Alton Towers, Sir Francis Bacon and the Rosicrucians

[MJF]

Francis Bacon – The Man Behind the Curtain Part 2

Freemasonry in The Tempest

It is not surprising that The Tempest has so many Masonic allusions - symbolically the setting is inside a Masonic Lodge. To understand this, it is necessary to have a mental picture of the setting of the drama. It takes place in the Mediterranean Sea. What does the Mediterranean Sea have to do with a Masonic Lodge? Read the testimony of Albert Mackey, one of the foremost Masonic scholars. In his "Symbolism of Freemasonry" Mackey has a very interesting passage:
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"The form of a Masonic lodge is said to be a parallelogram, or oblong square; its greatest length being from east to west, its breath from north to south. A square, a circle, a triangle, or any other form but that of an oblong square, would be eminently incorrect and unmasonic, because such a figure would not be an expression of the symbolic idea which is intended to be conveyed.”​

Now, as the world is a globe, or, to speak more accurately, an oblate spheroid, the attempt to make an oblong square its symbol would seem, at first view, to present insuperable difficulties. But the system of Masonic symbolism has stood the test of too long an experience to be easily found at fault; and therefore this very symbol furnishes a striking evidence of the antiquity of the order. At the Solomonic era - the era of the building of the temple at Jerusalem - the world, it must be remembered, was supposed to have that very oblong form, which has been here symbolized. If, for example, on a map of the world we should inscribe an oblong figure whose boundary lines would circumscribe and include just that portion which was known to be inhabited in the days of Solomon, these lines, running a short distance north and south of the Mediterranean Sea, and extending from Spain in the west to Asia Minor in the east, would form an oblong square, including the southern shore of Europe, the Northern shore of Africa, and the western district of Asia, the length of the parallelogram being about sixty degrees from east to west, and its breath being about twenty degrees from north to south. This oblong square, thus enclosing the whole of what was then supposed to be the habitable globe, would precisely represent what is symbolically said to be the form of the lodge, while the Pillars of Hercules in the west, on each side of the straits of Gades or Gibraltar, might appropriately be referred to the two pillars that stood at the porch of the temple [MJF: i.e., Boaz and Joachin – see image below]. A Masonic lodge is, therefore a symbol of the world.
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This symbol is sometimes, by a very usual figure of speech, extended, in its application, and the world and the universe are made synonymous, when the lodge becomes, of course, a symbol of the universe.

So, we have the action taking place in a Masonic Lodge, complete with the two pillars at the entrance. Is this far-fetched? Let's go a step further. The floor of a Masonic Lodge is composed of black and white squares like those on a chessboard. In my essay "Bacon-101-6", I demonstrated the symbolization of The Tempest is that of a chess game, built on the scenario of Ferdinand and Miranda playing a game of chess, and that realization of this symbolism brings the realization that all of the action takes place on the black and white squares of the chessboard. Thus, the floor where the action takes place, is made up of black and white squares. Therefore, we add to the symbolic setting in the Masonic Lodge, the chessboard - black and white square design - for the floor of the setting. This is exactly the floor of the Masonic Lodge. So, we not only have the Masonic Lodge; we not only have the twin pillars at the entrance; we also have the chessboard floor of the Masonic Lodge (see image below).

View attachment 110482

In "Secrets of the Shakespeare Plays" I described the fact that, among other features, the characters in The Tempest are modelled on the signs of the zodiac. While searching the web I came across a page with an interesting graphic from a work by a Spanish Jesuit who lived at the time of Bacon. His name was Juan Bautista Villalpando. He was obsessed with the idea of reconstructing The Temple of Solomon. In his depiction of Solomon's Temple, he showed the astrological symbols of the zodiac arranged around the outline of The Temple of Solomon just as Simon had the astrological signs of the zodiac arranged around the outline of the chessboard on his chessboard of Europe. Was all of this coincidence? If this was the only Masonic symbolism in the play, coincidence might be a possibility (although very unlikely), but this is not all by far. Detail is piled upon detail.

Rather than lay out all of Walker’s proofs for the Masonic symbolism replete in Shakespeare’s (Bacon’s) works, I shall leave those who are interested in the subject to read his article, which can be found at the following link: mcompeer.htm (sirbacon.org). We should note here that there are clearly hidden codes or cyphers in Shakespeare’s works that suggest Shakespeare was a master cryptographer - meaning someone who creates, analyses and solves codes. The creation and use of codes or cyphers is usually the preserve of those involved with spying and espionage. There is nothing to indicate that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was ever involved with spying. However, it is well known that Francis Bacon was for he was despatched as a young man in his twenties to the Continent on diplomatic service (which even today is still a cover for spying) for the English Crown when he accompanied the new English ambassador to France. Indeed, he would eventually become head of the English Secret Service in 17th century. Moreover, it is known that he studied cryptography under the tutelage of master cryptographer Dr John Dee, when Dee instructed a young Francis Bacon at his house in Mortlake south London in the secrets of the Hebrew Atbash Cypher.

Walker relies heavily upon Alfred Dodd’s work "Shakespeare : Creator of Freemasonry" to prove his case where, as he states, Dodd itemises an almost unbelievable number of Masonic allusions in the Shakespeare plays, especially in "Love's Labour Lost". Indeed, many Baconians believe the clown parodied in Love's Labour Lost was in fact William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. Quoting Walker:
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“As Dodd says, the body of evidence cited in his book "proves incontestably these works were saturated in Masonry." The problem is, and has always been, dual. In the first place, scholars do not realise that Bacon wrote the plays. And in the second place, in addition to this lamentable ignorance, the scholars who have studied the plays have had no familiarity with Freemasonry. When they encounter something, such as the knocking at the gate scene with the porter in Macbeth, it registers no more than light on the eyes of a blind man. But the repeated three knocks at the door, especially in connection with the association of King James I with Scottish Freemasonry, almost certainly alludes to the ritual of Freemasonry.”​

I would just add as a further aside here that although Freemasons incorporate the twin pillars Boaz and Joachin that reputedly stood in front of the Temple of Solomon both in their lodge architecture and in their iconography, the C’s have said that the Craft’s roots lie not in Judaism but with the Osirians of ancient Egypt who were active over 7,500 years ago and practiced Freemasonry at what today is the 33rd degree. Moreover, the C’s have also confirmed that there never was a magnificent Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem and that the biblical Jewish King Solomon was in fact based on King Narmer (or Menes) who is generally recognised as being the first pharaoh of a united Upper and Lower Egypt, reigning around 3,500 BC:​

Q: Was Solomon a King of Egypt? A: Yes. Q: Which king of Egypt was the equivalent of Solomon?
A: Narmer.​

This suggests to me that if the twin pillars Boaz and Joachin are based on something real and tangible, they most likely would have formed part of an Egyptian temple or similar structure, possibly the Sphinx, which supposedly has a hidden temple concealed within its head. If so, it suggests that the roots of Freemasonry lie in Egypt just as the C’s have said.

What Walker and Dodd convincingly show though is that whoever wrote the plays of William Shakespeare had a deep and ingrained knowledge of Freemasonry, a knowledge that would almost certainly have required you to have been an active member of the lodge.

We have looked at length at Bacon’s links to Freemasonry but what about his hidden links to Rosicrucianism?
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Francis Bacon and his Links to the Rosicrucians

Mrs Henry Pott expresses the view that the Rosicrucians were really Francis Bacon’s secret society and that the Brethren of the Rosy Cross did not have the ancient provenance claimed for it in the Rosicrucian Manifestos, particularly the Fama. She also believed that the Rosicrucians were the upper ranks of Freemasonry. However, the C’s have refuted both claims by indicating that the Rosicrucians origins lay with the mysterious Rosteem who were originally based at Giza (Rostau) in Egypt:​

Q: (L) Well, that is not good! Are you saying that the Elohim are STS? Who were these STS beings they made a pact with?

A: Rosteem, now manifests as Rosicrucians;

and the upper echelons of Freemasonry are in fact the Illuminati:

Q: (L) How do the Masons relate to the Illuminati?

A: Masons are low level branch.

So, unless the Rosicrucians and the Illuminati are one and the same body of men, Mrs Pott cannot be right. That does not mean to say that there is no overlap between the two organisations since some Rosicrucians may be high ranking Freemasons as well (‘circles within circles’). However, one major point of distinction that she draws between the two organisations is that the 17th century Rosicrucians had a decidedly pro-Christian bias whereas Freemasonry was more equivocal where Christianity was concerned, referring to God as the ‘Great Architect of the Universe’ rather than the Christian Trinity. If Francis Bacon was the Grand Master of the early 17th century Rosicrucians, then he undoubtedly wished to promote the Christian basis underlying the Rosicrucian movement. Perhaps this is reflected in what the C’s said here:​

Q: In reading the transcripts, I came across a reference to a 'pact' made by a group of STS individuals, and it was called 'Osirians,' and that this was the origin of the Rosicrucians. In the book 'The Orion Mystery,' it talks about the fact that Giza was formerly known as RosTau, which is 'Rose Cross.' Essentially, I would like to understand the symbology of the Rose affixed to the Cross. It seems to me that the imagery of Jesus nailed to the Cross is actually the Rose affixed to the Cross. How does Jesus relate to the Rose?

A: No, it is from the Rose arose the Cross.

Mrs Pott makes the case that Francis Bacon became the head of the Rosicrucians at the tender age of 15 when he commenced his Great Instauration program. He initiated this program soon after he had come down from Cambridge University after discovering, to his great chagrin, that the university educational system of the day left a lot to be desired and had failed to engage his highly developed intellect. As Mrs Henry Potts states: “at the age of fifteen, Francis Bacon had run through the whole round of the arts and sciences at Cambridge, had outstripped his tutors, and had left Cambridge in disappointment and disgust, finding nothing more to learn there.” Indeed, he was so disgusted that he left without a degree. It was this perceived deficiency in learning and the failure of contemporary teaching methods that motivated him to commence the Great Instauration for the benefit of all mankind.

Mrs Pott tells us that the manner in which he spent the next year after coming down from Cambridge is not recorded but she proposes that some light on the matter may be gleaned from the Rosicrucian Manifesto known by its short title the Fama Fraternitas. The Fama tells us that “the high and noble spirit of one of the Fraternity was stirred up to enter into schemes for a general reformation, and to travel away to the wise men of Arabia.” For Mrs Pott this suggests that the young philosopher was entering into his studies of Rhazis, Avenzoar, Averroes, Avicenna, and other Arabic physicians and “Hermetic” writers whom he would later quote in both his acknowledged and unacknowledged writings. Further, the Fama informs us that at this time this young member of the fraternity was sixteen years old and for a period of one year he had pursued his course alone. But it was not only the Arabian philosophers that he studied, for Bacon would also study the occult philosophies of India, Persia and Egypt from which he would draw the universal symbols and emblems which would become the language and hieroglyphics of Freemasonry (and no doubt Rosicrucianism too).

Although the undertaking of such a grand project for one so young may suggest a precociousness on the teenage Bacon’s part, in many ways he was much older than his years and was a classic example of a wise head on young shoulders. However, you should note that he commenced this project in the year 1575. This was only three years after a spectacular supernova in the constellation of Cassiopeia had appeared dramatically in the sky in 1572. Although all the great astronomers of Europe (including Bacon’s mentor Dr John Dee*) were enthralled by this celestial spectacle, which would last for almost two years, there were those who also saw it as an auspicious omen, one that would galvanise them into action. Who were these people? They were none other than the brethren of the Rosy Cross, who had remained hidden out of sight awaiting the right moment to emerge on the scene. According to Royal Society member and scientist Robert Fludd (see more below), the “new star” of 1572 marked the beginning of the Rosicrucian work. Although Fludd disavowed any connection with the Rosicrucians, he, like Michael Maier, is generally recognized as one of the chief exponents of their philosophy.

*As was John Dee’s friend and former prison cell mate, John Field, one of 16th century Britain’s leading astronomers, who lived in Wharfdale in Yorkshire near to the ridge known as the Chevin, which runs all the way to Doncaster (Dancar). I strongly suspect he may have been one of the Philosophers of Dancar referred to in the Rosiccrucian Manifesto known as the Fama (see more below on this). Another member may have been the English mathematician and astronomer Thomas Digges who, after the death of his father, grew up under the guardianship of John Dee. Digges attempted to determine the parallax of the 1572 supernova observed by Tycho Brahe, and concluded it had to be beyond the orbit of the Moon. This contradicted Aristotle's view of the universe, according to which no change could take place among the fixed stars.​

The C’s commented on the supernova in Cassiopeia in the following sessions:

Session 7 June 1997:

Q: Supposedly, Christian Rosencruetz was initiated by the 'philosophers of Dancar.' I want to know where this blasted place is! Okay, skip it. One of the Rosicrucian manifestos said: 'God has sent messengers and signs in the heavens, namely the new stars in Serpentarius and Cygnus, to show that a great council of the elect is to take place.' What do they mean by a 'great council of the elect?'

A: Pyrenees.

Q: Okay, the purported enclave of the alchemists... Why was it signified by new stars in Serpentarius and Cygnus? What do they represent?

A: Novae.

And

Session 5 September 1998:

Q: (L) We noticed that the supernova that occurred in Cassiopaea 300 years ago did not seem to have been widely noticed by people on earth. What is the reason for this?

A: Distance.

Q: (L) Now, formerly I asked about the ‘two new stars in Cygnus and Serpentarius’ that were written about in the Rosicrucian Manifesto of about this period of time, and you said they were talking about ‘novae.’ But, it seems that there are no new stars in either of these constellations. Yet, at approximately this time, was the supernova in Cassiopaea.

A: Yes, those with foreknowledge were looking.

So, were the Roscirucians the people with the foreknowledge the C’s spoke of who were looking out for these novae? According to Francis Bacon researcher Peter Dawkins, the answer is a definite yes.

In Dawkins article ‘The Mystery of Oak Island’ he states:

“To project heaven on earth and know what you were navigating to, and what area of the world corresponds to in terms of symbolism (I will return to the subject of symbolism below) associated with the stars, was of key import. And this is where Oak Island and Nova Scotia show up in their importance, as well as helping to explain why Queen Elizabeth I was likened to the Virgin Queen, who in the sky is represented by the constellation of Cassiopeia, the Enthroned Queen (equivalent to Isis, the Egyptian goddess-queen).

A supernova in Cassiopeia appeared dramatically in the sky from 1572 to 1574 and was taken [by the Rosicrucians] as a sign of the birth of a child to the Virgin Queen, or the appearance of a great light in that part of the world representing the Virgin Queen, Cassiopeia. At that time, the part of the world corresponding to Cassiopeia was the British Isles – England in particular – and an earthly queen always equates in tradition as personifying the land.

The Rosicrucian apologist Michael Maier is alleged to have stated, in a manuscript residing at the University of Leiden (Leipzig), that the Society or Fraternity of the Golden and Rosy Cross had been founded circa 1570 by members of a group whose origins lay in a ‘community founded in 1510 in London by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. The alleged manuscript is now lost (if, indeed, it ever existed) but in support of what it is purported to have said is the fact that Robert Fludd wrote, in his Tractis Apoligetica (1617):​

“that the “new star” of 1572 marked the beginning of the Rosicrucian work, which then continued to be prepared in secret until the 1603-04 planetary conjunctions and appearance of the new stars in Cygnus and Ophiuchus [Serpentario], which was a sign to the Fraternity for them to emerge from their period of secrecy, expand their membership and begin the restoration of the world.”

