By Dr. Ron
Shane and Assisted by Karan Pandher,Lauren Kupis, and Alva Liang
Abstract
This
article looks at Shakespeare as a viable practitioner of the Shamanistic arts.
This visionary poet in his last known play, The
Tempest, appears to reveal his proclivity for the modulation of the
ineffable forces of nature. In the author’s view, The Tempest is not a fictional account of Shakespeare’s mystical
predilections, but rather represents his actual powers to govern human and
subtle forces. There is viable support presented in this work that Shakespeare
has acquired similar mystical abilities characteristic of other indigenous
Shamans. This article is essential for any scholar who is interested in the
relationship between mystical art and indigenous Shamanism.
Shakespeare is a visionary artist, but likewise can be
considered a prodigious shaman. This Renaissance artist certainly actualized
his numinous body, and could readily coalesce with a higher dimensionality of
the celestial realm. He wrote the following in his play the Mid-Summer Night’s
Dream: “The poets I in a fine frenzy rolling,/ does glance from heaven to
earth, from earth to heaven,/ and imagination bodies forth/ forms of things
unknown, the poet’s pen/ turns them to shapes, and gives to aire nothing a
local habitation and a name/ such tricks with strong imagination…” (1). What is
Shakespeare referring to by “a fine frenzy rolling”? It is evident as with
Plato’s dialogue, the Ion, that the Shamanistic artist’s plume powers of
perception are not limited by the dismal shade of ratiocination or what
Nietzsche explicated as Apollonian Consciousness. Higher theosophy and
epistemology merge, and become intertwined in mirthful rhapsody or what is
referred to as deductive enthrallment. For Shakespeare, a dull-witted human
entity cannot apprehend phenomena beyond the limitations of reason.
The play of quip can only be ascertained where the mettle of
thought is not tempered by the body’s peevish neurological workings.
Shakespeare in an enigmatic manner stated the following, “For our judgment sits
five times in that ere wants in our five wits” (2). Shakespeare is connoting to
a Shamanistic knowing, which is qualitatively distinctive from the central
nervous system’s conceptual rationality. Visionary artistic genius or
Shamanistic revelry is not the enfetterment of the five senses, but rather a
frenzy rapture experienced from the celestial airy sphere. Thus, for
Shakespeare, the poetic eye in “fine frenzy rolling” is analogous to
Nietzsche’s Dionysian, or Ion’s ebullient intoxication, of what Eliade defines
as a Shaman’s “ecstatic capacities permitting of magical flight” (3).
The traditional shaman in his or her ritualistic revelry are
not concerned like the visionary artist or Shakespeare with providing a forum
“To things unknown,” but would rather in an enchantment of occult ceremony
ravishing the arcane delirium of others in his or her tribal unit. Shakespeare
appears to be more likened to a Dionysian playwright who utilized the pageantry
of theatre to ascend the energy dynamics of the etheric body. It is the
author’s contention that heuristic non-cathartic theatre is likened to occult
ecstatic seething ritualism, which was the principle focus of atavistic tribal
units. For Shakespeare, the play was a thing to display his reverence for
paganistic euphoric delirium; and festively mock the dull-witted mediocrity of
knavish Western consciousness.
Traditional shamans are not concerned with giving “A local
habitation and name” to provocative factors of the ineffable celestial realm.
The frenzied Jaguar queen is exalted by the delirium of purely coalescing with
the celestial sphere as well as bestowing this intoxication to others as her
etheric body is mystically enamored with nirvanic ecstasy.
Goethe compares the artistic powers of the body’s numinous
essence with the mundane conceptions conjured by the central nervous system’s
neurological machinations. This artist expresses the following view “One
impulse art thou conscious of, at best, never seek to know the other; two
souls, alas reside within my breast, and each withdraws from, and repels, its
brother: one to the world is bound in clinging lust, the other soars, all
earthly ties unhood, to join ancestral gods, far from this dusk, in fields
where naught mundane is needed” (4).
Goethe appears to regard these two distinctive powers of
aesthetic apprehension as being seemingly contentious. Conversely, Shakespeare
mocks the baser sway of peevish ratiocination. This shamanistic artist tempers
not the marvelment of inspired revelry even when depicting licentious bawdy
behavior. Shakespeare writes the following: “It would anger him/ to raise his
spirit in his mistress’ circle/ of some strange nature, letting it down-/ that
were some spite…” (5). This visionary artist’s shamanistic puissance
ecstatically soars even when explicating the salacious mundane. Even Plato was
cognizant of the frenzied powers of the shamanistic artist, and Socrates states
the following regarding the ascendant powers to perceive the shamanistic
celestial realm: “The gift which you possess of speaking excently about Homer
is not an art, but, as saying, an inspiration… For all good poets, epic as well
as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are
inspired and possessed. And as the Korybartian revelers when they dance and are
not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when
they are composing their beautiful strains…” (6). Plato and Socrates possessed
only a vague comprehension of the mystical powers of the numinous body.
