John Lennon's "Imagine" - Eden/Atlantis/Paradise/On Earth as in Heaven

Some people say this song is propaganda for an evil elite because of some of the verses, to me, it is a Spiritual song. Here are the lyrics and my explanation in brackets [ ].


"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today"

[No heaven above us because "Thy kingdom come on Earth as in Heaven". When Heaven and Earth are ONE, Earth is not a prison to escape. No hell because pain and suffering are erased. Living for today because there are no stress of yesterday or worries of tommorrow.]

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you"

[No countries because Earth is in Unity because of Spirit/Love/Brotherhood. No religion because its purpose is to unite people with Spirit, but when people already live from Spirit all is well.]

"You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one"

[Jesus hopes so, too. He wills for none to perish/suffer but for Peace. As Christ said, "love thy neighbour as thyself" and "Have peace one to another".]

"Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you"

[No greed, but everyone loves their neighbours as themselves so everyone shares and no one starves.]

"You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one"

[You may call him a dreamer but he doesn't care because he has FAITH that one day, everyone will join to live by The Royal Law of God, that you "love thy neighbour as thyself".]

It's a Spiritual song of Unity, not a devilish song about greed/materialism or violence.

Nice breakdown of the song.

I'm pretty sure John Lennon was a spiritual atheist (going off of clues), and not a practitioner of any one faith. I don't think you were commenting on any affiliation he may have had though, just picking up on some parallels. I definitely agree it's not a song for the elite. People who claim that don't really know John Lennon or his music imo.

a reply to: arpgme

Here's a version for the even more frightening world we live in today.

This is how I've always believed the song - a spiritual, know thyself suggestion.

a reply to: arpgme

Let's look at the first line...

Imagine there's no heaven....end stop.

It's easy if you try...end stop.

No hell below us....end stop

Above us only sky...end stop.

That means that hell can be right here on earth, according to your definition. See, he was really saying in that, look at the thought structure, imagine there's no heaven. That's all you have to hear to know what he is saying. YOU imagine there's no heaven...full stop.

No hell below us, above us only sky. To me, the man is asking for you to imagine no heaven, but that hell can be right here on earth because to him it's not below us.

He doesn't say there is no heaven or hell, he's is just asking you to imagine, therefore when you have no faith, he absolves himself from causing your lack of faith, because he simply said "imagine". He cannot directly tell you there is no heaven or hell, he only asks you to imagine, absolving himself, because he himself can still have faith that there is heaven and hell.

originally posted by: WakeUpBeer
Nice breakdown of the song.

I'm pretty sure John Lennon was a spiritual atheist (going off of clues), and not a practitioner of any one faith. I don't think you were commenting on any affiliation he may have had though, just picking up on some parallels. I definitely agree it's not a song for the elite. People who claim that don't really know John Lennon or his music imo.

Who really understands John Lennon?

Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the bus to come.

He allows you to insert your own interpretation. But John Lennon also suffered the tragic loss of his mother from Biography.com

Lennon's mother, Julia, remarried, but visited him and Mimi regularly. She taught Lennon how to play the banjo and the piano and purchased his first guitar. Lennon was devastated when Julia was fatally struck by a car driven by an off-duty police officer in July 1958. Her death was one of the most traumatic events in his life.

The death of his mother certainly must have had some impact on his psyche. And considering how she died, he had issues with the police. "See how they run, see how they fly like pigs in the sky, see how they cry".

I think if a person has unresolved issues of a tragic end to a relationship and then introduces into themselves any mind altering substance, it can have some devastating effects. Maybe John Lennon was crying out and no one understood really that he was affected in his young life by the rejection from his father, the perceived rejection of his mother and then as he is dealing with that rejection, his relationship with his mother ends without resolve.

That is sad to me.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Do you really believe he had intent to lead people away from God with this song? While intentionally absolving himself from guilt for doing so?

If I understood your post correctly, I couldn't disagree more.

Anyway, there is another song he wrote where he says his opinion more clearly. "God is a concept by which we measure our pain". He goes on to list of bunch of things he doesn't believe in, which include Jesus and the Bible.

So while he may have tried to open the minds of people in his music, I don't think he ever meant to lead people away from God in some devilish way like you've implied.

Just my opinion, for what it's worth.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Well said, I agree.

It also had to hurt when his dad came to him for money (iirc), instead of patching up a relationship.