I would add that the supernova in Cassiopeia was an event that the young Francis Bacon attached great importance to as he saw it as an augury or good omen for his future. But what was it about the novae in Cygnus and Serpentarius that had Bacon and his fellow Rosicrucians suddenly rushing around publishing the Rosicrucian Manifestos and visiting Oak Island? Well, the answer is what novae represent. In Latin “novae” is the plural of the feminine form of “novus” meaning “new” in English. Supernovae, as we know, are caused by the explosion of old stars. However, the death of one star may lead to the birth of new stars with their attendant planets - see Star formation - Wikipedia. It is in effect the Phoenix effect with a new bird (star) arising out of the ashes of the old bird (star).

So, what bird did the Rosicrucians want to resurrect? The answer, I think, is Atlantis or Arcadia. Bacon made it clear in his last great work, The New Atlantis, that he wished to see a resurrection of the Golden Age through the creation of a New Atlantis and North America would be its base. This would be a new Arcadia, a ‘Land of the Rosicrucians’. As Dawkins states:
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“In Baconian terms, this ‘virginal’ Arcadian land is the earthly part of what could be the beginning of the New Atlantis – the old Atlantis of North America ‘instaurated’ into a new shining ‘golden’ form, blessing itself and the world with a new Golden Age. A New Golden Age to rival the earlier Golden Age of Atlantis.”​

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Continued in Part 3

 

[MJF]

Francis Bacon – The Man Behind the Curtain Part 3

Francis Bacon and the Secret of the Rosicrucian Rose

I would readily admit that I am no expert on Francis Bacon since I have not made an in-depth study of all his many works as others have done. Hence, in writing this article it has been necessary to rely on those who have made a detailed study of his works and on those who were closely connected to him during his life. I have already referred to Mrs Henry Pott, but I would like again to draw on the work of Mather Walker in his series of articles Compeers by Night. Walker makes out a strong case for Francis Bacon having been the author of the Rosicrucian Manifestos, especially the Fama Fraternitas. Since he puts the case so much better than I can, I set out below his arguments as to why Francis Bacon was the person who lay behind the secret of the Rosicrucian Rose. Quoting Walker:

The time has come to make visible the mysterious rose that has been invisible for so long. Francis Bacon's connection with the Rosicrucian phenomena remains veiled primarily because the symbol of the Rosicrucian Rose remains veiled. Unveiled it is immediately recognizable as part of the design of the metaphoric imagery of his Great Instauration. Bacon was a past master at metaphoric sleight of hand. He wielded this skill to the top of his bent in his "ruse of the rose". So well did his ruse work, in fact, that even to this day it is still midnight in the garden where the Rosicrucian rose blooms.

The Rosicrucian story is generally believed to have begun in 1614 with the publication in Cassel of the "Fama Fraternitatis" of the Fraternity of the Rose Cross. This was roughly a year after the marriage of Elizabeth [Stuart] and Frederick. Cassel was a Protestant principality neighbouring the Palatinate and deeply interested in what was going on there. However, the story actually began in 1610 since a reply to the Fama had already been printed in 1612 by Adam Haselmayer who had seen a manuscript copy of the Fama in Tyrol in 1610. Another Fama connected incident also occurred in 1612. In that year, "De Ragguagli di Parnasso [Advertisements from Parnassus]" was published in Venice.

This book was a bitter satiric attack on the policies of the ruling entities of the day. It was divided into one hundred sections, or "Advertisements". Trajano Boccalini, listed as author of the work, died in 1613. Frances Yates says Boccalini was a friend of Paolo Sarpi and other Italian intellectuals in Sarpi's circle, which included Galileo. This means Boccalini was linked to Bacon. In Arnold Matthew's "Life of Sir Tobie Matthew" we find Tobie Matthew served as an intermediary for Bacon in his communications with Galileo. A letter from Tobie Matthew to Bacon, dated October 1, 1615, that described his conference with Galileo. Another dated April 21, 1616, transmitted part of a letter of Galileo's about the text in the book of Joshua, of the sun standing still. Still another letter from Tobie Matthew to Bacon in February of 1619 said his close friend Richard White has spent some time in Florence and "tells me that Galileo had answered your discourse concerning the flux and reflux of the sea, and was sending it unto me; but that Mr. White hindered him, because his answer was grounded upon a false supposition, namely that there was, in the ocean, a full sea, but once in 24 hours. But now I will call upon Galileo again." Richard White had apparently established himself as part of the Sarpi circle, and Matthew had joined that circle when he was in Italy.

The important part of Boccalini's book was the 77th "Advertisement". Titled, "Generale Riforma dell' Universo (General Reformation of the Whole World") this described an assize or court held on Mount Parnassus by the god Apollo to find a remedy for the problem of the increasing rate of suicide among humans. After Thales, Virgil, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen and others were unable to suggest a remedy it was decided The Age itself should be summoned before the court for examination. When The Age was called before them, however, and the deceptive gay jacket was stripped off its body, they found the rotten carcass plastered with appearance four inches thick all over. And when the reformers tried to scrape them away with their razors, they found them so far eaten into the bone that in all that huge colossus they could not find one ounce of good live flesh. Therefore, they covered The Age back up and resolved that until such time as a universal reformation could be brought about philosophers must be content with restricting themselves to regulating the price of cabbages. Manly Palmer Hall says the quality of writing of the 77th Advertisement was far above the quality of the remainder of the book and suggested that Boccalini allowed someone to use his name. That someone, in Hall's opinion, was Francis Bacon.

The Universal Reformation was published separately in 1614 in Germany under the title, "Allgemeine und General-Reformation der ganzen weiten Welt (Universal and General-Reformation of the Whole Wide World)". This publication differed in one important particular from the original publication. It included as an appendix the first appearance in print of the anonymous pamphlet titled, "Fama Fraternitatis R.C.", i.e., the "Fame and Declaration of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross". This little pamphlet evoked a tremendous response. By 1616 although the little pamphlet had passed through several editions, Boccalini's essay had entirely disappeared along the way. However, the publication of Boccalini works in England did have some intriguing ramifications.

The first appearance of Boccalini's writings in English occurred in 1656. The translator's name was listed as "the Right Honourable Henry Earl of Monmouth". This was a curious coincidence since Monmouth meant "my mouth", and Boccalini meant "little mouth". Moreover, the motto engraved around the portrait of Monmouth was backward like the illustration in Peacham's 1612 "Minerva Britannia" where a person was concealed behind a curtain while his arm was reached out from behind the curtain writing the phrase, "Mente videbori" backwards, i.e., "by the mind shall I be seen" (see image below). In 1645 "The Great Assises Holden in Parnassus by Apollo and His Assessors" was published in London. This book was obviously modelled after the Universal Reformation and, in this work, Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, was listed as the Chancellor of Parnassus. A new edition of the "Advertisements" was edited in 1704 by N.N. Esquire.
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The frontispiece to Henry Peacham's 1612 "Minerva Britannia". Was this illustration intended to be a depiction
of Sir Francis Bacon as the ‘Man behind the Curtain’?​

Esquire means Mr. So, the name becomes Mr. N.N. Curiously on the original Rosicrucian Manifesto, N.N. is listed as one of the Rosicrucian Brothers. In any case, whoever N. N. was, the gentleman took great liberties with the text of Boccalini's work. He was particularly original in his treatment of the 77th Advertisement. Apollo selects a committee to devise a plan for the reformation of human society, and N.N. Esquire lists the secretary for Apollo's committee as Sir Francis Bacon. Obviously, Bacon's Freemason compeers were still quite active in England at this time.
Three publications appeared in Germany in 1614, 1615, and 1616 respectively. These are really the only evidence for the existence of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. All later writings about the Rosicrucian Fraternity were merely reactions to these original three publications. In fact, the 1616 pamphlet seems to have been in reaction also to the 1614 and 1615 publications. The three Rosicrucian publications were as follows:​

1. A short pamphlet in German, published in Cassel, Germany in 1614 by Wilhelm Wessel (printer for prince Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse), entitled, Fame Fraternity, or a Discovery of The Most Noble Order of The Rosy Cross (hereafter referred to as The Fama).

2. Another short pamphlet published at the same place by the same printer in 1615, entitled The Confession of the Rosicrucian Fraternity (hereafter referred to as The Confession).

3. A third, much longer publication of quite a different type, published in Strasburg, Germany in 1616, entitled The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosy Cross (hereafter referred to as The Chemical Wedding).

The Fama opened with a stirring call to all men of knowledge. United they might collect the Book of Nature - a perfect method of all arts and sciences. But their pride and greed was so great it would not allow agreement among them. They remain on the same old course, still esteeming Porphory, Aristotle, Galen, and mere shows of learning*, rather than the clear light and simple truth. Their science is filled with errors, but their contention prevented them from amending it.

*You will note that this view reflects Francis Bacon’s disgust and disappointment at the curriculum he experienced at Cambridge University, so much so that he abandoned his course and left without obtaining a degree (see above).

There is still hope for them, however, because the perfect method of all arts and sciences has already been discovered by Father C.R., who founded the Rosy Cross Fraternity. At an early age he went to Damasco and became acquainted with the Wise Men of Damcar in Arabia and beheld their wonders, and how they had discovered the secrets of nature. After travelling on to Damcar [MJF: Doncaster] he perfected himself in the Arabic tongue, and learned Physic and Mathematics. Then he went to Egypt where he studied plants and creatures for a short time, and proceeded on to Fez [the text says: he sailed over the whole Mediterranean Sea for to come to Fez. Apparently, Fez is utilized to indicate to the reader the mode of communication in the FAMA. Fez was noted for being composed of such diverse cultures that the residents had to use symbols in order to communicate with one another]. At Fez C.R. studied Mathematics, Physic and Magic and became acquainted with the Elementals who revealed unto him many of their secrets. C.R.C. found in the doctrines of FEZ that microcosmic doctrine which demonstrated the agreement of man, the little cosmos, with the world, the great cosmos.

After leaving Fez, C.R. sailed to Spain. He conferred with the learned in Spain, "showing unto them the errors of our arts, and how they might be corrected, and from whence they should gather the true Indicia of the times to come, and wherein they ought to agree with those things that are past" and "prescribed them new Axiomata, whereby all things might fully be restored." but he was laughed at for his pains:​

"The same song was also sung to him by other nations, the which moved him the more because it happened to him contrary to his expectations, being ready then bountifully to impart all the arts and secrets to the learned, if they would have but undertaken to write the true and infallible Axiomata, out of all faculties, sciences, and arts, and whole Nature, as that which he knew would direct them, like a globe or circle, to the only middle point and Centrum, and (as is usual among the Arabians) it should only serve to the wise and learned as a rule."

He tried to impart the arts and secrets to the learned of Europe, to show them how to write the true and infallible Axiomata out of all faculties, sciences and arts, but he was laughed at for his pains. So, with the aid of a few people close to him he began the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, and began to attempt the necessary reformation of all knowledge [MJF: i.e., Bacon’s Great Instauration].

The publication of The Fama aroused intense excitement in Europe. The mystery of the Fraternity and its mysterious Brothers was increased in the following year by the publication of the second Rosicrucian manifesto - The Confession. The Confession continued the discussion of the Brothers, of their philosophy, and their mission. It said their only philosophy was that which was the head of all faculties, arts, and sciences, and if all learning was lost, the knowledge brought forth by C.R.C. would allow posterity to lay a new foundation of sciences. The manifesto invited the learned to join the Brothers in their work. They would have only to declare their mind "either Communicatio, or singulatim by print", and their words would "assuredly come" to the Brothers.

This, in summary, is the story of the Rosicrucian phenomena. A story which has never ceased to attract and inspire those interested in the bizarre and mysterious. Some take the story literally. Some have labelled it a hoax. There are certain features cleverly designed into The Fama that are more than sufficient indication to the observant reader that the work is not to be taken at face value. For example, The Fama says C.R. was born in 1378 and lived 106 years, which would have made his death around 1484. Yet we are told that when his tomb was opened one of his books that was found in the tomb was a work of Paracelsus. Since Paracelsus was born in 1493 and died in 1541 he would have been born nine years after Rosenkreutz died. Moreover, C.R.C. is supposed to have founded the fraternity. But look at the list of names. C.R.C. is not listed among the members:​

1. Fra. I.A. Fra. Ch. electione Fraternitatis caput.
2. Fra. G.V. M.P.G.
3. Fra. F.R.C. Junior haeres S. Spiritus
4. Fra. F.B. M.P.A. Pictor et Architectus

Secundi Circuli

1. Fra. P.A. Successor, Fra. I.O., Mathematicus
2. Fra. A. Successor Fra. P.D.
3. Fra. R. Successor Patris C.R.C., cum Christo Triumphantis

The first four names are obviously the first circle of brothers since the next three are prefixed by the title, "Second Circle", and in the next three we are told Brother R. is successor to Father C.R., however,

Father C.R.C does not appear in the first circle. Why? Obviously The Fama is not to be taken factually. Nevertheless, there are naïve readers of the Manifestos who take them at face value as an account of a man born in 1378 who founded a secret society. But they have a superficial grasp of the phenomenon. All students who have looked deeper into the matter (such as A.E. Waite, Manly Palmer Hall, and Frances Yates, etc.) tend to believe some type of allegory is expressed in the Manifestos, and some type of hidden meaning is present.

There are connotations in the emblem of the Rose Cross that appears to point to England. "Rosicrucian" has at least two possible meanings. It signifies a rose coloured cross. But it can also signify a crucified rose. The rose coloured, or red cross was well known. When Pope Urban II preached the first crusade at Clermont in central France, in that open field outside the town, he designated a cross made red with the blood of Christ as the badge of the "soldiers of Christ", the knights who would go forth on their holy crusade for the cause of recovering the Holy Land from the infidels. This cross was also the cross of the Knights Templars, the Christian heroes who wore it on their breasts in their wars against the Saracens and Turks.

With the Rosicrucians, however, instead of a "red with the blood of Christ cross" used as an emblem in the cause of recovering the Holy Land from the infidels, the cross was rose red and was used as an emblem in the holy crusade of the Advancement of Learning. This pointed toward England where another well-known red cross - the cross of St. George, the patron saint of England, and the legend of St. George had its arising from an historic figure - George of Capodoccia, who was renowned for his learning. Moreover, the red cross of England was associated with a red rose - the Tudor rose. The red cross and the rose were customary on various insignia associated with England: the emblem of the Knights of the Garter (royal order of chivalry of England), on the sails of the English navy's flagship, the Ark Royal, etc. The Red Cross of Saint George adorned the pennants of the English sailing ships of discovery as they sailed forth on their voyages to the New World. And the sailing ship of discovery was precisely the emblem utilized by Bacon as the headpiece to his published works. Another element pointing to England was presence of ideas from:

John Dee and Francis Bacon in the Manifestos. The John Dee connection in the manifestos: The Confession had a tract, called, "A brief Consideration of a more Secret Philosophy", published with it. This tract was based on John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica, much of it being verbatim quotations from the Monas. This tract was part of the Confession publication, and the Confession was linked to The Fama. Thus, it is definite the "more secret" philosophy behind the manifestos was the Monas of John Dee. Furthermore, Dee's Monas symbol (see below) appeared on the title page of the Wedding and in the text beside the poem with which the allegory began. ​

John Dee's Monas symbol​

The Francis Bacon influence in the Manifestos The manifestos were saturated through and through with the most detailed impress of Bacon's thought. When the Fama opened with a call to all men of knowledge that united, they might collect the Book of Nature - a perfect method of all arts and sciences, it pointed directly to Bacon because this was what Bacon (and only Bacon) claimed to have done. Bacon's thought was also seen in their central theme dealing with the advancement of learning. And readers who are familiar with my essays on the various "Shakespeare" plays will know that they are designed to look both to the past and to the future, and thus his thought is evident in the following Fama passage, "showing unto them the errors of our arts, and how they might be corrected, and from whence they should gather the true Indicia of the times to come, and wherein they ought to agree with those things that are past" (The Shakespeare plays incorporate a "Janus" design relating the past to the future).