Western philosophy which is the conceptual study of
provincial epistemology cannot apprehend the metaphysical knowledge, that
defies the baser machinations of the corporal body’s sensory faculties.
Aristotle further denigrates in his work The Poetics, sagacious perception
liberated from puerile empirical veracity. Shamanistic ontological genesis
which in Jungian terms is the principal aspect of the human collective
unconscious is desecrated and ruinously annulled by the virulent epigenetics of
the contemporary social reality. Most post-agrarian visionary artists
associated with Western culture, except for Shakespeare were unable to
actualize the numinous body’s Shamanistic powers.
Plato and Socrates did not comprehend that philosophy was
the desiccated raiment of the shaman’s ecstatic puissance; and should be
regarded as a quintessential metaphenomenon where the ascendant etheric body is
rapaciously transformed by a succinct facet of the celestial sphere.
Contemporary universities abstain from facilitating students to experience the
inspired fecundity of the body’s frenzied sentience. Freud’s analysis of Id as
well as Aristotle’s disquisition regarding theater is emblematic of the
wretched servitude and enfetterment of the body’s libidinous power where it is
formidably disinclined to experience heuristic mystical metamorphosis. Thus,
the numinous body is invidiously severed at the sex chakra.
Shamanistic practitioners and visionary artists like
Shakespeare are able to blithefully liberate themselves from cognitive
structures related to pedestrian empirical reality, which constricts the
ineffable powers of the numinous essence. The baser artist is engulfed in the
phantomorgia of the subconscious, like that of the protagonist in James Joyce’s
Ulysses. 21st century artists have allowed their etheric essence’s
powers of metaphysical apprehension to become desiccated where only the dearth
of constricted perception or this storehouse of outward experiences is the
impetus or their mode of creation. Shamans and visionary artists forsake the
province of ratiocinations or subconscious reflective sensibilities in order to
be edified by the ecstatic enthrallment of the celestial realm. Socrates
further explicates the rhapsodic impassionment of Shamans and visionary artists
who are intoxicated by the frenzy marvelment of coalescing with the celestial
realm.
“When following under the power of music and meter, they are
inspired and possessed like bacchanalian maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when
they are under the influence of Dionysus nor when they are in their right mind”
(7).
Shamans in visionary artists are experiencing the body’s
ineffable powers to merge with the celestial sublimity which provides not only
rapacious metamorphosis to the numinous body, but more importantly ecstatic
mystical knowledge that is not delimited by the central nervous system’s
empirical neurological perceptions.
The shamans mercurial ecstatic rites and the visionary
artists’ muse propelled maniacal euphoria is the same metaphenomenon where the
numinous body translocates consciousness from monolithic perceptions to higher
arcane machinations. The use of Ayahuasca can facilitate the occult frenzied
transformation of a Dionysian male and Dianic female if they are ardent
practitioners of the mystical arts. Atavistic civilizations prior to the
cultivation of plants pursued ecstatic ritualistic enchantment where the Jaguar
Queen, and Dionysian shamanistic males were the progenitors of the occult
ecstatic delirium.
Renaissance artists like Shakespeare and Edmond Spencser
would have been shamanistic hierophants if they resided in pre-Agrarian
indigenous societies; and also they would have been able to thoroughly unfurl
their mystical powers in occult revelry. Artists like Keats and Shelley realize
that their cultural milieu represents a formidable stultification to unleash
the numinous body’s paradisaical powers of ecstatic metamorphosis. The disquiet
of solitary pursuits like the protagonist in Keats’ epic poem Endymion is the
metaphysical ostracization of the modern authentic shamanistic artist.
Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle are wretched captives of the
manacles associated with pejorative ratiocination where their conceptual
renderings represent their loathsome servitude. What has referred as being
“inspired and possessed” is in actuality the metaphysical liberation from the
constricting gyves of conceptualization or the epistemology of mystical dearth.
Aristotle explicates in his philosophy of theatrical arts in his work The
Poetics where rhapsodic ecstasy is replaced by the dismal languid wretchedness
of emotional catharsis, and this is the metaphysical prison house which harbors
the modern etheric essence or its higher ecstatic revelry.
Shakespeare writes in Romeo and Juliet how the etheric
essence can experience rhapsodic revelry, “To of the fairest stars in all the
heaven, / having some business do entreat her eyes/ to twinkle in their spheres
so they return. / What if her eyes were there, and they in her head? / As
daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven/ would through the airy region stream
so bright/ that birds would sing and think it were not night” (8). Romeo’s fervid ecstasy is not harbored in the
confines of the soul but rather the euphoric marvelment of his ascendant
numinous body as it prodigiously penetrates into the celestial effulgence.
