The following post is a follow-up to my earlier post on the theme of "Blue Apples" and the paintings of the French 17th century artist Nicholas Poussin. Much of the post concerns Sir Francis Bacon who may well be one of the parties that sits at the centre of the mysteries surrounding both Rennes-le-Chateau and Oak Island.
Blue Apples Part 2
There is no definitive proof that Nicholas Poussin was ever a Rosicrucian. However, it is in the nature of secret societies or movements that members do not advertise their membership or record it in a membership registry and this was especially true of the Rosicrucians, who although they proclaimed their existence in early 17th century Europe through a series of public manifestos, never gave a contact address by which those who might be interested in joining them could get in contact (in stark contrast to today’s Rosicrucian organisations).
Whether a person may have been a Roscirucian can today only be gleaned from their written work or their art and the symbolism they may have used within it. Poussin was the very epitome of a man of mystery since he never gave away his inner thoughts in writing or in speech. Instead, he let his work do his talking for him. It was not for nothing that he earned the soubriquet “a keeper of secrets”. His art works, although generally commissioned by clients, did, however, betray many esoteric symbols or oddities that could be viewed as markers or pointers to those in the know. In the early 17th century, there was good reason to conceal hidden esoteric knowledge within symbolism since in Catholic Europe the feared inquisition was still very active and Poussin was a Catholic who lived most of his adult life in Rome, the centre and headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church. Poussin would have been well aware of the fate of the Catholic friar, philosopher, cosmologist and esotericist Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake for heresy in Rome in the year 1600 on charges of having denied several core Catholic doctrines. Thus, it did not pay to advertise heretical views either in writing or in works of art.
I have discussed Poussin’s work before and noted how observers can supposedly detect within his art indications that he may have been a member of a secret society such as the Freemasons (even though they were supposedly not founded in England until the early 18th century) and/or the Rosicrucians. Given that he was already a noted artist before the end of the first quarter of the 17th century when the Rosicrucian manifestos were first published and circulated throughout Europe, this puts him in the right timeframe to have been a member of the Order of the Rosy Cross. For the sake of this article, I will proceed on the basis that he was a member of the secretive Rosicrucian Order and that he concealed within his works certain signs that accorded with the Order’s beliefs and principles. This presupposes that he was imbued with the Order’s doctrines and wished through his art to communicate some symbolic aspects of these esoteric beliefs to others of his ilk who would recognise them when they saw them. The fact that the C’s suggested to Laura that she should fold his painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia in two in order to create a mirror image, indicated that he was using very advanced pentagonal projection techniques to hide certain information, which in my opinion may have been pointing to the Grail.
However, this idea of folding a work to create hidden information is not a new one since Jewish groups such as the Essenes may have used it to create the Atbash cypher from the Hebrew alphabet, which used symbols rather than the form of letters that we are more familiar with today in the Greek or Latin alphabets. This cypher involved folding the 22 letter Hebrew alphabet in the middle so that Aleph comes opposite Taw and Beth comes opposite Shin and so forth. This produces the sounds “a-t-b-sh”, hence Atbash, the name thus deriving from the juxtaposition of the Hebrew letters from which it is formed. Indeed, it was through the Atbash cypher that certain scholars such as Dr Hugh Schonfeld have been able to deduce that Baphomet, the name that the Knights Templar gave to the pure crystal skull they possessed and revered, meant “baptism of wisdom” (from baphe metios). The Hebrew word for wisdom is hockmah whilst the Greek word is sophia. In the Hebrew Hockmah or Wisdom Literature, wisdom is seen as the Divine Spirit manifesting the redeeming love of God going out to seek and save the lost (think here of the Christian image of the ‘Good Shepherd’ seeking the lost sheep). One important aspect of the Templars’ mission was in fact to locate and redeem knights who had fallen from their original high calling. By the time of Christ, an hypostatisation had taken place so that Wisdom had become synonymous with the Logos (word). Hence, it is quite possible that the Templars had come to compound the idea of the Divine Logos (personified by Christ as in St John’s Gospel) with Sophia, the Divine Wisdom.
But you might at this stage ask what does all this have to do with apples, blue or otherwise? Well, the answer lies in an ingenious cypher that was created out of the symbols used in grape water marks, a cypher that was well known to Sir Francis Bacon and his circle, which included the poet, courtier and soldier Sir Phillip Sydney. Sydney used the device of symbolic grapes on the watermarks of his seminal poetic work Arcadia, which just happens also to be the subject of Poussin’s famous painting. Just a coincidence maybe but then perhaps not if both men were Rosicrucians using the pastoral Arcadian theme as an allegory.
