A Taste of Bacon Sir? - The Secret of Shakespeare

[Magda Hassan]

....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.

Don't think Freud does logic or rational either...his writing on hysteria and penis envy is pathetic and tragic. He was too caught up playing high priest of his own cult to see through anything other than the eye of his own self obsessed penis. And he knew where the money was and had no intentions of exposing a huge swathe of the Austrian ruling classes as the sexual abusers and predators they were.

[Steve Franklin]

I was looking at the locations of "Shakespeare's" Italian plays, the non-historical ones at least, using them as a kind of travelogue on the hypothesis that Marlowe escaped to Italy and that the plays follow his travels there. It looks like the first one was The Two Gentlemen of Verona, set in Verona and Milan, Verona being about 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of the larger Milan. This is rather interesting in that Guglielma, whom her followers believed to be an incarnation of the Holy Ghost, arrived there from Bohemia in 1260, the tarot reappeared there in a version commissioned by Bianca Maria Visconti and painted by Bonifacio Bembo between 1441 and 1450, and Leonardo went to work there for Ludovico Sforza, the son of Bianca and later duke of Milan, in 1487 after disappearing (supposedly in the East) for 4 years. Marlowe would have arrived there shortly after 1593, though Stokes places the play at 1591 based on sparse evidence. One has to wonder what exactly was percolating below the surface in Milan that drew these disparate characters there over a period of 333 years. The timeline through Leonardo is here.

[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.

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?

Why would I want to leave this alone, Steve? I started the thread, after all? It's dear to my heart. This is a discussion forum not a soap-box.

I did look at your book that I linked earlier and found it interesting but not outstanding or remarkable. You seek a rational material explanation for your world and for the history that interests you. Fair enough. But, so far as I can see, all the subjects that interest you, quite strangely also directly intersect with esoteric subjects? An accident perhaps, or intention, or something else, I wonder? Perhaps the Fool is having fun with you? If you had chosen exoteric subjects this would not happen. Anyway, in your historical quest you so seem to wish to remove the one element that actually makes history. Man himself and his psychological drives and flaws.

I have no objection to that if that's what turns your head. But if you post on this forum, you can anticipate other views and perceptions to balance your limitations. And if I may say so, it is evident that you are subject to preaching your own religion of rationalism and material science. It is no better or worse than any other form of myopia, or intolerance, that many of us are so wearingly familiar with.

I think you're getting over-fixated on and confused about the word "occult" - which simply means concealed or hidden. Hidden from you in this case. But also hidden from a great many other people too. And to a greater extent the hiding is self imposed. It's not wishing to look and, therefore, not wishing to see. As a kid I thought that when I hid in the game of hide and seek, and covered my eyes I couldn't be seen. I couldn't see therefore, I couldn't be seen. A similar psychology exists in adults, a sort of... won't see - can't see. Ergo it's not real and it doesn't exist.

Although you say you have read Jung, your unfamiliarity of the subject is apparent throughout all you have contributed in this thread. And I seriously doubt you have a genuine grasp of Freud either (a college course on psychology is my guess?) for the reasons cited below (both were close friends and associates and both analysed each other btw - but differed over one major point that Magda hit upon). I would be unfair of me to stipulate each and every error of misunderstanding you made between Jung and Freud or your general ignorance on the subject itself. Because you can't rationally demonstrate the Collective Unconscious satisfactorily to yourself, doesn't mean it isn't demonstrably real. But it is hidden. Especially from you at the moment, I would say. Perhaps it's all that hampering honest scholarship and science that's to blame?

While I think you could do worse than spending time to get a better understanding of depth psychology, I'm sure you would reject the idea as being unimportant. You are content to be locked into a model of obtuse material reasoning. For you, man's psyche - his driving force - has little - or, in fact, nothing - to do with these subjects. Whereas the fact is that have everything to do with them.

That's the recurring key that is missing from your everlasting puzzles and, forgive me for saying this, but you seem determined to ensure this remains the case. But that's your choice, of course. An open mind is a wonderful thing that we most often witness in children, sad to say.

