Magda Hassan Wrote:Where does Christopher Marlowe fit into all this?
I have only been looking at this for a few weeks now, and only because it intersects my theory of cometary avatars which, during this period, were appearing every 105 or 106 years (1277, 1382, 1487, 1593, 1698, etc.). The previous member of this distinguished group appears to have been Leonardo da Vinci, and no one would argue, I suspect, that whoever wrote "Shakespeare" was operating on a literary level equal to that of da Vinci in the fields of painting, scupture, and invention. Leonardo studied in the workshop of Verrocchio, so there is at least something resembling an explanation of how he came to have the knowledge and skills upon which to base his later development. There is no such evidence in regard to William Shakspere, the actor and co-owner of the Globe Theater.
Though I am not terribly far into my investigation, one thing struck me as quite significant, and that is the graph presented by Thomas Mendenhall in "A Mechanical Solution of a Literary Problem" in The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 60, No. 2, published at New York City in December of 1901.
The graph is based on the number of words of a given length per 1000 words and includes all of the plays of Marlowe and all of the plays and sonnets of "Shakespeare." This graph appeared before anyone even suspected that Christopher Marlowe had faked his own death in 1593. What this graph tends to indicate, if it is to be taken seriously, is that both the plays of Marlowe and those of "Shakespeare" were not only written by the same person, but they were written alone, with no help from anyone else, unless one would surmise that both authors had help from exactly the same folks in exactly the same proportions.
The occult teaching of freemasonry is very heavy on astronomical/astrological matters. Scroll down the page until you come to the heading Jacob's Ladder for the astrological/qabalistic meaning. For good measure it is probably necessary to understand that the title "Jacobs Ladder" (accessible in the dream-world in other words) actually refers to the Qabalah - and the glyph of the Tree of Life, extended out into the four worlds: https://janeadamsart.files.wordpress.com...agram1.jpg
I would additionally note that Freemasonic occult lore is very heavily based on the Qabalah.
I would add that I wouldn't take too seriously some other statements by the writer of the lined website - for example that Leonardo Da Vinci was a Freemason. In Leonardo's day there was not such thing as Freemasonry. The latter is understood to have been founded in 1717, whereas Leonardo died in 1519. This, however, is not to say that there were prior occult fraternities stretching back into history. There were.
Lastly, Sir Francis Bacon was, like Leonardo, a polymath and was schooled in the occult.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
SHAKESPEARE'S ROSICRUCIAN REVELATIONSIN THE DEDICATION TO THE SONNETS Helen Heightsman Gordon, Ed. D. Professor Emeritus, Bakersfield College,Bakersfield, California, U.S.A. Abstract Rosicrucian and Masonic symbols provide clues to solving the riddle of the Dedication toShake-speare's Sonnets, published in 1609. Assuming that "William Shakespeare" was apseudonym, the actual author may have been Sir Francis Bacon or Edward De Vere, the 17thEarl of Oxford, both of whom were Rosicrucians and cryptographers. The "initials" under thetriangular shapes of the dedication are not those widely presumed to be "T.T." for ThomasThorpe, the publisher, but a pair of Greek gammas representing the Masonic symbol "G" andthe Pillars of Solomon's Temple. Encrypted names and mottos in the twenty-eight-worddedication indicate that the sonnets are dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl ofSouthampton. Evidence in the Dedication implies that Henry was the natural son of EdwardDe Vere, who kept their relationship secret to protect Henry's privacy and possibly his life, ifhis enemies suspected he had a claim to the throne of England.________________________________________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION Rosicrucians and Freemasons are fully aware that, when authorities control free expressionthrough censorship or intimidation, the need to preserve valued knowledge may engender an"underground" movement to keep it alive until it can safely be brought to light. Such amovement requires trust among the brotherhood* to protect each other and to guard the troveof scientific or spiritual wisdom. It may require secret ways of identifying fellow members,and secret codes to convey information undetected. Since such wisdom can be lost ordestroyed, there is always a question when we try to recover it: do we have all of it, or atleast enough to piece together a logical and enlightening whole? That has been the challenge presented for the past 400 years by William Shakespeare, whoseplays were barred from official publication until after his death, leaving successivegenerations with many questions about his personality and personal affairs. The first book ofhis sonnets, published in 1609, contains an enigmatic dedication that has gone unsolved forcenturies because Shakespeare carefully encrypted it in order to get his message past thecensors and spymasters of his own time, yet make it available to future truth-seekers. Hestated his hope in Sonnet 81 that the "eyes not yet created" would some day read the sonnetsand award the immortality of literature to the Fair Youth: Your monument shall be my gentle verse
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er read,
And tongues to be your being shall inhearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead. [lines 9-12] I intend to show that Shakespeare used the secret code and symbols of the Rosicrucians in hisfamous enigmatic Dedication to Shake-speare's Sonnets, published in 1609. In fact, the cluesShakespeare inserted may well have been a cryptographed plea to future generationsparticularly to the members of a truth-seeking brotherhood such as Masons or Rosicrucians * Note: The term "brotherhood" may not seem entirely appropriate for Rosicrucians, because we cannot becertain that women were excluded from Rosicrucian membership as they clearly were from Freemasonry.However, since Shakespeare used the terms "brothers" and "brotherhood" warmly and reverently in his works,it is most probable that he would have used the term "brotherhood" for both societies, considering it inclusive ofboth genders whenever such interpretation was warranted. It is therefore retained in that sense in this paper,when referring to Shakespeare's usage.
