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Symbols of Revelation
This book explains Frederick Carter's wholly original interpretation of the dragon as a central force in St. John's apocalyptic vision in the Book of Revelation. Weaving the biblical story together with zodiacal and astrological references and their ancient meanings, this book reexamines the vision from a new point of view and Was it prophetic, an allegorical teaching, or an account of a mystical experience? By following the star map of the constellations, Carter elucidates the symbolic meaning of the figures that we encounter in St. John's mystical journey. Carter's ideas utilize science and religion, astrology, astronomy, mythology, and great story telling to re-examine an important Bible story.
96 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2002
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April 8, 2025
I’m surprised no one on Goodreads has reviewed this book yet. It seems to be an important occult book. Biblio(dot)com has listed an original 1932 copy of this book, signed by Aleister Crowley, with the notice "Originally issued in 1931 as Dragon of Revelation, this is the 1932 reissue with the addition of seven Carter illustrations, including a two-panel Map of the Heavens printed on the endpapers, none of which appear in the first." Fortunately we don’t have to locate an original 1932 copy of this book since Ibis Press reissued it in 2002. I suppose the book is worth owning; I read it on archive(dot)org. The problem with doing that was that it was impossible to put the two halves of the star map together to see exactly what Carter was aiming for there. Otherwise it was fine.
My interest in this book was whetted by reading D. H. Lawrence’s book on the Apocalypse. Carter claimed that Lawrence was inspired by his book, and complained that Lawrence did not credit him for it. Carter’s book has an interesting history. According to D. H. Lawrence’s review of The Dragon of Revelation (included in the Penguin edition of Lawrence’s Apocalypse), Carter sent him a draft of The Dragon of Revelation to get his opinion. This draft, claims Lawrence, was different from the work in its later form. For one thing, the manuscript Lawrence received had little to do with Revelation. This draft could not have been close to Symbols of Revelation, which devotes nearly 3/4 of its bulk to Revelation. The draft also contained some brief essays that were prefaced to Carter’s novel The Dragon of the Alchemists. These essays, unlike Symbols of Revelation, do fit Lawrence’s description of not having much to do with Revelation.
My main purpose in reading this book was to investigate Carter’s claim that Lawrence failed to credit Carter for inspiring some of Lawrence’s ideas. In particular, I was interested in how what Carter had to say about dragons may have influence what Lawrence said about dragons. My conclusion was that there isn’t much that Lawrence said that could have been influenced by Carter. Lawrence says something about the evil red dragon v the good green dragon. This, I suppose, may have been lifted from Carter's association with the dragon of Revelation 12 with a supposed 5th series in Revelation with the kakodaimon (evil deity) followed by the agathodaimon (good deity) in Revelation’s 6th series. But this seems very tenuous.
As far as the writing goes, it compares very favorably to the essays Carter wrote as introductory to The Dragon of the Alchemists. It’s all nonsense, of course, but it is enjoyable nonsense. The first 30 pages of this short book say nothing about Revelation, but rather are a description of constellations and the seven planets of antiquity (this explains the star map). Just when you are wondering where this is going, Carter launches into a section called "Ceremonial," and suddenly he is talking about Revelation. He proceeds to find references to constellations and planets everywhere. Now, I am not opposed to finding astrological significance in Revelation (the sun lady of chapter 12 seems like a clear reference to Virgo, for example), but I cannot buy into most of Carter's references. The four horsemen, for example, are more clearly a reference to Zechariah’s horsemen than to the constellations Sagittarius, Scorpio, Libra, and Virgo. Nor did I understand why the fifth seal represented Leo and the seventh seal Gemini. And I was quite disappointed that he never did say which constellation the sixth seal represented.
An interesting section was Carter's explanation of 666 which the back cover of the Ibis reprint makes a special notice of. Again, it is complete nonsense, but interesting nonsense. The Greek word for "beast" occurs 37 times in Revelation. If you multiply 37 by the number of decans that the sun traverses in a year (36) you get 1332. Half of 1332 is 666, which represents, according to Carter, the solar equinox, or the sun's triumph of the winter of his weakness. The sun is associated with Aries, which the second beast stands for. Apparently Carter takes 666 to be the number of the land beast, not the sea beast.
So would I recommend this book? As far as there being a link to D. H. Lawrence’s book on Revelation, I found it to be something of a dead end. As far as a commentary on Revelation, it is total nonsense. That is, of course, unless you are heavily into astrology, new age, or the occult. At least, Aleister Crowley seemed to think it was important.
