Stevan Davies on Thomas Sayings in Mark Part II, Unit 3

The following passage which is covered in the second article on the use of Thomas in Mark by Stevan Davies, consists of a passage, Mark 4:1-34, which is almost entirely built from Thomas Logia. First, here is the Markan material (NIV):

Mark 4

The Parable of the Sower

 ¹Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge. ²He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: ³"Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. ⁸Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."  ⁹Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
 ¹⁰When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. ¹¹He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables ¹²so that,
   " 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
      and ever hearing but never understanding;
   otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'^[a]"
 ¹³Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? ¹⁴The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ¹⁸Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown."

A Lamp on a Stand

 ²¹He said to them, "Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? ²²For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. ²³If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear."  ²⁴"Consider carefully what you hear," he continued. "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. ²⁵Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."

The Parable of the Growing Seed

 ²⁶He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. ²⁸All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. ²⁹As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

 ³⁰Again he said, "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? ³¹It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. ³²Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."  ³³With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. ³⁴He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

The majority of this material seems to be straight from the Thomas Gospel, with the exception of lines 3-8, 14-20, and 33-34, which Davies thinks were an addition by Mark. We are thus left with the following quotes from Thomas in Mark:

• Mk 4:3-8 cf. Logion 9, in Mk 4:5-6 this is extended somewhat, in the typical explanatory interpolations which we've seen elsewhere, but not so as to change the meaning dramatically.
• Variations of the ears to hear theme are in Logia 8, 21, 24, 63, (65), 96. They occur here in 4:9, and 4:23, and Davies treats them as a "traditional admonition," and there is no evident way that their meaning is construed much differently from the original, although in Christianity statements like this get terribly abused later, since they become the fuel for proselytizing first, and religious wars later, when it gets more strident. There the normal mechanism of projection is hard at work, and people don't use the statements in the introspective way which is still the dominant mode of the Thomas text, but it is turned against others, in a proselytizing and judgmental way. (Note: Pursah's version skips Logion 65)
• Mark 4:10-13 is related to Thomas Logion 62, and the Markan construction per se does not necessitate the later Christian misuse of the passage, which increasingly becomes fodder for the obfuscation of religion, covering up all seemingly unexplainable issues as "mysteries of the faith," as opposed to Jesus' original intention of communicating in a way that could only be validated by experience, which is really the essence of the meaning of mysterion also in the Greek mystery religions, which were essentially directed to experience of the mystery, in the full awareness that words alone were not enough. In Christian parlance the mysteries of the faith are glib constructs to explain away that which seems at odds with accepted perceptions, they are a way for theology to gloss over the seemingly unlikelier aspects of the faith, exactly because it confines itself to mental constructs, and avoids the experiential aspect which is so decisively important.
• Davies also notes that Mark labels many of the materials he borrows from Thomas Logia as "parables," which connects exactly to the observation above, namely that parables point with words to the experience of something that will reveal itself to us only if we do follow Jesus in fact, and will forever remain a closed book, if we confine ourselves to talking about doing it, as most religion does.
• Next interestingly in 4:21 is a parallel to Logion 33, which Pursah rejects for her version, and which material evidently occurs in the sources in several variations. In Christianity this type of a saying proved conducive to fueling the fires of proselytizing.
• Then comes Mk 4:22, an apparent adaptation from Logion 5, and the latter part of 6 (which Pursah disallows). There is nothing here that denotes a pronounce shift in interpretation.
• Mk. 4:25/Logion 41 have nothing particular to offer they are nearly identical. I can't vouch for how this has been interpreted...
• Mk. 4:26-29 Would correspond to Logion 21, which Pursah rejects. It is also a quotation from Joel 3:13 as Davies points out, and so it may be one thing that was put in Jesus' mouth for an editorial  purpose.
• Mk. 4:30-32 parallels Logion 20 closely. Most meanings are obvious by association. One meaning that was probably not intended was the collection of vast real estate holdings.

While in some points we saw here a shift of meaning towards what we might regard as a more Christian mold, none of it was as dramatic perhaps as some of the examples I covered earlier, related to the first Davies article, where there was so much editorial around the sayings that it clearly shifted their meaning in a specific direction. In general it is simply interesting to see how bits and pieces from other traditions are woven into a somewhat coherent narrative by Mark. This stuff just makes a living tradition like this come to life, if you contemplate it a bit.

Whatever became of Thomas?

Here is a video from Gary Renard's Happy Dream Cruise...

Enjoy. Gary at one point was talking about making a movie as a counter point to Mel Gibson's S&M drama about Jesus, to show what a wonderful sense of humor Jesus had. It hasn't happened yet, but here at least you get the tone of the Cruise we just did.

