The Tempest is the last play identified with Shakespeare. It was first performed about 1611. There may have been a second performance in 1613. No scripts of these earlier performances are known to exist. was published for the first time as the first play in the great folio of 1623. The basic description of the play is that it is considered a comedy. It is a comedy because it has a happy ending. The second point that has been advanced is that it is a court play. That is the type of production that was performed either under the patronage of some powerful noble or at some event in the court of England. To study the play very carefully is utterly beyond the time at our disposal. But I suggest that those of you who are stimulated by our remarks will do well to read the play at your leisure. and many have declared it by far the finest example of the theatrical literature of the period. Unlike most of the plays that came along in the Elizabethan era, it is not based upon other written material. It is not derived from the French or the Italian or the English. It is a play contrived entirely uh within the fabric of itself. Part of the play is in the form of a prologue. This is not seen on the stage but is referred to and filled in by dialogue as the story unfolds. The simple story of the Tempest is that Prospero, the Duke of Milan, was a very scholarly and thoughtful man who gave his life up largely to pursuit of learning and to the advancement of his own inner life. His brother Antonio therefore gains large authority and to him is assigned most of the responsibilities and duties of state. Antonio was highly ambitious and he contrived to take over the dictum. He did this uh by eliminating uh the Duke, the rightful Duke and his infant daughter. Not wishing to be guilty of their death, he caused them to be put into a small unsea worthy boat and turned loose upon the ocean. By providence they came finally to a mysterious island. An island at that time inhabited only uh by Syorax a witch and her son Caliban. Sakorax was exiled from Alers for black magic and this was her place of exile. Her child Caliban was fathered by a demon. And this constitutes a very intriguing and unusual arrangement of things. The only other creatures of the island were spirits, nature spirits, fairies, gnomes, and so forth. The most important of these spirits was Ariel. And Ariel had been imprisoned in a pine tree by Sakorax. And there he remained until later Prospero released him. When Prospero and his daughter, then an infant, reached the shores of this island, he gradually took command of the land that had originally been ruled by the witch. As a result of this, of course, uh he came into conflict with Taliban and uh had considerable trouble subduing him. He was never able, however, to redeem or reform his nature, and Calibad remained a strange monstrous creation. From some years after, until Miranda, the daughter of Prospero, had grown up, they lived alone in this strange environment. Prospero educated her and instructed her in many of the secrets that he had gained in his long years of research. At the time of his departure from Milan, uh Prospero had a very wise and wonderful counselor, an ancient man called Gonzalo. This wise counselor uh when he found that Prosparrow was to be put into this ship, this little boat and cast into the sea, arranged to hide in the boat a large number of the precious volumes from the ducal library. These books were so important to Prosparrow that he said they were worth much more than his duke. studying these books, educating his daughter and and wielding authority over Caliban, Prospero remained for a long time on the mysterious enchanted aisle. In the meantime, other interesting things were happening. It seems that the Duke of Venice, a Duke of Naples, a more or less nondescript character in the story, but amiable named Alonzo was uh returning from Tunis where he had married his daughter to the king of Tunis. For some reason, much of is made of this circumstance in the story, although it is not visually presented. It is used apparently to tie the story of the tempest to the Aniad of Virgil. In the anid of Virgil, Anias the hero stops at Carthage and Carthage is now Tunis and there he was closely associated with Queen Daido whose affections he did not reciprocate and when he left she committed suicide. Now it is interesting that the daughter of the king of Naples should be married to the king of Tunis which was originally Carthage. And there are several lines thrown in for no important reason obviously in the second act of the Tempest in which this point is hammered in with a tremendous amount of vitality. Now it seems that in the times that uh with which we are concerned, Prospero had become master of magic arts. He had also a magic cloak which made him invisible whenever he so chose. He had a magic staff with which he could draw the circle of his enchantments. and he had his book, the precious volume of all those that he had received from Gonzalo. And at this point, the prologue ends. Now, Prospero has the enchanting ability to create illusions and delusions. And in the pursuance of his art, he contrived a message, a method of revenging himself upon Antonio. He caused a great tempest to arise and founded the ship on which Alfonso was returning from Tunis on the shores of the enchanted Isle. This is an interesting point for the reason that it is all an illusion. It was something conjured up. And when as we go into the story further, we find that there was nothing wrong with the ship. Nothing happened. It was all in the minds. It was all in the experiences of those who were caught in the magic tempest. It is interesting to point out also that in spite of having been cast into the sea, all the members of the ship's group arrived on the island without their clothing even being wet. It is all a system of magic, a a peculiar combination of illusion and delusion. Once they had all arrived on the island, Prospero divided them into groups and he called upon an airy spirit called Ariel to act as his messenger. And through Ariel, he controlled, bewitched, befuddled, and beused all these groups so that uh they did not know what they were doing or really where they were. At the same time, with the king of Naples came his son, Ferdinand, an upright and fine young man, and Prospero contrived a romance between Miranda and Ferdinand. And this romance blossomed and they were