Part I - The Nature of the Visions
Most likely the author of Revelation never used psychodelic drugs, since it would not have been compatible with his extremely puristic attitude. The ´visions´ of John must and can be explained differently.
The breadth of possible interpretational approaches ranges from a literary interpretation (i. e. the text is to be taken literally and the author has seen everything exactly as he describes it) to a literary interpretation (i. e. the author creates a vision that he has constructed purely literarily). In between, and this is the most common explanatory approach, is an interpretation of the Revelation as a mix of vision and literature (i. e. the author has combined the visioned with the reading literarily). I personally tend to the literary interpretation with the addition that, although the author had ecstatic experiences (ASC) that these have nothing or little to do with his text in terms of concrete content, they merely encouraged him in the subjective feeling of being a ´chosen one' who has the right to express his religious message in the tradition of Jewish-prophetic/apocalyptic literature (Ezechiel, Daniel, Henoch) to give the form of a vision.
Anyone who suspects among the readers that I want to trivialize or disparage the Revelation by doing so must ask themselves whether he has seen enough of the relevant international specialist literature, which knows no prohibitions on thought and has analysed the Revelation consistently critical of its source and without misguided thought. The fact that the Revelation is a highly demanding (artistic) work on a literary level is, after all, unanimous consensus among experts.
But the question remains: Vision (fact), fiction, or fact-fiction?
Some researchers (e. g. Felicitas D. Goodman 1990, Ioan P. Culiano 199, Revelation expert Leonard Thompson 1996 and B. J. Malina / J. J. Pilch 2000) believe to recognize essential parallels between a shamanic spiritual journey and the ´visions´ of the Revelation. I believe that such parallels exist, but do not adequately justify the assumption that the author has actually experienced such a journey of spirit. One argument of the Spirit Journey Theory is the reference to the so called ´interpretative angel´ (17,1), which reminds of the´spirits´ who are used to accompany a shaman on his journey. Another argument refers to the formula "I was in the spirit".
It was not uncommon in early Christian congregations to stimulate several gifted persons through certain techniques, especially ritual chanting (see Eph 15:18-19) to make supposedly prophetic statements interpreted by the rest of the congregation, see e. g. 1 Cor 14:26 ff:
26 What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28 If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.
In the following I present in detail arguments for a shamanic-visionary interpretation, which I can comprehend to a certain degree without acknowledging it as imperative. In my opinion, too much speaks in favour of a largely literary construction of the content of the Revelation.
As to the pro-visionary reasoning:
It is based to a large extent on the formula "I was in the Spirit", which at least in Rev 4,2 supposedly refers to an OBE (Out-of-Body-Experience). It appears twice, at 1,10 and 4,2 in the Luther translation:
Rev 1:
1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet
Rev 4:
4:1 After these things I looked and saw a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, like a trumpet speaking with me, was one saying, "Come up here, and I will show you the things which must happen after this."
4:2 Immediately I was in the Spirit. Behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne 4:3that looked like a jasper stone and a sardius. There was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald to look at. (...)
´Pneuma´, the Greek word for "spirit", corresponds to the Jewish word "ruach" (gram. feminine), which means "breath of God "and is connoted with "wind ". Unquestionably, ´ruach´ also has the connotation of female fertility, as Gen 1,2 shows where ´ruach´ breeds above the deep water, which can alternatively be translated as ´fluttering´ in the sense of a mother bird fluttering over her eggs. In neo-Platonism, the Ruach corresponds to the "world soul" with its mediating position between the divine nous (= platonic ideas) and the material, which inspired Christianity to its conception of the Trinitarian Holy Spirit, who called upon the repressed mother (-goddess) of the classical Triad Father-Mother-Son - e. g. the Triad Osiris-Isis-Horus - substituted (cf. the above mentioned hatching of feminine ruach at Gen 1,2). In Luke's case, Ruach is the "Holy Spirit" who will "come" over Mary and is identical with the "power of the Most High" (Luke 1:35). In Ezekiel's case, the Ruach appears as a wind that transports him from Babylon to Jerusalem, where he observes apocalyptic supernatural events.
Ruach is therefore a supernatural force that cancels the laws of space and time and allows consciousness to experience things that are unthinkable in the everyday world. For Jewish and Christian thought, this power is an expression of a personal God, the "Spirit of God".
However, regarding 1,10 and 4,2 it is doubtful whether the in-spirit formula describes the same process in both cases. There are basically two ways of interpreting the formula:
(1) "To be in the spirit" means a subjective state of consciousness of J (= trance), which enables him to have a higher perception. At the same time John´s psyche remains in the body.
(2) "Being in the Spirit" refers to an objective event associated with an out-of-body experience (= OBE): John´s psyche is transferred into a divine sphere.
This distinction is addressed in Paul's description of his initiation (2 Cor 12:1-4). The author is so uncertain about whether he was "fourteen years ago" on his heavenly journey inside or outside his body that he expresses this doubt twice in a few sentences:
1 The glory is of no use to me; but I will come upon the face and revelation of the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ; fourteen years ago, if he was in the body, I know not; or if he was out of the body, I know not, God knows it, he was enchanted unto the third heaven. 3 And I know the same man (whether he was in the body or out of the body, I do not know; God knows it); 4 he was enraptured into paradise, and heard unspeakable words which no man can say.
Back to John´s Revelation.
The difference between 1.10 and 4.2 consists in the protagonist's initial situation.
In 1,10 John is in an everyday environment, more precisely: on Patmos on the' Day of the Lord', when the Spirit effect begins. J is haunted by a supernatural figure (Christ) standing in the midst of seven candlesticks and dictating letters to him (whereof the passages of letters are possibly a subsequent insertion). Without the candlesticks, the scene could be interpreted as Christ's entry into the natural world. But their presence signals that, conversely, John entered a supernatural space where he confronted ´Christ´.