‘Film project: Spearshaker: Knowledge is Power’

    

You likely have at least heard about the “Francis Bacon was the real William Shakespeare” theory that has been around more than a century; built into that is the notion that Bacon was a Rosicrucian and Freemason. Feel free to pull out your copy of Hall’s Secret Teachings of All Ages and refer to the chapter “Bacon, Shakespeare, and the Rosicrucians.” In short, there is doubt that uneducated, regular guy William Shakespeare could have authored the Folio and the poetry. Some of those plays include sly references to things currently happening at court, and it is contended that Shakespeare could not have known of such things, whereas Bacon had been immersed in it all.

Anyway, a teaser of a film project was unveiled this month, and I hope a full production isn’t far behind. From the publicity:

Spearshaker is an epic historical script for a new film project in development about the Secret Life and Times of Sir Francis Bacon.

The script is the culmination of more than thirty years of historical research into this extraordinary and elusive man. It covers his enigmatic life and the secret aspects of his legacy.

• The lost, last Tudor, son of Elizabeth the ‘Virgin’ Queen
• The true author behind the immortal name Shakespeare
• The leading light and inspiration behind the Rosicrucians, a secret fellowship devoted to a Universal Reformation of the Whole World.

Spearshaker website. All enquiries here.

Watch the concept trailer and subscribe to the YouTube channel to get more updates on film developments.

That’s Jonathon Lawrence Freeman in the title role. Also, if you are on X (once Twitter), seek out @BaconSpeare for frequent news about this fledgling film and all things Bacon-Shakespeare, to wit:

Click here for @BaconSpeare.

And, yes, there is Shakespeare Lodge 750 (constituted 1874) in Manhattan; and, in England, Shakespeare 284 (est. 1792) in Warwick; and Shakspere 1009 (est. 1864) in Manchester.

     

‘The wise man knows himself to be a fool’

     
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

Touchstone in As You Like It
William Shakespeare
1599


The visual medium of the tarot deck, laden with lessons in symbols, could be an ideal way to unpack the varied meanings intertwined in the plots and dialog of William Shakespeare’s tragedies and comedies. This Shakespeare Tarot might be proof.

This is not the first attempt to marry Shakespearean meanings with the voice of tarot cards, but I want to share the news of the publication of this deck because the art created here is arresting for its fascinating (but sometimes a little too busy) Renaissance-style imagery.

Click the images to enlarge.

Touchstone, Page of Crowns.

Ace of Cups.

Edmund, 5 of Swords.

Malvolio, 4 of Crowns.

Ophelia, 9 of Swords.

Othello, The Devil.

Richard II, 2 of Staffs.

Virgin Queen, High Priestess.

Designed by Chris Leech and published by Welkin, this 78-card deck has the 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor, and there is an explanatory book available to decode it all. The cards measure 5.75 x 3.5 inches, bigger than typical decks.

The deck can be purchased for $50; the key also costs $50; but they can be bought together for $75 by clicking here. As far as I can tell, it is due out in July.

Read the content of the website and peruse all the cards. There is a passion here I can admire.
     

‘Much Ado about Threefold Center’

     
The Anthroposophical Society’s Hudson Valley campus, the Threefold Educational Center, hosts an amazing variety of programs aimed at infusing spiritual values into the arts, education, and community life, and the gentle people there have been doing it for 90 years.

While I have been enjoying the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s 30th season already this summer, I’m going to make time for this Threefold presentation too. From the publicity:

Babbling Brook Players Present

Much Ado About Nothing

by William Shakespeare

Sunday, August 14 at 6 p.m.
Admission: Free
($20 suggested donation)

Green Meadow Waldorf School, Rose Hall
307 Hungry Hollow Road
Chestnut Ridge, New York


Come spend an evening with Rockland County’s own Babbling Brook Players and a cast of characters that are sure to make you laugh and feel great in one of Shakespeare’s best comedies of love that triumphs over any gossip and mischief.

Courtesy Babbling Brook Players

Sponsored by Threefold Educational Center and the Green Meadow Waldorf School.
     

‘April in Anthroposophy’

     
The following is my highly selective choice of events upcoming this month at Threefold Educational Center in Chestnut Ridge, New York. There’s a lot more. Click here. From the publicity:

Piano Trios Plus!

Sponsored by Rockland Symphony Orchestra

Sunday, April 10 at 4 p.m.