Edit: So I went ahead and bought the print version of this book, and I’m glad I did. The main reason I bought it was to get a copy of the star map which did not display correctly on archive(dot)org. I was sad that the dimensions of the book were small and hence the dimensions of the star map were commensurately small. Also, there simply wasn’t enough room on the star map to include all the constellations Carter discusses.
My complaint that the first 30 pages say nothing about Revelation needs to be corrected. First, the first 10 pages are prefatory, that is, images and contents and the like. These pages were followed by a 5 page preface which did in fact discuss Revelation. My complaint was about the following section, the Antique Universe, which was a 16 1/2 page section which was a description of constellations and planets. This didn’t seem to have much to do with Revelation and was a pretty good chunk of this 100 page book. Nonetheless since much of the book had to do with the descriptions of constellations and planets and their relative positions, it was a good warmup for the rest of the book.
I noticed when reading the print version that I had missed several things in my first two readings that surprised me. I wonder if I just notice more stuff in reading a print book? I will have to take that into consideration in further purchases. It surprised me, for example, that I didn’t notice that Carter thinks the star the magi followed from the East was Antares. Typically, Carter didn’t explain why he thought that. He also prefers the strange variant reading that the angels who poured out the vials (bowls) were dressed in stone rather than linen (the Greek words for stone and linen differ by only one letter). Carter apparently thinks that this point is of some importance because he italicizes stone, but never explains why this is significant.
These are trivial, of course, but I also missed more important points. The whole point of Carter's explanation of the number 666, which I devoted a paragraph to in my original review, is that 666 represents the sun in the constellation Aries. (Yes, it’s weird, but check my original paragraph about this and you can put it together.) The other point that relates to my original view is the constellations Carter associates with the seven seals. He associates Leo with the fifth seal because below Leo is Centaurus, who in the astronomical legends is sacrificing on an altar. Thus we have the (reverse) sequence of constellations Sagittarius, Scorpio, Libra, Virgo, Leo. The reason Gemini is chosen for the seventh seal is because Sagittarius and Gemini are the two constellations that contain the lunar nodes. In fact, the lunar nodes change and he doesn’t explain why he uses these constellations in his scheme.
Two other features of this book that I wish had been explained more fully were, first, the association of the precious stones in Revelation 21 with the twelve signs of the zodiac. He gives a list showing a perfect (reverse) correspondence between the stones and the zodiac. He claims that the Jews learned this correspondence from Egyptian and Arabian monuments, but gives no details. Years ago I read De Gemmis by Epiphanius, but I don’t remember if he discusses this correspondence. I have rereserved this book in order to reread. The second feature was the claimed correspondence between Revelation and astrological houses (houses 4-9 in reverse order). He gives a list of these houses according to the "old system," but again without further explanation. They certainly don’t correspond to modern astrological speculation!
My interest in this book was whetted by reading D. H. Lawrence’s book on the Apocalypse. Carter claimed that Lawrence was inspired by his book, and complained that Lawrence did not credit him for it. Carter’s book has an interesting history. According to D. H. Lawrence’s review of The Dragon of Revelation (included in the Penguin edition of Lawrence’s Apocalypse), Carter sent him a draft of The Dragon of Revelation to get his opinion. This draft, claims Lawrence, was different from the work in its later form. For one thing, the manuscript Lawrence received had little to do with Revelation. This draft could not have been close to Symbols of Revelation, which devotes nearly 3/4 of its bulk to Revelation. The draft also contained some brief essays that were prefaced to Carter’s novel The Dragon of the Alchemists. These essays, unlike Symbols of Revelation, do fit Lawrence’s description of not having much to do with Revelation.
My main purpose in reading this book was to investigate Carter’s claim that Lawrence failed to credit Carter for inspiring some of Lawrence’s ideas. In particular, I was interested in how what Carter had to say about dragons may have influence what Lawrence said about dragons. My conclusion was that there isn’t much that Lawrence said that could have been influenced by Carter. Lawrence says something about the evil red dragon v the good green dragon. This, I suppose, may have been lifted from Carter's association with the dragon of Revelation 12 with a supposed 5th series in Revelation with the kakodaimon (evil deity) followed by the agathodaimon (good deity) in Revelation’s 6th series. But this seems very tenuous.
