The works of Shakespeare and the Bible are closely related treasures an
the cultural and spiritual life of western peoples. Both stand pre-eminent
among forces that have built up the finest and most lasting features of our
present civilization. Embodying all the great fundamental principles lying at
the very heart of life, they have been interwoven in the fabric of our daily
thought and aspiration. Countless expressions that have been given to those
principles in art and literature have been directly inspired by sacred
scriptures on the one hand and the Lay Bible of Shakespeare on the other.
There appears to be ample justification for regarding Shakespeare as a Lay
Bible when considering its many correspondences, inner and outer, with those
of the Holy Bible. Both are bestsellers. Both comprise a collection of Books,
the Holy Scriptures having sixty-six and Shakespeare thirty-seven. Both have
their Apocrypha. Both have concordances cataloging every word of the text.
Both have called forth innumerable commentaries. Special libraries have been
dedicated to their sole study. In dictionaries of quotations, the Bible and
Shakespeare lead all other works. In Bartlett's volume of quotations, the New
and Old Testament combined take up thirty-seven pages whereas Shakespeare
requires no less than one hundred and twenty-two.
Phrases from these master works have furnished authors with countless
titles for books and articles. One single phrase from a soliloquy of
Macbeth's: "tomorrow — and tomorrow," has served as the title for as many as
eleven books.
Many biblical phrases and quotations have been interwoven into
Shakespearean texts. According to an inventory of this subject, Shakespeare
quoted from no less than forty-two books of the Bible and the Apocrypha.
Shakespeare and the Bible are inexhaustible sources of inspiration. Every
age discovers in them that which it most needs. Hence, the continuous flow of
expository material ever since their first appearance. Re-interpretation
becomes necessary as conditions change, as knowledge widens and as experience
deepens. But whatever the changes, the Bible and Shakespeare live on. In every
age the eternal verities hold good and nowhere else can these be found in the
fullness, beauty, and sublimity with which we meet them in both the Bible and
Shakespeare. Barring scripture, Shakespeare's plays constitute mankind's
greatest study of man. "After God," writes Alexander Pushkin, Russia's
greatest poet, "Shakespeare is the greatest creator of living beings. He
created an entire humanity."
These plays deal with man's outer and inner nature; with worlds visible
and invisible. The two sides of life, the material and spiritual, are treated
with equal certainty and consistency. The supernatural elements in the dramas
are not incidental devices introduced for the purpose of theatrical effects.
They are fundamental to the theme. Anyone possessing keys to their deeper
import discerns an added wealth of wisdom. No one familiar with esoteric
doctrines can have any question as to Shakespeare's familiarity with the
wisdom of the Illuminati.
Occult studies of magic, black and white, are given illuminating treatment
in Richard III and The Tempest, respectively. The spiritual significances of
the Winter and Summer Solstices are unfolded in The Winter's Tale and
Midsummer Night's Dream. Under the veil of fancy and frolic, the latter is a
virtual transcription of the mystic marriage ritual as enacted in the
Eleusinian Mysteries — in keeping with which the locale of the drama is a
wood near Athens. The Sonnets translate the Hermetic doctrines into poetry.
While tragedies like Hamlet and Macbeth bring the beings and forces of the
interpenetrating spiritual world into visibility. Each of the dramas treats of
some occult law or spiritual principle. This constitutes its esoteric theme.
Everything that finds expression in the unfolding plot arises inevitably in
accordance with the nature of this central archetypal idea.
In considering the inner features common to Shakespeare and the Bible, it
is to be observed that all literature may be divided into two classes, sacred
and secular. Sacred literature is accredited with having come from a higher
source of inspiration than the secular. Divine wisdom is accredited with
having found expression in the bibles of the world in a more direct and
immediate manner than any other literature. In other words, it is a part of
the religious belief of all peoples that in sacred scriptures God establishes
direct communication with man, revealing Himself therein in a special manner
and imparting to those willing to receive them, mysteries pertaining to inner
spiritual life and ways and means by which man progressively unfolds his
latent divinity. With this general concept the esotericist is in full
agreement.
There are, however, some who maintain that the distinction generally made
between sacred and secular literature is purely arbitrary and that, while the
classification serves a useful purpose, there does not exist factually such a
sharp line of demarcation as many people believe. Those who hold to this view
believe that the only difference between the two classes is one of degree, the
one merging imperceptibly into the other. In support of this position they
point out that human elements have certainly crept into sacred scriptures and
that sacred truths are often given superlative expression in secular
literature.
At this point Swedenborg provides an answer by saying that while it is
true that the difference is only one of degree, it is a discrete degree. That
is to say, there is a point on the rising scale of values at which a new
factor enters and a new principle becomes operative which results in bringing
something new into being. For example, all life is one, but not all that lives
is human. There is life in plant and animal. But when a plant takes on the
faculty of feeling, sensing pain and pleasure, and becomes capable of
locomotion, it becomes an animal; and when an animal takes on the rational
faculties of mind it becomes human. Discrete degrees mark the distinction
between the kingdoms of life and nature.
