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Tuesday 7 August 2012

Exposing The New Age Influence Within English Hymn "Jerusalem" As Sung At London 2012 Games



The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how gnosticism (now known as New Age) is at the centre of the hymn "Jerusalem" and why it has (dangerously) become so very important to English culture.

At the London Olympic Games 2012 we saw a whole scenario of England a green and pleasant land. it showed the Glastonbury Tor with its "thorn" (a tree) as centre stage which was as a backdrop to the very English hymn "Jerusalem".

What was that all about? Why is that hymn so important to England? Why is it NOW sung as the English national anthem at the Commonwealth games and at England's Cricket test matches? What is its significance?

To answer most of those questions, I have copied a section from an article written by Tony Pearce of "Light For The Last Days" entitled "Isles of Wonder,London’s weird Olympic opener". Here is the link:

http://www.lightforthelastdays.co.uk/Iles%20of%20Wonder.pdf

I would like to thank Tony for giving me permission to publish that section here. This is what was written. It is very revealing.

Some consider ‘Jerusalem’ to be a Christian hymn, because it talks about the ‘holy lamb of God’ (i.e. Jesus), but the fact is that Blake was certainly not a believing Christian.  He had visions of ‘angels’ from a young age and associated with mystics and occultists, participating in
seances.

He was influenced by the writings of such figures as Jacob Boehme and Emanuel Swedenborg who are seen as fathers of occult influences behind Freemasonry and Theosophy. He inherited the idea of the innate divinity of human beings from Swedenborg and his work contains a pantheistic theme of bringing all together as one.

A number of his ideas tie in with the New Age view of God being inherent in Man, showing the 'Human Form Divine'.

He practiced a form of ‘automatic writing’ particularly in his art work. Automatic writing is described as ‘a technique to quiet the mental chatter that obscures dialogue with spirit guides and angels’.  This actually means channelling inspiration from evil spirits.

Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ is based on the legend about Joseph of Arimathea (in whose tomb Jesus was buried before rising from the dead – Matthew 27.57).  According to this legend (for which there is not a shred of evidence in the Gospels or early Christian literature) he was the uncle of Mary, mother of Jesus, who took charge of the infant Jesus after the death of her husband Joseph.

Joseph of Arimathea was a rich merchant with a large fleet of ships that ran the tin trade for the Roman Empire, between England and the Mediterranean.  He travelled to the area that is now England and visited Glastonbury during the years between Jesus being 12 years old and the beginning of his ministry at the age of 30.  

Glastonbury was already a place with mystical significance, also known as the Isle of Avalon, connected to the legends of King Arthur. According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea later visited Glastonbury with the Holy Grail, the Chalice which Jesus used at the Last Supper to serve the wine.  He thrust his staff into Wearyall Hill, which then grew into the original thorn tree. The Holy Grail is also connected to Arthurian legends and is sometimes referred to as a "cauldron", although traditionally the grail is thought of as a hand-held cup rather than a large pot or "cauldron". This may have resulted from the combination of the grail legend with earlier Celtic myths of magical cauldrons.

Glastonbury was a centrepiece of the London 2012 Olympic Opening ceremony with Glastonbury Tor being at the centre of the idyllic scene which opened with ‘England’s green and pleasant land’.  In the ceremony it was the place where the national flags of the participating teams was placed.  Glastonbury Tor today, because of its associations with these mystic origins, is a high place of occultism in Britain.  The town is full of New Age mystic shops and features the yearly Glastonbury Festival which contains a mixture of occultism and pop music.  The ‘cauldron’ was the centrepiece of the final scene of the Olympic ceremony where all the lights of the nations were brought together as one.

‘Jerusalem’ begins with four questions about whether Jesus visited England.  ‘And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England’s mountains green?  And was the holy lamb of God in England’s pleasant pastures seen?  And did the countenance divine shine forth upon our clouded hills?  And was Jerusalem builded here among those dark satanic mills?’ 

The answer to all these questions is No.

Jesus never visited England.   The only countries He visited outside of Israel were Egypt as a baby and Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) when He went to Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15).  Jerusalem is in the Judean hills in Israel, the place to which the Lord Jesus will return at His Second Coming to the earth, and from where He will reign over the earth during the Millennium or Messianic Age.

The New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven from God, when the present earth has passed away, so we will not build it here in England or anywhere else on earth during this age.

So the song Jerusalem is not about any Jerusalem to be found in the Bible and, if it is about Jesus, it is certainly not about the Messiah of the New Testament.  Blake’s ideas about God and Jesus would however fit in with ‘another Jesus’, the mystic Jesus who featured in the Gnostic heresies which plagued early Christianity.