Stevan Davies on Thomas Sayings in Mark, Part II, Unit 2

Stevan Davies' 2nd article on the transition from Thomas to Mark focuses on the section Mark 3:20-35, and in it he sees Logia 35, 44, and common themes with 61, 64,  and 99, and then some usage that is present in 57, 76, 96. 97, 98, 113.

To make it easy, I'm quoting the Markan passage here from the NIV:

Mark 3:20-35 (New International Version)

Jesus and Beelzebub

 ²⁰Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. ²¹When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."

 ²²And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebub^[a]! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons."

 ²³So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: "How can Satan drive out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. ²⁶And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. ²⁷In fact, no one can enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. ²⁸I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. ²⁹But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."
 ³⁰He said this because they were saying, "He has an evil spirit."

Jesus' Mother and Brothers

 ³¹Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. ³²A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."  ³³"Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked.
 ³⁴Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

Funnily enough I remember one thing about this passage in relation to Christianity, or particularly Roman Catholicism. My ex-wife got upset with me one day when I made reference to Jesus's siblings, convinced that I was making it up. I showed her this passage and other similar passages. Later we found out that someone wrote a whole book about facts from the Bible that were generally suppressed in Catholic teachings. All of which was possible of course particularly pre Vatican II, because studying the Bible generally was not "done" in that environment. A lot has changed since then, and the RC crowd has now joined the Protestants in the search for the "historical" Jesus, which the Protestants originally, in the 19th century conceived as their best defense against the catholics playing footloose and fancy free with the "facts" of the Bible.
Davies traces the opening passages (through 3:26) of the above section to the Q tradition, and sees essentially Thomas quotes after that, starting with 3:27, Logion 35 (skipped in the Pursah version); 3:28-29, Logion 44 (skipped in the Pursah version); 3:31-35, Logion 99 (Present in the Pursah version). In other words, right away we have a strong hint here that some of the sources may be dubious from Pursah's standpoint, as she skips the first quotes on which this is based. We may also notice however that here way of expressing her views on the matter is rather mild, and she never does say that none of the other sayings are even partially authentic, but in essence she's saying there are too many corruptions with them, but these 70/71 in the collection she feels she can vouch for, based on her recollection.
While we once again see how the narrative process is at work using various known elements to weave its story, this passage actually does make sense if you read it the right way. Speaking strictly from the standpoint of a Course student, the Markan passage may make sense on many levels. The first is the accusation of Jesus being possessed by the devil, which if you think about it, really finds its corollary in the notion in the Course that to the ego the guiltless are guilty, although that relates more specifically to the scene in front of Pontius Pilate, but I'll quote it here in full:

Much of the ego's strange behavior is directly attributable to its definition of guilt. To the ego, the guiltless are guilty. Those who do not attack are its "enemies" because, by not valuing its interpretation of salvation, they are in an excellent position to let it go. They have approached the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego's foundation, and while the ego can withstand your raising all else to question, it guards this one secret with its life, for its existence depends on keeping this secret. So it is this secret that we must look upon, for the ego cannot protect you against truth, and in its presence the ego is dispelled. (ACIM:T-13.II.4)

The whole point here is that from the Course's point of view Satan or Beelzebub are understandable projections, personifications of the ego thought itself, and it's most basic form of defense IS projection, accusing the other of what it itself does. Thus also the ego IS the house divided against itself, for at the most abstract level it is the thought that the separation of God (splitting off from God, respectively "dividing" itself from God) is possible, which then gives rise to the phenomenon of the split mind, which not only splits itself off from God, but completely identifies itself with the split off part to the point of forgetting its immortal self as the Son of God completely, except for the quiet presence of the Holy Spirit, which is always still present in part of our mind, regardless of how much we try to repress and ignore it. And of course the ego's house will not stand, for the ego thought and all that it makes up subsequently by definition live on borrowed time, they are not the creations of love of our eternal, immortal Self, they are the substitute relaties which are manifested, projected from the split mind, and nothing is permanent about them.
We should not have to wonder why Pursah would have rejected Logia 35 and 44 from her collection, as 35 is murky to say the least, and 44 is the diametrical opposite of what Jesus taught, and so certainly does not make any sense being in the collection. This is one of the hallmarks of Christianity, that it did incorporate a lot of corruptions, because it is completely reflective of the taught system of the wrong mind, and so it continues the mistakes of the Old Testament tradition, in which God is alternately loving and hateful. Jesus on the other hand represents oneness, and a thoughtsystem that is entirely consistent, because it reflects nothing else but oneness.
The final statement, reflecting Logion 99, makes complete sense, and acts here as the punch line. In Course terms, what Jesus is advocating here is the point that special relationships are of the ego, be they family/heredity, or any other, and that the Holy Relationship as the Course calls it is the way in which we are joined with our brothers, and the only way in which we can join with our brothers is in the mind, and never with the body. And of course, where two or three are together in my name, there I am in their midst (again: in the mind), or as the Course puts it:

