A Taste of Bacon Sir? - The Secret of Shakespeare

[Steve Franklin]

I understand your reservations, Steve. For you it's an academic study.

One possible problem that you might be encountering when trying to trace origins is that so much of the esoteric lore was transmitted as an oral tradition --- from mouth to ear --- and was not written down (and when written down was full of blinds impenetrable to the uninitiated. This oral tradition may create the impression that knowledge leapt whole from one period to another, and one place to another, without there being an apparent trail.

In regard to the the origin of the Tarot, Paul Foster Case states in his slim volume, The Esoteric Keys to Alchemy:

The Western literature of alchemy can be traced back to the days when Alexandria was the meeting place for the group of adepts of the Inner School who later transferred their activities to Fez, and from that city issued the earliest versions of the Tarot.

He adds that much of its doctrine was definitely Neo-Platonic, which in turn is tinged with ideas brought to Alexandria by wandering teachers from India, and that, therefore there is a mixture of Hindu thought, Egyptian Magic and Greek Philosophy in these Hermetic teachings that were set forth in alchemy and Tarot.

This might be of some help, I think.

Pythagoras was certainly in Egypt (538 BC), but before the Library was built, and then taken to Babylon by Cambyses II (525 BC), then, perhaps, traveled to India, after which he returned to Samos (517 BC), then moved to Croton in Magna Graecia in the south of the Italian peninsula where he founded his famous school (509 BC, the year the Roman Republic was founded at Rome). What I find suspicious is that both the tarot and many of Shakespeare's plays have deep roots in Italy, so it's fair to ask whether Marlowe might have moved to Italy because he was somehow associated with an organization that had its headquarters there. Keep in mind that Marlowe was suspected of having Catholic sympathies and, but for the intervention of the Privy Council, would therefore never have received his Masters Degree, so I wouldn't rule out an organization with Catholic aspects. Pythagorean Catholics? The idea isn't necessarily as strange as it sounds. Note the association of the tarot with Sister Manfreda of the Umiliata Order.

Waite could then have been involved in this same group and its British branch and received the true meaning of the tarot therefrom. Or, he could simply have decoded it the way I did. It's really not hidden all that well. It may not have been intentionally hidden at all.

[David Guyatt]

I understand your reservations, Steve. For you it's an academic study.

One possible problem that you might be encountering when trying to trace origins is that so much of the esoteric lore was transmitted as an oral tradition --- from mouth to ear --- and was not written down (and when written down was full of blinds impenetrable to the uninitiated. This oral tradition may create the impression that knowledge leapt whole from one period to another, and one place to another, without there being an apparent trail.

In regard to the the origin of the Tarot, Paul Foster Case states in his slim volume, The Esoteric Keys to Alchemy:

The Western literature of alchemy can be traced back to the days when Alexandria was the meeting place for the group of adepts of the Inner School who later transferred their activities to Fez, and from that city issued the earliest versions of the Tarot.

He adds that much of its doctrine was definitely Neo-Platonic, which in turn is tinged with ideas brought to Alexandria by wandering teachers from India, and that, therefore there is a mixture of Hindu thought, Egyptian Magic and Greek Philosophy in these Hermetic teachings that were set forth in alchemy and Tarot.

This might be of some help, I think.

Pythagoras was certainly in Egypt (538 BC), but before the Library was built, and then taken to Babylon by Cambyses II (525 BC), then, perhaps, traveled to India, after which he returned to Samos (517 BC), then moved to Croton in Magna Graecia in the south of the Italian peninsula where he founded his famous school (509 BC, the year the Roman Republic was founded at Rome). What I find suspicious is that both the tarot and many of Shakespeare's plays have deep roots in Italy, so it's fair to ask whether Marlowe might have moved to Italy because he was somehow associated with an organization that had its headquarters there. Keep in mind that Marlowe was suspected of having Catholic sympathies and, but for the intervention of the Privy Council, would therefore never have received his Masters Degree, so I wouldn't rule out an organization with Catholic aspects. Pythagorean Catholics? The idea isn't necessarily as strange as it sounds. Note the association of the tarot with Sister Manfreda of the Umiliata Order.

Waite could then have been involved in this same group and its British branch and received the true meaning of the tarot therefrom. Or, he could simply have decoded it the way I did. It's really not hidden all that well. It may not have been intentionally hidden at all.