Shakespeare’s allusions not only ravage away the delimiting
constrictions of ratiocination where the etheric body is in a Dionysian frenzy,
but further inspires with nirvanic luminosity. For Shakespeare as a Shamanistic
artist, the theatricality of his poetic works is a scabbard to conceal the
maniacal occult powers of his transcendent numinous body. Romeo and Juliet may
have been regarded by Shakespeare as a mockery of modern debasing antics or
edicts, which derogates the etheric essence to an ostensible stultification.
The taciturn ineffable puissance of Shakespeare’s mythic poetics can be likened
to an atavistic ecstatic mystical right with the intent of inducing maniacal
apotheosis.
The following passage from Shelley emphasizes that
Shakespeare’s narrative is there to be only concordant with contemporary
ratiocination and that the frenzied rhapsody of his poetic revelry represents
an ascendant ecstasy:
“A poem is the very
image of life expressed in its eternal truth. There is this difference between
a story and a poem, that story is a catalogue of detached facts which have no
other connection than time, place, circumstances; cause and effect…” (9).
Shakespeare as a shamanistic artist is lucidly focused on the incensement and
invigoration of the body’s etheric essence, not upon in the words of Shelley,
“The one is partial and applies only to a definite period of time, and a
certain combination of events” (10). Shakespeare in the following passage is
rhapsodically educating the interior body to be blithefully, and resplendently
inchoated with the celestial realm in a manner similar to a Jaguar Queen in an
occult ritual inspiring others with maniacal euphoria.
“…For thou art/ as glorious to this night, being over my
head,/ as is a winged messenger of heaven/ upon the white-upturned wandering
eyes/ of mortals that fall back to gaze on him/ and he bestrides that the
lazy-puffing clouds/ and sails upon the bosom of the air” (11).
Shelley states that higher poetry should develop “new and
wonderful applications of the eternal truth, which it contains” (12). The
quintessence of Shakespeare artistry is not in the pedestrian nature of his
narrative matriculations, but rather in the seething deceiving abstruseness of
Shakespeare’s shamanistic enthrallment where his numinous body is inspired to
transcendent ectstaticness.
Shakespeare in his last known play entitled The Tempest
reveals himself to be endowed with Shamanistic prodigiousness. He writes “My
high charms work, and these my enemies are all knit up/ in their distractions:
they are in my power” (13). This visionary artist appears to be very familiar
not only with blending with celestial energies with the intent of inducing
nirvanic metamorphosis, but Shakespeare professes in a seemingly fictional
manner to have zealous expertise in modulating furtive forces. The Tempest
represents a veil of fiction; however, Shakespeare may actually be revealing
the machinations of his acumen as a light sorcerer in this seemingly apocalyptic
work.
Shakespeare through the character Prospero depicts his
Shamanistic powers in the following manner:
“If by your art, my
dearest father, you have/ put the wild waters roar allay them/ the sky, it
seems, would pour down striking pitch/” (14). Is the persona of Shakespeare
living in Elizabethan England an actualized prophetic sorcerer of the Shamanic
arts? The authentic identity of the person who actually pinned the plethora of
plays bearing the name of Shakespeare is still enigmatic and most likely it was
not the peasant author.
There is some speculation that Elizabethan Theater was a
ruse for thriving maniacal occult practices. Shakespeare may have been an
expert in dissembling robes or miraculous deception in order to conceal that he
was an advanced hierophant of the occult arts. Queen Elizabeth as depicted by
Edmond Spenser is a quintessential Dianic female whose mystical powers are
ecstatically intoxicating. Is the Shakespearean play The Tempest actually a
non-fictional account of the metaphysical puissance of Shakespeare and others
who were able to govern cryptic forces in a manner similar to atavistic
omnipotent Shamans?
Shakespeare further states through the character of Prospero
the following regarding the arcane powers to modulate other human entities as
well as aspects of the environmental milieu:
“…lend my hand, / and
pluck my magic garments from me- so: / lie there, my art… the direful spectacle
wrack which touched/ the very virtue of compassion in me, / I have with such
provision in my art” (15).
The utilization of celestial forces to modulate the psyche
of other human entities; and the disposition of naturalistic factors represents
a very advanced level of metamorphosis of the etheric body, and this translates
into the cultivation of higher Shamanic powers. There were many visionary
artists who have been able to be ecstatically inspired as a function of
prodigiously blending with the furtive effulgence of the celestial realm;
however, they could not govern the actions of others or control the terrestrial
forces of nature. The ensuing chapters of this text depict how authentic
shamans become skillful at symbolic warfare as well as medicinal healing
practices. Moreover, what Shakespeare is referring to in The Tempest is the
apex which the shamanistic practitioner can achieve. Those less advanced
shamans with respect to the stellar exquisiteness of the etheric body could be
themselves deleteriously modulated by furtive forces. Shakespeare represents
Prospero as an elite Shaman who can govern a provocative spirit power to
modulate a diverse array of naturalistic factors.