Join us for an afternoon of beautiful music at the third performance of Rockland Symphony Orchestra’s 2015-16 Chamber Concert Series. The program will feature the Melos Trio & Friend performing:

• Dvorak’s Piano Trio in E minor Op. 90 “Dumky”
• The Phantasie Trio in C minor (1907) by Bridge
• Beethoven’s Piano Quartet in E flat Op. 16

The Melos Trio & Friend are Fredrica Wyman (piano), Karen Gilbert (violin), Edward Simons (viola), and Stephen Reid (cello).

Admission: $20 General, $15 Seniors, $10 Children (ages 12-18). Children under 12 free.

Piano Recital by Marcus Macauley

Fourth Year Dornach Fundraiser

Sponsored By Eurythmy Spring Valley

Sunday, April 17 at 4 p.m.

This afternoon recital will include:

• Three Preludes and Fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier
• Brahms’ Four Piano Pieces, Op. 119
• Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D.960

Marcus Macauley

Marcus Macauley has been playing the piano and writing music for most of his thirty years. Born in Seattle, he won his first concerto competition at age 11. Before graduating high school, he had performed with seven orchestras, including Seattle Symphony, and won six national composition awards. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he premiered dozens of works, he has collaborated with such musicians as Brad Lubman, Thomas Buckner, and Truls Mørk, and had master classes with George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, John Perry, and Charles Rosen. Since 2009 he has been a resident musician for Eurythmy Spring Valley and toured with eurythmists throughout the U.S. and in Switzerland, Taiwan, and China. His principal teachers have been pianists Michi Hirata North, Peter Mack, and Vincent Lenti, and composers Janice Giteck, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez.

Suggested donation: $20/$10 students and seniors/$5 children. All proceeds to support the Fourth Year, Class of 2016 Graduation trip to Dornach, Switzerland.

Celebrating Shakespeare:

A Performance to Honor

the 400th Anniversary of the Bard

Sponsored By Threefold Educational Center

Saturday, April 23 at 7:30 p.m.

[On the 400th anniversary of his death,] an evening of eurythmy, speech, sonnets, dramatic monologs, and a eurythmical exposition of Act II of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Admission: $16 suggested donation.

Christian Rosenkreutz

with Rev. Bastiaan Baan

Sponsored by the Seminary

of the Christian Community In North America

Monday, April 25 through Friday, April 29

This course will take place on the occasion of the publication of the English translation of The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz with commentary by Bastiaan Baan.
The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz is one of the most important writings of esoteric Christianity, first published anonymously in German in 1616. It is an allegorical story divided into seven journeys about how Christian Rosenkreutz was invited to a castle to assist the “chymical wedding” of the king and queen.

The word “chymical” refers to alchemy, or the uniting of opposites—hence, the sacred wedding. It is a book concerned with the inner transformation of the soul. Bastiaan Baan’s interpretation and commentary makes this work accessible to readers of today, and shows the special language used by the author to express the meditative content of his text.

Fee: $150.

In Concert: Magical Strings

Sponsored by the Fellowship Community

Wednesday, April 27 at 4:30 p.m.

Philip and Pam Boulding

Experience the vibrant ringing sounds of Magical Strings, as Philip and Pam Boulding bring their Celtic Harp & Hammer Dulcimer to the Fellowship Community! Their music, described by the Washington Post as “sonically gorgeous,” will carry you to sublime realms with ancient airs and have you dancing to lively jigs and reels. Their unique compositions and stories will take you to Ireland and beyond. Philip and Pam, who have been touring internationally for 37 years and have recorded more than 20 albums, will be performing on their own hand-crafted instruments.

Admission is free; donations are welcome.

From the Victorian to the Modern Poets:

A Poetics Course

with Coralee Frederickson, Ph.D.

Sponsored by Eurythmy Spring Valley

Thursday April 28, 9:35 a.m. to 2:55 p.m.

Friday, April 29, 9:35 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.

Wilfred Owen

Continuing on from her course on American Romantic Essayists and Poets, Coralee Frederickson, Ph.D., will draw us from Alfred Lord Tennyson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, in the late 19th century, into the modern, poetic voices of the 20th century, beginning with the work of Wilfred Owen, a representative of World War I poetry. The diverse styles of e. e. cummings, Dylan Thomas, and Seamus Heaney will be explored, among many others.