We must remember also that The New Atlantis is the work in which Bacon set forth a depiction of his metaphoric New World of the Sciences, and that this New World is portrayed by Bacon as the land of the Rosicrucians. There is no doubt of this. Before the travellers landed, they were handed a scroll of instructions by an official from New Atlantis. 'This scroll was signed with a stamp of cherubim's wings, not spread, but hanging downwards, and by them a cross.' Exactly as the Rosicrucian Fama was sealed at the end with the motto 'Under the shadow of Jehovah's wings', and the cross. A few days later an official of New Atlantis came to visit the strangers, and he was wearing a white turban 'with a small red cross on the top.' Further proof the travellers had come to the land of the R.C. Brothers. When the sick of the travellers were cared for and they offered payment, the payment was refused, recalling the rule of the R.C. Brothers that they are to heal the sick gratis. When the travellers asked how the brothers knew what went on in the outside world they were told men from New Atlantis were sent out dressed in the dress of the countries they visited and adopting their habits so as to pass unperceived, i.e. they followed the rule of the R.C. Brother that they wear no special habit or distinguishing mark, but conform in dress and appearance with the inhabitants of whatever country they visited. In commenting on Bacon's "New Atlantis" Spedding said:​

"Perhaps there is no single work of his which has so much of himself in it. The description of Solomon's House is the description of the vision in which he lived-the vision not of an ideal world released from the natural conditions to which ours is subject, but of our own world as it might be made if we did our duty by it; of a state of things which he believed would one day be actually seen upon this earth, such as it is, by men such as we are, and the coming of which he believed that his own labours were sensibly hastening."

We must also note in pass that the central motif of Solomon's house in Bacon's "New Atlantis" also connects it with Freemasonry.

John Heydon's Holy Guide, published in 1662 was for the most part based on an adaptation of the New Atlantis. In the Holy Guide when the man in the white turban with the red cross visits the sick, he says, "I am by Office Governor of this House of Strangers, and by vocations I am a Christian priest, and of the Order of the Rosie Cross'. And where Bacon speaks of one of the wise men of the House of Solomon, Heydon has, 'One of the wise men of the Society of the Rosicrucians'. Heydon speaks explicitly of the House of Solomon in New Atlantis as the same as the 'Temple of the Rosie Cross'. And Heydon has many other points associating New Atlantis with the Fama; in fact, he sees Bacon's work as practically the same as the Rosicrucian Manifesto. Heydon certainly knew, if anyone did because, even though the book appeared after Bacon's "death", it is apparent Heydon was one of Bacon's masks. Anyone who is acquainted with Bacon's style cannot fail to note the similarity:​

"I was twenty when this book was finished; but methinks I have outlived myself; I begin to be weary of the sun. I have shaken hands with delight, and know all is vanity, and I think no man can live well once but he that could live twice. For my part I would not live over my hours past, or begin again the minutes of my days; not because I have lived well, but for fear that I should live them worse. At my death I mean to make a total adieu of the world, not caring for the burthen of a tombstone and epitaph, but in the universal Register of God I fix my contemplations on Heaven. I writ the Rosicrucian Infallible Axiomata in four books, and study, not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves. In the law I began to be a perfect clerk; I write the Idea of the Law, etc., for the benefit of my friends, and practice in King's Bench*. I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less…Now, in the midst of all my endeavours there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor can be legacied amongst my dearly beloved and honoured friends."

*As we learned above, Bacon was a young barrister at Gray’s Inn in his early twenties.

This book was supposedly written after Bacon's death, and long after the Rosicrucian Axiomata was written. But note this person says he wrote it, and this person writes in the style of Bacon, and refers to Bacon's law career and legal writings, and reiterates the "I begin to be weary of the sun" which is found in the "Shakespeare" plays. To the weight of all the other evidence of Bacon's hand in the Manifestos we must add the fact that his New Atlantis very definitely connects him with the Rosicrucians.

Even without the New Atlantis, however, there is more than enough evidence in the Fama to establish the connection with Bacon. One of the Rosicrucian Brothers is listed in the Fama as Fra[ter]. F.B. M.P.A. Pictor et Architectus. What can this mean (bearing in mind all the other evidence) except: Brother Francis Bacon, Master, Painter, and Architect of the Rosicrucian Fraternity? Moreover, the first paragraph alone of The Fama was more than sufficient to conclusively establish the connection with the thought of Bacon:​

"Seeing the only wise and merciful God in these latter days hath poured out so richly his mercy and goodness to mankind, whereby we do attain more and more to the perfect knowledge of his Son Jesus Christ and Nature, that justly we may boast of the happy time, wherein there is not only discovered unto us the half part of the world, which was heretofore unknown and hidden, but he hath also made manifest unto us many wonderful, and never heretofore seen, works and creatures of Nature, and moreover hath raised men, imbued with great wisdom, who might partly renew and reduce all arts (in this our age spotted and imperfect) to perfection; so that finally man might thereby understand his own nobleness and worth, and why he is called Microcosmus, and how far his know- ledge extendeth into Nature."

There are six major ideas in this paragraph:

1. The renewal (Instauration) of all arts.
2. That the opening of the previously unexplored half of the globe is connected with the opening up of the previously unexplored part of Nature.
3. That the two events are ordained by God to occur together in the same age.
4. That the event is, therefore, not to be credited to any one man, but to the age itself. (This is implied in the paragraph, but stated explicitly later in The Confession.)
5. That accomplishing this work will allow man to know why he "is called Microcosmus." (Certainly a unique notion.)
6. That the age has seen men raised up who are "imbued with great wisdom" and are equal to the task at hand.

These ideas are all somewhat off the beaten path. Collectively they constitute the fingerprint of a mind. They are all stock ideas of Bacon's which he constantly reiterates:

"There was but one course left, therefore,- to try the whole thing anew upon a better plan, and to commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations."- Proemium to the Great Instauration

"...and if by travel, it requireth to voyage but of half the globe. But to circle the earth, as the heavenly bodies do, was not done nor enterprised till these later times: and therefore these times may justly bear in their word, not only plus ultra (more beyond), in precedence of the ancient non ultra (no more beyond), and immitable thunderbolt in precedence of the ancient nonimitable thunderbolt... but likewise imitabile coalum; in respect of the many memorable voyages, after the manner of heaven, about the globe of the earth. And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant also an expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of all sciences because it may seem they are ordained by God to be coevals, that is, to meet in one age. For so the prophet Daniel speaking of the latter times foretelleth, Many shall pass to and fro and knowledge shall be multiplied: as if the openness and through passage of the world and the increase of knowledge were appointed to be in the same ages..." -The Advancement of Learning​

These two passages express the first four ideas in the paragraph. The fifth, that by opening up the previously unexplored parts of nature man will learn why he is called Microcosmus, is a peculiar idea, one apparently unique to Bacon. According to Bacon the disciples of Paracelsus had "fantastically strained" the idea of why man was Microcosmus. For Bacon man was microcosmus because his mind, like a glass, had the ability to receive in it the image of the great world:

"...God hath framed the mind of man as a glass capable of the images of the universal world, joying to receive the signature thereof as the eye is of light..."

This was Bacon's great concept of the Intellectual Globe, a microcosm in the mind of man which was a true model of the great world. Bacon sees the natural philosopher as God's vice-regent recreating in the mind of man a little world modelled after God's great world. Only then will man truly know why "he is called Microcosmus."

The Fama says that Christian Rosencreutz built a microcosm. When his vault was opened instead of a tombstone a round altar was in the middle of the vault, and engraved on it were the words:​

"THIS COMPENDIUM OF THE UNIVERSE I MADE IN MY LIFETIME TO BE MY TOMB"

When the altar was removed the wonderfully preserved body of C.R.C. was found. In his hand was a book called "I" which, next to the Bible, was the greatest treasure of the Rosicrucians, and at the end of the book was a eulogy which said (among other things) that C.R.C. had:

"...constructed a microcosm corresponding in all motions to the macrocosm and finally drew up this compendium of things past, present, and to come."

This would certainly be a curious coincidence after all the other ideas paralleling those of Bacon, because we know that this was exactly what Bacon was involved in doing:

"For I am building in the human understanding a true model of the world" -Novum Organum

There are clear allusions to Bacon's Discovery Device in the Manifestos. The passage from the Manifestos that states:

"He conferred with the learned in Spain, "showing unto them the errors of our arts, and how they might be corrected, and from whence they should gather the true Indicia of the times to come, and wherein they ought to agree with those things that are past" and "prescribed them new Axiomata, whereby all things might fully be restored." but he was laughed at for his pains:

"The same song was also sung to him by other nations, the which moved him the more because it happened to him contrary to his expectations, being ready then bountifully to impart all the arts and secrets to the learned, if they would have but undertaken to write the true and infallible Axiomata, out of all faculties, sciences, and arts, and whole Nature, as that which he knew would direct them, like a globe or circle, to the only middle point and Centrum, and (as is usual among the Arabians) it should only serve to the wise and learned as a rule."

He tried to impart the arts and secrets to the learned of Europe, to show them how to write the true and infallible Axiomata out of all faculties, sciences and arts, but he was laughed at for his pains."

The Fama continues:

"Otherwise we must confess, that after the death of the said "A" none of us had in any manner known anything of brother R.C. and of his first fellow-brethren, that that which was extant of them in our philosophical Bibliotheca, amongst which our Axiomata was held for the chiefest, Rota Mundi for the most artificial, and Proteus the most profitable. Likewise, we do not certainly know if these of the second row have been of the like wisdom as the first…"

All of this has clear echoes in passages in Bacon's works. With the presence of the compass established in the Shakespeare plays, and the realization that Bacon was building a model of the world there, and that the compass represented a microcosm of the world it becomes obvious that the Rota Mundi (Wheel of the World) is analogous to the idea of the design in the First Folio. The idea of Bacon's science was that it would give man the power to change any substance into any other substance. The reference to "Proteus" as "the most profitable" obviously refers to this. Referring to his "New Machine for the Intellect" Bacon repeatedly refers to his system of axioms:​

"Now my plan is to proceed regularly and gradually from one axiom to another, so that the most general are not reached till the last: but then when you do come to them you find them to be not empty notions, but well defined, and such as nature would really recognize as her first principles, and such as lie at the heart and marrow of things.-The Great Instauration

"Lastly that they had no knowledge of the formulary of interpretation, the work whereof is to abridge experience and make things as certainly found out by Axiom in short time, as by infinite experiences in ages."-Valerius Terminus

Certain passages in the Fama may be coded writing designed to convey concealed information. For example:

"yet there came into our memory a secret, which through dark and hidden words, and speeches of the 100 years, brother A., the successor of D. (who was of the last and second row and succession and had lived amongst many of us) did impart unto us of the third row and succession."

Observe closely the phrasing of this passage, "a secret, which through dark and hidden words" as if the author was signalling the reader that a hidden meaning was forthcoming. Then compare the Baconian fragments from "Physiological Remains under Questions Touching Minerals":​

"The Lord Bacon's Questions and Solutions concerning the compounding, incorporating, or union of metals or minerals; which subject is the first letter of his Lordship's Alphabet.

The second letter of the cross-row, touching the separation of metals and minerals.

The third letter of the cross-row, touching the variation of metals into several shapes, bodies, or nature, the particulars whereof follows."

In some personal notes, made in 1608, Bacon said:

"Qu. Of young schollars in ye universities. It must be the post nati. Giving pensions to four, to compile the two histories, ut supra."

"Qu. Of the order and discipline, the rules and praescripts of their studyes and inquyries, allowances for travailing, intelligence, and correspondence with ye universities abroad."

"Qu. Of the maner and praescripts touching secresy, traditions, and publications."

Is it coincidence that we find in the Fama?:

"After this manner began the Fraternity of the Rose Cross; first, by four persons only, and by them was made the magical language and writing, with a large dictionary…"

It seems that, if the Fama is examined carefully, four of the brothers can be identified. These are: Brothers F.B., D., I.A., and Brother R. Since the evidence of Bacon's hand is so obvious in the Fama, it is plausible to assume Brother F.B. is Francis Bacon. Since the Latin version of the publication that contained the first edition of the Confessio also contained a short called "A Brief Consideration of the more Secret Philosophy" which quoted verbatim from the first thirteen theorems of the John Dee's "Monas Hieroglyphica", and "The Chemical Wedding" contained a reproduction of Dee's 'monas' symbol from its title page, it is plausible to assume brother D. was John Dee. Furthermore, since it is known that the third Rosicrucian document, "The Chemical Wedding" was written by Johann Andreae, and the alternate form of his name was Iohann Andreae, it is plausible to assume the initials "I.A." listed on the manifesto as "electione Fraternitatis caput", i.e. "elected head of the Fraternity", stands for Iohann Andreae. We have seen that he had contacts with Galileo through his agent Mathew. Apparently, he also maintained a wide range of other contacts, and Andreae was one of these. Andreae was acquainted with Prince Augustus, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg. Yates mentions a letter written by Andreae to him. And a number of Baconians have believed that "Cryptomenytices", supposedly written by Prince Augustus in 1624, was actually written by Bacon.

Evidently the Fama gave information relating to actual people connected with the Brotherhood. The alternative suggestion that the initials I.A., and F.B., and D., appeared by chance in the membership rooster of the organisation is simply too much of a coincidence. This indicates that Brother R. was [Sir Walter] Raleigh.

Having established these four people as connected with the Rosicrucians phenomenon (I will even go a step further and venture a guess that G.G. stands for Galileo Galilei) we can also establish that the manifestos were fiction, although a fiction that was fashioned to designate some hidden meaning. Since the real author of the manifestos was familiar with Andreae's manuscript works we can assume that Andreae had inside knowledge of this person (who was certainly Francis Bacon) and of his secret intentions. Andreae described his "Chemical Wedding" as a "ludibrium", that is, a "fictional story", a "stage play", or jest. In Andreae's "Christian Mythology of 1618 Andreae said:​

"I have nothing whatever to do with it [the Fraternitas R.C.]. When it came about, not a long time since, that some on the literary stage were arranging a play scene of certain ingenious parties, I stood aside as one who looks on, having regard to the fashion of the age which seizes with avidity on new-fangled notions."

Since we have identified four of the Brothers in the list, let's take another look at the list and see if any more deductions can be made from the list. The list is as follows:​

1. Fra. I.A. Fra. Ch. electione Fraternitatis caput. [elected head of Fraternity]
2. Fra. G.V. M.P.G.
3. Fra. F.R.C. Junior haeres S. Spiritus [younger heir of the house of the holy spirit]
4. Fra. F.B. M.P.A. Pictor et Architectus [painter and architect]

Secundi Circuli

1. Fra. P.A. Successor to Fra. I.O., Mathematicus
2. Fra. A. Successor to Fra. P.D.
3. Fra. R. Successor to Patris C.R.C., cum Christo Triumphantis [with Christ Triumphant]

Look at the third name on the list. The Fama says this was C.R.C.'s "deceased father's brother's son". Isn't this rather curious phrasing? This suggests some obscure significance. What does it mean? Since F. R.C. was C.R.C.'s father's brother's son, it means his last name was Rosencreutz. Thus, the name on the list stands for F. Rosencreutz, or F. Rosy Cross. The author of The Fama wanted to convey this information without it being immediately obvious. John Wilkins, principal founder of the Royal Society, said in his "Mathematical Magic” while referring to a perpetual lamp:​

"such a lamp is related to be seen in the sepulchre of Francis Rosicrosse, as is more largely expressed in the Confession of that Fraternity."