finally married and according to the theory at least lived happily ever after. As time went on uh the tone of Prospero's thinking changed considerably and after giving all these strange experiences to these groups, he revealed his true identity as the Duke of Milan. He forgave all of his enemies and together they returned on the ship to which nothing had really happened and uh the Duke the two dukes returned to their dukedoms and all the other members of the cast faded from sight. After he left the island was inhabited only by Ariel and Caliban. Now this is a a rather quick digest. We don't go into some of the lesser characters but this is the main theme of the story and from the time it was written experts, scholars, students on various subjects have tried to understand it. Nearly everyone who has approached it realizes that it has more than one meaning. That it represents some type of an enigma, an emblemata, a strange and mysterious piece of literature. Those who like to assume that Shakespeare wrote it are mostly inclined to admit that other pens were in there somewhere. This is understandable if there were 10 years between the last presentation of the play and its appearance on the polio. Where was it during that time? We know that from the quarttos of the Shakespeare plays these quartto show revisions all the way through and the original quart are not like the text that appears in the first polio edition. Was this play also tampered with? were things introduced into it that were not originally in the court play itself. Now, as we approach the subject, we realize that there are two immediate interpretations possible. The first is that the entire play deals with the theater. the u fact that many of these plays involve the theater and make certain philosophical opinions about the about theater. It causes the scholar to give a moment's pause. For instance, the lines the worlds a stage and men and women only actors on it. They have their exits and their entrances and each one in his day plays many parts. Now this is theater but it is something more than that. It implies the theater of the world. In Hamlet we find the prince of Denmark remarking the plays the thing with which I'll catch the conscience of the king. Play acting within play is not uncommon to the literature and theater of that period. Now if we wish to assume that it is a play and a play only then nearly everything in it is explainable in terms of a kind of natural magic which is called stage craft. Of course, it is obvious that in the first scene where the ship carrying Antonio and the other members from the coast of Tunis, it is obvious that if this is on the stage, no ship sank, no one was thrown into the water, no one swam ashore, no one had his clothes wet because there was no water. It was all a contrivance. It was all stage management. It was all the work of careful cenic disc description and fabrication. If this be the case, there is an interesting line in uh in the tempest in which it is mentioned that the globe itself, the great globe itself uh shall be dissipated, shall be lost. And this globe of course reminds us that the principal theater in which the Shakespearean plays were produced was the globe theater. So now we have a globe that could either be the earth or the theater. If we wish to assume it to be the theater for a moment, then we understand why the whole subject, the whole play is an insubstantial fabric of a vision. that it represents a dramatization in which various characters or sticks of human nature are carefully discussed, unfolded and given their proper emblematic place in a very unusual plot setting. This also brings us to the next situation that we have to consider. Presuming that it is not merely a play uh be tied to theater then there might be other possibilities. We know that originally theater was sacred that it was part of the great cult of Dionus and that within the fabric of the theater were produced the initiational rituals of these particular rights. We know also that all this pageantry was keyed to meaning. That every figure in the story had some part in the great story of human unfoldment. That it was not simply a fictional thing but a kind of mandala suitable to meditation. And this is certainly true of the tempest. Now the next possible interpretation must cause us to pause for a moment and orient the play in time and place. These are very important factors for every thing that descends to us from antiquity is in some way bounded by time and place. Here we have for example the problem of what was the tempest that might possibly have brought this whole p picture into focus. Several have decided that the most likely answer to this is that the tempest was the protestant reformation. Now this was a tempest that swept Europe. It originated with the uh development and uh re release brought about in religion by Martin Luther. It is very interesting just in passing that the crest of Martin Luther was a rose within the rose a heart as within the heart a cross. This incidentally was the device of the Tudtor family, not German. And on the casket of Queen Elizabeth, the symbol of the Tudtor rose is identical with that of L of Luther's crest. This rose also occurs in many different forms and values and has been gradually linked with the idea of Rosacruianism. There was something happening back there that was causing a considerable stir. Now the Protestant Reformation was really the dividing line between medievalism and the modern world. By means of this reformation, the power of the clergy and of the nobility was sharply curtailed. This is the key to a great deal of our story. The Protestant Reformation liberated the possibility of the individual developing a new point of view concerning the world in which he lived and his relations with his fellow human beings. Probably the greatest product of this reformation if which is clearly indicated is Bacon's nova moratum. Bacon has been declared to be in a sense the founder of the modern world in the sense that he was the one who brought together all of the wisdom available to him and fashioned it into a new system of human thought. This human, this new system was substance in substance merely the fact of bringing the philosophies, religions and sciences of man into harmony with the religions, philosophies and sciences of God. It was the first effort uh to impose the laws of the universe upon the conduct of individuals. It