Sydney’s work Arcadia formed part of what is known as the pastoral genre or mode of literature, art, or music, which depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle wherein the author employs various techniques to place the contemporary complex lifestyle into a simple one. In these works, the pastoral life is usually characterised as being closer to the mythical ‘Golden Age’ than the rest of contemporary mundane human life. The notion of the Golden Age stems from Greek mythology, particularly the works of the Greek poet Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five distinct Ages, the last and current age being that of Iron. These pastoral poems are usually set in beautiful rural landscapes (the literary term for which is "locus amoenus" the Latin for "beautiful place") such as Arcadia, a rural region of Greece and the mythological home of the god Pan, which was usually portrayed as a sort of Garden of Eden by the poets. The tasks of the shepherd’s employment with sheep and other rustic chores is depicted in these pastoral fantasies to be almost wholly undemanding and is left in the background, leaving the shepherdesses and their swains (lovers) in a state of almost perfect leisure, thus making them available for the embodiment of all manner of erotic fantasies. Sydney’s poem Arcadia certainly depicts this pastoral, Arcadian ideal as does Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia, which is also known by the alternative title ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’.
I am attaching a copy of the mysterious watermark code for reference purposes. Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe go into great detail about this code and the possible roots of the strange symbols that comprise it. However, for the purposes of this article, I will concentrate on the two water mark figures representing the letters M and N.
The symbol for the letter M is a heart shaped figure within which are the familiar letters R and C, which with the heart representing brotherly love could be a reference to the Rosicrucians (the brotherhood of the Rosy Cross) whose mysterious master was the fabled Christian Rosencreutz (“rose cross” in German). It is also curious to note here that the kneeling bearded shepherd in Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia is pointing to the Rho Chi of the Rosicrucians on the tomb’s face, as Laura noted in her piece on the painting in the thread ‘Phosphorus and The Frequency of Light’. Was Poussin deliberately alluding to the Rosicrucians here and by doing so signifying his membership of that secretive fraternity? The likelihood of this being the case, is strengthened by the fact that in the Rosicrucian manifesto known popularly as the Fama Fraternatis, Christian Rosencreutz supposedly died in 1484 at the ripe old age of 106 and was buried in a hidden tomb on the door of which was carved “I shall open after 120 years”. In 1614, the authors of the Fama (first published in Cassel in Germany) claimed that they had discovered and entered this tomb. It was a seven-sided vault, inexplicably illuminated. Inside, Rosencreutz’s body was perfectly preserved, lying beneath an altar in the centre. They also found a chest containing chiefly, “wonderful artificial songs”. Nearby were magic mirrors (MJF: an interesting feature when you think of the scrying activities of Dr John Dee and the sacred mirror sessions conducted by the 19th century Rosicrucian offshoot group known as the Orphic Circle, one of whose alleged members was Lewis Carroll who wrote the deeply esoteric Alice Through the Looking Glass) and a mysterious manuscript called the Book T. At the end of this book were the words:
“He constructed a microcosm corresponding in all motions to the macrocosm and finally drew up this compendium of things past, present, and to come.”
For researchers like Mather Walker that book is the First Folio of William Shakespeare’s works, which some think has been buried on Oak Island in Nova Scotia. For Walker the Fama Fraternatis contains a great deal of evidence showing that its author was Sir Francis Bacon. There is also a great deal of evidence to show that Bacon authored the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays too. Walker states that the First Folio is not only a compendium of the universe, but it is designed to exhibit past, present and to come, just as stated in Rosencreutz’s book, and as shown in each play in the First Folio. A major feature of the First Folio (especially The Tempest) is its wonderful artificial songs, an echo of what the discoverers of Christian Rosencreutz’s tomb found inside the chest in the vault.
When Laura raised the subject of the Rosicrucians and the story of the fabled Christian Rosencreutz as set out in the Fama with the C’s, they gave the information described in the tale some credence:
Q: (L) But, as I understand it, the Rosicrucians did not come into being until after the end of the Templars...
A: No.
Q: (L) Do you mean that the information that came out, that pamphlet about "Christian Rosenkreutz," that is a purported fable, might be correct?
A: Yes.
