March 8, 2007
-
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE COMES BACK
Born AD 1564, and passed over to the majority A.D.1616.In the epilogue to the 'Tempest,' the last lines Shakespeare ever wrote for the public, he takes leave of the spirit controls which had guided his pen:
Now my charms are all o’verthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is rnost faint.During earth-life I was tolerably acquainted with this world of busybodies, these wondermoingers, these biographers, who, seizing on idle gossip, endeavor to convert it into receivable facts. I made a name in earth-life; I left a name behind me, and though over three centuries have elapsed since my birth on earth, my name is better known to day than when I lived my earth-life. By name William Shakespeare, of Stratford-on-Avon, a son of John Shakespeare, gentleman yeoman, and Annie Arden, of the ancient family of the Ardens, whose pedigree is traceable from the advent into this island of the Norman conqueror. I was the eldest of ten. That is moot question say I was the eldest of ten. Biographers say of seven only. John Shakespeare, my father, told me, and he knew best about it.
It seems a wonderful prevision of God, the power of mind. In whatever station in life a soul may be born. However contracted may be its surroundings, if the Almighty God hath in his wisdom designed that soul to become a teacher to mankind, or, if not a teacher, a soul to ease men of their burthens of care, by giving them the pleasure of relaxation of mind. Or by an exhibition of correct delineations of human passion, and also by an exhibition of lively and pointed wit, a soul that sets himself this task is as much a teacher and benefactor to his brother man as any soul engaged in benefiting mankind in any other way.
Therefore, if God hath designed a soul for advancement, despite its surroundings and its narrow circle, it will inevitably rise upward above its surrounding fellow men. Still upward will soar that soul designed for progress front the beginning of its earthly career, until it reaches the proud position that all men gaze at it. They think of that soul's advancement, and wonder how and why it reached such fame. As well might they make inquiries why the comet chooses its course, or what impels it.
To me it seems as much a wonder that my name should have been rendered immortal as it does to others. If I had received any special advantages in any extraordinary education I should, perhaps, have been brought to think that these advantages were the cause of my immortal fame. But in starting in life I did not possess the advantages of a classical education. My knowledge of the ancients was absolute nil, and of the Latin tongue the extent of my knowledge abides with me just as plainly now as it did when
I left the Free Grammar School at Stratford-on-Avon. Where I went for education, not where I was educated. I remember wading through the substantives in the Latin Grammar. I remember musa, a song , gladius a sword ; magister, a master. Then there is the pronoun, hic, haec, hoc, genitive hujus. I remember that well. I think I got on as far as amzo, amas, moneo, audio, the auxiliary verb being preliminary, sum, es, est, sumus There commenced, and there ended, my knowledge of the ancients. I got on just as well without it.
I was spiritually controlled I was never myself either in acting or writing. Every word of " King Lear " I wrote, hearing the words audiently. “Coriolanus" was another play I wrote after my retirement from London. I wrote this hearing it clairaudiently. "The merry wives of Windsor" was written through my hand in nearly illegible characters. I had been with Drayton and Ben Jonson, having a social glass together, and after our carousal, for it finished with one, I stopped at the inn where it took place and filled seventy-four sheets of manuscript from 2 A.M. to 4-35. This was "The Merry Wives of Windsor.” You have read my maiden efforts--my "Venus and Adonis" was my first invention. I dedicated it to Southampton’s Earl, with an apology for its dedication.
I had just come up to the great metropolis, leaving the wife and children at Stratford. I was friendless and was being prosecuted. There had been a night frolic between a few of Stratford's youthful sparks and I had joined them, and we trespassed on Sir John Lucy's ground, his park at Charlecote, and shot a deer. Of that, I with others was accused, and ultimately a warrant was issued for my apprehension. So chagrined was I with his conduct, that I wrote a ballad, giving him a coat of arms three lice, I called them “luses.” in imitation of his name, "Lucy". This ballad-so well was he known about Stratford-on- Avon-became popular, and its author most unpopular, and so I came up to London.
I wrote "Venus and Adonis" under control, also "Coriolanus” and "Anthony and Cleopatra." Five plays I think I wrote in all; I was thoroughly controlled when I wrote, and when anyone came in at any time before I was restored to consciousness, they would be struck, and pass remarks upon my want of attentiveness; they would charge me with an absence of consciousness. I put it all down to meditativeness I knew it was something beyond myself, but I dared not mention it. I was always deemed eccentric.
I was right royal in friendships, and indifferent to those for whom I felt no partiality; in fact, I was a man of extremes, a Sensitive, a term which embraces all the eccentricities of a soul tabernacled in clay. Asked to name some of the spirits in his sphere, he said I have seen Spenser spiritually I am in the same sphere with Ben Jonson and Drayton, and Pope, the eccentric gloomy soul, is with us. Cardinal Wolsey is one of our sphere. Asked whether Byron, Coleridge, or Shelley were in his sphere, he said Byron is not with us Shelley is not with us, Coleridge is not with us but I have heard of them.
There is one whom I not think you have heard of-I mean Robert Southey, I love him. Asked about Sir Isaac Newton, he said Isaac Newton is in a sphere above ours. Those whom men consider the least on earth are often the highest in God's kingdom, and stand on the proudest pinnacle. They are held superior for different possessions than for what men would expect them to he held superior. It is only the spiritual man who will be spiritually received or acknowledged. We have listened to melodies of some of the greatest musical composers in our spheres - we have also got artists, sculptors, and the great architect, Sir Christopher Wren, is also with us.
Ray, the naturalist, is in our sphere-I mean John Ray, he who systematized the botanical species. Sir Walter Raleigh is with us I knew him in the flesh. I was only eleven years old when I saw Sir Walter Raleigh on the way to Kenilworth Castle. I saw Queen Elizabeth on her way to visit the Earl of Leicester. Lord Bacon is in our sphere, so are Adam Pynaker and Benvenuto Cellini.It is the spirits from our sphere that are coming to you. The first of them was Cardinal Wolsey. The sphere in which is Sir Isaac Newton is the one above us, and it is the sphere of spiritual investigation.
On another occasion, November 23, 1906, asked by the Editor, through Mr. Harry Harrison, the sensitive, to name some of his special friends, he said Charles Dickens I am intimately acquainted with, Sir Thomas More, and another, that grand man whom many in your world disowned-they called him Ingersoll. Asked what other great men were with him, he said Great men? What you call greatness pertains only to the earth.
That which the world calls greatness is too often a sepulchre without a tenant, a shell without a kernel, or only a dried and withered one within. We see that he alone is great who is great interiorly. A name is oftentimes a millstone hung round one's neck. Ah! what a sham the world is. Asked if he had controlled many media upon this earth; he replied why should I? Many claim that I have spoken through them; but I assure you that the number could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Asked why he did not acknowledge his indebtedness to the Spirit world for his plays, he said had I done so my head would have been off within a week. What I have further to say than what I have already said is, that after a successful life upon earth I had a happy, joyous transition, and a welcoming reception in the spirit spheres.