[IMG]file:///page3image26960[/IMG] to recover the "Lost Word" and resurrect the "wounded name" (in Hamlet's words) of thetrue author who wrote under the pseudonym of "William Shakespeare." THE SHAKESPEARE CONNECTION Freemasons and Rosicrucians have long claimed William Shakespeare as one of their own,because Masonic/Rosicrucian themes and imagery pervade the Bard's plays and poetry. Forexample, in his book Shakespeare: Creator of Freemasonry, Alfred Dodd established thatFreemasonry was thriving in Elizabethan England by showing that Shakespeare employedMasonic themes in The Tempest and Love's Labor's Lost [Dodd 1933]. Another Freemason,Brother Robert Guffey, sees in Macbeth a retelling of the murder of Hiram Abiff, the corefigure of Masonic ritual, and other symbolic acts [Guffey 2006, 1]. Others have foundRosicrucian themes in As You Like It; Antony and Cleopatra; Twelfth Night; Winter's Tale;Julius Caesar; Coriolanus; Henry V; Henry VI, Part 2; Shake-speare's Sonnets; and the longpoem, Venus and Adonis. Many references to alchemy, astrology, and the occult areembedded in oft-quoted lines of the Bardthe Master Craftsman of English drama andpoetry. What are the symbolic clues Shakespeare placed in the Dedication to the Sonnets? Theshape of the Dedication (three inverted pyramids) suggests the triangle, and the "V" shape ofthe largest one suggests the mason's square. The all-capital-letters font, with dots after eachseparate word, is so unusual for a dedication that it suggests a Rosicrucian cipher. Tospeculative Freemasons the twenty-eight-word dedication (with 28 dots) might suggest the28th degree and its association with the Knight of the Sun (Shakespeare was probably at ahigh level in the brotherhood, associated with knighthood and chivalry). The use of gammaletters indicates the pillars of Solomon's temple, though they are often misread as the initials"T.T." (and presumed to be the initials of Thomas Thorpe, the publisher). Themes of deathand rebirth in Shakespeare's sonnets parallel the rituals of the two secret societies popular inLondon and Scotland in his time. Also, the sonnets focus to a great degree on theimmortality of literature as opposed to the mutability of the physical world, promising theFair Youth (presumably Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton) that he will beimmortalized through Shakespeare's verses. Sonnet 55 expresses this thought in aptly chosenMasonic metaphors: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.
But you shall shine more bright in these contentsThan unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time;When wasteful wars shall statues overturn
And broils root out the work of masonry, Not Mars his sword, nor war's quick fires shall burnThe living record of your memory. [lines 1-12] Let us assume that the author had a secret he wanted to reveal when the time was right forsafe disclosure. The forbidden message would have to be encrypted to escape the censors andspymasters in Queen Elizabeth's court, who were determined to obliterate any trace of the
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[IMG]file:///page4image25752[/IMG] poet's connections to the queen or her courtiers. The Rosicrucian code would serve hispurpose better than the Masonic code, since the Rosicrucian code uses dots in every cubicleof the "pig pen" cipher, whereas some fields are blank in the Masonic code. Shakespearecould not write the entire dedication in a code so familiar to other Elizabethans, but the dotsplaced after each word, together with the oddly ungrammatical structure of the passage,strongly suggest a coded message.
The Sonnets dedication page.
The Pig-pen cypher
Let us assume also that Shakespeare wrote his own dedication, just as he had done with hisfirst published poems, "Venus and Adonis" in 1593, and "Rape of Lucrece" in 1594.Although it is widely believed that the publisher Thomas Thorpe wrote the dedication to thesonnets, that assumption is highly questionable. It arises from failure to recognize the Greekletter gamma, which somewhat resembles a "T" but more significantly resembles a mason'ssquare. The two adjacent gammas form an image of the pillars of the Temple of Solomon,symbolic of wisdom and the pursuit of truth. It seems logical to assume that this sonnet collection, like the narrative poems, would bededicated to Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton. But the political climate hadradically changed between 1594 and 1600. In 1601 Southampton was sentenced to lifeimprisonment for participating in the Essex Rebellion with his friend, Robert Devereux, theSecond Earl of Essex [Ogburn, D. 1952, 918]. Mentioning his full name would have putSouthampton in further danger, but his initials, H.W., anagrammed as Mr. W. H., make itmost probable that Southampton is the dedicatee. Other reasons will shortly becomeapparent. Let us further assume that Shakespeare was both a Rosicrucian and a speculative Freemason,from the themes and symbols evident in his writing. If so, we can rule out Will Shakspere ofStratford, the heretofore-presumed author in the received "Stratfordian" tradition, who hadno known connections with the movements of Freemasonry or Rosicrucianism. We know solittle about him that we have raised him to the status of an icon, making suppositions thathave evolved into fiercely defended tenets that his genius explains everything in his writing.However, doubts have persisted about the disjuncture between the known biographical factsof Shakespeare's ordinary life and the sophisticated intellectual brilliance pervading theShakespearean canon. The doubts have sparked a debate now generally known as the Authorship Question or theShakespeare Authorship Controversy. The skeptics believe that "William Shake-speare" or"Shakespeare" was a pen name used to hide the true author's identity. Though manycandidates have been proposed, the only two which concern our present inquiry are (1)Francis Bacon, a lawyer and cryptologist in the court of Queen Elizabeth I; and (2) EdwardDe Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, Elizabeth's favorite court playwright. Oxford, in theopinion of a growing number of devotees, is the more likely candidate, with more compellingreasons for seeking anonymity. These two Renaissance men had much in common. Both used Rosicrucian and Masonicsymbols in their writing. For example, the "double A" symbol in the headpiece of FrancisBacon's philosophical books, standing for Apollo and Athena, the two Spear-shakers, is an
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[IMG]file:///page5image27440[/IMG] important signature in the Rosicrucian fraternity, used since the time of the AncientEgyptians [Dawkins 1999, 3]. This "AA" signature also appears in the First Folio ofShakespeare's plays, although the sponsors of the First Folio were not Bacon's kin, but therelatives of Edward De Vere (his daughter, Susan, her husband, and her brother-in-law).These nobles from the Herbert family would have known the various meanings of thedouble-A polarities, which also are associated with Alpha and Omega (the beginning and theend), the duality of light and darkness, and particularly the bringing out of darkness intolight. Both Bacon and De Vere used the boar, a wild pig, as a heraldic symbol. The boar wassacred to Apollo, the divine swineherd, because its hoofprint was said to imprint the groundwith the sign of "AA" [Dawkins 1999, 3-4]. Bacon's name lends itself to punning on theboar, as Mistress Quickly does in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. And inShakespeare's "Venus and Adonis" the hero is slain by a boar. A good case can be made for either man's being the actual Shakespeare. Certainly, FrancisBacon was an acknowledged Rosicrucian whose writings celebrated the pursuit ofknowledge and ultimate truth. He was a polymath well versed in science, literature,philosophy, mathematics, law, and cryptology, who even invented several ciphers of his own[Dawkins 1999, 1]. He used the symbol of the Pillars of Hercules in the frontispieces of hisscientific treatise Novum Organum and his history of Henry VII [Leary 2004]. Yet there are objections to the Baconian theory of authorship. First, Francis Bacon was stillalive when the Sonnets were published in 1609, but he did not claim to be their author at thattime. Nor did he participate in editing the plays published in the First Folio in 1623, althoughhe was still living. The error-filled First Folio has required too much amending to have beenedited by the author himself. Third, Bacon produced such a quantity of writings in his ownname that it would have been impossible for him to write an additional 37 plays and 154sonnets, at a minimum, under a pseudonym. Moreover, the events of his life do not parallelthose of the plays as Oxford's do, and his lucid writing style shows none of the imaginativeflair that distinguishes the works of Shakespeare [Ogburn, D. 1952, 538]. ComparingBacon's utopian (Rosicrucian) novel, The New Atlantis, with Shakespeare's magical play,The Tempest, makes the distinction in their styles quite evident [Walker 2007]. But Oxford (Edward De Vere) has all of Bacon's qualifications and more. Cutting-edgescholarship by Oxfordian researcher Derran Charlton reveals that Oxford was involved at ahigh level with the Rosicrucian and Freemason movements, as well as being a published poetand a playwright for Queen Elizabeth's court [Charlton 1991,7]. In his youth, Oxford showedprecocious talent for languages, music, and poetry. Educated in Elizabeth's Court of Wardsfrom the age of 12, he earned a bachelor's degree by the age of 14 and the equivalent of amaster's degree in law from Gray's Inn at 17 years of age [Ogburn, D. 1952, 10-13].
