To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

Who Will Save Us? / 159
The destruction of earth and the retreat of the gods as
the human race becomes increasingly matter-bound is a recurring
theme in ancient cultures. The narratives vary in
externals: in one instance they might refer to an age and a
people that have long since vanished or to predictions of
what has not yet come to pass. At first blush, the accounts
of the cataclysmic destruction of everything are terrifying
— whether we ponder the cryptic verses of Nostradamus
(1503‒1566), the Book of Revelation, or other apocalyptic
writings. But when we read further in the world’s sacred
literatures, we discover that the dying of the old cycle is
followed in time by the emergence of the new: earth comes
forth fresh and without blemish, and a new humanity arises.
This is poetically foretold in the Icelandic Edda, in the
prophecy of Vala, the Sibyl, who forecasts the coming of
Ragnarök (‘‘doom or return of gods’’), with ‘‘sun growing
dim, earth sinking, and stars falling,’’ accompanied by fire
rising high to complete the desolation.* At length, another
earth rises from the waters, the eagle flies, and gods again
decree peace in the land and what is to be held sacred.
A like pattern of decline, death, and renewal is seen in
the discourse among Asclepius and his friends, attributed to
Hermes Trismegistus, the ‘‘thrice-greatest.’’ When in the
course of time ‘‘all things hostile to the nature of the soul’’
have been committed by mankind, earth will ‘‘no longer
stand unshaken, ...heaven will not support the stars in
their orbits, ...all voices of the gods will of necessity be
silenced. ... But when all this has befallen, Asclepius,
*Cf. The Masks of Odin by Elsa-Brita Titchenell, ‘‘Völuspá’’ (The
Sibyl’s Prophecy), pp. 87‒100.