You who are now the bringer of salvation have the function of bringing light to darkness. The darkness in you has been brought to light. Carry it back to darkness, from the holy instant to which you brought it. We are made whole in our desire to make whole. Let not time worry you, for all the fear that you and your brother experience is really past. Time has been readjusted to help us do, together, what your separate pasts would hinder. You have gone past fear, for no two minds can join in the desire for love without love's joining them.  (ACIM:T-18.III.7)

Be Passersby Says Logion 42

I was reminded of this again today, because of some reflections by my friend Annelies, who wrote something on her (Dutch) blog about a realization of how simple things really are. More and more it becomes evident that the only human mistake is to take ourselves too seriously, or rather seriously at all, instead of just cracking ourselves up, which would resolve things soon enough. So the admonition "Be passersby" ends up being the perfect antidote to all that. Nite all.

Former Dutch Queen Juliana 100 years

Today, April 30th Princess Juliana (Dutch Queen from 1948-1980) would have been 100 years old, and the Dutch press has been full of articles recently. Most however are trivial if not banal, and the essence of her reign to this day cannot seem be discussed openly and fully in the Dutch press.

The reason I want to mention her here is because she assisted Professor Quispel, who was one of the first researchers of the Thomas Gospel from the Nag Hammadi library, and who acquired the first manuscript in 1952 with the backing of an American philanthropist, and the manuscript later was apparently donated to the Jung foundation. In 1955 Quispel wanted to research the rest of the manuscripts that still existed in Egypt, at the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Queen Juliana was fascinated at the time with the potential of original words of Jesus being found, and asked the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs J. W. Beyen, to help facilitate Quispel's access to the Coptic museum in Cairo, and this in turn seems to have led to a publication of further manuscripts in 1956. Quispel apparently remained convinced to his dying day that, but for that mission, the Nag Hammadi library and the Thomas Gospel would have languished in the vaults of the museum and most likely decayed completely by now. If this is true, I'd vote for this to be one of the most important things Queen Juliana did during her reign.

Unfortunately, the reign of Queen Juliana became tainted with a palace crisis of 1956, in which her independent spirit seems to have been effectively suppressed by a deft collusion between her husband Prince Bernhard, and Dutch politicians, who felt clearly threatened by a Queen who had a mind of her own, as did he, since at that point she would not tolerate his extramarital affairs any longer and was asking for a divorce - which would have been the end of the good life for him. By cleverly planting his version of things with the foreign press, passing it off as fact, he managed to turn the whole world against her, including manipulating the Dutch body politic to do his bidding, and basically put the shackles on the Queen while at the same time saving the marriage in name, without having to give up any maneuvering room himself. The episode was shameful enough as it was, but then last year the Dutch Court chartered a friendly historian, by the name of Cees Fasseur, to write a book, which under a thin veneer of critique about some of Bernhards more outrageous behavior, in effect did little else but solidifying his version of events, or at least attempting to do so. Fortunately, the Dutch reading public was slightly smarter, and generally did not accept the fact that Cees Fasseur had access to unverifiable private sources which are not available to anyone else.

By now there are beginning to be some critical voices who do not swallow this pablum, one of them Elsbeth Etty, who is a book reviewer for the major newspaper the NRC/Handelsblad, and who delivered a pretty devastating speech to celebrate the publication of the book, Juliana en Bernhard, by C. Fasseur. The other interesting independent voice is one Wim Duzijn, who writes a blog for the newspaper De Volkskrant, and who thankfully does think independently about these things too, and produced a very worthwhile discussion of the whole episode in context, here: "Bernhard wist niet wat een pooier was." (Bernhard did not know a pimp from a hole in the wall.) On the whole however, it is clear that the dominant coverage in leading Dutch newspapers remains confined even 53 years after the fact to the frame of reference of the German magazine Der Spiegel, which at the time published an article that was clearly inspired by Bernhard. But, thanks to the brilliant intervention by the assorted greengrocers of Dutch politics, appearances were saved by telling the Queen she would have to toe the line. The slight of hand that was used, was to turn the relationship that the Queen had with the "faithhealer" (as she was designated in the press), and channeler, Miss Hofmans, into a putative cause of her marital problems in lieu of recognizing this situation as a symptom of a situation that was clearly out of hand on many levels. This allowed the politicians to slaughther this sacrificial lamb instead of dealing with the issues, and so to save appearances and the bad peace. To this day, this duplicitous and cruel solution has hardly been seen through except by a precious few commentators.