If it's not hidden at all well, as you suggest, then what is the true meaning of the tarot? Just curious...

[Steve Franklin]

If it's not hidden at all well, as you suggest, then what is the true meaning of the tarot? Just curious...

Hidden only to those outside the School of Pythagoras at Croton and later Metapontum. It is, in essence, a mnemonic device containing calendrical, astronomical, mathematical, and other information provided by Pythagoras to his followers in a form that was easy to remember. It appears to be based upon an earlier Indian system related to the game of pachisi obtained at Babylon or in India itself sometime after 525 BC.

Just looking at the Walsingham estate at Chislehurst: It seems that Scadbury was inherited by Thomas Walsingham V, the son of Marlowe's patron, upon the latter's death in 1630. Scadbury, where Marlowe may have been arrested, was sold by Thomas V about 1655, so the question presents itself: If the Walsinghams were in possession of the original clear copies of "Shakespeare's" plays, did they remain at Chislehurst with Sir Richard Bettenson, who purchased the manor, or did they stay in the Walsingham family whose name died out within 2 more generations, but whose descendants survived under other surnames? And why, if they still exist, would they remain hidden away so long after the abolition of the Star Chamber?

[David Guyatt]

If it's not hidden at all well, as you suggest, then what is the true meaning of the tarot? Just curious...

It is, in essence, a mnemonic device containing calendrical, astronomical, mathematical, and other information provided by Pythagoras to his followers in a form that was easy to remember.

It's so much more than that.

And in saying this, I am not referring to the supposed divinatory nature of the Tarot (which doesn't really interest me), but rather the archetypal and symbolic meaning transmitted in these cards - and the fact that they correspond with alchemical, Qabalistic and numerological (Gematria, Notariqon etc) techniques of deeper elucidation than you know or could guess.

But I accept that our minds will not meet on this subject and will leave it at that.

[Magda Hassan]

I've been thoroughly enjoying this discussion regardless ::rockon::::fortuneteller::::drwho::

[Steve Franklin]

I notice a problem with another of the main suspects in the Shakespeare Authorship Question: William Stanley, who died in 1642, 3 years before Lanier. Again, "Shakespeare" dies in 1616, and Stanley doesn't write another play for 26 years? I am beginning to suspect that whether this guy Shaxpere could even read or write or not, he may have had something to do with the reason for writing the plays, no matter who actually did so. After all, he was a shareholder in the Globe Theater. Could it be that he stopped paying for the writing of the plays? Of course, if Marlowe was the actual author, he could very well have died at about the same time. Henry Paine Stokes places the writing of Henry VIII at 1613, so Marlowe himself would have stopped writing shortly thereafter. 1613 is just an estimate, of course, so one might begin to suspect that Shaxpere's retirement sometime between 1611 and 1613 actually had something to do with Marlowe's death, his source of plays having dried up. But note that the Globe Theatre burned on July 21, 1613.

[David Guyatt]

Mundanity apart, it might be relevant to the discussion to simply note that the Globe is often a way to describe this planet upon which we live (globe, earth, world etc). And as Shakespeare wrote in the monologue in As You Like It, "All the world's a stage - and all the men and women mere players," suggesting the Globe Theatre was simply a microcosm of the greater macrocosmic theatre - thereby expanding the meaning to a different level - dramatisation as a collective psychodrama.

[David Guyatt]

During a week long analytical symposium I attended in Zurich in 1991, I had been given a series of personal introductions by my own analyst to a number of other "old school" Jungians in Zurich. One of these was Hanni Binder, who had been taught by Jung and who speciliazed on Tarot and Astrology. When I met her she was, as I recall, in her 91st year and a grand old lady she was too, still possessing a quick wit and penetrating eyes. I found my visit with her to be illuminating. She is now long deceased.

Anyway, in order to further explain what I mean by the symbolic importance of the Tarot trumps, I refer to Sallie Nichols excellent book "Jung and Tarot - An Archetypal Journey. Nichols is a Jungian analyst in SF and her book, first published in 1985, really is an excellent introduction to the subject. I am unable to find a downloadable version, but an extract is available at Scribd HERE. I recommend one navigate to page 31 and begin reading her amplification of the symbolism and meaning of the Fool.