Coralee Frederickson, Ph.D. has been the School Leader at Den norske Eurytmihøyskole, in Oslo, Norway, as well as the Program Director of their B.A. Completion Program, which was hosted over two cycles at ESV. Coralee is now the Co-Director of the Alanus University M.A. Program in Eurythmy, which is based in Alfter, Germany, and is also bringing a cycle of their program to our campus.

Course fee: $75.
     

‘Shakespeare at Anthroposophy NYC’

     
When you are active in Freemasonry and/or kindred arts, you appreciate and endeavor to harness the science of language and, with that in mind, I will be at Anthroposophy NYC on the 21st for this lecture and performance. From the publicity:

Shakespeare and the Mystery

of the Human Being

Presented by Michael Burton

Thursday, January 21

7 p.m.

Anthroposophy NYC

138 West 15th Street

New York City

Magpie file photo

This evening revolves around the dilemma spoken aloud by Hamlet when he asks, “To be or not to be?” The question means much more than just, Does one go on living? It asks how a person is going to live: With truth, with authenticity, or in a manner that turns their life into a lie? Through 17 excerpts from Shakespeare plays (with Hamlet the most used), actor Michael Burton unfolds this meditation on what it means to be a human being.

Michael Burton has worked with artistic speech and drama for more than 35 years as a writer, speech performer, actor, speech therapist, and voice teacher. He is the author of In the Light of a Child, which turns Rudolf Steiner’s Soul Calendar into poems for children, and is used by many Steiner/Waldorf teachers and parents. He has written and performed one-man plays about Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dag Hammarskjold and World War II kiwi soldier Jim Henderson.

Burton’s visit is connected with Lemniscate Arts’ project, begun in 2012, to awaken forces of renewal worldwide for the performing arts initiated by Rudolf Steiner. The goal is a globally touring repertory production including symphonic eurythmy (like the New World Symphony Tour of 2004-5), a Shakespeare play using artistic speech and eurythmy, and a new mystery drama written by Michael Burton from an outline of scenes developed by Marke Levene with the characters in Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas.


Click here for more on Hamlet and the power of language.

Burton will perform again, on the following night, at the Waldorf School of Princeton.
     

‘The Holy Nights at Anthroposophy NYC’

     
Another terrific line-up of events planned for the coming weeks at the Anthroposophical Society of New York City. Every evening will begin at seven o’clock, except where noted. Admission to each is free, but donations are welcome. The Anthroposophical Society of New York City is located at 138 West 15th Street in Manhattan.

Celebrating the Holy Nights

at Anthroposophy NYC

Friday, December 26 – Joyce Reilly on “The Christmas Truce of 1914.”

Saturday, December 27 – Jesús Amadeo on “Compassion.”

Sunday, December 28 – Fred Dennehy on “The Esoteric Dimensions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.”

Courtesy New York Times

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival's cast of The Tempest, 2009.

Monday, December 29 – Cliff Venho on “Exploring Artistic Depictions of the Threefold Human Being.”

Tuesday, December 30 – Gisela Wielki on “The Call of Time.”

Wednesday, December 31 – Kevin Dann on “The Fourth Sacrifice of Christ and the Three Preparers of the Path to Golgotha.”

Courtesy HW Sands

New Year’s Day – Joyce Reilly on “A ‘Janus’ Evening.”

Friday, January 2 – Albert Spekman on “Rhythms of Time.”

Saturday, January 3 – Rita Costanzi, harpist, presenting “The Christ Child’s Lullaby” and more.

Sunday, January 4 – Festival and Pot Luck (4 to 7 p.m.). Opening talk by Walter Alexander. Artistic Program: “In a Midwinter Mood.”

Monday, January 5 – Brigida Baldszun on “Eurythmy: Behold That Star.”

Tuesday, January 6 – Epiphany/Three Kings, and “The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson.”


Also from the publicity:

“That which we believe to be born anew symbolically every Christmas Night is the human soul in its original nature, the childhood-spirit of man as it was at the beginning of earth-evolution, [before] it descended as a revelation from the heavenly heights. And when the human heart can become conscious of this reality, the soul is filled with the unshakable peace that can bear us to our lofty goals, if we are of goodwill. Mighty indeed is the word that can resound to us on Christmas Night, do we but understand its import.”

Rudolf Steiner
December 26, 1911
     

‘Full Moon Meditation next week’

   

Full Moon and Autumn Flowers by the Stream, by Ogata Gekko , c.1895.

Color woodblock print at Art Institute of Chicago.

“Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams; 
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright; 
For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
 I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.”

