Ben Jonson’s Life

A significant new biography upon Ben Jonson- Ian Donaldson’s Ben Jonson: A Life (Oxford University Press)- was reviewed Sunday last in the New York Times Book Review (Jan. 22, 2012, p. 1); all the more remarkable, as no one writes biographies of Ben Jonson, who would otherwise be considered the Supreme Writer for the Elizabethan/ Jacobean stage- were it not that he had William Shakespeare for a contemporary: William Shakespeare, who so dominates the Stage-Scene of the era as to render virtually invisible any of his fellows. This new work (praised by the NY Times) represents an invaluable opportunity for Pagan readers of the Juggler to acquaint themselves with Mr. Jonson’s works.

And why, exactly, should Pagan readers of the Juggler wish to acquaint themselves with the works of Mr. Ben Jonson, Play-Writer of the late 1500s-early 1600s, you might ask?

Why, for the simple reason that Pagans might well wish to acquaint themselves with the works of Mr. Jonson’s overshadowing contemporary, Mr. William Shakespeare- because they both are writing in England during the last Great Age of Witchcraft, and so (as any good biography of William Shakespeare will make a point to tell you, and as I expect this biography of Mr. Jonson by Mr. Donaldson will): they are writing from the point-of-view of a cultural milieu that accepts totally the belief in Witches and the Powers of Witchcraft.

Therefore, what Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Jonson have to say about Witches and Witchcraft is presumably going to be instructive, as it emanates from the Last Period in which Witchcraft was accepted as part of English Life and English Culture.

Having read Ben Jonson: A Life, the Juggler Reader will be well-acquainted (I am sure; I haven’t actually read this book yet, which I was unaware of until yesterday) the Juggler will then be well-familiar with the events and context of Ben Jonson’s life: and can then go on to read The Alchemist (Jonson’s satire on the Magick-practicing ways of the London of his time); The Sad Shepherd (a wonderfully elegiac Paganistic Forest-Fable, that features a Witch united in a Spiritual Union with a Pagan Forest-Deity); and The Masque of Queens (basically, a Witches’ Energy-Raising ceremony).

Having then read Donaldson’s biography and these works of Jonson’s: perhaps the Juggler will agree with me, that the best explanation for what the Witches in both The Sad Shepherd and The Masque of Queens are doing is: they are Raising Energy, as defined by Gerald Gardner in Witchcraft Today (once one has read Gerald Gardner’s description of Energy-Raising in Witchcraft Today, I don’t see how certain major Witch-Works of the late 1500s-early 1600s, including probably the most famous Witch-Work of all time, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, can be read NOT seeing the Energy-Raising dynamic at work).

If one is going to take seriously the idea that Gerald Gardner genuinely did inherit an ancient tradition of native English Witchcraft (as say, Philip Heselton does, in his important revisionary research): one might well look around, to ask- is there anywhere else in English culture that I can see such a thing as Witchcraft Energy-Raising?

The answer, I believe, is actually, yes: and I think it is found in the Witchcraft-Plays of the Elizabethan/ Jacobean Periods- leading me to believe that Energy-Raising is indeed the “Secret” to English Witchcraft (well, hardly secret to the Elizabethans and Jacobeans, who incorporated it into their Witch-Plays- but grown so secret in time that, had it not been for Mr. Gardner and his initiation into a surviving tradition of English Witchcraft, we might never have known of it, and modern Wicca might never have been).

It starts with reading the Witch-Plays of the late Elizabethan/ early Jacobean, and then asking yourself, are these Witches raising Energy or not? If not, what are they doing?

If yes: then what does that mean, to find Witches in works whose provence cannot be questioned- performing Witchcraft through acts of Energy-Raising, exactly as Gerald Gardner claimed all along?

It all begins by reading about Jonson (and Shakespeare) and understanding the cultural context in which they wrote about Witches.