Mythology has accompanied man since the very beginning and continues to permeate us as a species. Also fairy tales, recounted by mother's to their children all over the world (although crap kiddies TV is taking over in the west). We can add to this mix subjects like Tarot, Alchemy, Astrology, the mystery of Shakespeare etc etc. There really are a great many subjects - always renewed and with new permutations always appearing. Permeating all these is a symbolic language which is the key to the heart of them all. Freud also recognised this and symbolism was a very significant part of his psychological method. Adler likewise (in other words, the three grandfathers of modern day psychology). And it may come as a surprise to you, I think, but dream analysis sits at the core of all psychological analysis of whatever school. It is the objective way to access the unconscious psyche.

Symbolism and humanity are inseperable handmaidens.

Not to be inclusive of both elements, the symbolic and that material is to be half a man.

While I understand that none of the foregoing will make the slightest impact upon you, it is fair notice that I will continue to engage - not to attempt to change your mind, that is your responsibility - but to ensure a degree of balance is presented.

[David Guyatt]

....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.

Don't think Freud does logic or rational either...his writing on hysteria and penis envy is pathetic and tragic. He was too caught up playing high priest of his own cult to see through anything other than the eye of his own self obsessed penis. And he knew where the money was and had no intentions of exposing a huge swathe of the Austrian ruling classes as the sexual abusers and predators they were.

Yes, Freud's obsession with sex in the sense that Freud was reductive in his analysis and, for him, the unconscious was simply a collection of repressed emotions and desires -- whereas Jung conceived of the Collective Unconscious where the Archetypes were seated. The playing high priest to his own cult also strikes strong chord. It might've been more a case of playing high priest to his own ego, though (his words were "I cannot risk my authority" in connection to a dream he had that he had asked Jung to analyse, and refusing to go on with the analysis).

[David Guyatt]

I was looking at the locations of "Shakespeare's" Italian plays, the non-historical ones at least, using them as a kind of travelogue on the hypothesis that Marlowe escaped to Italy and that the plays follow his travels there. It looks like the first one was The Two Gentlemen of Verona, set in Verona and Milan, Verona being about 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of the larger Milan. This is rather interesting in that Guglielma, whom her followers believed to be an incarnation of the Holy Ghost, arrived there from Bohemia in 1260, the tarot reappeared there in a version commissioned by Bianca Maria Visconti and painted by Bonifacio Bembo between 1441 and 1450, and Leonardo went to work there for Ludovico Sforza, the son of Bianca and later duke of Milan, in 1487 after disappearing (supposedly in the East) for 4 years. Marlowe would have arrived there shortly after 1593, though Stokes places the play at 1591 based on sparse evidence. One has to wonder what exactly was percolating below the surface in Milan that drew these disparate characters there over a period of 333 years. The timeline through Leonardo is here.

Perhaps a clue lies in the commissioning in about 1425 of a deck by the Duke of Milan that were painted by Michelino de Besozzo that are believed to consist of a deck of 60 cards including 16 trumps bearing representations of 16 Roman gods.


Was the choice of the 16 Roman gods that of the commissioner or the artist? If there is no clear evidence that the Duke particularly requested pagan gods, then a reasonable deduction is that the artist chose to include them, and the focus then would move to him.


De Besozzo doesn't appear to have amassed a large work that I can see, but he did paint the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. She was the daughter of the pagan King Costus (Ruler of Alexandria) and Queen Sabinella. Catherine was exceptionally well educated and well versed in the arts, sciences and philosophy. She became a cult figure in the late middle ages (which covers the period of De Besozzo).


Another figure appearing in de Besozzo's painting of the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was St. Anthony, attended by his pig (Bacon?). He was known by the title of Anthony of Egypt, amongst several others. A number of paintings of him by famous artists show him with a skull (David Teniers the Younger; the Temptation of St. Anthony; Dali, The Temptation of St. Anthony) which reverberate skull symbolism that appear in numerous other paintings (St. Jerome being fairly common - El Greco, the Ecstacy of St. Jerome; Jan Sanders van Hemessen, St. Jerome; Aertgen van Leyden, St. Jerome, Cavarozzi's Saint Jerome; Michelangelo's St. Jerome, Durer's woodcut, St Jerome and numerous others) One might additionally note the Skull in Shakespeare (Yorik) and the importance of the skull in alchemy.




