That Which Is To Be Revealed
I have come into a cataclysmic knowledge…
I commit these words to writing in trepidation and awe, not knowing what will happen when I finish.
I begin this in secret. There are those who, if they knew where I was and what I was doing, would do everything in their power to stop me from completing it, even if it meant taking my life. They have already tried.
I sit with pen and paper in the midst of a vast desert. By the time you read these words, I will be gone from this place and hopefully still alive. Whatever happens next, I have no choice. To see what I have seen and to know what has been revealed to me and to keep it to myself would be to commit an immoral act, a colossal sin of omission.
That which is to be revealed, that which you’re about to read, is a mystery, an ancient and cryptic knowledge, hidden for ages in the dust of the Middle East, a mystery that holds the secret behind the most critical, pivotal, calamitous, and catastrophic events, the greatest evils ever to come upon this world —wars and revolutions, the rise and fall of kingdoms and superpowers, unfathomable darkness, and the prospect of global destruction.
I am the least likely of people to take up such an undertaking. I didn’t choose the mystery. The mystery chose me. I have no choice but to reveal it. I have decided that the best way to bring it forth is to disclose that which I saw with my own eyes. So I will tell a story. I will recount a journey—a journey that changed everything. But that which the story contains is a mystery on which the future of the world now hangs, the future of every life in the world, and the future of you who are now reading these words.
The story will span the world, from an unexpected encounter in New York City to a Turkish bazaar in Istanbul; from a dark gate in a German city to a strange man in Red Square, Moscow; from a desert of white mountains and white sand to an island in the Caribbean; from a city of seven hills to the city of God. I will tell you of my encounters with the “guides,” the revealers of mysteries—an old man playing a solitary game of chess in the Balkans; a young Polish woman with a knapsack on her back; a thin, bearded man who appeared to be homeless but wasn’t; a Native American stoking a desert fire; a woman with long, dark, wavy hair at the birthplace of a monster; and more than these.
I will also tell of those on the other side, of a very different nature and purpose, the keepers and guardians of an ancient secret. They had their own agenda—to stop the mystery from being revealed and the revelation from going forth. They were watching, they were everywhere, and they were deadly. They would seek to take my life and the life of another. It was only by a twist of events that I am alive to now reveal what they so zealously and violently tried to stop from being revealed.
The journey will also involve a book, or rather, the pages of a book. The book itself is unknown to the world and of a most cryptic nature. Those who wrote it never intended it to be read or seen by those outside their circle, much less by me. It was that book that began the journey. And it was that book that contained the clues and keys concerning what was hidden and then revealed.
To order Jonathan Cahn’s new book, The Altar of Pergamon, visit Amazon.com.
As for the mystery, it centers on an ancient object, hidden from the world for ages. Then it was unearthed, and everything began to change; the world was altered.
And the mystery involves even more than this, something that, before the journey, I would have mocked and derided—and did. But I can no longer do that. Though it exists outside the confines and realms of modern notions and speculation, I know now how real it is and how it has acted upon and transformed the modern world. It is ancient, dark, and dangerous. It is now for me to reveal it and how it has altered the existence of everyone on this planet.
It began on the other side of the world in a place as different from my present surroundings as two places could be—New York City. I was giving a lecture for an association of skeptics, cynics, and unbelievers, during which I mocked and deconstructed the idea of the supernatural. It would be the last time I would ever do so.
It was at the end of that lecture that I had an encounter that would change my life.
The Visitor
My name is Ariel Herzog. I have made a reputation of being a skeptic. It was at first my disposition and then my profession. I became a debunker of hoaxes, frauds, delusions, and deceptions. I wrote and posted articles exposing them and those who promulgated them as frauds, charlatans, or simply deluded. And whenever I could, I debated them. I investigated everything from Bigfoot to the Loch Ness Monster, Area 51, UFO abductions, psychics, witches, mediums, ghosts, spirits, and the claims of the religious divine healings, angelic encounters, and miracles. I challenged them and debunked them all.
I was also a public speaker, having given countless lectures around the country, mostly preaching to the choir of fellow nonbelievers and cynics. It was at one of those lectures—presented in a library in New York City to an audience of about thirty-five skeptics and scientific rationalists—that my life would be irrevocably altered. I had given that lecture more times than I could remember and always ended it with the same summation and finale:
We are no longer children of superstition, no longer the heirs of fantasy and folklore. We are the disciples of science, rationality, and progress. The days of witches and fairy tales, goblins and boogeymen, monsters, fiery dragons, and knights in shining armor have passed. There are no creatures lurking in our enchanted forests, and there are no enchanted forests. We do not hope for winged men with halos to come flying down to our rescue or for the white-bearded man upstairs to save us. Nor do we fear the red-caped man with a pitchfork and horns. There is no one to save us but we ourselves, no monsters to frighten us, no angels to bear us on their wings except those born of our dreams, and no devils to haunt us but those forged by our nightmares. It is time for us to put away the illusions of our childhood and walk out of the dark forest of superstition into the light of scientific rationality. It is time for us to put away childish things and grow up.
For that I received a standing ovation. It was what they came for and expected me to say. But it would be the last time I would ever give that speech.
Several of those in the audience came up to me afterward to tell me how much they enjoyed my lecture and to thank me for my work. Some asked for my autograph. That went on for about half an hour. It was only as they began dispersing that I noticed him still sitting there in the middle row of now-empty folding chairs, just staring at me. He was middle-aged, with a weathered face, somewhat disheveled dark hair, and an old, worn trench coat. I had noticed him earlier as I was delivering my lecture—restless, intensely serious, troubled, continually scanning the room as if for signs of danger. He waited until the last person had left before he approached me.
This article is excerpted from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Cahn’s new book, The Altar of Pergamon, which follows the spellbinding account of Ariel Herzog, a skeptic known for dismantling the claims of the supernatural, but who receives a cryptic page of a secret book. The page opens up an ancient mystery. The mystery will lead Herzog and an unlikely ally, Lara Winter, to undertake a journey that will span the globe to unlock the mystery, page by page, revelation by revelation. The journey will take them from New York City to Istanbul, to Berlin, to Eastern Europe, to Moscow, New Mexico, Havana, Jerusalem, and beyond. In each place, they will encounter a mysterious agent connected to the mystery holding the keys to unlock the next secret and piece of the puzzle. But they are not alone. They will find themselves watched, tracked, and pursued by the members of a dark organization who have guarded the mystery from ancient times. And those who draw too close to unlocking its secret do so at the risk or cost of their lives.
Jonathan Cahn caused a worldwide stir with the release of his first book, The Harbinger, a New York Times bestseller. Every book he’s written since has likewise become a New York Times bestseller. He was named, along with Billy Graham, as one of the top forty spiritual leaders of the last forty years“who radically changed our world.” He has addressed members of Congress and spoken at the United Nations. He is known as a prophetic voice for our times and for the opening up of the deep mysteries of God. His teachings and prophetic messages on his YouTube channel have had over one hundred million views. Jonathan leads Hope of the World, a ministry of bringing the Word of God to the world and compassion to the world’s most needy, and BethIsrael/the Jerusalem Center, his ministry base and worship center in Wayne, New Jersey, just outside New York City. He ministers and speaks throughout America and the world. You can pre-order his latest blockbuster book, The Altar of Pergamon, at Amazon.com.