At this point, I would remind readers that author and researcher Graham Phillips believes that the Elizabethan Order of Meonia, a late 16th century secret society, were led by a woman to discover a lost vault in 1604 in the crypt of the ruined chapel of what had until the Reformation been Spring Wood Priory in Staffordshire, a Cistercian monastery, which had formerly been a Knight Templar institution built by the crusader and Templar Knight Ormus le Guidon in the 1120’s. The chapel (now a farm out building) had most likely been constructed over a cave that had been sacred to the local Celts, the crypt having been fashioned out of the cave. Phillips believes that the Order of Meonia (which had close links to Mary Queen of Scots until her death in 1587) had been headed by Sir Walter Raleigh (who also headed the infamous ‘School of Night’ – were they one and the same perhaps?) until his imprisonment in 1603 by King James I for his alleged involvement in the Main Plot that had sought to overthrow the king. Phillips thinks that the Order was thereafter led by a woman, probably Mary Biddulph, Raleigh’s niece, who ran Biddulph Manor. She also had close associations with other members of Raleigh’s group such as George Chapman and Thomas Harriot, who were friends of her brother, Richard. Suspected Rosicrucian Robert Fludd wrote about the district of Biddulph while repeatedly staying as a guest at the manor house, which Mary ran after the death of her husband. Mary Biddulph and Fludd were reputed to have been lovers, Fludd remaining single and Biddulph never remarrying. She was also a direct ancestor of the founder of the priory, Ormus le Guidon.
Is there anything to indicate that the Rosicrucians may have found a secret vault with a stache of knowledge inside it like that described in the tale of the discovery of Christian Rosencreutz’s tomb. Well yes there is, and it comes in the form of a famous illustration of Sir Francis Bacon and Dr John Dee. The illustration (see below) depicts John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's personal astrologer, passing a lantern symbolising the esoteric tradition to Francis Bacon. Dee was one of Bacon's tutors in cyphers (see more below on this), and a possible model for the character of Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Dame Francis Yates in her seminal exploration
Majesty and Magic in Shakespeare's Last Plays, comments, "
Dare one say that the German Rosicrucian movement reaches a peak of poetic expression in The Tempest, a Rosicrucian manifesto infused with the spirit of Dee, using theatrical parables for esoteric communication?"
You will note that both men are standing over a grave, which could symbolise the fact that Dee’s time was running out and he had to pass the esoteric tradition on to Francs Bacon in order to continue its transmission. However, it could also symbolise the source of that esoteric tradition, a source linked perhaps to the Knights Templar and what they may have buried in the vault or crypt at Spring Wood Priory, as discovered in 1604 by the Order of Meonia.
Having looked at the grape watermark symbol for M, we now need to turn our attention to the symbol for N, where the correspondences with Poussin’s painting of L’Autumne become more apparent. But before doing so, we need to look at the life and career of Sir Francis Bacon to see if we can detect any possible connections with Nicholas Poussin and the secrets he may have been hiding within his paintings as a fellow Rosicrucian.
Sir Francis Bacon Man of Intrigue
Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe’s book Mysteries of Templar Treasure & the Holy Grail provides a number of interesting facts that point to the likelihood of there being a link between Sir Francis Bacon and the 17th century Rosicrucians. The first of these is that Francis Bacon’s father Nicholas, a gifted man who worked his way up from a humble background, spent some time in Paris not long after he graduated from Cambridge University and before entering Grays Inn as a young lawyer. This establishes a parallel with his son Francis who would also spend a few years in France in a quasi-diplomatic role (spying?) on behalf of Queen Elizabeth. Who knows what interesting contacts both Bacons may have made during their time in France. Nicholas Bacon would become a man of great influence when he assumed the duties of Archbishop Heath, the Lord Chancellor of England (akin to the role of Prime Minister today), who had refused to carry out Elizabeth’s orders. He thus became Lord Chancellor in all but name. Unfortunately, he would fall from the Queen’s favour when in 1564 he wrote a booklet entitled A Declaration of the Crown Imperial of England in which he advocated the claims of the House of Suffolk to the throne. Although he had used the pen name John Hale, his authorship of the booklet was disclosed to the Queen by Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, one of Elizabeth’s favourites and with whom she was romantically linked. Sir Nicholas quickly fell from grace. Although he would eventually be restored to royal favour, he would frequently impress upon his sons, Francis and Anthony, the importance of concealment, camouflage and Machiavellian methods in conducting affairs of state. Sir Nicholas warned them particularly of the dangers of traceable authorship. This could explain why Francis Bacon may have used the actor William Shakespeare as a front for the famous plays that Bacon would author or co-write with others, plays which contain numerous examples of the use of cyphers and codes.