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[IMG]file:///page6image26752[/IMG] OXFORD'S CONNECTION WITH KNIGHTHOOD AND THE ARTHURIANTRADITION One of the Earl of Oxford's hereditary titles was Lord Bolbec, whose crest featured a lionrampant. Researcher Derran Charlton has examined rare documents showing that until 1571,the rampant lion had no spear, but after 1572, it was depicted holding a broken spear[Charlton 1991, 5]. Edward de Vere had won a jousting tournament in 1571, a victoryawarded to the knight who broke the most lances of his opponents. Charlton speculates thatthis changed symbol may have contributed to the choice of the compound name "Shake-speare"; but even more important, the jousting establishes his contribution to keeping alivethe legends of King Arthur. All English jousting tournaments were performed in memory ofKing Arthur, especially to stir patriotism at times when England seemed under threat ofinvasion [Charlton 1991, 9]. The most significant Arthurian revival occurred during the reign of Henry VII, the first of theTudor monarchs, who needed to unify England after the devastating Wars of the Roses.Henry VII had a Tudor Rose painted in the center of a round table (thought to be the originalRound Table of King Arthur). He also named his firstborn son "Arthur" and foundedArthurian Masonic Lodges, where membership was by invitation [Charlton 1991, 6]. TheArthurian Knights incorporated Knights of the Grail, Knights of the Spear, Knights of theSword, and Knights of the Word. The Knights of the Word were responsible for reviving andre-invigorating the Arthurian legend. The Arthurian Society was necessarily secretive, butthe King invited knights he could trust. Among them was John de Vere, the 13th Earl ofOxford, whose motto was "Vero Nihil Verius," meaning "nothing truer than truth" or"Nothing truer than Vere" [Charlton 1991, 7]. That was Edward's motto also. The chivalric ideals of knighthood also influenced Spanish and Portuguese Knights ofExploration, whose charge was to explore the world and discover new lands.
The world-girdling knighthood circle was completed by the marriage of Prince Arthur toCatherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand, Head of the Knights of the Order of St. James[Charlton 1991, 7]. To bring the European countries into the modern world, Henry VIIencouraged alchemy, which simply meant the search for new technology and chemicaltransformations. To that end he promoted Malory's Morte d'Arthur, of which Chapter 7 isdevoted to alchemy. The philosopher's stone, and Merlin the Magician, are central to theArthurian legends, linking them to alchemy and the occult sciences. Although some alchemists wanted to turn base metals into gold, others merely sought newknowledge and illuminating truths. They believed that as knights became more chivalrous,noble, and just, they would be transformed in character, much as the colors in coal can betransformed into sparkling diamonds. The Arthurian knights devised, or adopted, the motto "I AM." This suggests the Biblicalquotation, "I am that I am," a phrase that Edward de Vere also used. These initials might alsoplay into another Shakespearean mystery: the initials M.O.A.I. in the play Twelfth Night,which suggest a cipher representing, "I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the
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[IMG]file:///page7image27176[/IMG] end." The joke is on the self-important Malvolio, who aspires to woo a woman above hisstation in life. The symbolism used by Edward de Vere in his jousting tournament at Whitehall in 1581 hasstrong overtones of Masonic ideals. Billing himself as "the knight of the tree of the sun," hestrode forth from a tent of orange tawny taffeta, embroidered with silver, with pendants onthe pinnacles [Charlton 1991, 9]. He sat down under a huge bay tree that had been gildedover completely, to represent the gold of the sun and the splendor of the Queen. His chiefopponent, the Earl of Arundel, had recently made outrageous accusations that Oxford hadengaged in immoral acts and said disrespectful things about the Queen. To counter thesefalse charges, Oxford vowed to Elizabeth that he would defend this royal tree to the death,that he would incorporate his heart into that tree, that he "stood ready to die upon the pointsof a thousand lances, [rather] than to yield a jot in constant loyalty" [Charlton 1991, 9]. Thenhe won the tournament. The pageantry employed Masonic symbols of the tree of life, the sun,the pendants, and the knightly determination to live to high standards of loyalty, truth, andjustice. CIPHERS, STEGANOGRAPHY, AND THE AUTHORSHIP QUESTION Baconian scholars Penn Leary (of recent memory), Bob Fowler (who has taken over Leary'sweb site), and others have attempted to prove Bacon's authorship through numerology andcodebreaking strategies [Leary 2005]. These Baconian scholars find his name, variouslyspelled, embodied in the works, including the Dedication to the Sonnets. They apply aversion of Masonic code to interpret the dots between words in the enigmatic twenty-eight-word Dedication. Leary has suggested that the initials "T.T.", under the Dedication, maystand for the Pillars of Hercules, a symbol used by Bacon to indicate the search forknowledge as a ship sailing into uncharted waters "ne plus ultra" [Leary 2005]. But theycannot explain why Bacon would have accepted anonymity for only some of his work, notall. Nor can they say why he would have encoded his name in the Dedication, yet left readerswith no other message that would reveal the name of the dedicatee. Leary and many other Baconians believe that Francis Bacon was an unacknowledged son ofQueen Elizabeth, fostered by her loyal subjects Nicholas Bacon and his wife. But even if hehad such a secret to reveal, it does not prove that Francis wrote the plays. Oxford, however, fits the profile of Shakespeare to an astonishing degree. Thomas Looney(pronounced LONE-ee) was the Scottish schoolmaster who first identified Oxford asShakespeare [Looney 1920]. Since then, many Oxfordian scholars, notably Dorothy andCharlton Ogburn, followed by their son Charlton Ogburn, Jr., have shown that Oxford hadnumerous life experiences closely matching events in the plays and sonnets [Ogburn, C.1984]. They concur with many other scholars, including some orthodox Stratfordians, thatthe "Fair Youth" of the Sonnets was Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton, thededicatee of the first two narrative poems published under the name "William Shakespeare"in 1593 and 1594.