Pyramus
A Midsummer Night’s Dream


There will be a full moon next Monday—Moon Day—so there will be a Full Moon Meditation at the Rosicrucian Cultural Center that evening. From the publicity:

Join us at the Rosicrucian Cultural Center for our Full Moon Meditation.

April 14 from 8 to 9 p.m.

2303 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard

New York City

The Rosicrucian teachings suggest that each of the celestial bodies, including the moon, has a particular influence on our consciousness.

Each Full Moon we will meet to reflect on this influence and attune our consciousness with it.

Everyone is welcome!
     

‘Flashback Friday: Cosmos Becomes Man’

     
This might as well count for Flashback Friday, as I just realized that I haven’t written about the January 11 lecture at Anthroposophy yet, and tomorrow night is the continuation of that lecture series.

Part three of the lecture series titled “In the Midst of Life: Understanding Death in Our Time.” From the publicity:

Life Against Death

Presented by Eugene Schwartz

Saturday, April 5 at 7 p.m.

Anthroposophy Society

138 West 15th Street

Manhattan

Eugene Schwartz explores Rudolf Steiner’s often surprising and sometimes counterintuitive indications about life after death and the Dead, and how they may help us face the challenges of modern life.

In this lecture: As the proportion of elders grows, issues of aging and dying loom larger. Prolongation of life, even eternal life, is the expressed goal of some technocrats and biologists. The infirmities of extreme old age make grim statistics and cofound hospitals, economists, and politicians. Between Luciferic defiance and Ahrimanic fear, what is the mission of death?

$20 admission for non-members.


Anyway, back to Centerpoint on Saturday, January 11, for “Cosmos Becomes Man,” the second of the four lectures that are Eugene Schwartz’s series based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Anthroposophical Society. I missed the first lecture, and, still being unfamiliar with Steiner’s philosophy, I was in for a ride stepping into this lecture cold. The publicity described it thusly: “This lecture will focus on the ‘second half’ of our life after death, beginning with what Rudolf Steiner termed the ‘Midnight Hour’ and ending with our new birth. As we examine this lengthy descent into matter, Steiner grants us insights into such issues as heredity and individuality, love and gender, and karma and human freedom.”

Mr. Eugene Schwartz

I did take brief notes this time, but remember any errors and omissions are attributable to me, and not to Mr. Schwartz. Also, you should know that audio recordings of these talks are being made available online. The first lecture, “Man Becomes Cosmos,” from December 7, is posted, and this second discussion is too. You should listen to those rather than read this, so click here.

Our lecturer began with a quick recap of that first talk, explaining how Steiner taught how human afterlife involved a cosmology that saw a transition of a person’s entire being—the physical, the etheric, the astral, and the ego—into the universe for a period of reflection when the impacts upon others of one’s thoughts, words, and deeds were assessed. Invoking Sartre, Beckett, and Ionesco, he spoke of life in this material world as a place with no exit, a theater of the absurd. “What happens on earth, stays on earth.” But through the use of the techniques of Karma, he explained, we free ourselves from this world. It’s actually something Schwartz attributed to the Jews of antiquity, whose concept and practice of atonement marks the birth of this thinking.

Thus begins existence in the Midnight Hour, the subject of this second talk.

Our spirit, somewhat incarnate in the forms of cherubim and seraphim, are at the most important moment of every human biography—that time when we set about preparing for the eventual return to the physical world, a journey of 500 years. We pass this time giving form to the bodies of those to whom we will be harmonically connected; it is an act that ensures we become social beings, and has the added benefit of resulting in uniquely formed beings (as opposed to a race of nothing but beautiful archetypes, which would happen if everybody could choose their own looks).

This sort of ethereal matchmaking is not a totally unknown concept. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream also speaks of supernatural beings playing matchmaker, albeit with humorous results, but I digress. So, to make a not very long story short, the 500 years pass, and thus the spirit drops down to the physical world, and just happens to make a right angle as it descends the grades of the arc, depicted in this not very clear photograph I shot of the blackboard:

To hear Mr. Schwartz’s explain this himself, with the added benefit of visual aids, click here.

Lecture four is scheduled for May 24.


Anthroposophy NYC maintains a very active and full calendar of events, and I have to point out that I do not mention all—or even most—of them on the Magpie. For that, please sign up for its newsletter, which comes via e-mail monthly, and its other reminders. Click here.

On Wednesday at 7 p.m., David Anderson will continue his 10-part lecture series “Spiritual Beings and Their Work.”