One subject she has not included in her account, however, and one that deserves attention is the correspondence of the Fool with Odin/Wotan who also had the title of the Wanderer, and who was accompanied not by one dog snapping at the Fool's heels, but by two dogs (or wolves) and who roamed the primeval forest. Odin was the Norske God of magic and poetry and sacrificed an eye to gain the mastery of Rune magic. He is also the Fool with a thousand faces, each bubbling and shifting and vying to reach the surface (therefore a shape-shifter), and if you ever meet him, you will find this to be a quite shocking experience.

Nichols, in her book, makes the point that the Trumps are "the so-called projection holders, meaning simply that they are the hooks to catch the imagination." Again and agin, authorities on these subject state how important and significant the imagination is as a tool of cognition - without which we are willfully rendering ourselves blind to a higher/deeper order of knowledge and understanding.

[Steve Franklin]

One subject she has not included in her account, however, and one that deserves attention is the correspondence of the Fool with Odin/Wotan who also had the title of the Wanderer, and who was accompanied not by one dog snapping at the Fool's heels, but by two dogs (or wolves) and who roamed the primeval forest. Odin was the Norske God of magic and poetry and sacrificed an eye to gain the mastery of Rune magic. He is also the Fool with a thousand faces, each bubbling and shifting and vying to reach the surface (therefore a shape-shifter), and if you ever meet him, you will find this to be a quite shocking experience.

Well, you really can't seem to leave this alone, so, I find no need to sugar coat it anymore.

You really need to read my book to which you linked earlier.

The Fool, far from having any occult or Jungian significance, is simply a representation of the 365th day of the year, the odd man out, so to speak, beyond its 13 normalized 28-day sidereal lunar months and 52 even weeks, both of which bring the year to 364 days. This is the day spoken of in the English term "a year and a day" used in sentencing people during the Middle Ages. April Fool's Day is a remnant of this earlier even-week year formerly used in parts of France and elsewhere, though it more likely was originally celebrated between the end of February and the beginning of March. The point of the even week was that holidays always fell on the same day of the week, hence no need for the rigmarole resorted to by the Church to locate Easter. Good Friday could be celebrated on the same of the year and would always fall on a Friday, and Easter Sunday could be celebrated on the same day every year and that would always be a Sunday. It also allowed an exact 9-month interval between the death of the sun at the beginning of spring and its rebirth at the winter solstice, a metaphor that is obscured by the ridiculous method used by the Church.

As for Jung, though I have read him, I find him unconvincing. I lean more toward Freud, in that Freud relied upon much less mystical postulates and fewer undemonstrable ideas like the collective unconscious, which Jung never got around to clearly defining, let alone proving. My impression of Jung is that he was attempting--unsuccessfully--to rescue religion from the clutches of rationalism. Freud couldn't do hypnosis and therefore resorted to dream analysis. Jung couldn't do logical thought and therefore resorted to mysticism and--dare I say it--mumbo jumbo. In that sense his ideas were no more cogent than a Medieval theologian trying to save people's "souls" by burning them at the stake. All of these Dark Age systems derive from the inability of their practitioners to understand the fragments that survived into Roman and post-Roman times from the Classical world, whose explanations were restricted, even then, to initiates and students of great teachers like Pythagoras. That Jung could try to explain the devices and systems of analysis developed by one of the greatest scientific and mathematical minds of the ancient world by resort to Medieval distortions and pure inventions borders on the laughable.

Let me be clear about this. I have no problem with people practicing the religion of their choice, whether it be the religion of Shakespeare from Stratford or the religion of Analytical Psychology. What I object to is the assertion that these are based on anything resembling science and honest scholarship. They are not. The proof is that, unlike honest scholarship, they lead to the discovery of no new knowledge. They simply "explain" what is already believed by the use of circular reasoning and appeal to authority.

[Steve Franklin]

Mundanity apart, it might be relevant to the discussion to simply note that the Globe is often a way to describe this planet upon which we live (globe, earth, world etc). And as Shakespeare wrote in the monologue in As You Like It, "All the world's a stage - and all the men and women mere players," suggesting the Globe Theatre was simply a microcosm of the greater macrocosmic theatre - thereby expanding the meaning to a different level - dramatisation as a collective psychodrama.

Is all analysis, then, to be based on mystical speculation and not hard scholarship? Are we to see all human actions and creations as simply a manifestation of Jung's supposed collective unconscious, his transparent attempt to talk about "God" without appearing to use religious methods to do psychology? Seriously?