As far as the writing goes, it compares very favorably to the essays Carter wrote as introductory to The Dragon of the Alchemists. It’s all nonsense, of course, but it is enjoyable nonsense. The first 30 pages of this short book say nothing about Revelation, but rather are a description of constellations and the seven planets of antiquity (this explains the star map). Just when you are wondering where this is going, Carter launches into a section called "Ceremonial," and suddenly he is talking about Revelation. He proceeds to find references to constellations and planets everywhere. Now, I am not opposed to finding astrological significance in Revelation (the sun lady of chapter 12 seems like a clear reference to Virgo, for example), but I cannot buy into most of Carter's references. The four horsemen, for example, are more clearly a reference to Zechariah’s horsemen than to the constellations Sagittarius, Scorpio, Libra, and Virgo. Nor did I understand why the fifth seal represented Leo and the seventh seal Gemini. And I was quite disappointed that he never did say which constellation the sixth seal represented.
An interesting section was Carter's explanation of 666 which the back cover of the Ibis reprint makes a special notice of. Again, it is complete nonsense, but interesting nonsense. The Greek word for "beast" occurs 37 times in Revelation. If you multiply 37 by the number of decans that the sun traverses in a year (36) you get 1332. Half of 1332 is 666, which represents, according to Carter, the solar equinox, or the sun's triumph of the winter of his weakness. The sun is associated with Aries, which the second beast stands for. Apparently Carter takes 666 to be the number of the land beast, not the sea beast.
So would I recommend this book? As far as there being a link to D. H. Lawrence’s book on Revelation, I found it to be something of a dead end. As far as a commentary on Revelation, it is total nonsense. That is, of course, unless you are heavily into astrology, new age, or the occult. At least, Aleister Crowley seemed to think it was important.
Edit: So I went ahead and bought the print version of this book, and I’m glad I did. The main reason I bought it was to get a copy of the star map which did not display correctly on archive(dot)org. I was sad that the dimensions of the book were small and hence the dimensions of the star map were commensurately small. Also, there simply wasn’t enough room on the star map to include all the constellations Carter discusses.
My complaint that the first 30 pages say nothing about Revelation needs to be corrected. First, the first 10 pages are prefatory, that is, images and contents and the like. These pages were followed by a 5 page preface which did in fact discuss Revelation. My complaint was about the following section, the Antique Universe, which was a 16 1/2 page section which was a description of constellations and planets. This didn’t seem to have much to do with Revelation and was a pretty good chunk of this 100 page book. Nonetheless since much of the book had to do with the descriptions of constellations and planets and their relative positions, it was a good warmup for the rest of the book.
I noticed when reading the print version that I had missed several things in my first two readings that surprised me. I wonder if I just notice more stuff in reading a print book? I will have to take that into consideration in further purchases. It surprised me, for example, that I didn’t notice that Carter thinks the star the magi followed from the East was Antares. Typically, Carter didn’t explain why he thought that. He also prefers the strange variant reading that the angels who poured out the vials (bowls) were dressed in stone rather than linen (the Greek words for stone and linen differ by only one letter). Carter apparently thinks that this point is of some importance because he italicizes stone, but never explains why this is significant.
These are trivial, of course, but I also missed more important points. The whole point of Carter's explanation of the number 666, which I devoted a paragraph to in my original review, is that 666 represents the sun in the constellation Aries. (Yes, it’s weird, but check my original paragraph about this and you can put it together.) The other point that relates to my original view is the constellations Carter associates with the seven seals. He associates Leo with the fifth seal because below Leo is Centaurus, who in the astronomical legends is sacrificing on an altar. Thus we have the (reverse) sequence of constellations Sagittarius, Scorpio, Libra, Virgo, Leo. The reason Gemini is chosen for the seventh seal is because Sagittarius and Gemini are the two constellations that contain the lunar nodes. In fact, the lunar nodes change and he doesn’t explain why he uses these constellations in his scheme.
Two other features of this book that I wish had been explained more fully were, first, the association of the precious stones in Revelation 21 with the twelve signs of the zodiac. He gives a list showing a perfect (reverse) correspondence between the stones and the zodiac. He claims that the Jews learned this correspondence from Egyptian and Arabian monuments, but gives no details. Years ago I read De Gemmis by Epiphanius, but I don’t remember if he discusses this correspondence. I have rereserved this book in order to reread. The second feature was the claimed correspondence between Revelation and astrological houses (houses 4-9 in reverse order). He gives a list of these houses according to the "old system," but again without further explanation. They certainly don’t correspond to modern astrological speculation!
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