Wilkins was aware F.R.C. stood for F. Rosencreutz, or F. Rosicrosse. Since he had the Rosicrosse part of it right (which has escaped other commentators on the subject) more than likely he had the Francis part right also. This makes the vault that of F.R.C. - the third name on the list. But since it was the vault of C.R.C., C.R.C. and F.R.C. are to be equated. This leads to the observation that since Francis Rosicrosse is listed immediately before the F.B. (Francis Bacon) these two are to be equated. The title Painter and Architect implies Francis Bacon was the Painter and Architect of the Fraternity. The whole title "M.P.A." probably stood for, "Magister, Pictor et Architectus [Master, Painter and Architect]" lending even more credence to the idea that Francis Bacon was the mind behind the whole thing. Indeed, this conclusion is inevitable in view of all the evidence of Bacon's mind in The Fama. So, it is obvious both The Fama and the list are not what they purport to be on the surface, and neither can be taken at face value.

Bacon wanted to recruit people to aid him in his task of spreading light. He referred several times to the idea that men with exceptional wisdom, who were equal to the task of the Instauration, had been raised upon in his age. In "Thoughts and Conclusions" he said:​

"It has occurred to me likewise, that there are doubtlessly many wits scattered over Europe, capacious, open, lofty, subtle, solid, and constant...there be good hope that these great wits I spoke of before, such as flourished in the old philosophers, and are even still often to be found..."

In chapter four of A. E. Waite's "Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross", titled "Symbolism of the Rose and Cross", Waite wades through all the connotations he was able to dig up that are associated with the Rose, and the Cross. Waite was nothing if not thorough. Not too bright. But the man was thorough. However, he comes out the same door he went in. Because something more was needed for that dark landscape across which he was groping his way than a 50 watt light bulb. Actually, although he probably didn't realise it - he extracted one bit of gold from the mountain of ore he sifted through.
​

(Summon Bonum by Robert Fludd, 1629,
Frankfurt, roses on the cross, notice the Bee)
​

This was the point he discloses at the end of the chapter that Robert Fludd defined the Rose Cross as a rose at the centre of a cross where the four arms meet. This is significant, as might be expected, since Fludd was so closely connected with Bacon (the two closest friends of Fludd - John Selden and Lancelot Andrewes were also two of the closest friends of Bacon).

The proper approach to the problem is to first tabulate all the information we possess relating to the Rosicrucian rose and cross. Each additional bit of information is an additional reduction of the possible universe in which we must search to determine the solution. What information do we possess? We are dealing with a rose at the centre of a cross. We are dealing with the theme of the acquisition of new knowledge - the Advancement of Learning. We are dealing with a microcosm. We are dealing with Bacon's discovery device. Therefore, we can deduce (based on the message in The Tempest plus the related information found there) that we are dealing with a compass. BINGO! There's the answer.

Because this answer may not be all that obvious (just to show my heart's in the right place) I will draw you a picture. The following illustration from the 1594 book, "The Seaman's Secret" by John Davis encapsulates the whole secret of the Rosicrucian phenomena. ​

​

Notice the rose at the centre of the compass card. This should be put in the context of Bacon's metaphoric Intellectual Globe, with the Old World of received knowledge in the Mediterranean; New World of the sciences far West of the pillars of Hercules; and Sailing Ship of Discovery guided by his Intellectual Compass (his New Machine for the intellect) venturing out beyond the pillars of Hercules. The next step is to look back at the history of the compass. Anyone who has any degree of familiarity with the history of the compass has heard of the Compass Rose. The Compass Rose originated with the Wind Rose. And the Wind Rose gave birth in symbolism to cross with the rose at its centre*.

*This may make sense of something the C’s said about the Turkish Admiral Piri Reis, who was also a leading cartographer or map maker, when they seemingly linked him with the Rosicrucians in the following extract:

A: But there are always connections, both hither and yon. Tricky those Rosicrucians, tricky. And what of Piri Reis?

Piri Reis followed standard convention when producing his famous map showing Antarctica by using the Compass Rose derived from the Wind Rose.



This is the answer to the little puzzle in the Fama where R.C. is said to be C.R. father's brother's son. Also ,we must remember that the fifth article in the agreement drawn up by the brothers of the Rosicrucian Fraternity was that "The word CR should be their seal, mark, and character". This is curious phrasing. One would expect this to read that "The world Rosicrucian should be their seal, mark, and character", but instead it is the world "CR". This makes sense if it is the word "Compass Rose", and this is used as an emblem for The Advancement of Learning. If we go back to the ancestor of the Compass Rose, we find the Wind Rose from which was descended the Rose Cross. The design was originally used in connection with a cross that showed the directions of the four principal winds: North, South, East and West. This was a symbol of the macrocosm. Speaking of the cross Mackey says:​

"It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points, the four winds of heaven…If this be so, and if it is probable that a similar reference was adopted by the Celtic and other ancient peoples, then we would have in the cruciform temple as much a symbolism of the world, of which the four cardinal points constitute the boundaries, as we have in the square, the cubical, and the circular."​

The centre of this design, especially when the other winds were added, resembled a rose, and was carried over to the compass when the compass was invented. This rose alike to the winds that gave it birth, was invisible. Thus, the mythos of invisibility in connection with the Rosicrucians. In the Fama the major theme of symbolism deals with the Compass Rose, which in Bacon's system of knowledge is equated metaphorically with the idea of the acquisition of knowledge, of illumination, and of the advancement of learning. We are told of C.R. (compass rose) who sailed over most of the Mediterranean. This is nothing else but a veiled history of the compass rose. The western version of the compass was invented in Venice. Venetian seamen sailed over most of the Mediterranean before they ventured beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic. Although the compass was invented earlier in the century, the birth of C.R. in 1378 is probably around the date that the compass rose was adopted in connection with the compass card. After C.R. sailed over most of the Mediterranean, he came to Fez showing that the account was allegorical. (Fez had such diverse cultures they had to use symbols to communicate with each other).

The Rosicrucian Rose was a rose in the centre of a cross, just as the Compass Rose was a rose in the centre of the cross of the four cardinal directions. There was also a connection of the lily with the mythos. A convention of the compass was that the lily (fleur-de-lis) was used on the compass to designate north. The plays begin with a ship that has sailed to a strange island we later find is both in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic at the same time. There is a close affinity with the New Atlantis - the land of the Rosicrucians. Metaphorically Rosicrucians were Rose Cross men - men who used Bacon's discovery device (which has a compass design in the plays) to make the metaphoric voyage beyond the pillars of Hercules in search of the New World of the sciences. Bacon's design at the beginning of his 1620 New Organon of the ship sailing forth beyond the Pillars of Hercules contains an implicit Rosicrucian allusion, since metaphorically the ship was guided by his Intellectual Compass. Bacon appropriated the compass card with the Compass Rose as an emblem of the Advancement of Learning. This was the rationale for the figures symbolizing the seven liberal sciences and arts in the compass in the Byrom Collection. The compass symbolizing all directions of the world, was emblematic of the idea of knowledge gathered from all parts of the world. Many parallels exist, but this should suffice to establish the correlation.

Therefore, Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism are complementary aspects. The Temple of Solomon of Freemasonry is a model of the universe. The compass with the rose of the Rosicrucians is a metaphoric model of the world. Both are built into the First Folio, with its design of the 32 directions of the compass, and the 36 decans of the zodiac.

This idea of using the Compass Rose to navigate (or steer) as regards the acquisition of knowledge and illumination (a term which has a special meaning for Freemasons), bearing in mind here that Bacon's metaphoric illustration on his book "New Organon" was a "sailing ship of discovery", makes me wonder if this is what the C’s had in mind when they said the following to Laura:​

A: Your quest is your own. We do not "steer." We supply the mortar, you are the Masoness.

Q: Well, I don't know how to take that! I mean, the Masons could be the most evil organization in existence! BRH thinks so.

A: Such judgements miss the point, if there are keys stored within the envelope.

Now I don’t know whether Mather’s argument that the letters “CR”, as used in the Fama, means Compass Rose is correct or not. It certainly is a well-made argument though. There may even be possible support for this notion in a crop circle that appeared in an English wheat field some years ago:
​

​

​

Rather than Enki a Sumerian god, could it be a representation of a Rosicrucian Compass Rose perhaps? Afterall, the C’s have said that 6th density are the architects of genuine cop circles. If so, could the above crop circle link with what the C’s said here:

A: Have you researched the power of Stonehenge, and how it relates... where it fits in?

Q: Yes, we are bit by bit collecting things...

A: Well? And crop circles? Amazing connections... And what of "The Rosy Cross?"

Did the C’s in intend us to make a link between the Rosy Cross and the Compass Rose through this crop circle? I don’t know if this crop circle was created in Wiltshire, the English county where Stonehenge is located, but the following extract from the transcripts may be relevant here where this particular crop circle is concerned:

A: Reading instead of listening... decipher rather individually then comprehend universally... crop circles rather than Stonehenge!!!

Continued in Part 4

 

[MJF]

Francis Bacon – The Man Behind the Curtain Part 4

The Vault

However, there is another possible connection with the letters “CR” that are obviously the mirror image of the letters “RC” (Rosen Creutz or “red cross”) and this connection involves the discovery of a tomb or vault, as depicted in the story related in the Fama. In this case, the vault or tomb in question is to be found in the famous second painting of Et in Arcadia Ego or The Shepherds of Arcadia by the French Artist Nicholas Poussin, who many people believe was a Rosicrucian.
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As Laura has noted, the bearded kneeling figure in the painting is pointing to the letters R and C in Arcadia on the tomb stone. Could this signify the Croix Rouge or Rosy Crosse?

As Laura states:​

“it seems that our Poussin may have been privy to certain "inside circles," even if only through inspiration, or "channelling," of an artistic sort.”

Now Poussin was known as the ‘Keeper of Secrets” an apt ability one might say for a Freemason or a Rosicrucian. We have investigated Poussin’s painting on the Alton Towers thread on numerous occasions, considering, for example, the celestial or zodiacal clues that may be linked to the figures depicted in the painting and their relationship to mythical characters such as Hercules and the twins Castor and Pollux who were members of the Argonaut crew captained by the hero Jason who sought the fabled Golden Fleece (a story that is in essence a grail quest). We have also taken into account the double image view suggested by the C’s (see image below):
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Q: Okay. Now. This woman with this book "The Horse of God," talks about the shadow of the horse in the Shepherds of Arcadia painting that is evident if you turn it upside down. I know that I dreamed that the painting was a map. In terms of this map, what would be the zero meridian that one would use to place the map?

A: There need not be a zero meridian.

Q: Is there any one thing... I doused the picture, and it seemed that the head of the kneeling man with the beard was the important figure. Where, on a map, would one place this head in order to have the other figures in correct alignment?

A: Best to split the image, head to head. Vertically.
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There is also the issue of the bearded figure’s tunic, the bottom part of which adjacent to his bended knee Laura thought might form a map. Indeed, she thought it might be a map of Derbyshire in England where there is found a breed of sheep with yellowish fleeces. Indeed, the C’s themselves have likened the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau, which includes the Poussin painting, to finding a map:​

A: Just look. Now folks, remember: Rennes-le-Chateau is a means, not an end. Sort of like unlocking the trunk, expecting to find the gold, and merely finding a map.

However, another Forum member, Moyal, thought the dark blue tunic of the bearded shepherd (see image below) might form a map with the upper part looking like the Iberian Peninsula and the lower part looking like the coasts of East Africa and India. To reach the latter, as the Portuguese Knights of Christ would do during their voyages of discovery, you would need to go through 'The Pillars of Hercules', as represented by the bearded shepherd’s (Hercules?) sturdy legs

Moyal also pointed out that the shepherd’s arm and hand would seem to be pointing in the direction of Nova Scotia where Oak Island (and the TDARM) is located, which the French had only recently settled in Poussin’s time and had called ‘Acadie‘ after the Hellenic golden age Arcadia depicted in Poussin’s painting, which was usually envisaged as an idyllic pastureland peopled by rustic shepherds like those shown in the painting.
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If Moyal was correct, this would make an interesting connection with another vault, which is the one the two Lagina brothers and their ‘Fellowship of the Dig’ are trying to locate on Oak Island, Nova Scotia, where supposedly a great treasure lies buried deep underground, a treasure the C’s have said is a Trans-dimensional Atomic Remolecularisation Machine (TDARM) that may have similar restorative powers and qualities as those attributed to the Grail or Merkabah Stone. The C’s have hinted that Francis Bacon was involved in some way with the burying of this device in association with the enclave of alchemists (the Fama’s ‘Great Council of the Elect’) in the Pyrenees who included among their number the famous medieval alchemist Nicholas Flamel (who should have been dead long before the 16th century, the century in which the C’s said the TDARM was buried):​

A: Connect the Rosicrucians to your favourite island by the "beech." Horticulturally, please, and family.

Q: Oak Island?

A: Yup! Then, connect the Pyrenees to the Canaries.

What is just as intriguing though is that some Oak Island researchers believe that the very ‘First Folio’ of Shakespeare’s plays (not the one issued in 1623, the supposed year of Bacon’s death) is also buried on Oak Island. Now Mather Walker said that the Shakespeare plays incorporate a "Janus" design relating the past to the future, Janus being a Roman god who was usually depicted as a double headed figure with the heads looking in opposite directions so as to denote looking back to the past whilst at the same time looking forwards to the future. It is curious then that when we look at the mirror image of Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia (see above), we find a double-headed, Janus like image of the bearded shepherd looking in opposite directions. Is this just mere coincidence or did Poussin (a master of perspective and geometrical projection) intend this for those in the know?

If Bacon was involved in burying the First Portfolio of Shakespeare’s plays written by himself, then this would be an incredible discovery, even allowing for the TDARM, which is, of course, a piece of incredible alien (Reptilian) technology. This is because many Shakespearean researchers believe that the First Folio sets out the plays in the exact order that Shakespeare (Bacon) wrote them and intended them to be read when published, which will supposedly allow for hidden ciphers to be uncovered that may contain lost and secret knowledge encoded within the words of the plays, recalling that Bacon was a brilliant cryptographer who learned from the master, John Dee. At present, nobody is certain as to the original presentation of the lines of the plays. Hence, it is curious to note here that Bacon researcher Peter Dawkins has said that Bacon was aware of a way to preserve parchment by using mercury as he had specially written about it in his book Sylva Sylvarum. Lo and behold, a large cache of old mercury flasks with residues of mercury in them was recovered not so long ago off the northern shore of Oak Island that had evidently been buried deliberately. Apparently, a boatswain’s whistle and an old coin dating back to the Elizabethan period were also found in the workings. And is if to support the idea that Bacon may have buried the works of Shakespeare on Oak Island, a piece of old parchment with old fashioned writing on it has also been discovered in the Money Pit where Oak Island treasure hunters believe the fabled treasure is buried. Again, is this just mere coincidence? As the Lagina brothers close in on the collapsed Chapel Vault below which they think the treasure may be located, will they find the preserved works of Shakespeare’s First Folio, which would be an inestimable treasure in itself?
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Nicolas Poussin and the Mystery of ‘The Shepherds of Arcadia’

Whilst researching for this article, I came across an interesting piece on the internet with the title ‘Nicolas Poussin and the Mystery of The Shepherds of Arcadia: A Link to the Rosicrucian Tomb?’ Since this relates directly to what I have been discussing above, I thought I would explore here what the author has to say on the subject – see: Nicolas Poussin and the Mystery of The Shepherds of Arcadia: A Link to the Rosicrucian Tomb? – Trail of the Green Man.​

The author starts by commenting:

“While traditionally interpreted as a reflection on mortality, some researchers suggest the painting might hint at deeper, esoteric meanings. Could the tomb in the painting be more than a symbol of death? A tantalizing theory connects it to the legendary seven-sided tomb of Father Christian Rosenkreutz, the mythical founder of the Rosicrucian Order.”

