Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin:
​
Picking the Fruit of the Tree of LSD
& a Baptism of Fire
​

The greatest mystery in rock roll is the meaning of the song Stairway to Heaven--nobody seems to know, not even the band themselves. 
Rather odd for a song that is regarded by many as the greatest rock song of all time.
The lyrics just happened spontaneously as something that moved singer Robert Plant’s hand.
Guitarist Jimmy Page joked, "maybe you channeled it,” but that is exactly what seems to have happened.
The music and lyrics are captivating and moving beyond expectations with an immediate “mind blown” impact on many first time viewers recorded in You Tube videos capturing the experience.

Astonishingly, Stairway to Heaven presents non-stop bible references in chronological order: from the temptation of Eve, baptisms of water and fire, revival, spiritual warfare, to the Harlot of the end times, to summarize the bible in one song like nothing ever has.  The song illustrates how to hear from the Holy Spirit of Jesus and God,

People really want to know what it means. My explanation is for them and open-minded seekers.
This is not for know-it-all Christians who only want to condemn the band for being Satanic. If the song were consistent with Satanic or pagan beliefs, they would know what it means, but they don’t.

The lyrics are not explicit as the meaning had to be hidden from the band, who would have rejected this message,
It is intelligible to people who know the Bible if you think to look in such an unlikely place.
Tragically, many Christians wouldn’t know a move of the Holy Spirit if it slapped them upside the head; they have the Satanic panic and just want to give a condemming lecture. 
​
The song is so detailed, consistent, multilayered and historically contextualized that it can’t be a mistake.

The first three lines are precisely the three temptations of Eve:

“There’s a lady who’s sure (pride)
All that glitters is gold (lust of the eyes)
And she’s buying her stairway to heaven” (lust of the flesh: buying drugs, LSD)

These are the three temptations involved in the fall of Genesis 3 when Satan in the form of the serpent tempts Eve into picking the fruit of the tree of  knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden Adam and Eve to do. This does not mean God did not want them to know anything, it means more like he did want them to have a mixture of good and bad knowledge without discretion to sort it out. He wanted them to only listen to him.
 
Picking the fruit seemed like a good idea for three reasons:
“When the woman [not yet named Eve} saw that the fruit was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” Genesis 3:6

“There’s a lady who’s sure.”
 
Pride
Thinks she’s gained wisdom doing it her our own way versus God’s way.
By doing it yourself you can have pride, or the pride to think you can do it yourself.
One way to look at it is that you get mixed results of good and evil at best when you do it your way, which can also be the ways of evil.
This is called the “pride of life.”
Pride: we think we know when we don’t.
The easiest thing in the world is to be wrong.

“All that glitters is gold”
 
Lust of the eyes and superficial appearances
The fruit looks good: lust of eyes.
This applies to idols as objects of worship, even your cell phone, owning things beyond what is necessary, etc.
Looking good, versus being good.
“All that glitters is gold” also expresses the illusionary nature of getting knowledge your way.
Only looking at the surface, which creates the illusion of being sure, by ignoring deeper meanings and complexity.
This song invovles listening to subtly and complexity, not just excepting what appears first or is obvious.

“And she’s buying her stairway to heaven”
 
Lust of the flesh.
The fruit tastes good to please the flesh: lust of the flesh.
Lust of flesh includes, sex, food, physical pleasure, and drugs.
Only immediate sensation and feeling, not deeper thinking.
Buying represents a cheap transactional acquiring of knowledge through drugs or any material means, or materialistic prosperity religion.
Prosperity preachers also fits with “all the glitters is gold” as false preachers that depart from the word of God in the bible and pick the fruit of the tree of knowledge to do it their own way.

The next lines in the song prove that buying the stairway to heaven is through drugs on the street:

“If she get there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
And she’s buying her stairway to heaven”

In the in 1970s it the street knowledge was that a stairway to heaven was a hallucination on LSD that lead some people to jump out the window.
I believe this song was especially for the hippies taking LSD or acid as path to knowledge at that time, 1971, when the song was released. Many were sincerely seeking knowledge and even asked to hear from Jesus initially on acid, like Lonnie Frisbee, a leader in a widespread revival when many people came to Christ. They soon stopped the drugs.
Apparently this song was for them in particular.
​
The first expression of the Holy Spirit talking is:

“There’s a sign on the wall,
But she wants to be sure
Because sometimes words have two meanings.”

