8
Recurring
Collaborations
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
— Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, c.1602, II:v
Among those the world considers great, there can be no doubt that William Shakespeare must be named as one of the greatest. His works rank first in the heritage of English literature and second only to the Bible in popular appeal, enduring through four centuries of Western tradition. Yet the true identity of the author of these mighty works is an enigma. Generations of discerning minds have questioned the conventional opinion that the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon, who was one of several William Shakespeares in that era, was the one to whom the authorship referred. Sigmund Freud prudently stated: "The name 'William Shakespeare' is most probably a pseudonym behind which there lies concealed a great unknown". (An Outline of Psycho-Analysis, 1938)
Intimates of esoteric schools of knowledge have always known, as others have sometimes surmised, that this 'great unknown' is greatly known, but by another name. 'William Shakespeare' was in truth a nom-de-plume of Sir Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626).
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, as known to history, was himself an enigma. How was it that the man whom prosperity would praise as the father of modern science and as the protagonist of fine moral and ethical philosophy was the same man who his contemporaries censured as ambitious and uncharitable in politics and law? The answer is to be found in reincarnation. Bacon was a composite incarnation of, on the one hand, a high initiate adept well known in several past lives, and on the other hand, a fallen entity who had been a rather ruthless oriental ruler.
The karmic reasons for such an odd combination of entities in one incarnation are complex and need not be considered for the moment; except to note that Bacon's historical role from an esoteric point of view seems to have required a diversity of personality traits such as his paradoxical life certainly displayed, so he came to be called "the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind". (Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle IV, 1734)
He attained high office under Queen Elizabeth I and King James I of England, but was controversial in the intrigues and calumnies at court. Instrumental in the executions of the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 – 1618), Bacon had an unpopular reputation with with those who could not have known that, despite his usual measure of meanness and enmity, he acted out of a karmic duty enjoined on him by the spiritual hierarchy whose secret agent he was. Bacon alone understood the karmic role invested in Raleigh to incarnate the Luciferic spirit of the Elizabethan age — that is, to become the archetype of tragedy. He orchestrated Raleigh's inexorable condemnation and formulated the initiatic judgement pronounced on his great contemporary:
"You have lived like a star, at which the world hath gazed.
And like a star you must fall, when the firmament is shaked."
In turn, Bacon was to accept his own tragic fall from grace when convicted on misconstrued charges of bribery and corruption, charges to which he chose to confess. Although pardoned, he spent the rest of his life in retirement devoted to his philosophical pursuits.
Esoterically he was the Supreme Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Order of Europe; the author of the Rosicrucian manifestos published in Germany; the overseer of the translation of the King James Bible; and the main author of the works attributed to Shakespeare. He had founded an inner circle of writers taxed with the expression of occult and mystical teaching through the medium of poetry and plays. William Shakespeare, the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon, was the producer of the plays; his name conveniently adopted as a sobriquet by Bacon and his confreres. The works were not all of the same standard and calibre, but of the best was by Bacon himself, drawing upon the experience gained in a former lifetime as a greek dramatist.
Christopher Marlowe
Another great playwright and poet of the group was Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593?), considered the first great English dramatist and the greatest Elizabethan dramatist second only to Shakespeare. He is well known for his masterpiece The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604). Today many scholars believe Marlowe also wrote parts of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. He was supposedly stabbed to death in a tavern brawl (1593), but this is untrue. It was a ploy to escape his prosecution on an unjust charge of atheism. He survived, yet retired into anonymity to devote himself entirely to the Shakespeare project.
Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe were the foremost figures of the great unknown concealed by the name 'William Shakespeare'. Their two incarnations were oversouled by the Dhuman-Adamics El Amenu and Thanatu. El Amenu is the eighth Osirian adept of Atlantis and Thanatu the fourth Osirian scarab. We next look at their associated incarnations through several ages — from the psalm writers of King David to the great dramatists of Greek tragedy; from Dante to the Count Saint-Germain.
"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."
— Shakespeare, The Tempest, c.1611, IV:i