Transparency is needed to sort things out. Before big change happens, God first reveals what’s really going on.

In the Book of Revelation - the last book of the Word - the apostle John describes a series of apocalyptic visions that he experienced during his exile on the Isle of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea.

In one of these visions, he saw four horsemen, the first riding a white horse, the second a red horse, the third a black, and the fourth - named Death - riding a pale horse. These "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - oft-pictured - are described in Revelation 6:1-8.

What do these horses, and their riders, represent? What do they have to do with us, today? Watch as Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose explore the hidden Bible meaning of the Four Horsemen in the Book of Revelation, in this video from the Swedenborg and Life Series, from the Swedenborg Foundation.

Plus, to go straight to the source, follow the links below to the places in "Apocalypse Revealed" where Swedenborg explained the inner meaning of this famous Bible story. A good place to start would be Apocalypse Revealed 298.

(Referências: Apocalypse Explained 315; Apocalypse Revealed 262-263, 301, 306, 314, 316, 320, 322-323)

6201. This was how my thought was seen by spirits when I had been raised a little way above the level of the senses. But when my thought took place on the latter level no such wave-like motion was seen; instead something entirely material appeared there, not unlike an object seen with the physical eyes. This is called thinking on the sensory level; but when thought takes place on a more internal level it is referred to as being raised above the level of the senses. The ancients were well acquainted with the idea that a person can be raised above the sensory level, and therefore some of them also wrote about that condition. People whose thought takes place on the lower level are called sensory-minded, and spirits of a similar nature are attached to them. These spirits take hold of little more from a person than what enters his own awareness too; for they are more unrefined than all other spirits. I have also noticed that when a person is on the sensory level and has not been raised above it his thought is confined to what is of a bodily and worldly nature. He has no wish to know about things that belong to eternal life; indeed he refuses to listen to anything about it.

[2] To enable me to know the nature of all this I have been brought down frequently to that sensory level, when the things described have occurred instantly. At the same time spirits in that more unrefined sphere have poured in foul and offensive ideas. But as soon as I was raised above the sensory level such ideas were dispelled. The life of the majority of people who surrender themselves to physical pleasures is on that sensory level, and so is the life of those who have utterly refused to contemplate the existence of anything beyond what they can see and hear, in particular those who have refused to think about eternal life. For that reason people of this kind revile such higher things and are nauseated when they hear them mentioned. At the present day large numbers of spirits like this exist in the next life, for bands of them enter it from the world. Also when they flow into a person they prompt him to indulge his natural inclination to lead a selfish and worldly life, not a life for others except insofar as they countenance him and his selfish desires. To be raised up above these spirits a person must entertain thoughts of eternal life.