Also, Queen Juliana's farsighted and humane way of conducting herself during her reign, remains under the cloud of these events, even though she remains the most popular Dutch Queen ever, and in many ways was truly a healing influence who helped resolve many crises (including the ending of the Dutch Colonial ambitions by supporting the independence of Indonesia). In other areas she proved likewise to be very farsighted, for just as she understood the colonial era was over, she also understood that the emerging "cold war," was more likely to become a run-up to world war III than a way to prevent it, and as we now know, events nearly proved her right at times, the most dramatic of which was perhaps the prevention of nuclear war by the Soviet Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, which could have been the end of the world as we know it.

Consequently, I suspect that it will once again have to come from the foreign press to shed light on these things, and render it possible in Holland for the events to be discussed the way they actually were, so that former Queen Juliana can finally be recognized as the great and farsighted leader of a people who she really was, and which was recognized in popular opinion, but never by the establishment. A hundred years from now the critical role she played in helping professor Quispel gain access to the sources of the Thomas Gospel may also finally be recognized as something for which the world owes her a debt of gratitude. I just figured I'd make a start with it right here and now, because I feel that this particular contribution was near and dear to her heart, and more reflective of her spirit than much that's talked about in the popular press, and its importance without a doubt is global. As with everything else it's often the seeming little things that count, and that are much bigger in retrospect than they seemed at the time.

Sadly, since I first posted this piece, this day was spoiled by some disturbed person taking a kamikaze trip in their car, trying to spoil the festivities, and in the process killing several people (5 at this writing) and wounding others (12 at this writing), and the hospital reports that his own life may be in danger still.

Stevan Davies on Thomas Sayings in Mark, ctd. 1

Stevan Davies' Second article about the Thomas tradition in Mark focuses on 5 sections of Mark, the first one being Mark 2:18-21. I'm quoting it in the NIV:

Mark 2:18-21 (New International Version)

Jesus Questioned About Fasting

 ¹⁸Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"  ¹⁹Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. ²⁰But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
 ²¹"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse.

Davies finds traces in this passage of Logia 104, 11, 18, 22, 47,  of which the Pursah version excludes 104, and has substantial edits in 22, 11, while her edition suggests hardly any change in 18, and 47. Just by eyeballing this story, and the Thomas Logia next to it, you would immediately appreciate that Mark is just using familiar sayings associated with Jesus to write a story in a way that suggest authenticity.
While you can see here that the story gets put together from various quotes, it does not seem to exhibit the level of distortion and misconstruction that we've seen in other examples of this kind. Meanwhile in terms of the authenticity, line 20 comes from Logion 104, which Pursah rejects, but it is hardly material to the argument here, though it introduces a theme, which indeed does not fit the teachings of Jesus, namely why the bridegroom would be taken from us, that does not fit the themes we know from the Course, which are clearly that it's always us doing the forgetting. The borrowings from 11 are hardly very explicit either, nor are those from 22, and Davies I think confuses here the theme of making the two into one, with the business of the bridegroom, which is rather about what the Course would call the holy relationship, choosing our True Self, or Jesus, and learning to see the face of Christ in all who we meet. The presence of Logion 18 seems not very overt, but might be there, it is really about the decision point, and 47 has the themes of sowing an new patch onto an old fabric. So again, on the whole, in the context of one of the central references of this site, Pursah's Gospel of Thomas, with the one exception of line 20, the way this story is construed seems not particularly at odds with the way Jesus speaks to us in the Thomas gospel, and it is merely curious to see the process at work of how these segments are put together in one place, and made into something new. Arguably, you would expect that the quote should be extended to line 22, so as to include all of Logion 47, which goes on about the new wine in old wineskins.