It should also be noted that while he sang and spoke a lot about peace, he himself wasn't always peaceful. I may be wrong, but I believe he used to hit his first wife a lot. No doubt he carried a lot of baggage around with him.

originally posted by: WakeUpBeer
a reply to: WarminIndy

Do you really believe he had intent to lead people away from God with this song? While intentionally absolving himself from guilt for doing so?

If I understood your post correctly, I couldn't disagree more.

Anyway, there is another song he wrote where he says his opinion more clearly. "God is a concept by which we measure our pain". He goes on to list of bunch of things he doesn't believe in, which include Jesus and the Bible.

So while he may have tried to open the minds of people in his music, I don't think he ever meant to lead people away from God in some devilish way like you've implied.

Just my opinion, for what it's worth.

I think it was him projecting his own issues, as a means of catharsis.

a reply to: WarminIndy

I think he assumed that people would start off imagining Earth/Nature and then no Heaven above or Hell below us, since The Kingdom would be manifested on Earth as in Heaven so it would already be One...

but I admit that's my interpretation so let's look at the lyrics to see if he's secretly talking about imagining hell on Earth instead of below us. He says,

"Imagine all the people living life in peace"

That wouldn't be hell if all the people had Life and Peace (because that comes from The Spirit). How would this peace be achieved, though?

"No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man "

Not letting people starve to death through other people's greed, but everyone loving their neighbour as themselves ("a brotherhood of man").

a reply to: arpgme

It's not a song about anything religious; might be the problem, trying to analyze it from a religious viewpoint.
Just accept that your faith is nonsense so we can move forward in the world, please

originally posted by: arpgme
a reply to: WarminIndy

I think he assumed that people would start off imagining Earth/Nature and then no Heaven above or Hell below us, since The Kingdom would be manifested on Earth as in Heaven so it would already be One...

but I admit that's my interpretation so let's look at the lyrics to see if he's secretly talking about imagining hell on Earth instead of below us. He says,

"Imagine all the people living life in peace"

That wouldn't be hell if all the people had Life and Peace (because that comes from The Spirit). How would this peace be achieved, though?

"No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man "

Not letting people starve to death through other people's greed, but everyone loving their neighbour as themselves ("a brotherhood of man").

What kind of peace did he have?

He had plenty of money, he had plenty of food, he took drugs, he drank, he searched wisdom from the Yogi, he looked everywhere except one place, and that was Christianity.

He didn't die in peace. He had money, fame, fortune, excess....everything the world says you need, but that would make him a hypocrite if he said you need to not live with greed but then he himself urinated onto the heads of nuns who had no money and were feeding the poor.

This link to a pdf about that incident.

Imagine John Lennon giving up all his money to feed the poor, did he?

He mocked the nuns, in the most vile way, and then asks one to imagine there is no heaven. I don't think even you could possibly even fathom doing such a thing, it's beyond just mocking. Even though we disagree on ATS, at least we don't feel compelled to do such things to other people.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Wow! I did not know about the nun thinng. It's strange how he could talk about unity one minute and then completely forget about it and do something like that. The world tries to make people forget to love their neighbours as themselves, I guess it wasn't something he kept his mind on all the time.

He should have kept focused on Unity and despite differences of belief, love those nuns for their ability to see Unity with the poor and being inspired to feed them. Also, I admit it was my first instinct to see the "no heaven" verse as something negative, until I thought about The Heavenly Kingdom being here on Earth.

a reply to: arpgme

I think John Lennon would be pleased if his spirit read this thread, people finding meanings for his music. Artists are multi-dimensional beings, they have a lot of sides and it all goes into their art. But at the same time, you guys are missing a big chunk of history if you don't think that song is pretty deeply tied to communism. Ask your average evangelical if they will be able to own a home in heaven, and they will say yes. The communist vision of Utopia is pretty singular in that there is no personal property, no possessions, no religion, like the song describes.

At some point you have to ask what people like the Viet Cong were fighting and dying for at that time. It wasn't Soviet oppression, it was the vision of the possibility of Communism presented in that song. It was the same vision and spirit that was behind the construction of the Moscow subway, the light that made communism take over half the world before the corruption destroyed it. If it was the pure rot America described it as it would collapse much sooner. Empathy is a powerful tool for understanding history, and it pays to ask what our enemies - the ones in the trenches, not the corrupt ones one top - were actually fighting for in their minds.

originally posted by: tridentblue
a reply to: arpgme

I think John Lennon would be pleased if his spirit read this thread, people finding meanings for his music. Artists are multi-dimensional beings, they have a lot of sides and it all goes into their art. But at the same time, you guys are missing a big chunk of history if you don't think that song is pretty deeply tied to communism. Ask your average evangelical if they will be able to own a home in heaven, and they will say yes. The communist vision of Utopia is pretty singular in that there is no personal property, no possessions, no religion, like the song describes.