The Fanthorpes explain that the young Francis became an astute and penetrating critic of the university system. In his book The Advancement of Learning, Bacon refers to the “excellent liquor” (of knowledge) and he complains that instead of getting on with the job of researching and teaching, the so-called scholars are trapped in an Aristotelian framework and their energies are dissipated in shallow controversies. This idea of knowledge or wisdom as some sort of precious liquid, wine or elixir (a sentiment the C’s would no doubt agree with) ties in with Bacon’s watermark codes, many of which took the form of grapes and wine jugs, within which the precious elixir of knowledge could be stored. Bear this thought in mind when we look again at the symbolism hidden in Poussin’s painting L’Autumne.
The Fanthorpes also touch on the years that Francis Bacon and his older brother Anthony would spend in France in the service of the Queen as aides to the newly appointed English ambassador to France, Sir Amyas Paulet. Although Francis would spend only three years in France between1576-1579 (returning briefly in 1582), his brother Anthony would not return to England until 1591. Anthony’s adventures in France were even stranger and more significant than those of his younger brother Francis. There can be little doubt that Anthony was involved in the primitive but still complex secret service activities of the time. The Fanthorpes tell us that prior to his return to England, Anthony’s life abroad in Europe had been a tangle of secrecy and intrigue. Both Francis and Anthony had encountered powerful Huguenot leaders in France. Lionel Fanthorpe, who is an Anglican clergyman, and his wife suggest that there was a possible link between the Huguenots and the Cathars but other than mentioning it, they do not expound upon this theory further. Although the Cathars had supposedly been eradicated in France in the 13th century, there is every likelihood that a small remnant survived and went underground, especially in the south of France, their main stronghold. Indeed, I once read that a Cathar bishop was still living in the environs of Rennes-le-Chateau even in the 20th century, which makes me wonder whether Abbé Saunière had any links with the Cathars living in that area. We should also recall that the Aude region of southern France, near to the Pyrenees, once hosted a significant Templar presence and there is little doubt that the Templars had strong sympathies with the Cathars of this region. The C’s confirmed that far from being abolished in 1314 AD, the Templars went underground both literally and figuratively. The Templars, who are known to have practised alchemy, might well have been part of (if not the original instigators of) the enclave of alchemists in the Pyrenees the C’s have referred to, with whom Francis Bacon would appear to have had links:
Session 16 September 1995:
Q: (RC) And the guy died... (L) That's interesting... Okay, change of subject. Back when we were talking about the pit on Oak Island, and you asked me to do some research on it, the answers I came up with were that the responsible group were alchemists. Is this correct?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Was one of the alchemists involved Nicholas Flamel?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is it true that there is an enclave of alchemists that live somewhere in the Pyrenees...
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is this the group that you referred to as "The Quorum" in a previous session?
A: Partly.
Q: (L) Do these alchemists use this power as talked about by David Hudson [monoatomic gold] to enhance their longevity and their physical health?
A: And to control.
Q: (L) Are there people in this enclave who live for literally hundreds, if not thousands, of years?
A: Open.
And:
Session 3 May 1997:
Q: Seeing the unseen. You mentioned once before that the "Rosicrucians act as a thief in the night." You also mentioned that I ought to dig into the Rosicrucians, and I went to the University library, and it was essentially missing...
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.
And:
Session 12 July 1997:
A: Well? And crop circles? Amazing connections... And what of "The Rosy Cross?"
Q: Well, this is what we are looking at! I have even discovered that Sir Francis Bacon's name is even derived from "beech", and that his Latin signature has the gematria number of 17* and January 17 is the feast day of St. Anthony, who replaced St. Augustine in this affair somewhat... and I have connected the Rosicrucians all over the blasted planet, for crying out loud! And, who is who here? Just who are the good guys?
*The number 17 would seem to have a special significance where the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau is concerned and deserves a post in its own right.
Finally:
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.