De Besozzo also painted The Madonna in the Rose Garden (the Madonna was accompanied by St. Catherine), where the rose would, I think, have been the Rose of Sharon, from the Song of Songs, signifying the mystical child. The rose (and mystical birth) has a very considerable symbolic meaning in various schools of esotericism and alchemy.


Thus there is a very clear correlation between de Besozzo and Egypt and, in particular, Alexandria. There is a very clear correlation between de Bosozzo and mystical experiences that, in turn, connect to alchemy, mysticism, alchemy and, of course, psychology (Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis - a treatise on the mystical marriage). And a very clear correlation between these subjects and the Tarot via the same artist.

[Magda Hassan]

For me it is less his obsession with sex, most men are quite obsessed with it to greater or lesser degrees, mostly greater, but his total lack of insight into women, women's lives, women's experiences. He has no idea and it shows. So while he has certainly contributed to our understanding of the human condition ultimately one half of that humanity is missing from his worldview. I wont even bother to mention the class bias. So it is not much of a world worth knowing imho and makes me wary of much of the rest of it he lives in. Here there be dragons. Both Freud and Jung explored symbolism extensively. Jung more so in my observation. More deeply. Both synthesised the use of symbols into their respective theories and warned about ignoring them at one's peril.

I've always loved Freud's quote 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'. Well, thank fuck for that. Not completely hopeless after all. Pity he couldn't also see that the numerous reports of incest and sexual abuse was not some poor victim's fantasy wish. We still live with the huge amount of damage done by his collusion with abusers to maintain patriarchal rights at the expense of truth. Better that his pernicious mumbo jumbo bull shit theories make generations of victims be blamed for their abuse than Freud's delicate ego and dubious 'authority' be put at risk.

[R.K. Locke]

Further to what has already been written, there has actually been real science done on a number of contested issues which are deemed to be "mumbo-jumbo" by materialists. Some examples:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trickster-Parano...561&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Children-Remembe...698&sr=1-1

http://www.wfs.org/blogs/richard-samson/...obal-scale

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scien...study.html


Furthermore, there is an argument to be made for linking Jung's theories to the increasingly popular philosophical discipline of panpsychism:

http://vimeo.com/44013533

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Consciousness-It...876&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panpsychism-West...VBAJ5WWW37


And so on, and so on. The information is all out there if you care to look for it, but the chances are that you won't bother if you are wedded to the religions of materialism and scientism.

[R.K. Locke]

But back to Shakespeare...

[David Guyatt]

But before returning to Shakespeare, one further train of thought on the Tarot trumps and the Collective Unconscious, that further amplifies prior meanings.

I have mentioned before elsewhere, that Jung developed a method of harnessing his imaginative function that he called Active Imagination. In fact, this encompasses a far older technique that has been taught in esoteric schools throughout time and in those that use the Qabalah, it is referred to as Path Working. Medieval European Alchemists, Taoist Alchemists and Indian Yogi's all use similar methods too. It is a true voyage of discovery. But there be dragons too.

I have always hesitated to discuss this in any detail (and still am reluctant to be honest) because the technique requires a considerable amount of prior work/preparation in order to avoid possible dangers - in the same way that you would have many lessons in a pool with a swimming teacher before jumping in the pool alone and at night - and out of earshot of others. Although it is true that some people are naturally adapted for this and take to it very easily. Others would be right to avoid it altogether. One friend of mine many years ago (decades, in fact) tried the method and a voice in his head warned him to turn back. He found it a quite terrifying prospect and did turn back, and was wise to do so. His is now dead but would, these days, be the first to admit that he was badly conflicted, psychologically speaking, back then - and I am certain had he continued he would have had very traumatic psychological experiences. Meeting face to face with a living, breathing, sentient, intelligent and talking Archetype is a very powerful experience never to be forgotten.

