On that lonely coast where the steep rocks cradled a dark and muttersome sea he saw vultures at their soaring whose wingspan so dwarfed all lesser birds that the eagles shrieking underneath were more like terns or plovers. He saw piles of gold a hat would scarcely have covered wagered on the turn of a card and lost and he saw bears and lions turned loose in the pits to fight wild bulls to the death and he was twice in San Francisco and twice saw it burn and never went back, riding out on horseback along the road to the south where all night the shape of the city burned against the sky and burned again in the black waters of the sea where dolphins rolled through the flames, fire in the lake, through the fall of burning timbers and the cries of the lost.
An expression similar to I Ching's "fire in the lake" is used several times in the Bible's Revelation: "lake of fire". Uncannily, the two expressions from unrelated sources express parallel, really identical, meanings, that apocalypse/death is not the end, but necessarily entails a resurrection/rebirth: A molting is the death of the old skin and the birth of a new one; an apocalypse is the death of the old world and the birth of a new one, and in the context of Christianity, it could be the death of Christ followed by his resurrection.
Earlier, the kid finds and keeps a Bible and is dressed like a preacher: "He had a bible that he'd found at the mining camps and he'd carried this book with him no word of which could he read. In his dark and frugal clothes some took him for a sort of preacher..." (BM 312) This action sets up a Biblical reading of the text quoted above, and it is a prelude to a Biblical vision the kid would soon have, as I will conjecture below. But first, some lines from Revelation.
In Revelation (KJV), "lake of fire", or a similar phrase, is used several times (underscored here) from Rev. 19 to 21:
Rev. 19:20 - And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
Rev. 20:10 - And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Rev. 20:14-15 - And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Rev. 21:8 - But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Revelation tells of a time of Christ's resurrection and Satan's downfall. The beast of the apocalypse, the tetramorph, one with "four faces", is described earlier in Revelation (KJV):
Rev. 4:7 - And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
Note the descriptions of the four faces: "lion", "calf" (some translations use "ox", such as the English Standard Version, or "bull", such as the Contemporary English Version), "man", and "eagle". Now, let's return to the two-sentence passage in Blood Meridian quoted above which contains "fire in the lake", now with certain other words also underscored:
On that lonely coast where the steep rocks cradled a dark and muttersome sea he saw vultures at their soaring whose wingspan so dwarfed all lesser birds that the eagles shrieking underneath were more like terns or plovers. He saw piles of gold a hat would scarcely have covered wagered on the turn of a card and lost and he saw bears and lions turned loose in the pits to fight wild bulls to the death and he was twice in San Francisco and twice saw it burn and never went back, riding out on horseback along the road to the south where all night the shape of the city burned against the sky and burned again in the black waters of the sea where dolphins rolled through the flames, fire in the lake, through the fall of burning timbers and the cries of the lost.
All four faces of the tetramorph are present: "eagle", "lion", and "bull", and the "man" would be represented by the "kid", himself soon to become the "man". The image of "riding out on horseback" harkens Revelation's several rounds of an arriving "horseman"; the use of "twice" harkens Revelation's "first resurrection" and "second death"; and the images of "burned again in the black waters of the sea", all the "burning" and "flames" in general, and "cries of the lost" harken Revelation's apocalypse. And, Christ is sometimes symbolized by the "dolphin". Hence, in this scene, the kid has a vision of Revelation ("he saw ... and he saw"), though his illiteracy has prevented him from reading it in the Bible he keeps.
So, in addition to an I Ching reading of "fire in the lake", I have now also a Biblical reading, but wait ... is this it? No, there are additional senses, along the lines of Revelation, which are also present in this two-sentence passage, and further on in the same chapter, of a tradition that absorbs the precepts of Christianity as well as other traditions. But Freemasonry, and a Masonic reading of this same passage, will have to wait until a future post....
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