William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( b. April 26, 1564 - d, April 23, 1616) was a English playwright, poet, and dramatist.
Biography
Influence on H. P. Blavatsky
H. P. Blavatsky held Shakespeare in highest regard. The Introductory of The Secret Doctrine begins with his words from Henry the V, "Gently to hear, kindly to judge."[1] She further states that "Shakespeare, was and will ever remain the intellectual "Sphinx" of the ages"[2]
Theosophy and Shakespeare
Shakespeare is also mentioned in the Mahatma letters. In one of his letters, Mahatma K. H. wrote, "My good friend — Shakespeare said truly that “our doubts are traitors.” Why should you doubt or create in your mind ever growing monsters?
Division of Seven
It is not Shakespeare only who divided the ages of man into a series of seven, but Nature herself.[3]
By what prophetic instinct Shakespeare pitched upon seven as the number which
suited his fantastic classification of the ages of man, is a question with which we need not be much concerned; but certain it is that he could not have made a more felicitous choice. In periods of sevens the evolution of the races of man may be traced, and the actual number of the objective worlds which constitute
our system, and of which the earth is one, is seven also.[4]
The life of man he divided into seven ages (Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, l. 143), for "As the moon changes her phases every seven days, this number influences all sublunary beings," and even the Earth, as we know. With the child, it is the teeth that appear in the seventh month and he sheds them at seven years; at twice seven puberty begins, at three times seven all our mental and vital powers are developed, at four times seven he is in his full strength, at five times seven his passions are most developed.[5]
Notes
- ↑ Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. The Secret Doctrine Vol. I (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978), xvii
- ↑ Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. The Secret Doctrine Vol. II (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1979), 419.
- ↑ Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. The Secret Doctrine Vol. II (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1979), 117.
- ↑ Sinnett, Alfred Percy. Esoteric Buddhism (London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 43.
- ↑ Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. The Secret Doctrine Vol. II (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1979), fn. 312