Applying this to literature, Swedenborg observed that such a discrete
degree divides sacred from secular literature. Sacred literature is first of
all purely religious. But not all religious works are sacred scriptures. In
order to qualify as such they must deal with spiritual matters and also
possess a certain internal content. That is, concealed beneath the outer form
and embodied within the history and biography, the fable and parable, there
must needs be a spiritual structure, an esoteric content, clearly perceptible
to those who have developed within themselves the necessary spiritual
cognition; but unrecognized by those who see no more than "the fond eye doth
teach." Sacred scriptures, moreover, are records of the life, works and/or
teachings of great world Saviors. Consequently they deal exclusively with the
deepest spiritual mysteries within the grasp of man.
Summarizing the foregoing, we may say that literature which deals with
spiritual life and is built around world Teachers and Saviors, and in addition
thereto embodies an internal structure based on the mysteries, becomes by
virtue of these several attributes and elements sacred scriptures. All other
literature takes a lesser rating.
Turning to the entire remaining body of non-sacred literature it will be
found that this, in turn, also falls into two major divisions. In the first
division we have the literature that is possessed of an "internal" sense; in
the second, the external only. The former, like sacred scriptures, is rooted
in the Mysteries and contains within its outer form a veiled body of clearly
organized Arcane Wisdom, whereas in the latter class no such interwoven
esotericism is present. To the exotericist, therefore, no such distinction as
that which we have made is accepted as valid for the simple reason that the
very existence of what we call the Divine Gnosis or Secret Doctrine is
completely unrecognized. I earned works there are about spiritual matters,
religious experience, and even about the Mysteries themselves which do not
possess this internal sense. They may be highly inspired works yet only
single-structured. On the other hand, we have works like the dramas of
Shakespeare which the world does not regard as "spiritual" literature but
which, by virtue of their double structure, enshrine a compendium of Initiate
Wisdom comparable only to that which informs sacred scriptures. Hence, the Lay
Bible.
For true authorship of works bearing the name of Shakespeare one must peer
behind the veil that conceals the Guardians of the Mysteries. There are to be
found the Illuminati of the race, the custodians of Ageless Wisdom, dispensers
of the truth that sets men free. There, unrecognized and unknown to the
multitude, is that company of exalted Beings we call our Elder Brothers, who
release into the world from time to time through suitable and qualified human
instrumentalities, revelations most needed for their development.
It is to them we must look for the mighty creative impulse that manifested
in Europe as the Renaissance and found its primary English expression in the
brilliant literary lights of the Elizabethan Era — the greatest of which was
Shakespeare. Thus Shakespeare becomes a link in a chain of inspired mediators
through whom the race of men have come into possession of an ever-increasing
knowledge of the divine Mysteries.
The works of Shakespeare, like the music-dramas of Wagner, Goethe's Faust,
Dante's Divine Comedy, and a few other books of comparable rank, are designed
for esoteric as well as exoteric reading. They are direct communications from
planetary centers of Divine Wisdom. In the case of Shakespeare, the source was
the Western Wisdom School of the Rosy Cross. To the esotericist no other
evidence of this is required than the works themselves. But specific
signatures, cryptically conveyed, are also present in the dramas. In Love's
Labour's Lost a whole scene is devoted to revealing the Rosicrucian
connection; but it is so ingeniously involved in the banter of words that only
those possessing the keys to its veiled meanings will read it aright. The
scene closes with a remark addressed to Goodman Dull, representative of the
unperceiving multitude, that during the entire scene he has not spoken a word.
"No," comes his response, "nor understood none neither."
Shakespeare has been called "The Rosicrucian Mask." Max Heindel is
authority for the statement that the works which bear the name of Shakespeare
and those that bear the name of Bacon were influenced by the same Rosicrucian
Initiate. Other occult writers point toward a similar conclusion.
In the class of literature we have here described, Shakespeare's dramas
stand supreme. They are not religious works. They are not Christian, Buddhist,
or Hindu Scriptures. They are what we call secular dramas, worldly plays if
you like. But so transcendent is their beauty and so luminous is their
internal content, that they have held countless millions enthralled during
their uninterrupted performance on the world's stages ever since their first
appearance over three hundred and fifty years ago. People see and read the
plays for pleasure and pastime. In doing so they expose themselves to a magic
that, by its very nature, works upon their inner being, imparting to it basic
patterns of the good and the true and the beautiful, charging it with impulses
that propel it upward on its godward way. The magical influence which they so
exercise derives from that element which flowed into them from super-human
levels. These elements are purely spiritual. It is their presence in the
dramas that truly makes of Shakespeare's plays humanity's Lay Bible.
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