Today this is manifested in the various New Age and occult forces which I have no doubt Blake would have fitted into if he were alive today.  It ends with the words, “I will not cease from mental strife, nor shall my sword sleep in my had, till we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.”    

This sentiment is actually condemning people to endless ‘mental strife’ because this side of the return of Christ, there will be no ‘Jerusalem’ in England!  But what does he mean by ‘mental strife’ and the sword that will build Jerusalem?  

Certainly not the preaching of the Gospel of peace with God through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Much more likely a combination of humanistic self-effort, even accompanied by violence, plus a heavy dose of the occult leading to the Antichrist.

At the London Olympics, it was interesting that the idea that Danny Boyle, the producer of the Opening Ceremony programme, wanted to get across was that of building a better world through human endeavour.  In his programme notes he wrote:  ‘But we hope, too, that through all the noise and excitement you’ll glimpse a single golden thread of purpose – the idea of Jerusalem – of the better world, the world of real freedom and real equality, a world that can be built through the prosperity of industry, through the caring nation that built the welfare state, through the joyous energy of popular culture, through the dream of universal communication.  A belief that we can build Jerusalem.  And that it will be for everyone. ‘

According to the prophecies of the Bible this age will end not with the building of a humanistic ‘Jerusalem,’ a better world of freedom and equality, but with the rule of the Antichrist, who will bring oppression, persecution and destruction to the earth before the deliverance which comes from the glorious Second Coming of Christ.

While I would not say that the London Olympics are themselves setting the scene for the Antichrist, I would say that the spirit behind this production was ‘antichrist’ and preparing the way for the strong delusion which the Bible says will lead to his coming.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi John, I've never been happy with this 'so called Christian hymn'

1- It is not and will be not true. This my original objection.

2- It's links to English Freemasonry and the Establishment.

I remember disagreeing with Curate over it, his take was each line had the answer no. This may have had some credence, however once I found the evidence for (2) above, it became nothing but a defence of the indefensible. Needless to say the curate is now an Archdeacon.

Simple put Jesus is Coming Back, not England,but to Jerusalem.

Tony is Spot on. I also had the witness, that was a preparing the way for the 'Man of Sin' what we witness on the Olympic Opening,

Blessings - Richard Lockwood

Richard

Truth Seeker said...

Hi,
I really learned a lot reading your article: Exposing The New Age Influence Within English Hymn "Jerusalem" As Sung At London 2012 Games. I would love to share a related article with you.I strongly believe that you would find it useful. God bless:

Unknown said...

Hi TS

I hope you don't mind me posting your email contents here. Your comments don't appear to be confidential. I wouldn't have published it, but I tried to reply to you twice by email. However, the email address you gave seems to be faulty because I got 2 mailer failure notices.

Therefore, I can think of no other way to reply to you but by using the means of this blog.

This was my email to you:



Hi TS

I read through the article you gave me.

Although in essence I agree with the general observations, I HAVE to disagree with its emphasis. The antichrist (or the one who sits in the temple of God, who stands in the place of Christ) truly comes out of Babylon. but the bible is clear that Babylon is the Roman Catholic church.

Paul said that "the mystery of iniquity" was already at work in his day. What was he referring to? He was referring to gnosticism which came from Babylon. Gnosticism (a mystery religion of hidden secrets) was starting to infiltrate the church through Roman and Greek influence. Paul warned that after his departure wolves would come in.

He preached day and night for 3 years with tears warning the church about this. So what happened? The early church Fathers (the ones Paul warned about) came in with their destructive teachings which effectively little by little "christianised" gnostic teaching, i.e gave "christian" names to gnostic objects of worship.

What we see today is the result of that through the Catholic church. Rome is a religion of gnosticism with a christian veneer. New Age of today is simply recycled gnosticism under yet another name introduced to us by Rome. They deny this. Of course they would deny it because they want to pretend it didn't come from them. However, the evidence can be found to prove that Rome through the Vatican, Jesuit priests, the Pope actually are behind New Age, the Illuminati and Freemasonry. It was them who started it. It makes sense because all of these are "mystery" religions which came out of the biggest mystery religion of all ROME or Mystery Babylon.

It is clear from that article you showed me, that the writer does not consider the RC to be the "whore" religion of the book of Revelation.

To re-emphasise the above, please read these articles of mine:

http://watchmanforjesus.blogspot.com/2010/03/why-catholic-church-is-not-christian.html

http://watchmanforjesus.blogspot.com/2010/02/babylon-videos.html

http://watchmanforjesus.blogspot.com/2011/07/beast-with-seven-heads-ten-horns-and.html

Please let me know your thoughts once you have read these.

God bless
John

Covenanter said...

Am glad that we only sing the psalms in our denomination. Can't go wrong with God's Word!