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 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]
Blavatsky also makes numerous references to verses from Shakespeare's work in the Theosophical Magazine, Lucifer.
Perchance, in their unsophisticated wisdom, the philosophers of old were nearer truth than are our modern wiseacres, when they endowed man with a tutelar deity, a Spirit whom they called genius. The substance of this entity, to say nothing of its essence—observe the distinction, reader,—and the presence of both manifests itself according to the organism of the person it informs. As Shakespeare says of the genius of great men—what we perceive of his substance “is not here”—“For what you see is but the smallest part And least proportion of humanity: I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here, It is of such a spacious lofty pitch, Your roof were not sufficient to contain it.”* This is precisely what the Esoteric philosophy teaches.[3]
Shakespeare in Theosophy
As Shakespeare is also mentioned within 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?A little more knowledge in occult laws would have set your mind at rest long ago, avoided many a tear to your gentle lady and pang to yourself."[4]
Division of Seven
It is not Shakespeare only who divided the ages of man into a series of seven, but Nature herself.[5]
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.[6]
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.[7]
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. Collected Writings Vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 14.
- ↑ Chin, Vicente Hao, Jr. The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett in Chronological Sequence (Quezon City, Philippines: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 116.
- ↑ 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