resulted in a tremendous change in education. It was gradual and it was bitterly opposed. Every leader in this particular field was under very heavy persecution. entrenched attitudes, the power of the clergy, the dictatorial authority of the kings. These were all threatened and naturally they retaliated in kind. They turned England into a battlefield, not a physical warfare primarily, although revolution did follow, but a battlefield of ideas, of prejudices, of of superstitions, of attitudes, of convictions. This, while it did not appear very powerfully in the works on traditional history, was known definitely to have occurred. Now in this particular situation therefore the playwrights came under evil times. When Puritanism took over in England after the execution of Charles I all theaters were closed. Uh actors were forbidden to perform and were persecuted as individuals. It is said to have been a prologue and the beginning of this situation that contributed to the resolution of Shakespeare to leave London and go back to Stratford. In those days, the journey from London to Stratford was so long and difficult that it promised practical immunity from the uh pressures of political change. In this particular phase of the matter then we have the dawning of a new era. We have a new power rising up a p a p a power of liber liberation of humanism and of transformation. Now as we know today we are in a similar critical period. A period in which factionism becomes intense. a period in which clinging to the old and attempting to escape to the new may often become blood a mass of bloodshed. We are in such a critical moment as was there nearly four centuries ago when the Protestant Reformation really swept away the divine right of kings. This change as in the present time was really a tempest. We are in a tempest now right here in our own world. We are in storms which are both natural and man-made. Climate weather combines and conspires. Earthquake shake the earth. This is indeed a time of great confusion. A somewhat smaller but somewhat equivalent condition existed in England at the beginning of the 17th century. At that time the great conflict to cling to the old or to go to the new was a dominant factor. We know the universities were opposed bitterly to change. So was the clergy and the conflict between the church of Rome and the church of England was intense. It was a time of great strife, but in it was the seed of a new way of life. This seed appears in the tempest in the words of the old counselor Gonzalo. He describes a new way of life, a new world, a new concept of existence in which there should be no war, no crime, no tyranny. that the individual would not be burdened with the labors of peasantry beyond his natural control. That man should return to the contemplation of nature. That he should therefore realize that he has been given a world that can support him and take care of him and give him all the needs and many of the luxuries of life. if he will cease his competitions, if he will overcome his arrogance and will dominate for a little while at least his instinct uh to advantage and ambition. In other words, Gonzalo states the very basic story which has also been associated with Bacon's New Atlantis and in turn with the shipwreck of Sir George S on the Bermudas. All these things were part of a picture that dominated the minds of people at that particular time. It was obvious that such a concept could not be put on the stage. It would have been enough to condemn to death anyone who would outwardly and frankly discuss the matter. Everything had to be done in secret. Though in this particular case of secrecy, we discover for instance that Prospero in the story has three priceless instruments which he values but which in the end he casts aside. The first of these is his magic cloak. He wears this before the world all the time. But when in talking to his daughter Miranda and in other intimate uh details, the stage instructions tells that he takes off his cloak. The second thing that he has is a magic staff with which he draws the circle of his enchantments. And the third thing he has is a great book which contains all the secrets of the world. Now if we uh say for example that Prospero represents the new order and perhaps veils the personality of Bacon himself then we can begin to understand the magic cloak which he takes off and puts on. When Prosparrow wore it he could make himself invisible at will. When he took it off he was visible again. Now we can rather equate this with the idea that a great part of the work of the this new order of things was done in secret. Many books were written without names. They were cloaked. They were concealed. In other occasions, we find that the magic cloak allowed him to move invisibly in a world of his own, a world of secrecy. That is the real meaning of the magic cloak, secrecy. Now, he had a staff. And this is very cute. And most people probably haven't even thought of it. What is a staff? It is a stick you lean on. No one questions this, but a staff is also an establishment of people working towards a common end. We have the post office department with its staff. We have the police department with its staff. The staff becomes a symbol also of a group. Now, if we want any further inclination in this direction, we remember that with the staff, he drew his magic circle. What is a circle? A circle is also a group of people gathered together under some particular purpose for considerations and purposes considered to be important. We know that at that time there was a circle of pope poets and playrights and actors and that these were the closest friends that Lord Bacon had. We also then come to the book and at the end of the play Prospero cries and deeper than it ever plummet sound I'll drown my book. Drowning is a symbol of concealment so that the concealment of the book or the placing of it where it is inaccessible is also part of the original plot and story. Actually now then we have to consider a little bit the political system and the situation it involved. The baconian theory of philosophy and science is based upon experimentation observation and tradition. Bacon's outward texts emphasize all of these points. The entire theory is that man shall no longer follow the dictates of other men that he shall no longer derive his authority from the past or from that for that matter even from the contemporary. The individual the scholar