Shakespeare writes in his play King Lear: “And take upon us
the mystery of things, / as if we were god’s spies…” (16). Shakespeare is
purporting that it is dismal and woeful when humans are not able to acquire the
visionary zeal of synesthesia or when they can’t experience a kind of mystical
apprehension beyond the sphere of their physical limitations. The gyves of
Lear’s baser perception is tempered of the character Edgar’s shamanistic
cunning who is not impeded by the neurological workings of his ego or superego.
Shakespeare is one of the only western visionary artist who likewise acquired
shamanistic puissance. This Shamanistic artist is elevated to a more enhanced
tier of nirvanic consciousness. The following passage from Plato’s Ion
represents a lower ecstatic level of perception:
“The gardens, and flowery veils belonging to the muse’s,
from fountains flowing there with honey, gathering the sweetness of their
songs, they bring it to us, like bees… nor do they tell us untruth. For a poet
is a thing like, in volatile, and sacred; nor is he able to write poetry, told
the muse entering into him, he is transported out of himself” (17).
Shakespeare is more inwardly nirvanic than other visionary
artists like Ion who can become impassioned with frenzied mirth by coalescing
with the celestial marvelment. The collective nature of the experience of being
incensed by the prodigious realm is a universal meta-phenomenon.
Authentic Shamans like Shakespeare is not only delighted by
celestial enchantment, but have acquired the metaphysical acumen to profusely
penetrate to an omnipotent clime, and can magnificently modulate these mystical
powers to govern others and the matrix configurations of earthly nature. In The
Tempest, Prospero’s modulation of the character Aerial’s ineffable wonderment
represents the artful cunning which Shakespeare could induce through the
maniacal occult ritualism of his theatricality. “The super-natural solicitation”
in many of his plays is more than a fictional extravagance, and it actually
pertains to his advanced shamanistic practices.
Shakespeare’s poetic artistry is a kind of mirthful raiment
concealing the mystical delirium of his atavistic occult ritualism. The actual
mystique of this Shamanistic hierophant can only be discerned through the
stealth praxis of his metaphysical sentience. Shakespeare certainly reveals the
naked provocativeness of the etheric body in the following passage from the
play entitled The Twelfth Night: “Oh spirit of love, how quick and fresh art
thou,/ that not withstanding thy compactly/ receiveth as a sea, not enters
there,/ of what validity and pitch so ever,/ so full of shape is fancy/ that it
alone is high fantastical” (18).
This passage from Twelfth Night represents a more tempered
arcane praxis of a Shaman compared to the mystical prodigiousness of Prospero.
Shakespeare states the following in The Tempest regarding his Shamanistic
mystique:
“Open and let them forth/ by my potent art, but this magic I
hear adjure…. Which even now I do-/ to work my end upon their senses, that this
every charm is for…” (19). Shakespeare is a Shamanistic artist of high
fantastical; and an ecstatic mentor to the etheric body.
Sources
1.
William
Shakespeare, Mid Summer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare Complete Works, New York:
Harcourt, Brace, and the World 1952 Page 536.
2.
William
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Methuen Drama, London: 2012 Page 160.
3.
Miracea
Eliade, Shamanism, Bollinger Foundation, Princeton, Princeton University Press,
1964 Page 6.
4.
Joann
Wolfgan Goethe Faust: Part 1, New York, Collier Books, 1962 Page 78.
5.
William
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, OP. cit Page 183.
6.
Hazard
Adams, Critical Theory Since Plato, Plato/The Ion, Harcourt, Brace, and the
World 1971 Page 14.
7.
Plato,
The Ion, Ibid. Page 14
8.
William
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, OP. cit Page 187.
9.
Percy
Bysshe Shelley, Defense of Poetry, Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley, Ed.
Carlos Baker, New York, Modern Library, 1951 Page 499-500
10.
Shelley,
Ibid, Page 499-500
11.
William
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, OP. cit Page 188.
12.
Shelley,
Ibid, Page 499-500.
13.
William
Shakespeare, The Tempest, Random House Inc. New York, 1958, Page 91.
14.
Ibid,
Page 9.
15.
Ibid,
Page 13.
16.
William
Shakespeare, King Lear, Methuen, London, 1972 Page 188.
17.
Plato,
Ion, In Blake and Traditions, Volume 1, Ed. Kathleen Raine, Princeton: Princton
University Press 1968, Page 412.
18.
William
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Menthuen, London, 1975, Page 6.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, OP. cit Page
116. 