In the context of the Course what this whole passage seems to reflect, is the notions of "I need do nothing" (cf. ACIM:T-18.VII), and also "I am under no laws but God's" (cf. ACIM:W76). They are the parallel realizations that I cannot even save myself if I wanted to by any observation of man-made rules and regulations, particularly also my own rules which I impose on myself, because all that achieves is a reconfirmation of mental constructs of reality, which again do not bring us any freedom, but keep us confined in the vicious circles of the ego, and the way out is by placing my trust in God's laws, rather than the idiotic rules and regulations my ego keeps coming up with to protect its world order. Implied also is the notion that the choice of thought systems is all or nothing, and that really is an allusion to the opening lines of Logion 47, about the impossibility of mounting two horses or bending two bows. This is a very profound theme in the Thomas Gospel and in the Course, and evidently completely central to the thought system Jesus proposes.
As to Davies' article, I must admit that it confuses me a bit, because he construes the elements often times in a way that seems alien to me, because I'm coming from a Course standpoint, and just tend to read them differently. In other sections of his articles one sees a clearer transition from the pre-Christian (Thomasine) image to the Christian anecdote. This is not the case here, though evidently you'd read the whole thing a bit different coming from a predominantly Christian point of view, as opposed to from ACIM.

On Outing Shakespeare

Well, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has thrown his hat in the ring on the controversy regarding Shakespeare's identity, and his choice for the role is Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
Of course those of us who have read Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe might have been expecting some such developments. The interesting thing is that this opinion comes from outside the circles of the high priests of Stratford upon Avon, not to mention from outside the clerical circles of wider literary scholarship who have traditionally maintained the myth that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. A book on this controversy which I have earlier discussed on this blog, 'Shakespeare' by Another name: The life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the man who was Shakespeare, by Mark Anderson, and it already had convinced me pretty much, although I was by that time prepared to be open to that kind of development, exactly because of Arten's comments in Gary's book.
Here's how Arten said it;

 ARTEN: Sure. The gentleman who wrote the Shakespeare material was an Earl whose family's crest bore the image of a lion shaking a spear. To honor his family he was sometimes toasted at Court with the phrase, "Your countenance shakes a spear." But this Earl was forbidden by Queen Elizabeth the First, who was a political genius and very controlling, from putting his name on his work. There was a social stigma attached to the stage at that time. Plays, especially comedies, were not considered to be serious literature and were beneath the dignity of royalty.? (from Gary R. Renard, The Disappearance of  the Universe)

We are now probably not far away from a point that anything written about Shakespeare is fairly much irrelevant unless you appreciate that the writer of the words "all the world's a stage" in fact was in fact very much an actor on that stage who had known success and failure spectacularly, with a rich formal education, as well as plenty of lessons from the school of hard knocks, enough so that indeed it allowed him to gain an entirely different perspective, in what is customarily called enlightenment, allowing him to see through the whole charade from another vantage point, which A Course in Miracles describes as the view from "above the battle ground":

   Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. What could they gain but loss of their perfection? For everything fought for on the battleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to own. No one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor could he value the body's offerings. The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from the quiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict with everything? And what is there that offers less, yet could be wanted more? Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make? (ACIM:T-23.IV.9)

It is the sure knowledge that nothing is to be gained from anything in this world, which alone grants us the serenity and the sublime humor with which Shakespeare looks at the world. As Gary has recently observed somewhere, it is also the smile of the Mona Lisa. It is the manifestation of the peace of mind of Logion 42, "Be passersby."
It is like the shift of looking at Moby Dick through the eyes of Jed McKenna, to be looking at Shakespeare through the eyes of the Earl of Oxford, who in worldly terms was a nobleman at the Court of England who was decidedly past his prime, but who had acquired the perspective necessary for the task. It is also like realizing that Thomas Jefferson could not be understood and appreciated unless one realized the multiple levels of complexity and inner contradiction in his life as reflected in his relationship with Sally Hemings. Prior biographies do not only need to be corrected on that point, but entirely rewritten, for the man cannot be understood any other way. His fascinating relationship with Jesus, as evident from the Jefferson Bible, is another dimension of his character that has been widely missed, and treated at best as a curious episode, but not understood for being the central key to his character which it is. So, it seems we are having an interesting time of it with a massive reframing of some very interesting accepted truths in our culture, which turn out to be falsehoods.
In learning to step back from our own life, by adopting that view from above the battleground, it becomes easier to spot these things, for as we begin to understand that the classrooms of our life are in fact just that, it begins to make sense how Edward de Vere was able, as he stepped back from the wreckage to understand the whole story on a new level, including seeing it in the holographic framework of his life's experience and learning, in which Shakespeare's endless anachronisms becomes understandable as it is meaning, or content for which he merely finds the form to express it from the repertoire of his life and learning, Part of this learning involves this experience of déjà vu across time and space, for some people that goes with lively "past life" experiences (General Patton is my fave for that) for others it remains more ethereal, as simply deep insights and joining in an experience which we suddenly recognize at a deeper level.