“Sign on the wall” is like the writing on the wall in Babylonia, a prophecy by the Holy Spirit.
She has to use her own discretion in interpreting words.
This is also a guide to interpreting the song as in a few places words have two meanings, like a Stairway to Heaven being an hallucination and literal.

"In a tree by the brook there's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven."

This image evokes the dove at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan river.
“….and the Holy Spirit, in bodily form, descended on him like a dove.” (Luke 3:22)
The dove and water represent the Holy Spirit.
A water baptism now is for repentance of sin or mistakes to be forgiven
The word “misgiven” even sounds like a combination of mistake and forgiveness.
The sense of doubt here is very deep with “all of our thoughts.”
The music here expresses the gravity of this sorrow that results from the fall of Adam and Eve. It just sounds like it. The music helps represent the Holy Spirit, just as the Holy Spirit helps to understand reading the bible.

But wait, what is a tree doing here and what is the emphasis on thoughts?
Thoughts are related to the tree of knowledge, and the emphasis in this song in how we know.
“Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life” Proverbs 4:23 (NCV)
Another translation: “Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (NIV)
Guide thoughts not by seeking knowledge from the tree of good and evil:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)

An adult water baptism is the first step a believer takes in following Jesus, “getting saved,” and involves repenting sins to receive forgiveness before doing it. People feel the Holy Spirit come in at their baptism.

"Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it makes me wonder"

These are the most repeated lines in the song, five times to represent the key point of letting go of pride and listening.
Note the voice changes from her, to our and me: It does not matter--we are all Eve facing temptations every day: mislead by the flesh, appearances and our own pride in thinking we know.

"There's a feeling I get when I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving."

The west symbolizes death as an aspect of transformation.
A water baptism includes the words, “die with Christ, rise with Christ” to get free.
The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the key event that creates the transformation.

“In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking."

Odd phrasing her, as we would expect “in my dreams I have seen.”
The emphasis on thought relates more to the word of the Bible. The bible is not dreaming, it’s using reason and logic.
The orientation is toward the future and thus prophecy, a prediction of what is to come.
Indeed, the smoke represents a fire they have not seen somewhere under the trees.
Fire symbolizes the Holy Spirit, specifically a “baptism of fire” associated with the day of Pentacost, just after the resurrection of Jesus, when people started speaking in foreign languages they had not learned to demonstrate a miracle of God and suggest they should spread the word to other countries.
Speaking in tongues also takes the form of an unknown language to hear from God unconsciously called praying in tongues or talking in tongues.
Other gifts of the Holy Spirit are prayer healing and prophesying.

“Those who stand looking” indicates the collective experience of revival, that is, bringing back the Holy Spirit to make the word of God come alive, when people start following Jesus, get saved, or “come to Christ.”

"Ooh, it makes me wonder
Ooh, it really makes me wonder
And it's whispered that soon"

Whisper is a common reference to the Holy Spirit in the Bible and the future orientation is prophetic as mentioned above.

"If we all call the tune"

Music represents the Holy Spirit giving us understanding of the word of the bible, just as the music of this song helps understand the lyrics through its mood.
“All” expresses the importance of collective worship in which the Holy Spirit moves more among groups and understanding of the word is shared.

“Then the piper will lead us to reason.”
The piper is literally the devil historically, but here is used as a symbol of a leader.
“Lonnie Frisbee was a hippie college student who saw Jesus on an acid trip and ended up becoming the pied piper of words for thousands of hippy converts.” Bob Gersztyn’s blog
Frisbee was considered a highly anointed evangelist with gifts of the Holy Spirit who performed miracles of healing and helped inspire many people to get saved and join churches.

On the other hand, this could be a warning of false leaders, actual Pipers, as historically in the 1200s the Piper was thought to be a good guy but then lead the children into the forest to disappear. Sometimes people are a mixture of Holy Spirit and something else, that is ambiguous at times, just as words can have two meanings.

"And a new day will dawn" Saved by following Jesus
"For those who stand long" Having faith
"And the forests will echo with laughter" Born again with the love and joy of living in Christ.
Being born again is the more long-term process of transformation.

The setting is in nature, natural imagery as milieu for spiritual seeking by hippies.

"If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now
It's just a spring clean for the May Queen"

Something may creep up that you can’t see or fully understand, but don’t be afraid.
It may be your beliefs being challenged or even demons getting agitated that don't like all of this Jesus stuff.
The spring clean for the May Queen refers historically to paganism being replaced by Christianity and turning into ritual of purity.
The May Queen festival was a pagan festival of fertility.
Its pagan dark or Satanist version involved sacrificing children.
Today its pagan lite remnant only practices a sexual display.
For Christians it became ritual of purity as they dance around the May Pole.
I remember doing this as a kid in the 1970’s but it’s not central to Christianity.
So now we have the two paths stated: pagan and Christian:

"Yes, there are two paths you can go by,
He just told us and everyone missed it.