And I very much look forward to April 17, when Anthroposophy NYC will host its Passover-Easter Presentation titled “The Last Supper Transformed for Our Time,” described thusly:

Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples was a Passover seder, which in Judaism celebrates the Exodus from Egypt. Jesus tells his disciples that the wine shall be His blood, and the unleavened bread His body and, to restore all humanity, the Lamb of God replaces the Pascal Lamb of the Exodus.

Today a seder based on this understanding invites a commitment to eradicate all forms of enslavement everywhere. We will celebrate this extraordinary metamorphosis with traditional symbolic items from the Passover Seder plate, and imagine what we would place on it today. Feel free to bring something with you to share in this way.

Starts at 7 p.m. No admission fee, but donations are welcome.
     

‘Transformation is the name of the game!’

     
It’s been a long time since I last wrote about the value of Shakespeare and language to the art of transformation, but I witnessed something pretty spectacular the Friday night before last at The Players worth mentioning here.

The Players hosted a theater troupe from Cape Cod named Elements Theatre Company—and, yes, that’s elements as in earth, air, fire, and water—that performed an amazing “montage,” I suppose I’ll call it, of scenes culled from eight great dramas in a program titled “Labyrinth: A Legacy of Language.” It is part of this theater company’s year-long celebration of this 450th anniversary year of Shakespeare’s birth. These scenes were linked thematically by their explorations of love, trust, infidelity, vengeance, and remorse. They segued into each other obliquely, but effectively. My point is not to write a review, but just for your information the plays sampled, in this sequence, were: The Real Thing, by Tom Stoppard; A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams; A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen; The School for Scandal by Robert Sheridan; Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, and The Tempest by William Shakespeare. The goal was to present immortal moments of the Shakespearean stage and more recent writers’ words clearly influenced by Shakespeare. To showcase the immortality of these words. Words that were here before us, and will be here after we are gone. Words to be acted in “states unborn and in accents yet unknown,” to borrow from Julius Caesar.

The simple set employed by the Elements Theatre Company
at The Players in New York City February 7.

Anyway, after the performance (and an appreciated wine and cheese reception), a panel discussion delved into various implications of transformation in the processes of theater. For instance, there is the obvious external transformation of actors putting on their costumes and make-up. (Take your seat 20 minutes before the curtain goes up at Twelfth Night on Broadway, and you can watch that process.) There is an internal adjustment of the actor as he becomes the role and identifies with it even when off-stage. But there was this other progression they spoke of. Something I would liken to spiritual alchemy—a reorganization of the conscious mind to unlock its greater potential.

Getting back to the title “Labyrinth: A Legacy of Language,” the panelists spoke of language itself as key to the art of transformation. “Transformation is the name of the game!” said Louis Colaianni, a voice coach and author of How to Speak Shakespeare. The panel tore into the concept of “The Word Made Flesh,” to paraphrase St. John’s Gospel. (That actually is the title of another great project the theater company is working on. Click here and check it out.) “We’re in an age when speaking well is suspect,” Colaianni also said, “when it doesn’t sound like telling the truth. We need to foster a natural eloquence in the young.” Panelist George Drance related an anecdote about a friend prompting some laughter by speaking the phrase “burst like a pomegranate” in casual conversation. “No one talks like that!” came the predictable admonishment. “Well, we would if we could,” the guy replied.
     

‘Winter Solstice at the Rosicrucian Cultural Center’

     
“At Christmas I no more desire a rose than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth; but like of each thing that in season grows.”

Biron in Love’s Labour’s Lost

Shakespeare’s Biron is talking about the divine’s order of nature, as if echoing Ecclesiastes 3, but December brings a season rich in symbolism that demands an openness to unorthodox understandings. If you never before have observed a winter solstice, try to make time to visit the Rosicrucian Cultural Center for this ceremony and the programs to follow, and indulge a desire for a mystic rose at Christmastime.

From the publicity:

Join us in celebrating the Winter Solstice with the Festival of Light Ceremony: A sacred ritual whose origin dates back to antiquity; a special mystical musical presentation by professional pianist Henry Butler; and the Imperator’s Universal Attunement Exercise.

Saturday, December 21

Noon - Festival of Light Ceremony

1 p.m. - Spiritual Significance

of the Winter Equinox

3 p.m. - Imperator’s Universal

Attunement Exercise

Rosicrucian Cultural Center of New York City

2303 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard

Manhattan

As Number 6 used to say, “Be seeing you.”