It is interesting that Christian Rosenkreutz should have had a seven-sided tomb since apart from the fact that seven is considered the biblical number of perfection, Francis Bacon also promoted the seven liberal arts. The Rosicrucians’ foundational texts describe the tomb as a hidden chamber with seven sides, filled with symbols and knowledge intended to guide humanity. According to these accounts, the tomb was discovered 120 years after his death, aligning with the order’s philosophy of secrecy and revelation.
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Curiously, Mather Walker tells us in his article (see copy attached) Francis Bacon’s Formula of Interpretation that:

In 1734 (exactly 120 years after the publication of the Fama Fraternitatis) a work of Bacon’s was published in Stephens’ Letters and Remains titled ‘Valerius Terminus of the Interpretation of Nature’. Robert Leslie Ellis and James Spedding were both at a loss to understand Bacon’s reason for this particular title. Actually, it should have been obvious to them. Valerius was the name of the Valeria, perhaps the most distinguished dynasty of Rome, and Valerius Terminus indicated a distinguished termination to the search for knowledge exactly as Bacon described his Formula of Interpretation when referring to the futile efforts of his predecessors in this same work:​

“Lastly that they had no knowledge of the formulary of Interpretation, the work whereof is to abridge experience and make things as certainly found out by Axiom in short time, as by infinite experience in ages.”

Again, I would venture that this was no coincidence and was deliberately planned by Bacon and executed by his Rosicrucian successors. Returning to Nicolas Poussin and the Mystery of The Shepherds of Arcadia, the author goes on to say:

‘The Fouquet letter’ of 1656, in which Louis Fouquet claims that Poussin possessed knowledge of immense importance, has fuelled speculation about the painter’s ties to secret societies like the Rosicrucians. Could Poussin have encoded this sacred Rosicrucian legend into The Shepherds of Arcadia? The tomb’s inclusion in the idyllic scene takes on new significance in this context.

What if the tomb in The Shepherds of Arcadia isn’t merely a marker of mortality but a depiction of the seven-sided Rosicrucian tomb? The painting’s composition invites careful scrutiny: the shepherds’ gestures, the alignment of their bodies, and the inscriptions on the tomb itself have all been analysed for potential hidden meanings.

The Rosicrucian tomb, described as containing profound truths about the natural world, science, and the divine, aligns with the intellectual climate of Poussin’s time. The blending of art, science, and mysticism was central to the period’s cultural movements, making it plausible that Poussin, known for his intellectual depth, would weave such themes into his art.

The Latin phrase “Et in Arcadia Ego,” traditionally read as “Even in Arcadia, I am [present],” is often interpreted as a reminder of death’s omnipresence, even in utopia. However, some have reinterpreted the phrase to imply a hidden presence — perhaps that of knowledge, a secret society, or an enduring truth. Could the tomb be more than a memorial to the dead? Could it represent the repository of sacred or forbidden knowledge, waiting to be rediscovered?

While no definitive evidence links Poussin to the Rosicrucians, the parallels between the seven-sided tomb legend and the mysterious tomb in The Shepherds of Arcadia are compelling. Whether intentional or coincidental, the painting continues to inspire questions about the hidden layers of meaning in Poussin’s work.

As we explore these mysteries, we are reminded of the enduring power of art to provoke and inspire. Could Poussin have encoded a key to the secrets of the Rosicrucians — or even the location of a real tomb — in his masterpiece? The truth remains elusive, but the search itself invites us to look closer, think deeper, and wonder at the mysteries of the past.

Although I have previously proposed that Poussin was concealing the location of where the Grail or Merkabah may have been buried (see my series of articles on the ‘Mountain of God’) based on the accurate rendering in the background of this painting (and other works of his) of the mountains surrounding Rennes-le-Chateau, this does not rule out that the tomb depicted in the painting may also relate to a real tomb such as the vault constructed by Francis Bacon on Oak Island to hide both the Reptilians’ TDARM and possibly the First Folio of Shakespeare’s (Bacon’s) plays. If, as Mather Walker points out, Bacon was in contact with the Italian astronomer Galileo in Italy, could the artist Nicholas Poussin, have also been drawn into his Rosicrucian web and in so doing could he have learned the secret of Oak Island and the TDARM buried there? As the C’s once observed of the Rosicrucians:
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“A: What a tangled web we spin, when we must not let you in.” ​

We should also keep in mind here that whatever secret Poussin was hiding within the painting, it was so sensitive that King Louis XIV of France went to great extremes to obtain the painting and when he finally did take possession of it, he hid it away in his private chambers where no one could view it without his prior permission. Furthermore, he was prepared to imprison his powerful Finance Minister, Nicolas Fouquet, for life in 1661 supposedly because of irregularities discovered in Fouquet’s accounts but more probably because Fouquet had it seems learned the secret contained in Poussin’s painting from his brother Abbé Louis Fouquet in the ‘The Fouquet letter’ of 1656 mentioned above, which was written to Nicholas after his brother Louis had visited Poussin in Rome, and in which Louis indicated that Poussin possessed knowledge of great importance:​

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‘He and I discussed certain things, which I shall with ease be able to explain to you in detail – things that will give you, through Monsieur Poussin, advantages which even kings would have great pains to draw from him, and which, according to him, it is possible that nobody else will ever be able to rediscover in the centuries to come. And, what is more, these are things so difficult to discover that nothing now on this earth can prove of better fortune nor be their equal.’

We should also remember here that the C’s told us that the TDARM on Oak Island, part of the new Arcadia which was intended to be the land of the Rosicrucians, was buried there in the 16th century. Even if the burial was in the last decade of that century, this is still many years before the Rosicrucian Manifestos were published, and Poussins’ painting was executed, allowing time for the secret to be transmitted to a select few in the movement including possibly Poussin. However, the tomb or vault on Oak Island is not the only tomb that may be a candidate for the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz, the mythical founder of the Rosicrucian Order.
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The Tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz

The tomb depicted in Nichoals Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia is clearly shown to be above ground. However, tombs are also to be found in vaults that are often located underground, such as the ‘Chapel Vault’ on Oak Island, which in that case is deep underground. There is another famous illustration that depicts an underground vault, which clearly seeks to establish a link between Dr John Dee, Sir Francis Bacon and the Rosicrucians. This is the wood engraving (see below) known as Lampado trado by Jacob Cutts, which was first published in 1655 and appears to depict John Dee passing on the lamp of enlightenment to his successor Sir Francis Bacon.
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You will notice though that the illustration shows Dee and Bacon standing over a grave or the entrance to a vault. Could this be a coded reference to the tomb, sepulchre or vault of Christian Rosenkreutz in which the Fama tells us that those who discovered the tomb found in Rosenkreutz’s well-preserved hand a book called "I" which, next to the Bible, was the greatest treasure of the Rosicrucians, or was this account intended to be purely allegorical?

As to the lamp John Dee is holding in the image, is this the same perpetual lamp that John Wilkins, the principal founder of the Royal Society, referred to in his work "Mathematical Magic” (see above) where he said:

"such a lamp is related to be seen in the sepulchre of Francis Rosicrosse, as is more largely expressed in the Confession of that Fraternity."

One other telling feature of the engraving that betrays a visible link to the Rosicrucians is the large rose decoration that is shown on the buckle of the shoe on Bacon’s right foot. The rose, of course, symbolised the rose of the Rosicrucians. Does this suggest that Dee was a proto-Rosicrucian passing the Rosicrucian batten on to Bacon or that Dee inspired Bacon to establish a secret society that became the ‘Compeers of Night’ or the 17th century Rosicrucians?

Curiously, above Bacon’s tomb in St. Michael’s Church in St. Albans, England, there is a statue of the young man with the same rose on his shoe buckle. Is this just a coincidence? I think not.​

Springwood Priory

Could there have been a real vault in which a treasure trove of knowledge had been concealed only for it to be discovered by a group of people in the 16th century who would go on to become the 17th century Rosicrucians? According to English author and researcher Graham Phillips there was, and this vault lies under a medieval chapel in England that was reputedly built as part of a Templar preceptory by Ormus Le Guidon, a Knight Templar who supposedly had fought in the Holy Land and subsequently inherited an estate in what today is Biddulph, Staffordshire. The chapel and other buildings forming the Templar stronghold was subsequently transferred to the Cistercian Order of monks after the suppression of the Templar Order, whereafter it became known as Springwood Priory. In turn, the Cistercian monks would be forced to vacate the premises in the 1530’s because of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the English monasteries. The site would subsequently fall into ruin, a situation that was only made worse by the English Civil War of the mid-17th century when the chapel was apparently used as a store house, as it still is to this today.

It is Graham Phillip’s belief that the chapel was built over a cave that had been sacred to the Celtic tribe that had occupied this territory, the cave becoming the vault of the chapel where Templar artefacts and scrolls may have been hidden prior to the order’s suppression in 1314. If this was the case, it reminds me of what the C’s said here:​

A: Remember, secrets of Knights Templar were kept in caves guided by eternally burning lamps.

Phillips believes that the vault may have been discovered in 1604 by a small group of 17th century Rosicrucians led by a woman called Mary Bidulph, who it transpires was not only the niece of Sir Walter Raleigh but also had close associations with the Elizabethan luminaries George Chapman, Thomas Hariot and Robert Fludd (who may have become her lover after her husband’s death) – see more below. Inside they supposedly found lost Cabbalistic knowledge that had been possessed by the Knights Templar. For this revelation, Phillips relied on a vivid dream or remote viewing session that his co-researcher Jodi Russell had conducted in which she saw a small group led by a woman dressed in Elizabethan period clothing approaching the chapel and the men levering up a slab from the stone floor. The chapel, though much dilapidated, still exists, although in isolation now, as part of a modern farm complex, but sadly the ancient floor has been covered over by concrete. It is unlikely that the corporate owner will give permission for the floor to be excavated any time soon.​

Canons Ashby House

Although Phillips relied almost entirely on the remote viewing vision of an admittedly highly psychic woman to advance the case for the chapel at Springwood Priory being a repository for hidden, esoteric knowledge, he was on far safter ground for claiming that a long concealed, secret room in an English country mansion was the venue for meetings of the English Rosicrucians in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Canons Ashby House, near Daventry in the English East Midlands, is a Tudor manor house dating back to the late 16th century and the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Most of the building has remained unchanged since it was first built. Interestingly, there is a heavily worn mural in one of the rooms, which depicts the new star (supernova) of 1572 that the Rosicrucians made such an issue of since they saw it as an omen for the new Golden Age they were about to initiate (see above). The owner of the house at that time was Erasmus Dryden who was fascinated by the occult. Graham Phillips pointed out in his book Strange Fate co-written with Jodi Russell that John Dee had written about the new star, considering it a sign that profound worldly changes would soon occur in religious, scientific and mystical affairs.

Phillips goes on to say that Dee’s reasoning regarding the new star fascinated the statesman and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh so much so that he and Dee established a society to prepare for this imagined new age of enlightenment. Phillips adds that its membership boasted several leading academics such as the philosopher George Chapman, the mathematician Thomas Harriot, the physician Heinrich Khunrath and the polymath Robert Fludd (who, as we learned, would later become a leading member of the Royal Society). Although Phillips calls this small group the Elizabethan Order of Meonia, they were probably also the group known to history as Raleigh’s School of Night after what many perceived as their blasphemous research and ideas. Phillips adds that after Queen Elizabeth I adopted a more fundamentalist approach in 1591, Dee abandoned the society which continued to be led in secret by Raleigh until his arrest in 1603, whereafter he would spend the next 13 years in jail in the forbidding Tower of London. Phillips thought the society continued to meet in secret though at Canons Ashby House.​

Phillips argument for this is a secret alcove at Canons Ashby House that was not discovered until 2013 as it had been hidden behind lath and plaster for over 400 years. As Phillips explained to Jodi Russell when she visited the house with him:

“The recess some 6 feet high, 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep and had a shelf half-way up, flanked on either side by wooden depictions of fluted pilasters joined by an arch. In the top corners of this miniature, stage-like façade were red painted designs resembling upturned letter L’s, Below the shelf was a similar fascia, but in place of the L-shaped motifs were brown, inverted V-shape figures.”

It seems that the pillar designs represented the two columns or pillars of the Temple of Solomon Boaz and Joachin (or Jeroboam), while the L-shapes were squares and the V-shapes were compasses, the most identifiable symbols of Freemasonry. The alcove was also thought to have held a ceremonial wash basin, implying the chamber was a meeting place for early Freemasons as Masonic halls had such basins at their entrances. Phillips though realised there was a major problem associated with finding this secret Masonic alcove, as Freemasonry was not supposed to have been founded until 1717, over a century after the decorations in the room had been created. However, Phillips was aware that men like Robert Flood and Heinrich Khunrath had been associated with the Rosicrucians who according to the Fama had started after its founders discovered a secret, underground vault containing manuscripts revealing arcane Kabbalistic knowledge. The vault’s location remained a secret but one person who seemed to know of its whereabouts was Heinrich Khunrath who in 1605 included a stylised drawing of a tunnel said to lead to the vault, which was published in his work The Amphitheater of Eternal Wisdom. It so happens that there is a tunnel in Spring Wood that led directly to the priory and thus to the chapel, which Phillips and Russell had visited earlier in their investigations. Phillips believed that the tunnel had been constructed by Ormus le Guidon probably at the same time as the chapel. He also thinks that this is the tunnel that Heinrich Khunrath depicted in his book.

Phillips, you will note, makes no mention of Sir Francis Bacon who, we have been led to believe by commentators such as Mrs Henry Dodd, Peter Dawkins and Matthew Walker, was the Grand Master of the early 17th century Rosicrucians. Phillips at no time suggests that Bacon had any involvement with the Order of Meonia. Is there any evidence though to suggest that Bacon may have taken over the control of Raleigh’s group? Although Bacon was a very secretive man, he did know Raleigh personally and, despite the fact that Bacon belonged to a rival circle to that of Raleigh, he frequently visited Raleigh whilst he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Indeed, many think Bacon helped Raleigh with the writing of his major opus History of the World, which was written whilst he was locked up in the Tower. Is it possible that Bacon, at the behest of the incarcerated Raleigh merged his own group of academics* with those in the Raleigh circle in order to pursue the goal of enlightenment of the world, the merged group then becoming the Rosicrucians? Although I cannot prove this, I feel that this is what may have happened since we know that Robert Fludd was very closely associated with Bacon, as were Fludd’s good friends John Selden and Lancelot Andrewes, both of whom were also close friends of Bacon. And just as Erasmus Dryden commemorated the new star (supernova) of 1572 with the mural in his house so also Robert Fludd (whose heraldic shield or family crest along with those of Chapman, Harriot and Raleigh still appear on the wood panelled walls of Canons Ashby House) wrote, as we learned above, in his Tractis Apoligetica (1617):​

“that the “new star” of 1572 marked the beginning of the Rosicrucian work, which then continued to be prepared in secret until the 1603-04 planetary conjunctions and appearance of the new stars in Cygnus and Ophiuchus [Serpentario], which was a sign to the Fraternity for them to emerge from their period of secrecy, expand their membership and begin the restoration of the world.”