must gain his authority by observation of facts. This involves experimentation, laboratory techniques and everything that it is possible for the individual to learn. He also implies in this there's a foundation that was later to be enveloped by the cloak of the royal society namely the exploration of all parts of the earth to know more about their people to know more about their natural resources to find out about their flora and fauna to determine their character and their nationalities. It was also a continual program of research into man, the circulation of the blood, uh the develop of the new concepts of astronomy by copernicus and Galileo. All these things were part of a great pattern which had as its primary objective human improvement but produced in the course of its development a great amount of human confusion. to finally change the basis of knowledge from tradition to living fact was the great tempest the the transformation uh that was so greatly to be desired. Now in this particular instance we realize from the study of Bacon's writings that they divide definitely into three groups. The first group composed of the nova moanum and other elements and sections of the advancement of science were limited largely to the outlining of an infallible pattern for the advancement of knowledge. This is so clearly set forth that it is amazing even to our present day. The second part of his teaching was essentially philosophical and in this area he gives us a great many uh interesting patterns constant references to classical thinking and of course his wonderful little book the fables of the ancients. He shows his philosophical insight sufficiently in his outward writings to be included among the great philosophers of Europe. His third part was religion. And while it would appear that a scientific advancement might result in the retarding of religion, this was no part of Bacon's plan. Bacon himself declares on a number of occasions that he is a faithful child of the Church of England. He also left to us his essays which are among the finest moral and ethical documents and one of the greatest pieces of English literature. In uh a less well-known category, Bacon has left us a group of prayers addressed to deity. prayers that reveal him as a humble, penitent person, seeking only the common good and desiring only to obey God. These prayers have been declared by scholars to be probably the finest religious documents of the modern world. so vacant by his own light tells us something that has been generally forgotten. Namely, that science and religion are not in conflict. That it is not necessary for the scientist to depart from the essential principles of religion. He may differ with man-made theology, but he will not differ from the laws of heaven. And bacon in one place tells us uh that uh it is essential to realize that a little knowledge may incline men's minds to atheism but greatness of knowledge bringeth their minds back again to God. So Bacon was a scientist, philosopher, mystic whose entire structure was based upon the correct interpretation of the divine law as it manifests in creation. So it has been said and with some perhaps justification that Prospero might represent Bacon himself, his objectives, his purposes and the strange skills that he exhibited. It has also been suggested that Prospero is the new philosophy that he is a personification of the intellectual reformation that resulted in the rise of modern scholarship. It has also been suggested perhaps with equal integration that he personifies the hierofphant of the ancient mystery system of Greece. the master of the play. He is the one who moves all the creatures and all the peoples of the story. He arranges them playing as they were checks or moved as chestmen upon a board of nights and days. For Sparrow is the stage m manager. He is the one who decides when the play shall begin, when it shall end, and the part that each shall play in the production. As a stage manager, if the stage is the world, he represents therefore a concept of what might be termed the philosopher king. He represents the leadership of the world by the best of itself. and that this best of itself uh shall finally come into authority. The magic of Prosparrow is the magic of science. There is nothing that he did that man has not excelled since his time. The miracles on the enchanted island are nothing in comparison to the miracles that have come out of the unfoldment of the scientific theory. The only thing that is the matter with the problem is that the scientist has not made the link with God which is absolutely essential to the preservation of scientific knowledge and its proper use. All these possibilities then cause us to focus for a moment on Gonzalo. Uh, Gonzalo, the faithful friend of Prospero is much like the Merlin of the Arurian cycle and also like the Gernamons of Parival. He is the sage counselor. He is the one who is called upon to transform the scientific facts into moral truths. In other words, he takes the new dimension and transforms it into a moral, ethical, philosophical subject. He points out the implications of knowledge. How each new discovery brings new opportunities not for skill alone but for wisdom. He is taking all truths that the prosper has gathered and assembled and is transforming them into meaning in the lives of the common people. He is showing how not truth in its own nature uh can transform not only the fields of learning but the fields of living. So Gonzalo who is called frequently the wise sage and counselor is inevitably uh the principle of wisdom. Now comes Miranda. Miranda is a very beautiful, very loving, very pure young woman who has known no one but her father and Caliban and some of these uh nature spirits. She has been taught by him and instructed by him and is his confident and whenever he addresses her, he takes off his cloak. Now there's almost no doubt and practically all have agreed that Miranda is the symbol of religion. In other words, Miranda represents the third part of a triad of the mind and the emotions and the efficiency of physical life. So in our little concept we can remember the old Greek socratic triad the one, the beautiful and the good. Obviously Prospero is the one. Gonzalo is the good and between them stands Miranda the beautiful. These form a triad which is basically Christian but is derived as much Christian mysticism is derived from very ancient sources. This triad of the one the beautiful and the good is clearly unfolded by Dionis Arahagus in his mystical divinity. It is also found in St. Augustine's writings and particularly in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. But in any event, we have now a triad, a triad of principles. Principles that are definitely based upon eternal truths in nature. These three are very hard sometimes to fully understand. But we know that Miranda is the confident of her father. We know that she obeys him and she we know also that she knows him without the magic cloak. So we find another very interesting parallel there in spirit, soul and body. In other words, prosparrow is the spirit of the new learning. Miranda is the soul of that learning and Gonzaro is the body of that learning. It is only Miranda the soul that can commune with her father the spirit when he is not cloaked in one of his appearances. She by her own intuition receives his instruction and he is always in communication with her. And the close of association of spirit and soul is very beautifully and tenderly developed. And the supreme cloak which conceals the true purpose of God is the world. The whole of nature all of which is the garment of divinity. And uh to those who are very wise and mystically inclined, those who have had illumination perceive the fact uh directly because they penetrate the cloak and are able to commune directly with their father. This uh situation has many interesting possibilities for development but it certainly lingers as one of the more probable uh elements in the interpretation of the of the story. Now the other members of the cast also have their part to play but they are all related to the world of form. These are the three of the that I've mentioned are the principles. The others are the manifestations of these principles through use or abuse. Antonio is the perversion of religion, perversion of knowledge. He is the one who has falsely taken the control of the universe from his brother and has assumed tyranny. Now this type of thinking reminds us of course that Bacon was fully aware even in his own time of the tremendous abuses that were going to arise in the effort to unfold his teaching. He knew that the first thing the human being would do with greater knowledge is to abuse it. He realized therefore that it was very necessary in some way to convert his brother rather than destroy him. He had to find some way of exposing his own truth. For Pharaoh had to prove that the spirit cannot die, cannot be completely destroyed, and that ultimately it must reveal itself to his corrupt brother. The other pack factor in of course is Ferdinand. Ferdinand represents in the old mystery system the candidate seeking initiation. In other words, Ferdinand is by nature an honorable person. He was the first to leap into the sea from the ship in the delusion which indicates that he was courageous. He was resolved to swim across the interval and finally reach the truth. Ferdinand naturally and and undoubtedly uh with the contrivance of the stage craft actually becomes enamored of Miranda who represents his own soul. Miranda is the blessed demoiselle of Rosetti and is the wonderful mysterious beatatric of Dante. She represents the two Ferdinand the principle of love. The principle that love must be part of the great triad. For the problem of virtue lies in wisdom, love and integrity. These principles bring them together and Ferinan becomes inevitably the bridegroom in this apocalyptic fantasy. Most of the other characters have been introduced primarily for the purposes of a court mask. The sailors with their robust humor and the other individuals involved have very little real significance in the play. They are used most often to tell some part of the production that is not shown. Caliban however does come in with considerable force. He is described as a monster. And when uh prosper tries to teach him to speak, Taliban says all he has learned is to swear better. He is able to curse more grammatically. A pal caliban obviously represents in the field of knowledge not only natural ignorance but a kind of depravity. Taliban is materialism. He represents the power that is constantly attempting uh to justify its own angers, hates, fears and appetites at the expense of the new way of life, the new order of learning. Taliban is the inevitable result of the increase of skill without the increase of integrity. Actually, Taliban attempts to assassinate Prospero. He he attempts to destroy wisdom because wisdom is an appetite he does not know how to satisfy. He wants to destroy the thing that interferes with his right to be wrong. He wants to use all of these skills that have been part of Hosparrow's magic simply to advance his own animalistic tendencies. Materialism, therefore, declares war against integrity, against the new order of learning. Materialism takes the wand and the magic coat to cover its own nefarious actions. Materialism wants knowledge only for one thing and that is personal gratification and that is the Taliban's keynote. He is not interested in the improvement of anything except his own fortunes and he hasn't the intelligence to do anything with his own fortunes. He is simply a blind beastial dedication uh to gratification. In this instance also we have a little thought for Ariel. Now Ariel is one of the interesting characters that appear in certain of the Shakespearean plays. Puck in the Midsummer Night's Dream is another. Ariel is a spirit. His name suggests air. But there is more to him than merely atmosphere. Uh actually Ariel represents power. He is the force, the energy, the life, the vitality in things. He is the one power upon which all science, all philosophy and all religion depends. He is also the power upon which every living creature depends for its own existence. He is invisible except on occasion. He is also a little rebellious against the bondage to prosper and he is constantly urging for pro Pharaoh to let him free or set him loose from the control of pro Pharaoh's magic power. Here we have force and we have a modern counterpart for this situation. Power. Someone once asked Steinm what's the universal principle was and he replied instantly power. The mysterious power not the kind that is tyrannical but the power that activates the power that becomes the moving and living force behind all life. He is the messenger. He carries out the orders. He is subordinate to trust