I have previously demonstrated that “Dancar” refers to the town of Doncaster in the English county of Yorkshire (and is located near to the old “Chevin” trackway), a place where local people still use quaint English terms such as “Tis” and “thee” and “thou”. The city of York was the traditional centre of English Freemasonry and lends its name to the York Rite of Freemasonry, the traditional English form of Freemasonry. Yorkshire was also the home of Robert Catesby and Guy Fawkes, who were associated with the infamous Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I and the city of York was the home of Bess of Hardwick, who married George Talbot, the Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who owned Alton Castle in Staffordshire and was the principal gaoler of Mary Queen of Scots around whom the secret society known as the Order of Meonia would be formed. Mention of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Alton Castle also provides a link to Alton Towers, built in what were formerly the grounds of Alton Castle, and by extension to the plays of William Shakespeare (which were probably authored by Francis Bacon):
Q: Now, I notice that the Celtic [Latin] name for the town of St. Albans is Verulamium, and that is where Henry Percy, son of Hotspur, was killed in battle. I also notice that Sir Francis Bacon was Lord Verulam, and he was thought to be not only a Rosicrucian, but also the author of the Shakespearean plays, as well as some of the Rosicrucian manifestos...
A: Check out Alton Towers, for clues.
Interestingly, Francis Bacon would be involved in the interrogation of Bess of Hardwick after she was ordered to London to face an official inquiry into the unsanctioned marriage of her daughter Elizabeth Cavendish and Charles Stuart (the 5th Earl of Lennox) who was a cousin to Mary Queen of Scots and also the younger brother of Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley) who had been married to Mary until his suspicious death (murder) in 1567. Charles was the son of Margaret Douglas, the Countess of Lennox, who was a member of the royal family, being the daughter of Margaret Tudor, Queen Dowager of Scotland and the sister of Henry VIII, and therefore also Queen Elizabeth's first cousin. Any of Bess's grandchildren born of the marriage would have had a claim to the English throne. In the event, the only child of the marriage was Arbella Stuart whose royal claim was never recognised. After questioning Bess, Bacon was left very impressed by her, although by all accounts he did not share the same view of her husband George Talbot who had failed to make any positive impression on him.
Coming back to Bacon’s putative links with the French Protestant Huguenots, as suggested by the Fanthorpes, Bacon would seem to have had definite Puritan sympathies in his younger days attested to by the fact that he often attended the sermons of the Puritan chaplain of Gray's Inn whilst he was a young lawyer there. Indeed, his earliest surviving published tract criticised the English (Anglican) church's suppression of the Puritan clergy. Moreover, at the English Parliament of 1586, Bacon openly urged the execution of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots even though he would later become a staunch supporter and ally of her Protestant son King James I. Having also been a firsthand witness to the killing of French Huguenot Protestants during the infamous St Bartholemew Day’s massacre in Paris, it would seem natural for Bacon to have had an affinity with the French Huguenots, who embraced the Calvinist (or Puritan) form of Protestantism.
Even Laura it seems has her own links to the City of York, as mentioned in the same session where she followed up on her Alton Towers enquiries:
Session 7 June 1997:
Q: I was only able to take the Knight line back to Abel Knight who came to America from York, in the mid 1600’s. Is there some connection in York?
A: Further research is needed, and it is easier than you think.
Q: Okay, you also suggested that I research Alton Towers. I did. All I could find was that Alton Towers is, for God's sake, an amusement park! It is the Disney World of England! What am I gonna find at Alton Towers?
A: Look into this.
When she did look into it, she discovered that Alton Towers had been used as a centre for psychic projectors.
Session 19 July 1997:
Q: Well, no. Well, is this reference to Alton Towers that Ark found on the internet, about psychic projectors. That was the only unusual thing we have found about this. Are we talking about some sort of place where they have rotating shifts of psychic projectors?
A: As you know... fiction is often the guise for the deliverance of the deepest of truths. And, on that note, good night.
This last statement might have been a reference to the works of English author
Lewis Carroll whose books
Alice in Wonderland and
Alice Through the Looking Glass contain deeply esoteric ideas. As I have said elsewhere, Lewis (real name Charles Dodgson) was alleged to have been a member of the Rosicrucian
Orphic Circle who met in secret under the leadership of
Lord Edward Bulwer Lytton and would seem to have carried out trance medium sessions using sacred mirrors (psychomanteums). Did Carroll use any of the information gleaned from these sessions in his Alice books I wonder?
It appears that Charles Talbot, the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury, who built Alton Towers as his stately home (he also rebuilt Alton Castle on the model of an Hospitaller preceptory) was a practising alchemist and a secret room where he may have carried out his alchemical experiments was discovered when renovation works were carried out at Alton Towers during the last century. However, Alton Towers was like many English stately homes commandeered by the War Office during the Second World War and used for officer training, which included a young
Sir Roy Jenkins future Labour Party senior government minister and President of the European Commission and great friend of Lord Victor Rothschild and Sir William Astor. By then much of the building had already been boarded up and was unused. British Prime Minister
Sir Winston Churchill was known though to have had esoteric interests (he was an invested Druid). Could he have made Alton Towers a clandestine centre for psychic projecting perhaps?