*Around the year 1607 Bacon began to seek out the best young university scholars that he could find to help in his Great Instauration project four of whom were retained on pensions (grants or scholarships) so that they might be free to devote themselves entirely to scientific or philosophic research, which as Mather Walker pointed out above, reflects something mentioned in the Fama:

"After this manner began the Fraternity of the Rose Cross; first, by four persons only, and by them was made the magical language and writing, with a large dictionary…"

Some of these scholars were also given money to assist them in travelling abroad to study at foreign universities, thus revealing the international dimension of the project. All were sworn to secrecy. It is curious to note a definite correspondence here with the Rosicrucian documents since they provided for a society of 63 members of various grades of initiation, apprentices, brethren, and an “imperator” (i.e., supreme master) who were all sworn to secrecy for a period of 100 years. There can be little doubt that the imperator was Francis Bacon.

Although there is nothing to connect Francis Bacon with a possible vault under the floor of the chapel at Springwood Priory, there is certainly evidence to connect Bacon with another vault, one that was buried under a flowing river.​

The Mysterious Vault under the River Wye

If Bacon really was the architect of the hidden vault buried in the Money Pit on Oak Island with its ingenious flood traps, is there any other indication that he may have constructed hidden vaults elsewhere? According to Bacon researcher Orville Ward Owen there is. After deciphering Bacon’s codes, Owen led an expedition in 1911 to try and find a vault under the river Wye near the city of Gloucester in England. Although the searchers did discover a vault just where Owen said it would be, which had markings on it that Bacon had employed, they failed to find Bacon’s manuscripts. Owen believed that the same man who had created the underwater hiding place in the first place had been responsible for moving the documents a second time to the Americas. Indeed, Owen’s next port of call was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Oak Island in Nova Scotia. I would add here that the Frankish Kings of France were often buried in tombs that were constructed in the middle of rivers. The tomb builders would dam the river and divert it whilst the tomb was being constructed and then, once the king’s body was safely entombed, they would breach the dam to allow the waters to flow again on their natural course. Perhaps Bacon, who was a well-read man, was aware of this practice and employed it in the construction of the vault under the river Wye.
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The Strange Altar in Sussex

Finally, I would make mention of a strange video that I encountered during my research, in which the video maker claims that there may be hidden vault under the floor of St Peters, an ancient English church located in East Sussex, which he claims had links with the Knights Templar. Indeed, he believes that members of the order may have buried treasure under the stone floor of the church before they were finally suppressed in England. He makes the fantastic claim that dark areas on the altar reflect the shadows cast by the shepherds on the tombstone depicted in Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia. He goes further to suggest that he has evidence to suggest that Poussin visited this church and saw the altar and then used it as a model for the tomb in his painting. I would point out that Poussin was originally from Normandy before relocating first to Paris and then to Rome. Sussex is only a short hop across the English Channel from Normandy.

He also shows an old photograph of the church before it was refurbished in modern times where the altar is not in situ. In the Fama, it mentions that the searchers discovered a round altar in the middle of Christian Rosencreutz’s tomb, which they removed. Did a group of searchers do the same for the altar in this Sussex church in order to uncover a hidden vault?

I have to say that the narrator’s history is very shaky in places. William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066 AD but the Templars were not established as a religious order until 1119 AD. Hence, there is no way that William and his Norman knights could have been Templars at that time. He also refers to Abbé Berenger Saunière as being a bishop when he was in fact just a country priest. Nevertheless, there does appear to be a genuine mystery associated with this ancient church. Whether it relates in any way to the mystery of Rennes-le-Château or the Knights Templar and the Grail who knows. Anyway, make of this strange video what you will.​

See: The Shepherds of Arcadia [New Discoveries] - YouTube

Finally, I would like to look at the strange circumstances of Bacon’s death, for which there are several competing versions and places where it was supposed to have occurred, and at rumours that he did not die in 1623 as claimed but lived on in Europe under various pseudonyms whilst continuing to write and research.

Francis Bacon as an Ascended Master?

Various authors have written that there were indications that Francis Bacon had gone into debt while secretly funding the publishing of materials for the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, "Spear-Shakers", "Knights of the Helmet", as well as publishing, with the assistance of Ben Johnson a selection of the plays that they believe he had written under the pen name of "Shake-Speare" in a "First Folio" in 1623. Furthermore, they allege that Bacon faked his own death, crossed the English Channel, and secretly travelled in disguise after 1626 through France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and other areas utilising the secret network of Freemasons and Rosicrucians that he was associated with. It is alleged that he continued to write under pseudonyms as he had done before 1626, continuing to write as late as 1670 (using the pseudonym "Comte De Gabalis"). Elinor Von Le Coq, wife of Professor Von Le Coq in Berlin, stated that she had found evidence in the German Archives that Francis Bacon stayed after 1626 with the family of Johannes Valentinus Andreae (who you will recall claimed to be the author of the Rosicrucain tract the Chemical Wedding of Chrisitan Rosencreutz) in Germany.​

Basil Montagu, a biographer of Bacon, states in his "Essays and Selections":

“Of his funeral no account can be found, nor is there any trace of the scite of the house where he died.”

As previously mentioned, Mrs Henry Pott pointed out that the actual circumstances of Francis Bacon’s death are the subject of some debate. She claimed there were at least four different accounts of his death that varied both in their circumstances and the place of death.

Beginning early in the 20th century in the United States, a number of Ascended Master Teachings organisations began making the claim that Francis Bacon had never died. They believed that soon after completing the "Shake-Speare" plays, he had feigned his own death on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1626 — doing so on Easter Sunday as a symbol [of resurrection] and then travelled extensively outside England, eventually attaining his physical Ascension to another plane on May 1, 1684, in a castle in Transylvania owned by the Rakoczi family. Their belief is that Bacon took on the name "Saint Germaine" on that date, 1 May 1684, and became an Ascended Master.​

Did Francis Bacon Join the Enclave of Alchemists in the Pyrenees?

Instead of dying in 1623, could Bacon, like the renowned French medieval alchemist Nicholas Flamel before him, have joined the enclave of alchemists in the Pyrenees (the Rosicrucians’ Great Council of the Elect), having achieved the transition to 4th density (the “Great Work” or “Magnum Opus”), assuming he needed to do so, since, if he had been a ‘Deep Level Punctuator’, he may well have been naturally bi-density, as are many underworlders according to the C’s. If so, it could link Bacon with the famed 20th century master alchemist Fulcanelli who may well have joined the enclave of alchemists in the Pyrenees himself when he completely disappeared from view in 1926 after completing his masterpiece or magnum opus, Le Mystère des Cathédrales.

Afterall, the primary goal of the alchemists was never simply to turn base metal into gold but to bring around the transmutation of self, as gold tried by fire. As the C’s once said:​

A: Tis magnetite that acts as a conduit, and perhaps, just perhaps, allows for transference back and forth at will?!? And what about the legend about the alchemists? Is not the key term there really transformation?!? And has not the "smoke screen" really been delivered so effectively by all the concentration upon the substance?!? And does not this remind one indeed of all the misguided concentration upon substance rather than meaning that one finds so regularly on 3rd density??

This mirrors what Fulcanelli was meant to have told the French scientist and writer Jacques Bergier at a meeting that occurred in Paris in 1937 when he attempted to warn French physicists about the impending use of nuclear weapons, which he claimed had been used before, by and against humanity. The following is a translation of the alleged verbatim transcript of what was said at the meeting:​

"You're on the brink of success, as indeed are several others of our scientists today. Please, allow me. Be very very careful. I warn you... The liberation of nuclear power is easier than you think and the radioactivity artificially produced can poison the atmosphere of our planet in a very short time: a few years. Moreover, atomic explosives can be produced from a few grains of metal powerful enough to destroy whole cities. I'm telling you this for a fact: the alchemists have known it for a very long time... I shall not attempt to prove to you what I'm now going to say but I ask you to repeat it to Mr. Helbronner: certain geometrical arrangements of highly purified materials are enough to release atomic forces without having recourse to either electricity or vacuum techniques... The secret of alchemy is this: there is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call 'a field of force'. The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-à-vis the universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work."

When Bergier asked Fulcanelli about the Philosopher’s Stone, the alchemist, echoing what the C’s said, answered:

"...the vital thing is not the transmutation of metals but that of the experimenter himself. It is an ancient secret that a few people rediscover each century. Unfortunately, only a handful are successful..."

According to Eugène Canseliet, Fulcanelli’s most devoted student, his last encounter with Fulcanelli occurred in 1953 (several years after his original disappearance), when he went to Spain and there was taken to a castle high in the mountains for a rendezvous with his former master. Canseliet had known Fulcanelli as an old man in his 80s but now the Master had grown younger and had physically changed in appearance: he was now an androgynous creature, a being Fulcanelli called The Divine Androgyne. The reunion was brief and Fulcanelli once again disappeared not leaving any trace of his whereabouts.

I don’t know if this alleged meeting took place in the Pyrenees but, if so, this certainly would have placed the location near to the enclave of alchemists.

So, had Francis Bacon blazed a trail for his fellow alchemist Fulcanelli several centuries before? If so, could Bacon similarly have been rejuvenated like Fulcanelli and Flamel? Which leads me to ask whether Bacon could still be with us in his guise as ‘the Man behind the Curtain’?​

 

[MJF]

Apologies but I forgot to post Francis Bacon's 'Formula of Interpretations' as alluded to in Mather Walker's article, which I am now including in word document format as an attachment to this post.​

 

[MJF]

 

[MJF]

Sorry but this YouTube clip was not supposed to have been posted. It was posted purely by accident as I thought I had deleted it. What I intended to post was in fact a short clip from another similar show from the late 1960's called Music Music Music, which involved the same group of singers who sang in the BBC's long running Black & White Minstrel Show. The clip involved the George Mitchell singers singing a number called Jacob's Ladder to the tune of Marching to Glory, which I think is an old Salvation Army standard that was adapted. However, for reasons I don't quite understand, the website would not allow me to download the intended clip and reverted back instead to the Black & White Minstrel Show which runs to 44 minutes.

The reason I wanted to post the clip of Jacob's Ladder was because it tied in, in a joking sort of way, with climbing the 'Ladder of the Intellect' (Jacob's Ladder) in Francis Bacon's 'Formula of Interpretations' (which I had just posted separately). In case you are not aware, Jacob's Ladder is used by the Freemasons on their tracing boards as a teaching aid. I hadn't meant to post the episode from the Black & White Minstrel Show as it has no connection whatsoever with Jacob's Ladder. However, on a serious note, it may well have been Francis Bacon's influence on English Freemasonry that saw the image of Jacob's Ladder carried over into Masonic iconography, which survives to this day. The device could have been used as a cover or disguise for Bacon's 'Ladder of the Intellect, which leads to enlightenment or illumination, the main goal of Freemasonry:




The researcher and writer Laurence Gardiner, a Scottish antiquarian and a Freemason himself, thought that the Freemasonry that emerged in the early 18th century in England with its ceremonies based around the killing of the chief architect of King Solomon's Temple, Hiram Abiff, and the finding of his body in the Temple's grounds was not the original Masonic ritual, as this had been lost when King James II abdicated and fled to France. Gardiner thought that the Ark of the Covenant was instead the main focus of the original ritual, which makes me wonder whether the Osirians, who the C's said were the progenitors of modern Freemasonry, may have been involved with the 'Ark Faction' as referred to by Laura and the C's here:
​

Q: (L) I hate it when they do that: blow my theory to bits. Was there a "grail faction" and an "ark faction?"

A: Pretty much.

Q: (L) Was Baalbek built by the Ark Faction or the Grail Faction?

A: It was Ark Faction.

Perhaps the change of focus to Hiram Abiff and King Solomon's Temple and Jacob's Ladder etc. may have been down to Francis Bacon's influence since he wrote about the 'House of Solomon' in his last book The New Atlantis. Mather Walker recognised this when he said:
​

In commenting on Bacon's "New Atlantis" Spedding said:

"Perhaps there is no single work of his which has so much of himself in it. The description of Solomon's House is the description of the vision in which he lived-the vision not of an ideal world released from the natural conditions to which ours is subject, but of our own world as it might be made if we did our duty by it; of a state of things which he believed would one day be actually seen upon this earth, such as it is, by men such as we are, and the coming of which he believed that his own labours were sensibly hastening."

We must also note in pass that the central motif of Solomon's house in Bacon's "New Atlantis" also connects it with Freemasonry.

Francis Bacon was a biblical scholar so he would have been well acquainted with Old Testament scripture and the stories of Solomon and his magnificent Temple. Whether he accepted these stories at face value I do not know, but he certainly would have had no way of knowing of the findings of modern archaeologists that clearly undermine the notion of there ever having been such a magnificent temple in Jerusalem in the supposed age of Solomon as explained below:​

​

Solomon’s Temple

According to Professor James Pritchard in his book, 'Solomon and Sheba' (1974, p.35): "... the so-called cities of Megiddo, Gezer and Hazor, and Jerusalem itself were in reality more like villages. Within were relatively small public buildings and poorly constructed dwellings with clay floors. The objects reveal a material culture, which, even by the standards of the ancient Near East, could not be judged sophisticated or luxurious. The magnificence of the age of Solomon is parochial and decidedly lacklustre, but the first book of Kings implies exactly the opposite."

Again. we find the author David Rohl in his book 'A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History' (1995, p.174) claiming the same thing: "When it comes to the Iron Age (which is purportedly the time of Solomon and his ally, Hiram of Tyre) there are no stone buildings. How then did Solomon acquire building expertise from Phoenicia if the Phoenicians did not have the skill or resources to build stone structures for themselves."

So, there was no Temple of Solomon and there is very little evidence that there was even a Solomon. We are left with only one solution: that the whole story - and many others like it - are symbolic.

However, Bacon was a great user of symbolism himself, so he may have recognised this fact and used Solomon's Temple merely as a symbol to convey his ideas and by these means the symbol was subsequently carried over into modern Masonic ritual.
​

*******************************************************************​

As a footnote, the Black and White Minstrel Show was in its heyday one of the most popular variety shows on British television. However, as the 1960's progressed and the black civil rights movement emerged in the United States, the show started coming increasingly under attack by the race lobby and the court of liberal opinion. Where most British people had been used to the tradition of white singers/minstrels blacking up and singing negro spirituals (think of the American singer Al Jolson who made a career out of it) and thought nothing of it, by the late 1960's and the early 1970's more and more this tradition was challenged, with many viewing it as overtly racist. This also coincided with a rapid rise during this period of the coloured or non-white population of the UK to whom the show might have been viewed as offensive (although this has never been proven). As a move to assuage the critics of the show, George Mitchell (the show runner who conducted the singers) and the BBC decided to devote nearly a whole season of the show in 1969 to a new format where the male singers would not wear black make-up. They renamed the show Music, Music, Music instead of the Black & White Minstrel Show but in most respects the format remained the same. They made 10 shows under the new format. However, although the TV ratings were pretty good, they were not as good as they had been when the show was the Black & White Minstrel Show. Evidently, the British public of that time preferred the male singers to wear their trademark black face. As a result, the experiment was abandoned and the Black & White Minstrel Show returned for the last quarter of 1969 and would continue to be televised until 1978 when it was cancelled.

Today the show is looked upon as an embarrassment by the BBC who have chosen to forget it ever existed. Although the BBC destroyed many of it pre-1970's recordings of old TV shows, there are still about 80 episodes of the Black & White Minstrel Show in the BBC's archives. Under present policy, these will never see the light of day again, even though the BBC has made DVD's of many old shows available for purchase and has broadcast some of these old shows on its various channels including its internet service BBC iPlayer. As a case in point, a surviving episode of the Black & White Minstrel Show was discovered recently in a a private collection of films. It turns out that this episode is the only extant episode of the show from 1966. The people who had discovered the lost episode offered a copy back to the BBC who accepted it. However, the BBC made it clear that they would give no permission for the episode to be broadcast (including downloading on sites like YouTube) or shown at any film festival, as had been the hope of the discoverers who specialise in finding and restoring old lost movies and TV shows and then showing them at special film events.