In a controlled meditative state, one can imaginatively project a chosen trump card in the mind's eye. The Fool would be a good starting place because we all need to know that we really are fools before we ever can approach wisdom (if we ever do). Building it carefully and clearly and without addition or omission is important - and it usually takes a lot of time and discipline to learn to build and hold accurate images. Choosing a suitable deck (I would avoid Crowley's for example) also seems a valid precautionary thing to do. Once you have the image alive and flaming in your mind's eye (as though projected on the wall of the inside of your forehead), you simply walk through the picture - imaginatively speaking. And hey presto. Wisdom dictates that one does not eat for several hours before engaging in this, but would eat something immediately the session is over.

Aggression will be met with aggression, negativity with negativity. To act with politeness and dignity and good, old fashioned manners will be met with politeness and dignity and old fashioned manners. What you transmit is what is reflected back to you.

It is also vital to be able to separate the here and now from the then and there, in your own mind - and developing a small thought ritual of entry and exit isn't a bad thing, as it focuses attention on the separation of these two worlds. The reason for this is that the then and there can be very captivating; we recall the old Celtic tales of someone entering faery land being unable to find their way back and being lost for evermore. It sounds ridiculous I know, but I can speak to the reality of it. Also we can bring back the then and there to the here and now is we are not careful. And that would have very dire personal consequences. The whole thing is to be treated with great care and good common sense. No one willingly sticks their finger in an electric socket to see if it is on or off. Multiply that by a far greater magnitude and you have a sense of the actual energy involved.

I also strongly recommend that this technique be taught by a competent analyst, for example, or through a respectable school, where a curriculum would be adhered to and supervision would be present. History is rife with cautionary stories of alchemists who were poisoned by the noxious fumes of Mercury and went mad. Those genuinely interested will find a suitable teacher/supervisor if they but persist in their desire to find one.

[David Guyatt]

Back to Shakespeare and Bacon et al.

My interest in this particular debate is fairly recent (2003). From my father effects following his death I obtained and read a book he had titled Arcadia, by Paul Dawkins, and published under the imprint of The Francis Bacon Research Trust Journal, Series 1, Vol 5, that deals with the "Life and Times of Francis Bacon, 1579-1585". It is named Arcadia because it claims to teach the "Ancient Egyptian Mysteries - Arcadia and the Arcadian Academy". My father was a Co-Mason (as was my mother too), and I think it likely he obtained this book during his Masonic studies - although he had previously studied esoterica for many years and was a senior member of an occult school, whereas my mother was Wicca. One might, therefore, imagine that I was doomed from the beginning - but the fact is I introduced my father to the occult school and that, in turn, opened the door for my mother to study Wicca, which she had long had a background interest in. I am, therefore, no innocent in this.

In any event, this is an interesting book and there is a lot of information therein which I have not come across outside on the internet. For example, the author states that Robert Dudley and QE1 conceived Francis Bacon, but politically couldn't admit to having born a child (two, in fact) and therefore, it wads arranged for the child Francis to be secretly adopted by Sir Nicholas Bacon. It is thought that the bacon family derived from the French/Norman Bascoigne family which were the Lords of Molay in France. This family came to fame because of Jacques de Molay, the last publicly known Grandmaster of the Knights Templar (and, of course, their oracular skull of Sidon that was called Baphomet. Perhaps, or perhaps not, this might be why a skull appears in Shakespeare play Hamlet attributed to Yorick with the meditative worlds "Alas, poor Yorick, for I knew, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest."


Eugene Delacroix's Hamlet contemplating Yorick

But this is not the only picture of a skull in Shakespeare. In his poem The Phoenix and the Turtle, Shakespeare dedicated the poem to the son of Katheryn of Berain, John Salusbury.


Portrait of Katheryn of Berain by Adriaen van Cronenburgh

Yorick was the dead court jester, and if we reference the Tarot book written by Jungian Sallie Nichols above, and in particular refer to the online copy of her chapter on the Tarot trump, The Fool, we learn that the Court Jester is attributed to that card.

Below is an image of the emblem of Pallas Athena from the title page of Nova Atlantis



Is that a jester's head sitting at the foot of the tree?

Pallas Athena is the British Goddess, Britannia btw: