This talk will argue that Shakespeare’s plays move us because they are rooted in a primordial sense of a great cosmic order. This sense of a cosmic order is a distinguishing feature of human intelligence which first apprehends all things as a whole. This apprehension of the whole may be traced back to the most ancient creation myths which present the created world as a living being, peopled with heavenly and earthly powers, and imbued with meanings and signs of eternal mysteries. While portraying such a cosmic vision, these ancient myths also narrate an unfolding drama, so that the universe is above all revealed and known through story. The human story is itself an integral part of this cosmic story, providing a key to true drama, most powerfully exemplified in the plays of Shakespeare. The poet’s vision reverts back to this primordial way of seeing which gives birth to myth. Nature herself speaks through the poet.

JOSEPH MILNE is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Kent where he taught on the MA course in Mysticism and Religious Experience until his retirement in 2013. His interests range among Hinduism, Platonism, Patristics, classical natural law, medieval mysticism and theology. He is Editor of Land & Liberty, the journal of the Henry George Foundation and the author of the Temenos Academy Papers The Ground of Being: Foundations of Christian Mysticism (2004), Metaphysics and the Cosmic Order (2008), The Mystical Cosmos (2013), and The Lost Vision of Nature (2018). His forthcoming book is Natural Law and the Just Society. He is a Trustee of the Eckhart Society and a Fellow of the Temenos Academy.

Venue & Admission

Rudolf Steiner House, 35 Park Road, London, NW1 6XT. Doors Open 6.10pm, Lecture Begins 6.30pm

£10 General Admission or FREE for Temenos Academy Members/Full-time students with student ID card