“But in the long run there's still time to change the road you're on.”
Now the time is the present, but a decision that may take some time.
Stay open and keep thinking:

“And it makes me wonder"

"Your head is humming and it won't go in case you don't know
The piper's calling you to join him"

Humming is like a drug buzz with temptation of the world and its lusts that Satan
and demons constantly push.
This is spiritual warfare: We don’t always know if what we hear is from the HS of Jesus or Satan. Are your thoughts really yours and are the aligned with God?
This is another reason why words may have two meanings.
This loud humming that won’t go is like the wide gate that is easy to enter,
Whereas, the quieter voice of God, the Holy Spirit, is the narrower gate:

"Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow?
And did you know your stairway lies on the whispering wind?”

The wind is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.
“Whisper” of the voice of the Holy Spirit is from the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19:12.
This is sometimes called a “still quiet voice” introduced in the calm, contemplative beginning of the song.
The Holy Spirit can also come collectively as a gale force wind or storm as with its original entrance at the Pentacost celebration in the Upper Room near Jerusalem where Jesus had the last supper. This was known as the first baptism of the Holy Spirit or baptism of fire when people started speaking in tongues. That happened again in winter 2023 with the tourists there, as revival meetings were breaking out across America. Revivals are prophecised in the end times before Jesus returns.
Here the music explodes in glory as a baptism of the Holy Spirit, a baptism of fire that sets souls on fire.
Amazingly Jimmy Page used the term “baptism of fire” to describe Led Zeppelin concerts with reference to filming at Madison Square Garden for the movie Song Remains the Same and its version of Stairway to Heaven that people watch on You Tube the most. Freudian slip.
The finale of the song is pretty transparent:


"And as we wind on down the road"
Entering the end times prophesized in the bible’s Book of Revelation.

"Our shadows taller than our soul"
God’s light exposes evil that is larger than good now.

"There walks a lady we all know"

A cultural phenomena because we all know her.
Harlot of the end times: the false religion.
The multi cultural and new age approach to religion promoted by the Vatican that embraces all the world religions and forms of Christianity that deviate--everything except Christians carefully following Jesus.

"Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold"
Lucifer’s false light deceives.

"And if you listen very hard the tune will come to you at last."
The tune representing the Holy Spirit.

"When all are one and one is all, yeah."

Believers united as the Body of Christ.
The church has left the building.
We are the church of living stones.
"To be a rock and not to roll"
Holding steady in faith through the end times.

"And she's buying a stairway to heaven."
Alas, most people will not be saved.

The song could have concluded with “And she’s finding her stairway to heaven” but then they would have to explain what that meant.

Christianity with the Holy Spirit is called Pentacostalism, as distinguished from Christianity of just reading and hearing sermons from the Bible with no feeling or excitement.
There needs to be a balance between the word of the bible and the Holy Spirit.
Just all word is a lifeless church.
Holy Spirit without the word leaves a lack of discretion about what is really the Holy Spirit and indulgence in illusory experiences without real progress.
The third point of balance is love: Jesus said to love God and love others as I have loved you.
How people treat each other is a sign.

Too see this illustrated, watch documentaries and movies about Lonnie Frisbee and the revival of his day to see what this means. It’s a complicated story with aspects of spiritual warfare in which it is was not always clear what was of the Holy Spirit for sure.

You can also witness first hand the current revival.
There are many preachers sharing the word online.
A new believer’s journey includes a water baptism, either in a church tub or in the ocean in California exactly where Lonnie Frisbee baptized others.
The first one to identify this as a gospel song is Bible Wizard on You Tube, although the interpretation was incomplete.

I am deeply honored to have been shown this and given the job of writing about it.
I have some ability to read with a PhD in sociology.

For all the naysayers: Who are you to say God can’t do this miracle? He’s God, not you.
He took a Satanic band and had them write the greatest rock and gospel song of all time, in my opinion, having to hide it from the band yet make it detectable if you understand the Bible.
Spectacular. Unprecedented.
The impossible form the miracle took is part of the proof of its authenticity.
Yet everyone missed it for 50 years.
I wonder how many other miracles we’ve missed.
But wait, there’s more: Side B for backward.
See my companion page or post:  Stairway to Heaven Backwards Lyrics is a Christian Message.