Incidentally, Alton Towers has reopened after the Covid pandemic and it has a new feature, which ironically ties in with the concept of projecting, albeit 3D projecting in this case:
First look inside Alton Towers' new attraction 'The Curse' with flying demons, levitating dolls and haunted chandeliers - MyLondon
The Curse is an immersive dark ride looking at the story of Emily Alton, the troubled daughter of a pair of Victorian high society figures who prefer partying to parenting, until one night when they disappeared into thin air. As the story goes, Emily was the only person to remain, haunting Alton Manor looking for the one thing denied to her - play.
Through a dozen extraordinary scenes, visitors are taken on a step-by-step journey as Emily wreaks her awful revenge. Cutting-edge audio technology makes you feel that Emily is talking directly to you, while advanced 3D projection-mapping brings each scenario to chilling life.”
Bianca Sammut, Divisional Director at Alton Towers Resort, said: “We’re delighted to finally be able to take the wraps off The Curse at Alton Manor and welcome those brave enough to enter. We’ve harnessed the power of cutting edge technology to provide a fully immersive experience that blurs the line between reality and Emily’s demonic world.
Visitors will even seem to disappear in front of their very eyes as a result of a spine-chilling array of special effects and visuals that have never been seen before from a UK theme park. Child’s play, this isn’t. Emily is waiting … The question is, dare you experience what she has in store?”
Hmmm … not really my cup of tea.
But this mention of psychic projecting (something Lord Bulwer-Lytton wrote about in his book Vril:The Coming Race, where his Aryan underworld golden race, survivors of the Flood, who had harnessed the power of vril were capable of mind projection through their telepathic powers) makes me think of the Aryan army of subterranean psychic projectors the C’s called Thor’s Pantheum, who the C’s said could project themselves right into one's head. Perhaps Bulwer-Lytton had had some first-hand dealings with these underworlders or was himself an example of their successful psychic projecting, which may have inspired his book. They also said this army of 1.6 million operatives was mostly subterranean based. However, could Alton Towers be an above ground part of this same effort?
This reference to the underground army of psychic projectors brings us neatly back to the Templars, who the C’s said went underground after their suppression, both literally and figuratively. Could the subterranean Templars have had any connection to the Nation of the Third Eye and to the mysterious enclave of alchemists in the Pyrenees who have used monoatomic gold (a product of alchemy and possibly the fabled ‘Elixir of Life’) to control people and were also the “great council of the elect” referred to in the Rosicrucian manifesto, “elect” being a term which is also linked to the Cathars*, who viewed themselves as the “Perfecti” or the elect or perfect ones. If the alchemist enclave did have an underground base, could it be located at the abandoned village of Perillos in the French Pyrenees, whose inhabitants fled the site after experiencing strange, terrifying dreams and the sounds of chanting coming from underground? Could one go even further here and view the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century as the vengeful work of the surviving underground Cathars and the Knights Templar against their arch nemesis, the Catholic Church, which had sought to destroy them? If so, it would certainly explain the involvement of Sir Francis Bacon (who had been a staunch “low church” Protestant or Puritan in his youth as well as being an ardent alchemist) with the enclave of alchemists who he may have made contact with during his three years in France on government service. As the Fanthorpes point out, the Bacon brothers could have built up their own secret society or expanded and developed one that already existed in an attenuated or vestigial form. As they state, Francis Bacon seems to have had exactly the right kind of temperament and attitude, and the necessary power and influence, for resurrecting the dormant underground remains of the Knights Templar or the Priory of Sion (if it ever existed).
*The Fanthorpe’s even entertain the idea that the treasure smuggled out of the castle of Montsegur by four Cathars on the eve of the Cathar surrender on 16 March 1244 to the forces of the Inquisition could have been the Grail itself.
In practice, perhaps it was the other way around and the enclave of alchemists and/or the underground Templars (who may have formed the core of the enclave) saw in Francis Bacon the right man with the right credentials to expand their subterranean influence on the surface world through a secret society that became the modern front for the Rosicrucians - who had already been in existence for some time prior to the dissolution of the Templars in 1314 AD according to the C’s. Did Francis Bacon become their prime surface agent in the early 17th century? The Fanthorpes even float the idea that the secret inner circle or main hierarchy of the Templars were the Priory of Sion [MJF: or was this just a cover or smokescreen for the Rosicrucians? See more below on this]. They suggest that it was this inner circle (recalling here the C’s idea of ‘circles within circles’) or elite that knew the so-called magical and alchemical secrets upon which the Templars wealth was founded, and who also knew the locations of the secret mines and laboratories (e.g., the mine at Blanchefort and the Tower of Alchemy at Rennes-le-Chateau) and the truth about Baphomet – recalling here that the C’s confirmed to Laura that the Templars did actually find something during their excavations on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, something which led to them discovering the secret of levitation. Could that something have been Baphomet, the pure crystal skull the Templars revered? The C’s described Baphomet as being the “seer of the passage” and linked this to the manner in which the Knights Templar kept their secrets hidden in caves:
Q: What was the head worshipped by the Templars that was supposed to have been called "Baphomet?"
A: Seer of the passage.
Q: What does that mean?
A: Remember, secrets of Knights Templar were kept in caves guided by eternally burning lamps.
Could one of those caves have been the cavern discovered within Mount Peche Cardou, the entrance passageway to which was marked by a Templar cross, and a mountain depicted in several of Poussin’s paintings including The Shepherds of Arcadia and L’ Autumne. Were the eternally burning lamps kept alight by a special compound which included phosphorous as Laura has noted.
Could Baphomet, the seer of the passage, have acted as a mind accelerator for the Templars, as described below by the C’s, a secret that Poussin may have been aware of?
Q: What was the niche in the Queen's Chamber that resembles the crack in the stone in the Arcadian Shepherd's painting, as well as the window in the St. Anthony painting. What was this for?
A: Mind accelerator.
In their book, the Fanthorpes mention that the Templar legends of Baphomet speak of a magical severed head that was able to utter accurate oracles when questioned in conjunction with the performance of appropriate rites and incantations. This makes me think of the Celtic legends concerning the talking head of ‘Bran the Blessed’ and of the singing severed head of Orpheus in Greek mythology. Could they have been one and the same head, the pure crystal skull called Baphomet? The mention of appropriate incantations reminds me of the lengthy cabbalistic chanting the members of Jose Torres’s secret Grail society preformed in Girona, which conjured up an apparition of the ‘Lady of Light’ that was seen by hundreds of people in the city and widely reported in the local press at the time (a ritual incidentally that almost cost Torres his life). The Lady of Light is often connected with the Grail legend. Could it be a three-dimensional manifestation (hologram) or projection of the Grail, one which inspired our ancestors to view this Lady as the beneficent mother goddess of ancient times? Given that the name Baphomet using the Atbash cypher connects the crystal skull to divine Wisdom, could the Templars interactions with the skull have seen it acting as a mind accelerator, infusing them with the knowledge of the ages?
If Bacon did make such a link with the alchemist enclave/underground Templars and was involved in some capacity with the burial of the TDARM on Oak Island, as indicated by the C’s, it would suggest there was indeed a strong connection between the English Rosicrucians (the Philosophers of Dancar) and the enclave of alchemists in the Pyrenees, the Rosicrucians, according to the C’s, being a modern-day manifestation of the STS orientated Rosteem, with their ancient links to the biblical Elohim and the Giza Plateau, formerly known as “Rostau” or “rose cross”:
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.
Q: (L) What is their purpose?
A: As yet unrevealable to you.
However, it is clear the 17th century Rosicrucians were not simply an English based movement since Roiscrucianism also took hold in Germany and in other parts of Europe (Bohemia and the Netherlands for example). Hence, it would be no stretch of the imagination to consider that the French artist Nicholas Poussin, who was based primarily in Rome throughout his adult life, could have become a Roscicrucian and through these connections he may have become familiar with the watermark codes that Rosicrucians like Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Phillip Sydney used in their works. If so, then the symbol of the grape takes on a far greater significance as we shall soon see.