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[IMG]file:///page8image26992[/IMG] The senior Ogburns, in their biography of Edward De Vere entitled This Star of England(1952), plunged even deeper into controversy by alleging that Henry Wriothesley was thelove child of Edward De Vere and Elizabeth Tudor, giving rise to a stormy controversyknown as the "Prince Tudor" theory. Their son, Charlton Ogburn, Jr., to avoid controversy,took no position on this theory in his groundbreaking analysis of the authorship question, TheMysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth and the Reality (1984) [Ogburn, C. 1984]. Helater changed his position, to counteract an emerging trend toward interpreting the sonnets ashomoerotic, because the fatherly tone of the first seventeen sonnets ("procreation sonnets")seemed to him the very antithesis of a homosexual attraction. The Prince Tudor theoryremains controversial, but it does explain many of the mysteries regarding Shakespeare's lifeand motivations. If the poet was indeed addressing his natural son, the terms of affection canbe understood as paternal, and the meaning of many of the sonnets becomes clearer. Pursuing that question while researching for my book, The Secret Love Story inShakespeare's Sonnets, and building upon the work of scholars John Rollett, Robert.Prechter, and David Roper in Oxfordian publications, I found ciphers in the twenty-eight-word Dedication that revealed the names of E. De Vere, Henry Wriothesley, and ElisabethReginaas well as all three of their mottos and the puzzling title words, "TwelfthNight"[Gordon 2005, Chapter 2]. These encryptions must have been intentional because theodds of all these names appearing by chance would be astronomically small. Furthermore,these observations fit into an overarching scenario that explains the need for secrecy andmakes the content of many sonnets clearer than ever before. Below is a picture of the original Dedication in the book of sonnets published in 1609
that has several puzzling features. Notice that the letters are all capitals, more like a Romangravestone than the conventional dedications of the time. Unlike a Roman headstone,however, the dots are not placed at the beginning of each line, only at the end of each wordor initial. Notice also that the shape of the Dedication forms three inverted pyramids ortriangles, which symbolize strength in Masonic literature and are sometimes interpreted as atrinity representing the union of male and female, to generate new life. Some Oxfordianscholars have discussed in a chat group that the arrangement of lines forms a pattern of 6-2-4,the same numbers as in the name of Edward (6) De (2) Vere (4). Though one would not wantto carry numerology too far, this numerical clue does suggest that Shakespeare/Oxford wasfamiliar with numerology. The pyramids, inverted as they are, form the shape of V, whichresembles the mason's square but can also stand for Vere. (The letter W was often written asVV in Elizabethan times, so we might also be tempted to see the initial VV for Wriothesleytopping the V for Vere in the tri-pyramid structure.) Perhaps these observations are notespecially significant, and perhaps there are other clues yet to be discovered, but the links toMasonry and Rosicrucian symbolism are undeniably there for anyone to see.
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[IMG]file:///page10image392[/IMG] Look closely at the "initials" which have been widely presumed to be the initials of thepublisher, Thomas Thorpe. Penn Leary, the Baconian scholar who has searched tirelessly forthe name "Bacon" encrypted in Shakespeare's works, has suggested that this pair of "T's"might stand for the Pillars of Hercules [Leary 2005]. But these letters are not like the letters"T" in the rest of the dedication. They are, in fact, not even the Greek letter tau for "T" butactually two Greek gammas, suggesting the letter "G." This takes us deeper into the Masonicsignificance of the letter "G." Many Masonic lodges place a large Roman "G" in the centerof the compass and the square. Generally this is interpreted as standing for "God" and"Geometry," but it is curiously non-geometric in shape. Brother John A. Cockburn, in anonline article for the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon, points out that theoriginal Freemasons would have used the letter gamma, which is shaped like a builder'ssquare [Cockburn 1897, 1]. Later it was changed to the Roman G, and thus has become afixture that would be very difficult to change. By aligning two gammas, Shakespeare suggests the columns of the Temple of Solomon,through which an initiate passes in the pursuit of wisdom and truth. Francis Bacon used thesymbols of the Pillars of Hercules in the frontispiece of his book, Novum Organum,suggesting the scientist's voyage into uncharted waters, but the Solomon Temple Pillarsseem more appropriate in the Shakespearean contextpassing from darkness into light. CRYPTOGRAPHY SYSTEMS KNOWN PRIOR TO 1609 Just as Rosicrucianism thrived as an undercurrent of thought and moral codes in RenaissanceEurope [Brydon 1994, 5-6], systems of ciphering and cryptology spread from guilds guardingtrade secrets to intellectual fraternities who corresponded by secret and symbolic writings,often using assumed names. Religious strife and competition between nations also spurredthe formation of spy systems and methods of encrypting messages. On a web site devoted toKnights Templar, Tass Weir (also spelled VVeir) observes correctly that the claim of asteganographically concealed cryptogram in the Sonnets front matter should be viewed andjudged in the context of the popularity and availability of cryptographic information whenthe Dedication was written [Weir 1996].
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[IMG]file:///page10image20000[/IMG] Weir posts a timeline of manuals on cryptography that were available prior to the 1609publication of the Sonnets [Weir 1996]. According to Weir, the first European manual oncryptography was de Lavinde's ciphers, produced in 1379. The nomenclature system itdescribed reportedly held sway over all Europe and America for the next 450 years [Weir1996]. A few other examples will suffice: 1470: Leone Battista Alberti's Trattati in cifra was published in Rome. 1518: Johannis Trithemius wrote (but did not publish) his Steganographia, which"circulated in manuscript for a hundred years, being copied by many persons eager to suckout the secrets that it was thought to hold" [Kahn 1967, 132]. A copy of the Steganographiawas a prized possession of Dr. John Dee, an astrologer to Queen Elizabeth and an alchemistwho explored occult subjects. Dee was acquainted with many Elizabethan intellectuals,including Edward De Vere, Francis Bacon, Philip Sidney, and Walter Raleigh [Woolley2001]. 1540: Giovanni Battista Palatino published his Libro nvova d'imparare a scrivere... Con vnbreue et vtile trattato de le cifere. It was reprinted in 1545, and twelve more times by 1588. 1550: Girolamo Cardano's De subtilitate libri XXI was published. Cardano was a notedmathematician, physicist, and philosopher. This work, containing much information onencipherment, was reprinted nine times, including a French translation in 1556. 1556: Cardano published De rerum varietate libri XVII, a follow-up to his popular DeSubtilitate. Both books were "translated and pirated by printers throughout Europe"[Kahn 1967, 144], as well as being reprinted four times by 1581 [Kahn 1967, 107]. Francis Bacon was well known for developing some of his own systems of encryption anddecryption, elucidated in his 1605 work, The Advancement of Learning. The book wasrewritten in Latin, greatly expanded, and issued in 1623 as De Dignitate et AugmentisScientiarum. An English "translation" of Augmentis was published in 1640. At the end of theenlarged section on cryptology he stressed the importance of using ciphers which "may beemanaged without suspition." "For if Letters Missive fall into their hands, that have somecommand and authority over those that write; or over those to whom they were written;though the Cypher it selfe bee sure and impossible to be decypher'd, yet the matter is liable toexamination and question; unless the Cypher be such, as may be voide of all suspition, ormay elude all examination" [Bacon, cited in Weir 1996]. He considered steganography(hiding a message within a plaintext) to be the best system, if well done. Because of Bacon's reputation, it would be easy to assume that he had devised thesteganographic message in the Sonnets in 1609. But what motive would he have had? Baconhad received many advancements from King James I, who succeeded Elizabeth in 1603. Hemay have had royal blood, but he had no ambition to be King. If the sonnets were dedicatedto Southampton, how could Bacon explain their relationship or the need for keeping it secret?
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[IMG]file:///page11image26048[/IMG] EDWARD DE VERE AS CRYPTOGRAPHER The only contemporary of Bacon who had both a deep secret and the talent for encrypting itwas Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. According to historian Neville Williams in hisbook, The Life and Times of Elizabeth I, rumors had been circulating around the court thatOxford and Elizabeth had a love affair in 1572-1573, and their love child was being raised asthe Third Earl of Southampton [Gordon 2005, 25]. If the rumors were true, and if Elizabethchose to acknowledge him as her son, Southampton might have had a claim to the throne.Yet he had been condemned as a traitorserving a life sentence in the Tower until KingJames I released him. One credible scenario is that Edward De Vere loved Elizabeth all his life, though they werenever free to marry. Under the pseudonym of "William Shakespeare," De Vere addressedmany sonnets to Elizabeth (not all of them were addressed to the famous "dark lady").Probably the poem entitled "The Absent Lover" was addressed to Queen Elizabeth (deareDame), challenging her to decipher his name. Here is the plaintext of the poem as it appearedin B. M. Ward's biography: The Absent Lover The absent lover (in ciphers) deciphering his name,doth crave some spedie relief as followeth. L'Escu d'amour, the shield of perfect love,
The shield of love, the force of steadfast faith,
The force of faith which never will remove,
But standeth fast, to byde the broonts of death:That trustie targe, hath long borne of the blowes,And broke the thrusts, which absence at me throws. In dolefull days I lead an absent life,
And wound my will with many a weary thought:I plead for peace, yet sterve in stormes of strife,I find debate, where quiet rest was sought.These panges with mo, unto my paine I prove,Yet beare I all uppon my shield of love. In colder cares are my conceipts consumd,Than Dido felt when false Enaeas fled;
In farr more heat, than trusty Troylus fumd,When craftie Cressyde dwelt with Diomed.My hope such frost, my hot desire such flame,That I both fryse, and smoulder in the same. So that I live, and dye in one degree,Healed by hope, and hurt againe with dread;
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[IMG]file:///page12image21784[/IMG] Fast bound by faith when fansie would be free,Vntied by trust, through thoughts enthrall my head.Reviv'd by joyes, when hope doth most abound,And yet with grief, in depth of dollors drownd. In these assaultes I feele my feebled forceBegins to faint, thus weried still in woes:
And scarcely can my thus consumed corse,Hold up this Buckler to beare of these blowes.So that I crave, or presence for relief, Or some supplie, to ease mine absent grief. L'envuoie To you (deare Dame) this dolefull plaint I makeWhose onely sight may some redresse my smart:Then shew your selfe, and for your servauntes sake,Make hast post hast, to helpe a faythfull harte.Mine owne poore shield hath me defended long,Now lend me yours, for elles you do me wrong. Meritum petere, grave Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn explain the publication history of this poem [Ogburn, D. 1952,1257-58]. It was first included in the collection A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, published in1573, with Oxford's posy, "Meritum petere, grave," on the title page. Most of the includedpoems, except the few signed by George Gascoigne, were probably by Oxford using variousposies or pseudonyms. The collection was reissued in 1576 in a spurious edition entitled ThePoesies of George Gascoigne, making no mention of De Vere's contributions, and deletingall mention of the enciphered name in "The Absent Lover." In his biography, B. M. Wardrestored the clue, enabling us to decipher the poet's name as shown below. The poet challenged the recipient (deare Dame) to discover his name, which can bedeciphered as follows:
Read this column downwardE(scu) d(amour) w(hich)a(nd) r(est)d(ebate) D(idoe(nthrall) V(ntied)e(ase) r(edress)e(lles)
Read this column upwardE(scu) r(est)E(naeas) V(ntied)e(nthralled) d(olors)d(rownd) r(elief)a(bsent) W(hose)d(efended) e(lles)
[IMG]file:///page13image21896[/IMG] Adapted from Edward De Vere's biographer B. M. Ward, cited by Dorothy and CharltonOgburn in This Star of England, pages 1257-1258. Certain spelling conventions of the Elizabethan age must be considered in solving thispuzzle. Most important is that Elizabethan English had fewer letters (only 23, compared toour present 26). The U and the V were interchangeable, so the cryptographer could use the Vas a U in untied, yet employ it as a V in the name Vere. THE EMBEDDED PATTERNS The plaintext of the poem appears meaningful on its face, which is one mark of an excellentencryption, according to the criteria set forth by Francis Bacon. Following an unusual six-line stanza pattern, the rhyme scheme of ababcc is consistently maintained throughout sixverses. The poet uses true rhymes, which sometimes necessitate an inverted sentencestructure to fulfill the rhyme scheme, as in "And broke the thrusts, which absence at methrows." So conventional and elegant is the poetry, that without the clue in the introduction,we might never look for a secret message. Since the poet's name has twelve letters, givinghimself thirty-six lines in the poem enables him to spread out the letters of his name, and thusto meet two more challenges within the poetical frameworkthat is, embedding his nametwice, first reading downward and then reading upward. Although the poet says his encryption is in "ciphers," a more precise term might be"steganography," because the plaintext conceals the encrypted message
unobtrusively. Ciphers often substituted numbers for names, as can be seen in letters byQueen Elizabeth's spies. Or ciphers might require a key possessed by both sender andreceiver, such as a certain pattern of equidistant letter sequencing. In such cases, theawkwardness of the plaintext might suggest a hidden text. Codes, in contrast, may consist ofall numbers or all letters in nonsense arrangements, making them vulnerable to knowncodebreaking methods. Edward De Vere was familiar with codebreaking strategies such as equidistant lettersequencing, but so were many of his enemies. Thus, he avoided such obviously numericalpatterns in this poem, but he did follow a strict pattern of encryption. Having provided theclue in the headnote that the hidden text was his name, he began with the first line, whichcontained a French word beginning with E (Escu) and another beginning with D (d'amour).The metaphor of a "shield of love" is particularly apt, since a shield provides protection, andhe was protecting the name of the recipient (deare Dame), by hiding his own where no onebut she (or someone else who was privy to the secret) could discover it. Assuming that DeVere was addressing Queen Elizabeth, she would have taken great pleasure in the word playand in De Vere's flattering application of the courtly love traditionan inaccessible womanbeing worshiped from afar. He may also have been pleading for justice, because she hadpermitted Gascoigne to plagiarize De Vere's poetry in order to avoid gossip about DeVere'spoems being addressed to her. Although at first the hidden-text letters may seem random, the key letters are always theinitial letter of a word in a given line. They also appear in a fixed order moving top to bottom