At some point you have to ask what people like the Viet Cong were fighting and dying for at that time. It wasn't Soviet oppression, it was the vision of the possibility of Communism presented in that song. It was the same vision and spirit that was behind the construction of the Moscow subway, the light that made communism take over half the world before the corruption destroyed it. If it was the pure rot America described it as it would collapse much sooner. Empathy is a powerful tool for understanding history, and it pays to ask what our enemies - the ones in the trenches, not the corrupt ones one top - were actually fighting for in their minds.

Then why did he move to Manhattan, Long Island, New York, the capital of consumerism and greed?

In Lennon's own words, the song is not about doing away with religion at all. Just a world without the 'my god is better than your god' attitude many religious individuals have. The more devout their faith, the more likely they are inclined to permeate an attitude of theosophical superiority in my experience. But I digress...

The concept of positive prayer ... If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing—then it can be true ... the World Church called me once and asked, "Can we use the lyrics to 'Imagine' and just change it to 'Imagine one religion'?" That showed [me] they didn't understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea.[1

​It is hard to miss the fact that this is a song aimed at peaceful relations with such phrases as; “Imagine all the people living in peace,” “A brotherhood of man,” “Imagine all the people sharing all the world,” and “I hope some day you’ll join us and the world will live as one.” The theme is that if we all change the way we divide ourselves from each other; we can live together in a better place. It was written in 1971 at the height of the war in Vietnam And was typical Hippy stuff from that era and had nothing to do with creating a negative view of any religions at all.

a reply to: peter vlar

If he truly believed it then he probably should have been living it himself.

Sometimes actions speak louder than words.

originally posted by: WarminIndy

What kind of peace did he have?

He had plenty of money, he had plenty of food, he took drugs, he drank, he searched wisdom from the Yogi, he looked everywhere except one place, and that was Christianity.

He started off as a Christian, found it lacking and began a quest for spirituality elsewhere so no, he didn't look everywhere except Christianity.

He didn't die in peace. He had money, fame, fortune, excess....everything the world says you need, but that would make him a hypocrite if he said you need to not live with greed but then he himself urinated onto the heads of nuns who had no money and were feeding the poor.

Let me state first and foremost that I in no way condone peeing on nuns or anyone else for that matter. However, and I'm only addressing the hypocrisy comment, but to be fair he wasn't so much a hypocrite as when the incident in question took place it was in Hamburg before they were actually making any money so it's not like he was wealthy and peeing on them. But again, as someone who grew up Catholic, I think its a pretty crappy thing to do to anyone let alone the nuns.

Imagine John Lennon giving up all his money to feed the poor, did he?

All of it? No. But he did put aside 10% of his liquid assets and income as well as performed benefit concerts and gave to several well deserving organizations and causes including UNICEF, Why Hunger?, Children, Disaster Relief, Economic/Business Support, Health, Human Rights, Hunger, Poverty, Slavery & Human Trafficking

In 1975, he spent an entire weekend in Philadelphia working on the WLIF Helping Hand marathon, answering phones and taking pledges from callers. Lennon also donated a large sum of money in the late 1970s for the purpose of supplying bullet-proof vests for NYPD officers. (This was during the time that NYC was undergoing a financial crisis.)

He wasn't just writing checks, he was giving his time as well as money.

He mocked the nuns, in the most vile way, and then asks one to imagine there is no heaven. I don't think even you could possibly even fathom doing such a thing, it's beyond just mocking. Even though we disagree on ATS, at least we don't feel compelled to do such things to other people.

Again, I totally disagree with peeing on nuns but I think you're misinterpreting the 'Imagine there's no heaven' line and giving it an unwarranted negative connotation.

a reply to: WarminIndy

but he did. Is the basis for your critique that he had money and lived in a decent building in Manhattan? Just curious. I'm not on the prowl and looking for a reason to attack you, I promise!

I wasn't expecting this to turn into a "let's find ways to condemn John Lennon" thread. I just wanted to point out the Spirituality of this song of unity that inspired many - something good.

a reply to: arpgme

It's a beautiful song with a beautiful message that inspired many people to help others. I agree, there's no need to denigrate John Lennon and call him out for things he did as a youth when he was young and dumb. The song was a message of positivity and hope, nothing negative at all there.