Nevertheless, one intrepid poster on YouTube has some how got his hands on all the surviving episodes of the show in the BBC archive and has been posting them on YouTube. My late father was a great admirer of the show and I grew up watching it as a child right into early adulthood. Did I feel a racist for watching it? In truth the thought never really occurred to me. I just liked the singing and dancing, although it may be a little too old fashioned in style now for many younger Forum members. For me, watching these old shows is a trip down memory lane, where I recall sitting with my family as a child on a cold autumn or winter Saturday night to watch the show, which was always a cheerful affair. If my father was alive today, I am sure he would have been downloading and watching them all with joy since he loved all the old traditional songs, many of which are now completely forgotten by younger generations who have never been exposed to them.

So again, sorry for the mix up. I imagine some of you may have been wondering why MJF has posted this odd musical clip on the thread since it seems to have nothing to do with Sir Francis Bacon and the Rosicrucians. Hence, I thought you were owed an explanation in case you thought I was going mad, which, who knows, I might be .​

 

[MJF]

I intend to return to Francis Bacon in subsequent posts, since there is still so much to say about him. One of these will deal with the theory that he was the real pen behind the works of William Shakespeare.

In the meantime, I often come across material that links with things the C's have said and my natural inclination is to share it with everybody. In my article 'Francis Bacon – The Man Behind the Curtain', I incorporated a photograph of a crop circle that might have been a reference to the Rosicrucian Compass Rose. I was not sure though if the circle in question had been created in a field in the English county of Wiltshire where Stonehenge is located. I think it is no exaggeration to say that Wiltshire is the crop circle capital of the world, as so many crop circles have emerged there. Indeed, the county of Wiltshire is meant to be home to around 80% of the UK's crop circles. The C's suggested this was no accident since they said that Britain was a natural window, which was the reason why Stonehenge was built there in the first place:​

Q: (L) Why are there so many crop circles in Britain?

A: Window. Why Stonehenge was built there.

I recently chanced upon a YouTube video on crop circles, which specifically focused on those that have appeared in Wiltshire. This is one of the best videos I have seen on crop circles that takes them very seriously and is open to the idea that they may come from other dimensions (i.e., they are hyperdimensional).

See link:

The narrator poses the question that if they are messages from higher realms, what is the point of them. Well, the C's (who at 6th density are behind their creation) gave the answer to that question here:​

Session dated 30 November 1996:​

A: Was there, will be again. You wanna know all there is to know about time, quantum reality, etcetera? Then it is time for you, and especially Arkadiusz, to study all that you can about the "crop circles," and closely network with those studying them directly.

Q: (L) Why crop circles?

A: The answers to all the questions are, or will be there.

Q: (L) You said that crop circles represented thoughts from 6th density. What does this mean?

A: We are compiling an almanac as well as a manual for the entire Terran population there. The reason we are doing this, is that there are millions who want to know the answers on the eve of the Grand Cycle Transformation. However, there are precious few that have chosen to try this form of communication, thus opening up a conduit.

Q: (L) Well, how many people are going to be able to understand?

A: But it would not be in form with Prime Level 7 Directive to limit entirely the availability of supreme knowledge!!!

Q: (L) So you are trying to put the entire story out there for all the world to see?

A: Not "trying," we are, my dear. [....]
Q: (L) Ok, Ark has a question: how does one distinguish an authentic crop circle from a fake one?

A: Authentic ones are intricate in design and meticulous in the detail of their construction. The reality is that there have only been a few "fake" crop circles in the entire history of the phenomenon world wide, any way.

Were the fake ones down to dear old Doug and Dave I wonder after a pint or two in the pub? Ominously, the C's later said that soon the last page would be turning on that almanac:​

Session 11 June 2011:

Q: (Perceval) There's a question about crop circles. (L) Yeah, I saw that but I thought it was kind of a dorky question. "Why have this year's crop circles been so lame?" (Perceval) Andromeda dictated it, and I just typed it.

A: 6D has begun to withdraw from the fray.

Q: (L) Well, what do you mean by, "withdraw from the fray"?

A: As we have pointed out before, the crop circles were an almanac. The last page is soon to turn.

The video notes that there are some crop circles that have encoded into them mathematical formulae and theorems, which have intrigued those mathematicians and physicists who have recognised them for what they are. The C's said that the answers to all the questions are, or will be there. This suggests to me that the solution to the Unified Field Theory may even be included there, which might interest Ark if one can just find the relevant crop circle.

Anyway, I would recommend this short documentary since it also contains 2024 drone film footage of a crop circle being created in real time, which is is an amazing sight.

Let me know what you think.​

 

[Ian]

You should check out thelivingmoon, I think John Lear made the web page. On it, you have a lot of info on secret societies and also about

Sir Francis Bacon:

Esoteric_Electricity_01

Sir Francis Bacon, the Count of Saint Germain, the Supernova of 1604 and the 800 Year Spiritual Cycle

Link to a section “Cosmic Wisdom (Esoteric)”:

The Cosmic Wisdom of the Ancients

 

[MJF]

Sorry but this YouTube clip was not supposed to have been posted. It was posted purely by accident as I thought I had deleted it. What I intended to post was in fact a short clip from another similar show from the late 1960's called Music Music Music, which involved the same group of singers who sang in the BBC's long running Black & White Minstrel Show. The clip involved the George Mitchell singers singing a number called Jacob's Ladder to the tune of Marching to Glory, which I think is an old Salvation Army standard that was adapted. However, for reasons I don't quite understand, the website would not allow me to download the intended clip and reverted back instead to the Black & White Minstrel Show which runs to 44 minutes.

The reason I wanted to post the clip of Jacob's Ladder was because it tied in, in a joking sort of way, with climbing the 'Ladder of the Intellect' (Jacob's Ladder) in Francis Bacon's 'Formula of Interpretations' (which I had just posted separately). In case you are not aware, Jacob's Ladder is used by the Freemasons on their tracing boards as a teaching aid. I hadn't meant to post the episode from the Black & White Minstrel Show as it has no connection whatsoever with Jacob's Ladder. However, on a serious note, it may well have been Francis Bacon's influence on English Freemasonry that saw the image of Jacob's Ladder carried over into Masonic iconography, which survives to this day. The device could have been used as a cover or disguise for Bacon's 'Ladder of the Intellect, which leads to enlightenment or illumination, the main goal of Freemasonry:

View attachment 110571


The researcher and writer Laurence Gardiner, a Scottish antiquarian and a Freemason himself, thought that the Freemasonry that emerged in the early 18th century in England with its ceremonies based around the killing of the chief architect of King Solomon's Temple, Hiram Abiff, and the finding of his body in the Temple's grounds was not the original Masonic ritual, as this had been lost when King James II abdicated and fled to France. Gardiner thought that the Ark of the Covenant was instead the main focus of the original ritual, which makes me wonder whether the Osirians, who the C's said were the progenitors of modern Freemasonry, may have been involved with the 'Ark Faction' as referred to by Laura and the C's here:



Perhaps the change of focus to Hiram Abiff and King Solomon's Temple and Jacob's Ladder etc. may have been down to Francis Bacon's influence since he wrote about the 'House of Solomon' in his last book The New Atlantis. Mather Walker recognised this when he said:
​

In commenting on Bacon's "New Atlantis" Spedding said:

"Perhaps there is no single work of his which has so much of himself in it. The description of Solomon's House is the description of the vision in which he lived-the vision not of an ideal world released from the natural conditions to which ours is subject, but of our own world as it might be made if we did our duty by it; of a state of things which he believed would one day be actually seen upon this earth, such as it is, by men such as we are, and the coming of which he believed that his own labours were sensibly hastening."

We must also note in pass that the central motif of Solomon's house in Bacon's "New Atlantis" also connects it with Freemasonry.

Francis Bacon was a biblical scholar so he would have been well acquainted with Old Testament scripture and the stories of Solomon and his magnificent Temple. Whether he accepted these stories at face value I do not know, but he certainly would have had no way of knowing of the findings of modern archaeologists that clearly undermine the notion of there ever having been such a magnificent temple in Jerusalem in the supposed age of Solomon as explained below:


However, Bacon was a great user of symbolism himself, so he may have recognised this fact and used Solomon's Temple merely as a symbol to convey his ideas and by these means the symbol was subsequently carried over into modern Masonic ritual.
​

*******************************************************************​

As a footnote, the Black and White Minstrel Show was in its heyday one of the most popular variety shows on British television. However, as the 1960's progressed and the black civil rights movement emerged in the United States, the show started coming increasingly under attack by the race lobby and the court of liberal opinion. Where most British people had been used to the tradition of white singers/minstrels blacking up and singing negro spirituals (think of the American singer Al Jolson who made a career out of it) and thought nothing of it, by the late 1960's and the early 1970's more and more this tradition was challenged, with many viewing it as overtly racist. This also coincided with a rapid rise during this period of the coloured or non-white population of the UK to whom the show might have been viewed as offensive (although this has never been proven). As a move to assuage the critics of the show, George Mitchell (the show runner who conducted the singers) and the BBC decided to devote nearly a whole season of the show in 1969 to a new format where the male singers would not wear black make-up. They renamed the show Music, Music, Music instead of the Black & White Minstrel Show but in most respects the format remained the same. They made 10 shows under the new format. However, although the TV ratings were pretty good, they were not as good as they had been when the show was the Black & White Minstrel Show. Evidently, the British public of that time preferred the male singers to wear their trademark black face. As a result, the experiment was abandoned and the Black & White Minstrel Show returned for the last quarter of 1969 and would continue to be televised until 1978 when it was cancelled.

Today the show is looked upon as an embarrassment by the BBC who have chosen to forget it ever existed. Although the BBC destroyed many of it pre-1970's recordings of old TV shows, there are still about 80 episodes of the Black & White Minstrel Show in the BBC's archives. Under present policy, these will never see the light of day again, even though the BBC has made DVD's of many old shows available for purchase and has broadcast some of these old shows on its various channels including its internet service BBC iPlayer. As a case in point, a surviving episode of the Black & White Minstrel Show was discovered recently in a a private collection of films. It turns out that this episode is the only extant episode of the show from 1966. The people who had discovered the lost episode offered a copy back to the BBC who accepted it. However, the BBC made it clear that they would give no permission for the episode to be broadcast (including downloading on sites like YouTube) or shown at any film festival, as had been the hope of the discoverers who specialise in finding and restoring old lost movies and TV shows and then showing them at special film events.

Nevertheless, one intrepid poster on YouTube has some how got his hands on all the surviving episodes of the show in the BBC archive and has been posting them on YouTube. My late father was a great admirer of the show and I grew up watching it as a child right into early adulthood. Did I feel a racist for watching it? In truth the thought never really occurred to me. I just liked the singing and dancing, although it may be a little too old fashioned in style now for many younger Forum members. For me, watching these old shows is a trip down memory lane, where I recall sitting with my family as a child on a cold autumn or winter Saturday night to watch the show, which was always a cheerful affair. If my father was alive today, I am sure he would have been downloading and watching them all with joy since he loved all the old traditional songs, many of which are now completely forgotten by younger generations who have never been exposed to them.

So again, sorry for the mix up. I imagine some of you may have been wondering why MJF has posted this odd musical clip on the thread since it seems to have nothing to do with Sir Francis Bacon and the Rosicrucians. Hence, I thought you were owed an explanation in case you thought I was going mad, which, who knows, I might be .​

Further to my earlier post, I now attach a link to the TV show and the song I was referring to called 'Jacob's Ladder', which appears as the first song in the show, so you don't have to watch it all unless you want to:

It is a catchy tune you must admit. By way of background, the lead singer was the English lyric tenor John Boulter who is still with us at the grand old age of 93, although he now lives in retirement in New Zealand. He shares something in common with me, however, and that is that we were both born in the English county of Kent, known as the 'Garden of England' due to the richness of its agriculture, and the abundance of its orchards and hop gardens. The name of Kent is the oldest recorded of any county, in its earliest form predating the coming of the Romans, and as the first kingdom established amongst the English after the Romans left Britain, Kent may thus claim to be Britain's oldest county. The county takes its name from the Celtic tribe who occupied it known as the Cantiaci or Cantii whose capital was Durovernum Cantiacorum, now the city of Canterbury. However, if you replace the "C" by a "K" you get Kantiaci or Kantii, which makes me wonder whether the name could be a derivative of the original Celtic home world Kantek whose inhabitants were the Kantekkians. Perhaps this is one to ask the C's .

Back to Jacob's Ladder though. The song 'Jacob's Ladder' was a traditional spiritual number sung by the likes of the Salvation Army. You will note that the song speaks of rising higher and shining and receiving a blessing, which connects us indirectly with the story of the blessing that the biblical patriarch Jacob received by way of deception from his father Isaac, a blessing which should have been bestowed on his older brother Esau. For those not aware of the biblical story of Jacob's Ladder, below is a brief summary:
​

This Bible story begins as Jacob is sent away from the Promised Land of Canaan by his mother, Rebekah, when she learns of Esau's intent to kill his brother. Esau is resentful of Jacob's blessing from their father, Isaac, and plans to murder him as vengeance. In addition to avoiding Esau's wrath, Jacob is sent away to find a wife in the land of Haran to propagate the lineage of Abraham.

As Jacob flees from Esau on his way to Haran (MJF: the city of Abraham and his father but also of the mysterious stargazers known as the Sabians who seem to have had a colony on the Giza Plateau), he comes to a "certain place" and lays down to rest for the evening as the sun is setting. He then dreams of a magnificent ladder that is set up on earth and reaches heaven on top. Jacob witnesses angels traveling up and down the ladder making their way to earth and back to heaven. He then sees the Lord standing above, who says to Jacob, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and your offspring." God tells Jacob that his offspring shall spread across the world and that "in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed." God informs Jacob he will stay with him wherever he goes and will eventually bring him back to the land where he is having the dream. Jacobs awakes and proclaims, "How awesome is this land! this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven." Jacob would rename that land "Bethel," meaning the house of God.​

The ladder signifies the divine connection between God and the earthly realm, specifically Jacob's family. The dream's significance was to remind Jacob he had received God's graces and encourage him to fulfil the destiny of his people. Jacob makes a vow afterward, saying, "If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, the Lord shall be my God." (Genesis 28:20-21)

Both Laura and the C's had a different take on the story though, especially as the C's confirmed that Jacob was just another persona of Abraham/ Moses who never had a brother called Esau:
​

Q: Okay. I will. Is there a significant relationship between the story of Achilles Heel, and Jacob, the Supplanter? Jacob means "he who seizes by the heel." And, Jacob obtained the birthright by deception. That whole story is strange!

A: This reference merely means heel, as in the last line of defence, last trailing physical part of the subject. Thus, it is seized when one has let their guard down, before being completely departed from the realm of danger.​

Session 16 August 1997:​

Q: I noticed in Genesis Chapter 33, verse 11, it says that Jacob, who wrestled with the angel the previous night and was on his way to see his brother Esau, who he had tricked into giving up his blessing years before, “gave Esau the blessing”. What was this? The birthright from his father or the blessing Jacob received from the angel?

A: Trampled leaves of wrath.

Q: This is what Jacob gave to Esau?

A: Yes, and what is the "core" meaning there?

Q: I don't know. What is the core meaning?

A: Leaves are of the Tree of Apples, from whence we get the proverbial "grapes of wrath," the Blue Apples incarnate!