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[IMG]file:///page14image27968[/IMG] and then bottom to top. In lines containing more than one key letter, the order may proceedeither from left to right or from right to left. In Line 10, for example the RD of Edwardappears in the words debate and rest. In Line 22, we find the V first, in Vnited, and the Elater, in enthrall. This way of embedding may have been an invention of Edward De Vere, since it does notfollow the usual acrostic pattern of beginning each line with a significant letter. The analysis,however, is quite instructive, because it establishes a pattern that we can see in theDedication to the Sonnets by William Shake-speare. Thus it enables us to approach thatriddle in a similar frame of mind, assuming that De Vere was using the pen name of WilliamShakespeare, and wanting to send his message to future generations. De Vere had to beclever enough to get past the censors and enemies who wanted the name of Edward De Vereto be buried forever within a dung-heap of calumny. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TWELFTH NIGHT Now let us return to the cipher of "Twelfth Night," which appeared quite unexpectedly in thededication. This cipher forms a rough "V" shape, which can stand for "Vere" (meaning"true") or the shape of a mason's square, which also suggests being "on the square" or tellinga truth. After finding the ciphers for the names of father, mother, and son, and their mottos, Ihad discovered the trinity that formed the key to the sonnets [Gordon 2005, Chapter 2]. To read the enciphered names in the diagram below, begin with a star; follow the dotted linesin the direction of the arrows of the same color. Note that the letters must be read in a definitesequence, in one direction or another on a given line, although not in equidistant letter counts.This pattern, which was used by Edward De Vere in "The Absent Lover," can be applied to theSonnet's Dedication, presumably by the same poet under his pseudonym.
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[IMG]file:///page15image18096[/IMG]
[IMG]file:///page16image392[/IMG] But was there another piece of evidence in this serendipitous finding? In checking for thesignificance of the Twelfth Night holiday, I learned that the twelve days of Christmas beganon December 25 and ended in a splendid celebration on January 6. Then it occurred to me
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[IMG]file:///page16image3824[/IMG] that Henry Wriothesley was born on October 6, 1573. So January 6, 1573 would have beenthe probable date of conception. On that magic night, Elizabeth was celebrating with herfavorite court playwright, Edward De Vere. And where was the Second Earl ofSouthampton? Imprisoned in the Tower for his Catholic sympathies, with no access to hisCountess. So it might well be that the Third Earl of Southampton was a changeling child,raised by the Second Earl as his heir in exchange for his release from prison. So now the hidden meaning can be inferred. "I wish you all happiness, my beloved son, foryou are a child of love, conceived in amorous play on a magical holiday when anything canhappen. Though your parents could not marry, being bound by duties and restrictions, theirlove for you is genuine and everlasting. These verses are the only legacy I can leave you,without causing you harm or serious losses, but in some far future time they will berediscovered, and you will enjoy that eternity that only living literature can confer upon you." NOW THE SECRET CAN BE TOLD Certainly it was no crime for Elizabeth and Edward to fall in love and create a child in amoment of passion. Yet the need for secrecy regarding Elizabeth's pregnancy was a politicalimperative. To protect her kingdom from attacks by foreign Catholic monarchs, she createdthe persona of the Virgin Queen, holding herself open to the possibility of forming analliance through marriage. Speaking ill of the queen could invoke serious penalties in the police state that ElizabethanEngland had become. Yet gossip continually circulated about the Queen's love affairs[Erickson 1983, 266]. In 1570, some English subjects were triedand some executedforslander against the Queen [Erickson, 266]. Some had tongues and ears cut off; some weretortured and imprisoned [Erickson 1983, 269]. Though suppressed in England, rumors ranunchecked in other European countries. The Venetian, Spanish, and French ambassadorsreported that Elizabeth had several children (presumably by her long-term lover, the Earl ofLeicester) [Erickson 1983, 269]. Reports from such various sources claim that Elizabeth hadas many as five children, (presumably including sons Francis Bacon and Robert Devereux byDudley). Understandable though it is that English Oxfordians want to preserve the idealized image ofthe Virgin Queen, that sterile image has been replaced throughout most of the world by amore lovable vision of Elizabeth as a woman with human flaws offset by majestic virtues.Understandable as it is that for four hundred years Shakespeare devotees have cherished theromanticized ideal of a country lad blossoming into miraculous greatness, it is time that werestored the good name of Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, and credited him withenriching millions of lives with his life's work. It is time we recognized the devotion of De Vere's daughter Susan; her husband, PhilipHerbert, Earl of Montgomery; and his brother, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, whocollected the scattered, suppressed works of Susan's father and published them as the FirstFolio of William Shakespeare's plays, lest these treasures be lost to the world.
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[IMG]file:///page17image27264[/IMG] It is time that the sacred brotherhoods to whom the poet appealed, now proceed through thepillars of wisdom, hear their brother's long-stifled plea, bring his truth from darkness intolight, and perhaps in the process find some of the lost Words so long veiled in mystery.
