The Secret Teachings of All Ages · 194 of 236

Bacon, Shakspere, and the Rosicrucians

THE present consideration of the Bacon--Shakspere--Rosicrucian controversy is undertaken not for the vain purpose of digging up dead men's bones but rather in the hope that a critical analysis will aid in the rediscovery of that knowledge lost to the world since the oracles were silenced. It was W. F. C. Wigston who called the Bard of Avon "phantom Captain Shakespeare, the Rosicrucian mask." This constitutes one of the most significant statements relating to the Bacon-Shakspere controversy.

Context

Hall is opening the Baconian-authorship case, which by 1928 was a respectable minority position with serious adherents — Mark Twain wrote a book on it (Is Shakespeare Dead?, 1909), as did Ignatius Donnelly (The Great Cryptogram, 1888). Mainstream Shakespeare scholarship rejects the theory and the consensus has hardened against it since Hall's day. What Hall is genuinely after, though, is not the literary-historical question but the esoteric one: he wants to argue that whoever wrote the plays was an initiate of a Rosicrucian-Hermetic tradition, and that the plays themselves carry coded transmissions of that tradition. Frances Yates picked up a softer version of this thesis in The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (1979) and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972), both of which establish a real Hermetic-Cabalistic milieu around Bacon, Dee, and the early Stuart court without committing to the authorship swap.Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972)

It is quite evident that William Shakspere could not, unaided, have produced the immortal writings bearing his name. He did not possess the necessary literary culture, for the town of Stratford where he was reared contained no school capable of imparting the higher forms of learning reflected in the writings ascribed to him. His parents were illiterate, and in his early life he evinced a total disregard for study. There are in existence but six known examples of Shakspere's handwriting. All are signatures, and three of them are in his will. The scrawling, uncertain method of their execution stamps Shakspere as unfamiliar with the use of a pen, and it is obvious either that he copied a signature prepared for him or that his hand was guided while he wrote. No autograph manuscripts of the "Shakespearian" plays or sonnets have been discovered, nor is there even a tradition concerning them other than the fantastic and impossible statement appearing in the foreword of the Great Folio.

A well-stocked library would be an essential part of the equipment of an author whose literary productions demonstrate him to be familiar with the literature of all ages, yet there is no record that Shakspere ever possessed a library, nor does he make any mention of books in his will. Commenting on the known illiteracy of Shakspere's daughter Judith, who at twenty-seven could only make her mark, Ignatius Donnelly declares it to be unbelievable that William Shakspere if he wrote the plays bearing his name would have permitted his own daughter to reach womanhood and marry without being able to read one line of the writings that made her father wealthy and locally famous.

The query also has been raised, "Where did William Shakspere secure his knowledge of modern French, Italian, Spanish, and Danish, to say nothing of classical Latin and Greek?" For, in spite of the rare discrimination with which Latin is used by the author of the Shakespearian plays, Ben Jonson, who knew Shakspere intimately, declared that the Stratford actor understood "small Latin and less Greek"! Is it not also more than strange that no record exists of William Shakspere's having ever played a leading rôle in the famous dramas he is supposed to have written or in others produced by the company of which he was a member? True, he may have owned a small interest in the Globe Theatre or Blackfriars, but apparently the height of his thespian achievements was the Ghost in Hamlet!

In spite of his admitted avarice, Shakspere seemingly made no effort during his lifetime to control or secure remuneration from the plays bearing his name, many of which were first published anonymously. As far as can be ascertained, none of his heirs were involved in any manner whatsoever in the printing of the First Folio after his death, nor did they benefit financially therefrom. Had he been their author, Shakspere's manuscripts and unpublished plays would certainly have constituted his most valued possessions, yet his will--while making special disposition of his second-best bed and his "broad silver gilt bowl" neither mentions nor intimates that he possessed any literary productions whatsoever.

While the Folios and Quartos usually are signed "William Shakespeare," all the known autographs of the Stratford actor read "William Shakspere." Does this change in spelling contain any significance heretofore generally overlooked? Furthermore, if the publishers of the First Shakespearian Folio revered their fellow actor as much as their claims in that volume would indicate, why did they, as if in ironical allusion to a hoax which they were perpetrating, place an evident caricature of him on the title page?

Certain absurdities also in Shakspere's private life are irreconcilable. While supposedly at the zenith of his literary career, he was actually engaged in buying malt, presumably for a brewing business! Also picture the immortal Shakspere--the reputed author of The Merchant of Venice--as a moneylender! Yet among those against whom Shakspere brought action to collect petty sums was a fellow townsman--one Philip Rogers--whom he sued for an unpaid loan of two shillings, or about forty-eight cents! In short, there is nothing known in the life of Shakspere that would justify the literary excellence imputed to him.

The philosophic ideals promulgated throughout the Shakespearian plays distinctly demonstrate their author to have been thoroughly familiar with certain doctrines and tenets peculiar to Rosicrucianism; in fact the profundity of the Shakespearian productions stamps their creator as one of the illuminati of the ages. Most of those seeking a solution for the Bacon-Shakspere controversy have been intellectualists. Notwithstanding their scholarly attainments, they have overlooked the important part played by transcendentalism in the philosophic achievements of the ages. The mysteries of superphysics are inexplicable to the materialist, whose training does not equip him to estimate the extent of their ramifications and complexities. Yet who but a Platonist, a Qabbalist, or a Pythagorean could have written The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, or The Tragedy of Cymbeline? Who but one deeply versed in Paracelsian lore could have conceived, A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Father of modern science, remodeler

From Shakespeare's King Richard The Second, Quarto of 1597.

The ornamental headpiece shown above has long been considered a Baconian or Rosicrucian signature. The light and the dark A's appear in several volumes published by emissaries of the Rosicrucians. If the above figure be compared with that from the Alciati Emblemata on the following pages, the cryptic use of the two A's will be further demonstrated.