Pharaoh. But he flies about the world in the twinkling of an eye and almost travels as fast as modern television or or these different international communication media. He goes where he pleases. He can be fire in St. Elmo's fire on the mass of ships. He can do all kinds of things. He has innumerable appearances. But always he is begging prosper to set him free. Now this can be given quite an interesting interpretation. We are now having a little trouble with our nuclear installations. We are a little afraid of them. We suspect that we're doing things that we don't understand. And what is this nuclear rebellion which is cutting down or shutting down so many of these plants? It is power seeking to be free to do as it pleases and man variously imprisoning it, variously directing it or misdirecting it. In the Baconian theory, power is a manifestation of the divine will. Even she as Schopenhau comes pretty close to that thought. Power is the ability that does everything. In the hands of Prosparo, this power becomes his messenger and through its use, he finally arbitrates all his differences and forgives all of his enemies. For Pharaoh uses force to set up an illusion and then uses force to overcome that illusion and restore truth. So Eric Ariel is very difficult to portray in this play which has led many people to the suspicion which is probably true that the tempest was not primarily intended ever to be performed. It was to be read. Its general theme was certainly not within the scope of the average Elizabethan theatergoer. It required a great deal more insight and care and consideration. Now to go back again uh to some of the earlier points uh the play has I feel an astronomical foundation also and it is founded not upon the copernican theory but rather upon the ancient system of Tommy for all religions of the ancient world were finally summarized in Tomic astronomy. It became the skeleton on which all the different draperies of belief were hung. They all obeyed and agreed with this essential principle so that it's quite possible and proper to see how this would cooperate with our general discussion. Those of you who are familiar with the geocentric system of astronomy, which was the system endorsed by Tommy and prevalent until the 17th century, this system placed the earth in the center of the solar system. And by the way, the solar system and its old drawings and figures makes a perfect magic island. The solar system is a magic island. It is an island floating in the sea of space. It is also an island to which many creatures including man have been exiled and many philos philosophical works particularly those involving the Robin son or Robinson Cruso cycle show man to be a cast away upon a desert island which he must gradually transform by his own skills. In any event in the tomeic system, the earth is the center and from the body or physical body of the earth there are certain extending bands for the elements the four elements of the ancients which they considered to form earth, water, fire and air. These were the elements and these were the constituent parts of earth as known to the ancients. Outside of these divisions were the orbit of the seven planets known to antiquity. They did not account the earth a planet. Therefore this is following this following the gnostic and palmetic system was called the h sphere the physical earth and in the gnostic writings it is called the abortio. The other planets however are in that proper order. Above the orbit of the four elements is the orbit of the moon above that of Mercury from which one rises to Venus then to the sun after that to Mars then to Jupiter and finally to Saturn who in a sense has drawn the magic circle around the solar system. Now if we uh wish to make an astronomical parallel therefore we can start by simply saying that Saturn is prosper. The powers of Saturn as discussed in various astrological writings fully support this. Saturn in the 10th house which is its natural home is the ruler. He is the head of everything. He is the leader. He is the one who appoints the representatives. And unless perverted or by some bad combination, he re he rules righteously and and contains within himself the principles of all the other planets. Below him is Jupiter, the most philosophical of the planets in astrology. This is Gonzalo who is uh involved in learning superhero rules higher education all these things he is involved in learning he is involved in interpretation he's inter involved in revelation unfoldment and reformation of learning the third one is Mos who undoubtedly represents Antonio because Antonio and Mars are both symbols of violence, of aggressiveness. The good Mars is one of courage. A bad one is one of treasons, strategys, and spoils, a deceiver, a destroyer of good. The next is the son in this order and he is Ferdinand because Ferdinand in the ancient mysteries was always the candidate the sun and the journey through the mysteries was always patterned by the journey of the sun through the zodiac. Therefore the candidate played the sun. That below that is Venus who corresponds uh to the king of Naples who is just returning from his marrying his daughter to the king of Tunis. He is a symbol of emotional unrest. He is constantly involved in the use of emotions to advance his own temporal power by forming allegiances. Alonso then is emotional disturbance and also it's to most people a symbol of the perversion of emotion for self-gratification. Below that is of course Mercury and what could Mercury be better than Ariel? Mercury was the messenger of the gods. He was Pharaoh's messenger. He was the communicator that bound heaven and earth. He was the brilliance of the quick mind. But he was also the mysterious power of vitality. Therefore, mercury was a kind of universal agent. Perhaps the same agent the paraselus called Azoth. That which a man can possess. will make him able to go everywhere, be everything and do everything within the boundaries of his philosophical understanding. The moon of course is Miranda. And here we have another very interesting symbolism for the moon is the mother of the mysteries. She is the great Isis whose veil no man can lift. She is the mother of deorum, the mother of God. And in the Greek she is Ria. In Christianity she is the Madonna. Therefore she properly represents the moon. Now there's an interesting point in this that perhaps many people haven't noticed and that is that