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[IMG]file:///page18image3648[/IMG] REFERENCE LIST Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC). 2007. "Our Traditional andChronological History."[COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://www.rosicrucian.org/about/mastery...story.html[/COLOR]. Anderson, Verily. 1993. The De Veres of Castle Hedingham. Lavenham, Suffolk, UK:Terrence Dalton. Brydon, Robert. 1994. Rosslyn a History of the Guilds, the Masons, and the Rosy Cross.Midlothian: Rosslyn Chapel Trust. Bull, Peter. 2007. Shakespeare's Sonnets Written by Kit Marlowe.[COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://www.masoncode.com/Marlowe%20wrote...onnets.htm[/COLOR]. Charlton, Derran K. 1991. Edward de Vere and the Knights of the Grail. The Spear ShakerReview, May 1991, 4-10. Cockburn, John A. 1897. "The Letter G." Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, the Transactions of theQuatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 10:40. Reprinted by the Grand Lodge of BritishColombia and Yukon, Dec. 19, 2002, on web sitehttp://[COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/aqc/letter_q.html[/COLOR]. Dawkins, Peter. 1998. "Shakespeare and Freemasonry" Freemasonry Today, Winter 1998.Reprinted on web site [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://www.sirbacon.org/Dawkinsfrmsnry.htm[/COLOR].___________. 1999."Ciphers of Francis Bacon." Francis Bacon Research Trust.[COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://www.fbrt.org.uk/pages/essays/fram...ssays.html[/COLOR]. Dodd, Alfred. 1933. Shakespeare: Creator of Freemasonry. London: Rider & Co. Erickson, Carolly. 1983. The First Elizabeth. New York: Summit Books.
Fowler, Bob. "Sir Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, William Tudor, and Freemason Symbology."
[COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://www.light-of-truth.com[/COLOR].
Gardner, Martin. 1972. Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing. New York: Dover Publications.Gordon, Helen Heightsman. 2005. The Secret Love Story in Shakespeare's Sonnets. Philadelphia: Xlibris.
Guffey, Robert. 2007. "Was Shakespeare a Freemason? Masonic Symbolism in Macbeth." Reprinted by Rosslyn Templars, [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]www.RosslynTemplars.org.uk[/COLOR]. Nov. 2006.
Heisler, Ron. 1990. "The Impact of Freemasonry on Elizabethan Literature." The Hermetic Journal. Reprinted at [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://www.levity.com/alchemy/h_fre.html[/COLOR].
__________. 1992. "The Forgotten English Roots of Rosicrucianism."The Hermetic Journal.Reprinted with permission [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://www.levity.com/alchemy/h_fre.html[/COLOR].
Johnstone, Michael. 2005. The Freemasons: The Illustrated Book of An Ancient Brotherhood. New York: Grammercy Books.
Kahn, David. 1967. The Codebreakers. New York: Macmillan.
Leary, Thomas Penn'. 2004. "Friedman," in The Second Cryptographic Shakespeare.
[COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://home.att.net/~mleary/[/COLOR]. Reprinted by Online Books Library: [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu[/COLOR].
____________. 2005. "Are There Ciphers in Shakespeare?". Personal web page, p. 14, no longer online. But see [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]www.light-of-truth.com[/COLOR]for cipher theory.
Levin, Carole. 1999. "The Courtships of Elizabeth R." Renaissance Magazine 4, no.2, issue 14.
Looney, Thomas. 1920. "Shakespeare" Identified as the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford. London. Reprinted online by Shakespeare-Oxford Society, [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]www.shakespeare-oxford.com[/COLOR].
[IMG]file:///page19image25504[/IMG] Ogburn, Charlton, Jr. 1984. The Mysterious William Shakespeare: The Myth and the Reality.New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. Ogburn, Dorothy and Charlton. 1952. This Star of England. New York: Coward-McCann,Inc. Prechter, Robert R. 2005. "The Sonnets Dedication Puzzle." Shakespeare Matters: The Voiceof the Shakespeare Fellowship4, no. 3:1-2. Rollet, John. 1999. "Interpretations of the Dedication to Shakespeare's Sonnets." TheOxfordian 2 (October 1999):60-75. Reprinted with further commentary in Malim,Richard, ed. 2005. Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Works of Edward De Vere.Tunbridge Wells, UK: Parapress Ltd., 253-266. Roper, David L. 2007. The Shakespeare Story. [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]http://www.dlroper.shakespearians.com[/COLOR].Seiden, Ellen. 1999. "Was the Virgin Queen Really a Virgin?". Renaissance Magazine 4, no.2, sssue 14. Reprint at [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]www.geocities.com/queenswoman/elizaseiden.html[/COLOR].Smith, Laurence Dwight. 1971. Cryptography: the Science of Secret Writing. New York: Dover Publications.
Walker, Mather. "The Troilus and Cressida Puzzle and the Design of the First Folio." Part I. [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]www.sirbacon.org[/COLOR].
Ward, B. M. 1928. The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, Reprinted by Shakespeare-OxfordSociety, 2003.
Weir, Tass. 1996. Knights Templar web site. [COLOR=rgb(0.000000%, 0.000000%, 100.000000%)]www.veling.nl/anne/templars[/COLOR][FONT
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
For the sake of accuracy, at least a degree of accuracy anyway, I think it appropriate to add a rider to the foregoing.
The personality/ies of who wrote Shakespeare is, to a large extent, a culdees sac; an interesting diversion, but a diversion non-the-less. It is always the message that is important, and not the messenger. :hock::
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
David Guyatt Wrote:For the sake of accuracy, at least a degree of accuracy anyway, I think it appropriate to add a rider to the foregoing.
The personality/ies of who wrote Shakespeare is, to a large extent, a cul-de-sac; an interesting diversion, but a diversion none-the-less. It is always the message that is important, and not the messenger. :hock::
From what I have absorbed so far, and I stress again that I have just dipped my toes into the subject, is that the "anti-Stratfordians" feel that knowing the name of the messenger improves our understanding of what exactly the message was meant to be.
Just as an aside, I find it interesting that the businessman Shakspere appears to have had no fear whatsoever of the Star Chamber or any other authority. The no-doubt complex reasons for that, no matter whether the man was a dramatist or just a front man, so far elude me.
__________
"And when I'm tired of the program, when it's taken its toll,
I can press a button and change the channel by remote control.
It's just another movie, another song and dance,
Another poor sucker who never had a chance.
It's just another captain goin' down with the ship,
Just another jerk takin' pride in his work."
--Timbuk3
The occult teaching of freemasonry is very heavy on astronomical/astrological matters. Scroll down the page until you come to the heading Jacob's Ladder for the astrological/qabalistic meaning. For good measure it is probably necessary to understand that the title "Jacobs Ladder" (accessible in the dream-world in other words) actually refers to the Qabalah - and the glyph of the Tree of Life, extended out into the four worlds: https://janeadamsart.files.wordpress.com...agram1.jpg
I would additionally note that Freemasonic occult lore is very heavily based on the Qabalah.
