Chariot and Saucer

Sometime in the early Babylonian exile, a priest named Ezekiel had a vision on the banks of the Chebar Canal. Four winged creatures, each with four faces, emerged, borne on a fiery wind, drawing a bejeweled chariot (merkavah). In the air above them, God sat on a sapphire throne and said, “O Mortal, stand up on your feet that I may speak to you” (Ezek. 2:1). Several centuries later, Jewish mystics, including, at least by legend, Rabbi Akiva, attempted to re-create Ezekiel’s vision, known as the Ma’aseh Merkavah. They developed complex meditative techniques to induce spiritual journeys through the heavens (though, paradoxically, they were generally said to descend rather than ascend). In these visions, they progressed through a series of seven concentric, glimmering palaces guarded by fearsome angels in search of the divine throne. Ezekiel’s Vision by Raphael. (Courtesy of The Japan Times/Wikimedia Commons.) About two thousand years later, in the summer of 1947, a rancher named Willia ... Read full article.