Muladhara) chakra uncoils this lifeforce vapor energy which is the spirit of man. It is at the Muladhara chakra that the kundalini energy is formed the spark that enlivens the other chakras and animates the human body.
Wrapped three and half times curled like a coiled snake the kundalini vapor energy rises through the chakras passing the seat of the soul at the solar plexus chakra and continues to rise to the crown or the head which is where the temple of man resides.
Godly sex, meditation, and selfless acts of charity and service-as well as appropriate diet and exercise-are all part of this transformation to higher consciousness. The “he” in the above verse is of course Christ, the higher mind as the result of kundalini energy that runs in the midst of all the chakras.
The church of Ephesus is our root chakra, where kundalini lays dormant in the sacrum. This powerful sexual / spiritual energy called kundalini has the power to transform our conscious experience-by burning up the ego-when it is transmuted. As sexual energy, it is our connection with the earth, the physical creation, and the world of duality.
To transmute sexual energy into spiritual energy (what true alchemy is all about) births a child also. This child is not a new physical child. Rather it is the divine Christ child within us, who is truly born of an immaculate conception. This transmutation of energy is what kundalini is all about.
The human body is made of three parts mind,body and soul or spirit.
The spinal cord contains a channel canal called Sushumna suspended in the spinal canal attached by two system nerves known in Yoga as Ida and Pingala and has subtle sections.
The Ida and Pingala nadis are often seen as referring to the two hemispheres of the brain. Other channels connect to the organs called Nāḍi Sanskrit meaning tube or pipe. These are the channels through which, in traditional Indian medicine and spiritual science, the energies of the subtle body are said to flow.
When awakened, kundalini travels upward within Sushumna.
The act of sex contains the power of procreation. It can give birth to a physical child which is amazement even to modern science.
The Seven Seals and Their Significance
A book with seven seals is presented, and these seals are opened, each revealing some new and terrible manifestation: the renowned Four Horsemen, “a great earthquake,” and cosmic cataclysm: “The stars of heaven fell unto the earth.”
They have been inhabited by corrupt forces, including evil angels. The opening of the seven seals and the blast of the seven trumpets culminate in a war in which all of them, led by Satan, are cast down from the heavens onto the earth.
The images in Revelation have been used so often, and in so many ways, that certain facts have become obscured. In the first place, the vision does not have to do with some imagined end of the world in the immeasurably remote future.
The Number Seven in the Bible and Nature
The number SEVEN appears throughout the Bible, and in nature as well as in many myths of the earth.
The Bible is plastered with the number of completion, the number seven. The countless SEVENS in the Revelation; a quick computer scan revealed the use of the word "SEVEN" 400 times - in the Old Testament alone! Every patriarch in the Bible from Noah, Saul, Abraham, Jacob, Job, Solomon etc.
He took the perfect world number FOUR and added to it the perfect divine number, THREE, and got SEVEN, the most sacred number to the Hebrews. It was earth crowned with heaven, the four-square earth plus the divine COMPLETENESS OF GOD. So we have SEVEN expressing COMPLETENESS through union of earth with heaven.
This number is used more than all other numbers in the Word of God, save the number ONE. In the Book of Revelation the number SEVEN is used throughout. There are SEVEN churches, SEVEN Spirits, SEVEN stars, SEVEN seals, SEVEN trumpets, SEVEN vials, SEVEN personages, SEVEN dooms, and SEVEN new things. SEVEN symbolizes Spiritual Perfection.
The Seven Stories of Noah's Ark
All of life revolves around this number. SEVEN is used over 700 times in the Bible. It is used 54 times in the Book of Revelation. The whole Word of God is founded upon the number SEVEN. It stands for the SEVENTH day of the Creation Week, and speaks of the Millennial Rest day. It denotes COMPLETENESS or PERFECTION.
Man named the notes but God fixed the sounds, even as God fixed the days of the week, and man named them. Noah took the clean beasts into the ark by SEVENS (Genesis 7:2) SEVEN days after Noah went into the ark the flood came. (Genesis 7:-10)
Penguins are highly specialized flightless sea birds. Their black and white feathering is very dense, more than SEVENTYfeathers per square inch. The cheetah is the fastest land animal. It can reach speeds up to SEVENTY miles per hour for running short distances.
One fact about the universe revealed in the verses of the Qur'an is that the sky is made up of SEVEN layers.
The Seven Churches of Revelation and the Chakras
The first four chakras, and therefore the first four churches of Revelations chapter two, collectively represent the lower temples of our body.
The church of Ephesus is our root chakra, where kundalini lays dormant in the sacrum. In the verse from Revelations above, Christ warns us that he, as the higher mind and self, has something against the root chakra because in most humans this chakra is in a state of losing its first love, which is our original spiritual state of union with God. In other words, many of us have neglected the spiritual for the physical life, and therefore the balance between spirituality and physicality has been upset.
The church of Smyrna represents the second chakra along the spinal column, located a few inches beneath the navel. Whereas the first chakra is connected with our sexual organs (where the potential for physical creation resides), this chakra is associated with sexual function and the process of procreation. Jesus states that he knows thy works, and tribulation, and poverty because this is where the situation can seem desperate when we are seeking to transmute sexual energy into spiritual energy.
Pergamos is the third chakra, or solar plexus. It is quite powerful, either for positive spiritual transformation or continually fortifying the ego. Jesus states that this is Satan’s seat because the solar plexus is responsible for emotional desires and impulses. The center is also connected with the intellect. Thus even getting caught up in church doctrines can seriously entrench our egos and cause us to be judgmental to everyone who disagrees with us.
Thyatira is the heart chakra. Jesus’ description of this church couldn’t have fit the heart chakra more perfectly. Through this chakra we learn to bridge the gap between ourselves and our community. This is the last chakra of the lower temple, and therefore it should extend beyond us and to the community.
The apostle John in his vision concerning the Son of God returning to the Earth in its final epoch days are warnings which concern the need to take proper care of the chakras (candlesticks) of the lampstand meaning the entire organic chakra system of man. He calls each chakra by the symbolic term “Churches”.