we have a touch of alchemy thrown in on us at this point as a means of establishing something that might otherwise be difficult to understand. For in alchemy the great the great work is accomplished by the marriage of the sun and moon. So the happy marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda represents the philosophic union. It represents that union within consciousness itself by which all living things will dwell together in happiness forever. The Chinese have exactly the same thought in their cineabar alchemy for they also refer to the medicine of the sun and moon. The union of the sun and moon is the final reconciliation. And as soon as Prospero has achieved his end in the romance between his daughter and Ferdinand, he begins to undo his magic because it becomes no longer necessary. We have all these elements and of course in this pattern the HC are left out. The aortial is caliban. Uh the symbol of the lower material side of life. The Arabs had an ancient belief that all the evil in the world finally was filtered out of our atmosphere and bade into the body of a dark star which circles around the orbit of the earth. There are efforts have been made to distinguish this. Some astrologers have tried to identify it with Lilith, the deep demon wife of Adam. But in any respect it is a symbol of caliban as they unregenerate the unredeem but to be redeemed in the due course of time. The body cannot redeem itself. It has to be redeemed by the powers within it. And when these powers do not concentrate upon that effort, Caliban remains a monster. There's a further clue to this in the fact that the material earth is supposed to be surrounded or composed of four elements. Earth, water, fire, and air. Each of these has an astrological symbol. Each of these has an emblematic symbol associated with it. And the body of Caliban is a composite made up of these symbols. He represents all the four elements in their monstrous compound which we call the world. Now if we think a little deeper into this thing, we come against something else that's rather confusing but intriguing. And that is the hermetic axiom. That which is above is like unto that which is below. And that which is below is like unto that which is above. This is said to have been inscribed on the emerald tablet found by Alexander the Great in the tomb of Alexander in the tomb of Hermes. In this particular case, the law of analogy intrigues us to wonder what the relation may be between the world form, the world pattern, the world intrigue and man himself as a person. There is no doubt in the world that Bacon's primary consideration in all of his works was the improvement of man. The regeneration of the human being by providing him with facts with realities so inevitable that he could not refute them. Man's regeneration depends upon his return to the divine plan by which he was fashioned. He must obey that which was created to command. He must be part of a plan in which principles are immutable and the individual can never be free except by obeying. So we come now to man himself and his competit constitution and this seems likewise to have a place in the story of the tempest. Most of those who are interested in esoteric matters at all are aware of the multiple bodies of man. They aware of the oric field in which abide the principles of life and also the seeds of the various lower vehicles which involve the lower mind, the emotions, the vitality and the form. Here we have therefore a triad of principles manifesting through a quadr of bodies or vehicles. This is uh very much in line. For here we find for Pharaoh the spirit, the spirit, the highest part of man's constitution by which it is one with and indivisible from the universal spirit. In for all practical purposes, the spirit in man is an aspect of the universal life principle. The God in man is the fragment so to say of the God in faith. This relationship gives finally to the spirit ultimate authority. But the spirit is cloaked in bodies and therefore its direct influence upon man's conscious personality is impaired. The average individual would hardly like to promise or swear that he had a spirit. He does not know what it is. He does not know how to give allegiance to it because he cannot hear it voice directly, nor can he see it. Therefore, to man, the spirit is a mystery. It is a mystery in inscribed and encircled within an enigma. Actually however the center section of the second person of the trinity in man called in the orient the Buddha she chief is partly available for in the Greek system the soul or the second person the savior principle the redeemer is located symbolically in the human heart. The spirit is mysteriously hidden within the deepest vastnesses of the brain, but also in the absolute circumference of the magnetic field. The God within is also the boundary of man's oric structure. Therefore, the soul now becomes the second person of the trinity. The soul is a redeeming power. The soul is the only begotten of the father. Miranda was Prospero's only child. And the spirit instructs the soul in dreams, in visions, in mystical experiences, in strange magic rights which we do not understand and are apt to profane. But the soul becomes the communicating power. It is the middle distance between eternity and time. It is that which by its own nature is able to speak or know its father when he has removed his cloak. When all appearances, all circumstances, all incidents have been removed, the soul communes with its own source. The third of the great principles, the manus of India is the mind. And the mind now is Gonzalo. Now the mind as we study it like all of the other bodies of which it is the highest is stratified. There are many levels of the minds. The most common division is the division between abstract and concrete mind. Abstract mind is best perhaps represented by Gonzalez because he represents thought in principles. Whereas the concrete mind which is only able uh to see the outer semblances of things is more or less captured in the various persons that become incidental to the story because all its flavors are incidental. In the level and substance of the mind itself in the higher realms of intellect is the seat of what we term the self which some call the able. Others like to think of it as the eye in us. This corresponds with individuality and is Ferdinand who is the high who has the power uh to understand has the power to