I would add that I wouldn't take too seriously some other statements by the writer of the lined website - for example that Leonardo Da Vinci was a Freemason. In Leonardo's day there was not such thing as Freemasonry. The latter is understood to have been founded in 1717, whereas Leonardo died in 1519. This, however, is not to say that there were prior occult fraternities stretching back into history. There were.
Lastly, Sir Francis Bacon was, like Leonardo, a polymath and was schooled in the occult.
Interesting. Especially the part about the 4 seasons, which I figured out independently. This is from my chapter on Leonardo and the comet of 1487:
As for the Tree of Life, that was originally Pythagorean and not kabbalistic at all. The following illustration, which has propagated across the web with and without proper attribution, is from my chapter on Seth and Typhon:
"In the system of Pythagoras, the planets were arranged by how long it took them to (appear to) revolve around the earth. These 'planets' included the sun and the moon. His metaphor was musical and his theory involved the music of the spheres, as he called it. I have gone into greater detail in the chapter 'The Stairway to Heaven' in my Origins of the Tarot Deck....
"Matthews sees the Logos as Sophia. This so-called Tree of Life is nothing more than the Pythagorean Tetraktys expressed in an alternate form that consists of ten points arranged into four dimensionally significant shapes―a point, a line, a plane (or triangle), and a solid (or tetrahedron). These four geometric shapes were identified with the Tetraktys as early as 1987 by David Fideler in his introduction to The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library. A second variation of this diagram demonstrates visually why it is referred to in its kabbalistic incarnation as the Tree of Life. The identification with the Tree of Life is mine. This second version is in fact a cross between the Egyptian hieroglyph ankh, or "life," and the symbol for Venus, the goddess of Love.
"In the system due to Pythagoras, the upper sphere above Saturn is that of the fixed stars. In the kabala (or kabbala), it is the zodiac, so that, again, we are left with an extra object, the Logos or Chokmah. Clearly, there is another astronomical body here, no doubt Pliny's Typhon.
"By the time the book of Revelation was written, according to Matthews,
'The Woman Clothed with the Sun stands forth ... as a continual reminder of the struggle of Sophia to emerge from her embattled guise. Whether we see her as Isis or Mary, for this book has both images within it, the presence of Sophia is strongly upheld here.'
"In this book, John has a
'vision of a woman "clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars," who was with child. A seven-headed dragon came to devour the child as it was born. War in heaven ensued, and Michael and his angels cast the dragon down to earth. The dragon still pursued the woman who was given two wings like those of an eagle to fly into the wilderness, there to abide for three and [a] half years [or seven half-year cycles].'
"Clearly, someone here understood the nature of the early biblical time scale, not to mention the otherness of the cosmic being who battled the sun, the moon, and even the twelve stars that represented the fixed stars of the zodiac. In later ages, the ancient story was adapted to the realities of the peaceful solar system. The Virgin of the zodiac took the role of the queen of heaven, and Hydra that of the serpent or Typhon. Saturn ruled the planetary realm―as well as his children, the Elohim―as the ecliptical star Regulus, the Little King. The role of the son was played by the ever dying and returning solar orb rather than his human incarnation, so that modern mythographers could confidently ascribe the ancient tales to the peaceful rotation of the seasons, free from any conception of the catastrophic nature of what went before. And the followers of that ancient son wait in vain for his return as his ancient nemesis fails to put in an appearance, having been murdered on the way to the theater by the earth itself, for, though the Serpent may be dead, the God for whom they wait will never be born again."
__________
"And when I'm tired of the program, when it's taken its toll,
I can press a button and change the channel by remote control.
It's just another movie, another song and dance,
Another poor sucker who never had a chance.
It's just another captain goin' down with the ship,
Just another jerk takin' pride in his work."
--Timbuk3
David Guyatt Wrote:For the sake of accuracy, at least a degree of accuracy anyway, I think it appropriate to add a rider to the foregoing.
The personality/ies of who wrote Shakespeare is, to a large extent, a cul-de-sac; an interesting diversion, but a diversion none-the-less. It is always the message that is important, and not the messenger. :hock::
From what I have absorbed so far, and I stress again that I have just dipped my toes into the subject, is that the "anti-Stratfordians" feel that knowing the name of the messenger improves our understanding of what exactly the message was meant to be.
Just as an aside, I find it interesting that the businessman Shakspere appears to have had no fear whatsoever of the Star Chamber or any other authority. The no-doubt complex reasons for that, no matter whether the man was a dramatist or just a front man, so far elude me.
Steve, I believe both the main contenders were Rosicrucians, so you have a clear answer about what the message is pointing towards.
Rosicrucian philosophy is not alone in its knowledge on these matters. The search for this mystery dates back to the mists of times.
I, personally, have long had a great interest in Alchemy - not, I stress, the general public understanding of that term that focuses on the physical transmutation of metals and elements (although that too, as a by-product). Alchemy is a fundamental key of Rosicrucian practices and thought. As it is also a key to other esoteric systems - including eastern Yoga and Chinese Taoist disciplines.
Hope this might help...
PS, I think you'll find the Qabalah dates back well before Pythagoras, btw.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Thanks for the replies, chaps. I'll respond again once I've had a chance to read and digest it all.
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.â€
― Leo Tolstoy,
David Guyatt Wrote:PS, I think you'll find the Qabalah dates back well before Pythagoras, btw.
While doing the research for my Origins of the Tarot Deck, it became fairly apparent that Pythagoras was syncretizing a whole series of earlier and foreign ideas. I can't say for sure that this included the Tetraktys/Tree of Life or not, but it certainly wouldn't be out of character. I should point out that the man claimed to remember his past lives, though, interestingly enough, their dates don't match the cometary cycle, though I have him as one of the cometary avatars that include Socrates, da Vinci, and "Shakespeare." Many of these folks can honestly be described as the "genius of the age."
It's also interesting that the scholarly community has recently entered a phase of revisionism that has cast doubt on the reality of even folks like Pythagoras and Socrates, not to mention King Arthur and Simon bar Kokhba. I haven't looked at the reasons for this renewed skepticism, and I don't think the "authorship question" is part of this. In this particular case, Shakespeare is quite the exception, though it may be that the drift toward the idea of multiple authors is part of it.
__________
"And when I'm tired of the program, when it's taken its toll,
I can press a button and change the channel by remote control.
It's just another movie, another song and dance,
Another poor sucker who never had a chance.
It's just another captain goin' down with the ship,
Just another jerk takin' pride in his work."
--Timbuk3
hock::