Well "Core" turned out to be a reference to "Kore", the last living member of the Perseid family and the C's subsequently elaborated further on both the "blessing" and the "gift" to Esau:
​

Session 2 February 2003:

Q: (L) We have the brother issue to deal with. We have Abraham and his nephew, Lot. Then we have Moses and Aaron, Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Ishmael. Were all of these sets of brothers just different aspects or views on the same stories, a set of singular individuals, whether brothers or not?​

A: Pretty much though with added elements from other stories blended in.

Q: (L) Was it a brother/brother relationship as in actual brothers?

A: No. The "brother" relationship was created to legitimize a "false" line of transmission.

Q: (L) So there wasn't a brother, or Aaronic relationship present, assuming any part of that story was true. Is that it?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) One aspect of the variation on the story was that Jacob gave his brother, Esau, the 'blessing' and some 'gift.' Does this reflect an accurate part of the story that Moses, in his form as Jacob, passed something on to someone else’s - something that was important?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Was it Moses/Abraham who was doing this?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Who did he pass it on to?

A: It was finally understood by "Moses" that the danger of the object was greater than the ability of descendants to resist corruption. He handed it over to those who had created it.

Q: (Galahad) Was it STS or STO forces that created it?

A: STS

Q: (Galahad) So, the Ark was an object created by STS. Did this amount to some sort of realization on Moses' part? Did he start to wake up?

A: Yes. The story of the "contending with the angel" was the significant turning point as well as the moment of return.

Q: (L) What was the blessing he gave to quote Esau, if giving the object to the "angel" was the event of returning the ark? What was the story there?

A: Two separate events.

Q: (L) So, he returned the ark to the so-called angel. And then, he gave something to someone else. Previously, when I asked about this, you said that what he gave to Esau was "trampled leaves of wrath, the blue apples incarnate," and remarked that I should inquire into the "core meaning."

A: And who was "Kore"?

Q: (L) Was this Abraham's daughter? A: It was the last living member of the Perseid family.

Q: (L) Was it a male or female?

A: Female.

Q: (L) And how did Abraham come to be in possession of this female?

A: Search the text and you will see.

Q: (Galahad) If this person was the last member of the Perseid family, does that mean that Paris was a member of this family? [Paris = Abraham/Moses]

A: No.

Q: (L) Was this person someone who was part of Abraham's group because he kidnapped her?

Laura then made the connection between Kore and the biblical character of 'Hagar the Egyptian', the servant girl who was a maid to Abraham's wife Sarah and who would go on bear Abraham a son called Ishmael:
​

Q: (L) Going back to this person - the last living member of the Perseid family - who was handed over by Abraham in his Jacob persona to someone else, who was this person handed over to and why?

A: For protection from the fury of "Helen" [Sarah/Nefertiti].

Q: (L) So, there is a reflection of that in the story of Hagar the Egyptian. Who was she handed over to?

A: The "Dragon Slayers".

The C's further expanded upon the identity of Kore/Hagar here:

Session 23 August 2001:

Q: (L) So, Nefertiti is Sarah and Abraham came and rescued her somehow, is that correct?
A: Yes.
[...]
Q: (L) Who was Hagar the Egyptian?
A: Princess of Egypt.
Q (L) Was she Sarah's maid?
Q( L) Was she Sarah's daughter?
A: Right nurture to.
Q: (L) What do you mean? I don't understand.
A: Sara's daughter by Akhenaten.
Q: (L) Did Abraham have a child by Hagar also, his wife's daughter by another man?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Well, that's pretty incestuous. Did Sarah actually get so jealous of her own daughter's child that she demanded that Abraham abandon her?
A: Close.

I have argued that this Egyptian princess was Meritaten, the eldest daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. I have also argued that the "Dragon Slayers" she was handed over to were the biblical tribe of Dan, who are otherwise known as the Tuatha de Danann in Irish folklore, who were described as godlike, red-haired giants who possessed amazing artefacts (technology). I have also argued that Princess Meritaten became the legendary figure of Princess Scota or Scotia, in both Irish and Scottish mythology, Scotland even deriving its name from her.

The C's told us that Hagar/Meritaten was handed over to the Dragon Slayers who must therefore represent the biblical figure of Esau. Is there anything in the Bible which might establish a connection between the Dragon Slayers/Tuatha de Danann (the tribe of Dan) and the Edomites? Well, there may be. As I said before, the Tuatha de Danaan were renowned for being red or golden haired (strawberry blonde), which even to this day is a rare and distinctive feature.

In the Bible, Esau displeased his parents by choosing to marry Canaanite women, which went against the cultural and religious practices of his family. This choice not only disappointed his parents but also had long-term consequences for the relationship between the Israelites and the Edomites, the descendants of Esau. Moses and the Children of Israel were thus kinsman to the Edomites who occupied what today is Jordan, including the valley in which the ancient city of Petra is located, the mountain range overlooking Petra possibly being the site where Moses met with Yahweh on a mountain top and received the Ten Commandments. The name Edom is also attributed to Esau, meaning "red"; the same colour that is used to describe the colour of Esau's hair. Genesis parallels his redness to the "red lentil pottage" that he sold his birthright for. So, were the Tribe of Dan (the Tuatha de Danann) the red-haired Edomites and the Dragon Slayers the C's referred to above, who were at the same time Canaanites? Furthermore, we know from the Bible that there were still giants in the Land of Canaan based on the story of Moses' spies who were sent into the Valley of Eshcol to reconnoitre the land:
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26. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27. Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”

30. Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

31. But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” 32. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. 33. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak); and we were like grasshoppers.

The sons of Anak were evidently the descendants of the Nephilim and they would also seem to have had links with the Anunnaki of ancient Mesopotamia and Sumer.

It is also worth noting here that the Tribe of Dan, who mysteriously disappeared from the Biblical narrative with no explanation, seem to have left their calling card throughout Northern Europe where place names, even countries, have the name "Dan" or "Don" (derived from Dan) incorporated within them. Examples include Denmark (Danmark), the rivers Danube and Don, Donegal in Ireland and Doncaster In England to name but a few. Moreover, the British Isles has a higher incidence of red-haired people (who are predominantly of Celtic extraction) per capita than anywhere else in the world. Red-haired people do not tend to tan well in the sun and usually sunburn easily, as I know from personal experience with my own two red-haired sons. Indeed, this propensity to sunburn easily is the basis of the pejorative term "redneck" in the USA. This seems to have been a feature of the biblical Esau and presumably his descendants, as the Bible speaks of his "redness".

Returning to the biblical story of Jacob's Ladder where Jacob dreams of a magnificent ladder that is set up on earth and reaches heaven on top with angels travelling up and down the ladder making their way to earth and back to heaven, we have to ask what this represents if Jacob was in reality Abraham/Moses? Was it an account of a meeting Abraham/Moses had with extra-terrestrials or hyperdimensional beings? The C's may well have given us the answer here when commenting on the biblical account of Jacob's 'contending with the angel' episode:
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Q: After wrestling with the 'angel,' Jacob was renamed 'Israel,' which means 'he will rule as a god.' This tends to make me think that this angel whom Jacob seems to have conjured, did something. What was this being that Jacob wrestled with?

A: Elohim provides the conventional response.

Q: And you have told us about the Elohim. Okay. I will look it up. What did it mean when it said that the 'angel touched him in the hollow of the thigh,' which did something to him. What was meant by the 'hollow of the thigh?'

A: Branch.

Q: You mean genetic? His gonads?

A: No.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Ponder. If you ponder this, lightbulbs will illuminate.

I would suggest that the Elohim's touching of Jacob in the hollow of the thigh made a change to his DNA since the Bible relates that Moses face shone so much after meeting with Yahweh on the mountain top that he had to wear a cloth over it to shield his glowing face from the Israelites. Could this suggest that Abraham/Moses's was transformed from a 3D being into a 3D/4D bi-density being, a "shining one"? If so, did the C's use of the term "branch" perhaps have the following in mind?
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"Branching" is a process used in genetic engineering that involves a change in the linear structure of DNA. It allows for the insertion of specific genes into the genome of an organism, enabling the production of new proteins and resulting in more complex genetic information. Branch migration is another process that occurs during genetic recombination, where base pairs on homologous DNA strands are consecutively exchanged at a Holliday junction, moving the branch point up or down the DNA sequence. Branched DNA can also be used to bind to sample nucleic acid by specific hybridization in areas which are not occupied by capture hybrids.

The C's reference to a "branch" also makes me think of Nicholas Poussin's famous enigmatic painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia, where the female shepherd appears to be pregnant and is standing in front of the tomb with a tree in the background, which is branching or bifurcating in line with her head:​

Could this suggest that the shepherdess represents Hagar/Meritaten? Afterall, she initiated a new branch of the Perseid family through her son Ishmael and she herself was a hybrid with Nephilim genes inherited from her mother Sarah/Nefertiti. Indeed, all the figures in the painting may represent hybrids, since if the male shepherds were intended to depict the mythic figures of Heracles/Hercules and the twins Castor and Pollux, then they were children of the Gods and human mortals, Zeus being the father of Heracles and Pollux, whilst Leda was the mother of Castor.

We should also recall here what the C's said about the Elohim (the biblical 'Sons of God):​

Session 7 March 1995:

Q: (L) Who were the Elohim of the Bible?
A: Transdefinitive. And variable entities. [...] First manifestation was human, then non-human. [...]
Q: (L) Well, what brought about their transformation from human to non-human?
A: Pact or covenant.
Q: (L) They made a pact or covenant with each other?
A: No, with 4th density STS.
Q: (L) Well, that is not good! Are you saying that the Elohim are STS? Who were these STS beings they made a pact with?
A: Rosteem, now manifests as Rosicrucians.

If Nicholas Poussin was a Rosicrucian, was he aware of this link which the Rosicrucians had with the Rosteem? Did this link extend to the mysterious group who were based in Haran in modern day Turkey (the Sabians?) who formerly had a colony at Giza (Rostau) whose modern day counterparts seem to have written the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is a blueprint for world domination:​

Q: One of the things I noticed in this book was that they said that there was a colony from the city of Harran in what is nowadays Turkey, and that this colony formerly resided on the Giza plateau. Is there any connection between this colony they mention and the fact that you said that the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ were composed in Turkey by an ‘Aryan’ source?

A: Yes.

Q: What relationship is there?


A: One and the same.

However, mention of the Rosicrucians brings us back to Sir Francis Bacon and the role he may have played in establishing the modern Rosicrucians as well as modern day Freemasonry. As I mentioned in the earlier post, the change of focus of Freemasonry from Noah's Ark* to Hiram Abiff, King Solomon's Temple and Jacob's Ladder etc. may have been down to Francis Bacon's influence.

*In my earlier post, I referred to the Ark of the Covenant when I should have said Noah's Ark, since the Ark of the Covenant still remains a feature of Masonic iconography.

So, what does the symbol of Jacob's Ladder mean to Freemasons? I would like to quote Mather Walker again in his thought provoking work Compeers by Night in answering this question:
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Entrance into a Masonic lodge passes between the two columns, representing Jachin and Boaz, those great brass columns that flanked the outer porch of the Temple of Solomon. On each respective column is a globe. One globe is a map of the world, the other a map of the heavens. Inside the columns to the right a spiral staircase leads up to the Middle Chamber. Significantly, there is also a ladder (not mentioned in the Bible) in the Masonic symbolism. The ladder connects the ground floor of the lodge with its roof, but symbolically the ladder is Jacob's Ladder by which the Mason hopes to climb at some future date to heaven. The floor of the lodge is of a chessboard design, with alternating black and white squares. All Master Masons are known as Sons of the Widow. This is in allusion to Hiram Abiff, the Biblical builder of Solomon's Temple who was the Son of a Widow. Symbolically, all Master Masons are engaged in building the Temple of Solomon just as was Hiram Abiff, and in the third degree, all Master Masons symbolically become Hiram Abiff, just as Initiates at Eleusis became Demeter. On entering a Masonic Lodge, the first object that attracts one's attention is the altar. The altar is in the centre of the room, midway between the East and West, and North and South. On the East, West, and South sides of the altar were formerly three burning candles, now usually been replaced with electric lights. On the altar is always a copy of the Holy Bible - closed when no ritual is taking place, but open during the rituals. On the Bible is always a Square and Compass. These instruments are displayed lying on the altar in such a manner that the legs of the compass point downward while those of square point upward, and these overlap making a diamond shape in the centre.​

Then quoting from the Rite of Investiture of an Entered Apprentice:
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The Worshipful Master tells the initiate: You were placed in the North-East corner of the Lodge as the youngest Entered Apprentice, in operative Masonry, the first stone of a building is usually laid in the North-East corner; you were therefore there placed to receive your first instruction, whereon to build your future moral and Masonic edifice.

I will now proceed to explain to you what constitutes a Lodge, its form, supports, covering, furniture, ornaments, lights, jewels; how situated, and to whom dedicated. A Lodge consists of a number of free and accepted Masons duly assembled with the Holy Bible, Square and Compass, and a Charter or Warrant empowering them to work.

Our ancient brethren met on high hills or low vales, the better to guard against the approach of cowans and eavesdroppers ascending or descending. The form of a Lodge is an oblong rectangle extending from East to West between North and South, forming the earth, Heavens and from the surface to the centre. It is said to be thus extensive, that denotes the universality of Masonry, and that as Masons Christians should be equally extensive…

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Covering: The covering of a Lodge is the clouded canopy, or starry decked heaven, where all good Masons hope at last, to arrive by the aid of a ladder called Jacob's Ladder having three principal rounds denominated faith, hope and charity, teaching faith in God, hope in immortality, and charity to all mankind. But the greatest of these is charity; for faith may be lost in sight, hope ends in fruition, but charity extends beyond the grave to the boundless realms of eternity.​

This reference to faith, hope and charity is clearly centred on Christian teaching, something which Francis Bacon sought to promote in both Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. Was it therefore Bacon who introduced Jacob's Ladder into Masonic iconography as a symbol of his own 'Ladder of the Intellect', as found in his 'Formula of Interpretations'?

I also find it curious that the image of the ladder shown above has a large key dangling down from the centre where the second figure (depicting hope?) is sitting. This use of a key in the drawing reminds me of the occasions when the C's have referred to a key in the transcripts:
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A: Then learn from what we communicate to you and what you already have "locked up" inside of you i.e., time to get the key!

A: And why? Because it is the realm of the three that you occupy. In order to possess the keys to the next level, just master the Third Man Theme, then move on with grace and anticipation.

As to the 'Third Man Theme', it is also somewhat curious that there should be three men depicted on the ladder in the drawing shown above, which if it reflects Bacon's 'Ladder of the Intellect', is really about the transformation of the candidate into an enlightened or illuminated being, the real purpose of the alchemical process and of Freemasonry:​

And what about the legend about the alchemists? Is not the key term there really transformation?!? And has not the "smoke screen" really been delivered so effectively by all the concentration upon the substance?!?

The C's also used a reference to "key" in relation to the Percy family from whom Laura is descended:

Q: So, the Percys DID know something. I understand that the Percy family has a collection of 62 alchemical manuscripts.... which is actually how I found out about Alnwick - I was tracking these alchemical texts....

A: But if you go there, do not ask for the key!

And lastly the C's even used the reference to "keys" when referring to Freemasonry itself:

Q: Well, I don't know how to take that! I mean, the Masons could be the most evil organization in existence! BRH thinks so.

A: Such judgements miss the point, if there are keys stored within the envelope.

So, what keys may be stored within the Masonic envelope?

Whether the composer of the "Jacob's Ladder" spiritual heard in the Music, Music, Music TV show was a Freemason I do not know. I wonder, however, if Francis Bacon, who enjoyed songs, would have approved of the song with its theme of climbing higher and shining? I somehow think he would.​