William Shakespeare (aka Francis Bacon – credit where credit is due) covered a whole lot of territory in the play As You Like It, when he wrote All the World’s a Stage and briefly described the outer stages of a human’s life. But, we think he left out some other very important, little mentioned stages in the passage of souls in human lives around the Earth.

At the same time, we have to think that Bacon-Shakespeare was surely aware of those stages – at least in essence, if not in detail. Francis Bacon, who used the Spear Shaker’s name for his pseudonym, was a very advanced being who decided early on in his life to “take all knowledge to be his province.”

In doing so, he undoubtedly investigated beyond the purely material world, earthly learning, and physical science that most of us are content to explore and experience. And, what did he find but not share in the many volumes of his writings?

Bacon surely discovered, recognized, and explored his past lifetimes on planet Earth which help make him the most extraordinary being he was. So, that awareness had to expand to understanding of other stages in the lives of all humans.

Human beings are spirits having material experiences in bodies for times in the physical dimension. Those that know suggest that human souls spend many times more of their existence out of the body than in the body. Bacon surely understood that fact.

But, he had enough to teach and relate to the people of his times with the relatively obvious stages of embodied life. It appears that Francis Bacon’s own life was threatened more than a few times for the righteous stands he took in the midst of Elizabethan turmoil.

Among other things, he had to hide his playwriting work because of how dimly the upper class looked upon the stage in his time. It appears that he even had to feign death in 1626 to avoid conflicts with King Charles. He had already been imprisoned briefly in the Tower of London in 1621. But then was released after a few days, and the king pardoned him for charges of corruption. However, Bacon was banned from holding public office and sitting in Parliament.

This fascinating character on the outer world stage was a lawyer who became Queen's Counsel in 1597 and later Lord Chancellor of England. At the same time while working for the queen, Bacon helped to found the scientific method, based on an inductive approach to knowledge. He is considered one of the greatest thinkers of all time.

Francis Bacon surely learned in his unique “scientific journeys” to explore the astral world. But, he chose to point his fellows to less lofty regions. Some of those efforts were through the eloquence of his unknowing alter ego, William Shakespeare. But, he left many discoveries occult as suggested by the fact that his death itself was staged so that Bacon live “beyond the pale.”

Francis Bacon left unwritten and unstated the stages of life which follow on death, passages through astral-causal worlds, and preparations for rebirth. Let us briefly sketch those seven stages for readers to consider and ponder.

• Death occurs when the silver cord (Ecclesiates 12:6) is broken and it is impossible for the soul to return to its usual home. Thereafter, the material form disintegrates slowly if not cremated or embalmed. The etheric – energy body does much the same as it separates from the dense body.

• Much like our nightly absences from our bodies, our soul-minds are released at death to wander or be attracted to those forces most familiar to us in embodied life. Most of us each night while the body rests do not travel far, staying near to “home base.” A relative few travel in their astral bodies hither and thither – some to tourist-like destinations, others to study and learn at the feet of advanced beings.  

• Early on after death we review the most recent lifetime. The life, with lessons learned or rejected, are then held in soul memory to determine future incarnations.

• Over years, decades or centuries, we experience the slow “second death” of kama-manas aka emotion-mind. We then are fully absorbed into soul-spirit. That state is like another sleep state, as we wait to be attracted once again into embodiment governed through the perfect knowledge of the Oversoul.

• We are drawn back into physical life in largest part by soul direction, but also by the needs of ourselves and others to experience and learn. “And we are put on earth a little space, that we may learn to bear the beams of love.” (William Blake)

• We are appointed the perfect body, family and environ for those needs. That body being part of the larger force fields of feelings, mind, and soul is built according to the true hereditary blueprint which might be described as spiritual DNA.

• The final stage occurs as the soul overshadows the bodily form during the latter moments of gestation. Then, the soul couples with the body at the hour of birth.

And, Bacon-Shakespeare’s Seven Acts on the physical Stage unfold upon the great theater of planet Earth.