gradually unfold its own resources. In other words, Ferdinand is the personality seeking to be reidentified with its own source. Below this we also have the various levels of emotion. We have the struggle of the abstract and concrete appetite. We have this strange problem that is so well set forth in the dialogues involving Alonso the king of Naples. Confusion. the effort to apply emotions to the advantage of some purpose. Anger, uh, disillusionment, conspiracy, not on the mental plane alone, but the urge to these things as emotional practice in life. Therefore, we find that man's emotional nature is torn between good and evil, between truth and error. And by emotions he drifts towards the gratification of lower appetites or ascends to the realization of higher destiny. Below the emotional rate nature of course is the energy body called the etheric double by some vital body by others the arashic field by still others. Here we have definitely the symbolism of Ariel. Ariel can be transformed immediately into the human nervous system just as Alonso can be the veins and each of the levels has its own proper representative. This aerial now is the life with which we move and have our being. If anything impairs that life, we have paralysis. If it is too greatly impaired and the life supply is cut off, we have death. But life itself does not die. It continues to exist in space forever. But the vital body of man is the link between the two higher bodies and the physical form. If this link is disturbed, then sickness of various kind steps in. And it was one of the paraselsian axioms that most diseases originate not in the body but are transferred to it by abnormalies in the magnetic field. But Ariel's bright as he is also vitalizes the other body. He vitalizes the emotions. He vitalizes the mind. But he only serves prosper. Now in the vitalizing of the various aspects of life which he has as his peculiar proh promise he also is trying to be free. He wants to be liberated from the control of spirit. This is an appearance rather than a fact because he is the actually the energy of spirit itself. Prospero tells him that in due time he will be free. Now the free use of energy is its proper use. It is its use as a building power, a constant reminder to us all that the energy by which we do anything is the divine energy that it is given to us for a purpose for a dedication. We cannot lift our hand without it. But what happens when we lift our hand against our brother? This is disruption of energy. This is abuse of it. And from this abuse, numerous and innumerable tragedies result. Therefore, Prospero continually promises Ariel his ultimate freedom but does not bestow it immediately because man cannot have the full control of vitality until he knows how to use it. In technical thinking, the complete control of this vital principle could end in physical immortality. Because if the flow of energy is not intercepted and in some way blocked, organs continue to function, the mind continues to dream and all things continue to go in the direction which they are intended to go. actually is a vital principle also. Now Ariel has another facet to his nature and that is that he is the power of imagination a imagination in some way by the ancients was linked with the nervous system which is probably proper but it's a combination of emotion of thought and of vitality and these being combined in Ariel we see how they can work out actually as himself tells of us. The whole of creation is a dream. The great problem is that man must learn to dream true. He must learn to recognize that dreams have a strange substance in them. And that perhaps the most important of all dreams is the dream of a better world to come. where imagination projects us into the future. It provides us with the incentives to achieve that future. If we live always in the very common place atmosphere, our own mediocrity, we are afraid to dream. And if we do dream, we have to have nightmares. But to dream true is to anticipate something better. And Bacon's great dream of the new Atlantis was a dreaming true. It was the building of a vision of a kind of architect's diagram, something that did not yet exist in mortar and stone. But this diagram, this picture, this plan would someday be fulfilled. And it is thus with the great dreams of mankind, our sages, our saints, our scholars, our mystics all together, they are the ones that are dreaming of the solutions to things. There's not enough of that dreaming today. We are all locked in the immediate. We are afraid to think of tomorrow and we do not want to remember yesterday. But actually to look forward to something greater and something better is absolutely necessary to us. Bacon could imagine what was going to come but he could only lay the foundations and each of us, each nation, each individual, each generation has to build a solid foundation under its dreams, its visions, its hopes, its dedications. It must build and count much on the substance of things unseen because it is within ourselves in our own inner lives that we are the architects of the world's future. So if you put all these things together and make it kind of a picture out of them, I think you can read The Tempest and get a good deal more out of it because whoever wrote it was very very wise and had a skillful knowledge not only of the times in which he lived but of the future. He was certainly a scholar, a scientist, a philosopher, a mystic and he also had the skill to put these factors together to form an imagery. And when the play is finished, then Pharaoh comes out and makes his little epilogue. The curtain goes down, the scenery changes, and the whole drama ends. But before it ends, the reconciliation of the conspirators, the happy union of Ferdinand and Miranda, and the fact that the ship that they thought had s been sunk hadn't been sunk at all, and they all gathered on it to go back to their homelands. Each therefore went back to his own place, each a little wiser, each a little better for the experience. It is called a comedy because it all ends well. And that is the comedy of life. For somehow inside of ourselves without in spite of our doubts and apprehension, there is a realization that comes to us from our own souls, planted there by the great magician of them all, God. Planted there to assure us that in the end all will be well. And this is really the idealistic summation of this very extraordinary play.