The Significance of the Grapes in the Paper-Mark for the Letter “N”
There is little doubt that Francis Bacon took an interest in codes and cyphers from a young age. The use of codes and cyphers was already well established within the Elizabethan English secret service by the time Bacon and his brother Anthony joined the Queen’s diplomatic service and were posted to France. One of the key cryptographers and royal secret agents at that time was the Elizabethan magus
Dr John Dee – who was the original agent 007 long before James Bond (this was his coded designation within the secret service). Little has come down to us in terms of records of Francis Bacon and John Dee knowing each other but on the afternoon of 11 August 1582, John Dee made an entry in his journal noting that the two men met at Dee’s house in Mortlake, south London. Bacon was 21 years old at the time and was accompanied by a Mr. Phillipes, a top cryptographer in the employ of
Sir Francis Walsingham who headed up the fledgling English secret service. They were there according to Ewen MacDuff, in an article entitled "
After Some Time Be Past" (published in
'Baconiana' December 1983 edition) to find out the truth about the ancient Hebrew art of the Gematria - one of the oldest cipher systems known, dating from around 700 B.C. They were seeking to discuss this with Dee because he was not only one of the leading adepts of this field, but a regular practitioner in certain levels of Gematria. Thus, it would be no surprise that Bacon would have also taken an interest in the paper-mark or water-mark codes then in fashion.
The Fanthorpes referred in their own book to a book by
Mrs Henry Pott called
Francis Bacon and His Secret Society. This can be found on line at the following link:
Francis Bacon And His Secret Society : Mrs. Henry Pott : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. The paper-marks she refers to in her book were in existence long before Bacon began to publish works himself and were chiefly to be found in use on the Continent (which leads one to wonder whether it could have been Nicholas Bacon who originally made his sons aware of them – since he spent a lot of time in the Netherlands as a younger man). Potts tells us that many of these marks were retained and adopted by the members of Bacon’s secret society (the Rosicrucians?), although their use became immensely expanded and diversified. She mentions that there were three particular paper-marks that were especially associated with Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony. These marks were:
1. The bunch of grapes.
2. The pot or jug.
3. The double candlesticks.
She adds that the grapes and pots marks appeared in crude form as early as the 14th century. The candlesticks seem in their earlier stages to have been pillars or towers, but she states that she could find no example of even a single candlestick any earlier than 1580 and even this example may have been more suggestive of a castle than a candlestick. This reference to pillars makes me think of the Masonic use of the pillar symbol (as found on their Masonic tracing boards), which supposedly represents the pillars known in the Bible as Boaz and Joachin. According to the Bible, Boaz and Joachin were two copper, brass or bronze pillars which stood on the porch of Solomon's Temple, the first Jewish Temple constructed in Jerusalem. Joachin means "he [God] will establish" and Boaz means "in strength", so these pillars reminded the Jewish people that this temple was established in strength by Yahweh himself. The pillars were probably not support structures but free-standing, based on similar pillars found in other nearby temples. When the Second Temple was built, the pillars were not returned, and there exists no record of any new pillars being constructed to replace them. However, Bacon often alluded to the candlesticks symbolism as being pillars of light or beacons for guidance to distressed and weary travellers, which makes me recall the pillar of light or fire that guided the wandering Israelites at night during the Exodus. The C’s told us though that this was no pillar of light but instead an STS alien guideship:
Q: (L) Was Venus the pillar of smoke by day and fire by night as seen by the Jews during the Exodus?
A: No.
Q: (L) What was seen by the Jews?
A: A Guideship.
It is worth keeping these biblical references in mind for when I come to look again at Poussin’s painting of
L’ Autumne below.
Potts tells us that few of Bacon’s letters were without the pot or jug and none of his acknowledged books were without one or more of these three marks in the paper-marked editions. She believed that the candle sticks were the latest and least frequently used of the three marks, being used in the double form only in editions of Bacon’s work published after his death.
When you look at the symbol or figure for the letter “N” in the water-marks alphabet, you will see that it consists of a circle above two hearts with a fleur-de-lis (MJF: which is a stylised version of the lily flower, the traditional emblem of the House of David) below them and a letter B below that, plus a bunch of grapes underneath the base of the structure. The vertical columns could represent candlesticks or pillars – referring us back to the biblical pillars of Boaz and Joachin and by extension to the Temple of Solomon, who in the Bible was King David’s son and the builder of the First Temple of Jerusalem (but who the C’s say was in reality Pharoah Narmer of Egypt). When you look at Poussin’s painting of L’ Autumne you can in my opinion see a distinct parallel with the “N” water-mark figure:
The two figures carrying the bunch of grapes on the stave may be viewed as the two candlesticks or pillars underneath which is strung the bunch of grapes as per the figure N. Moreover, the ladder supporting the figure of a woman picking apples from the tree, which seems to stem from the bunch of grapes, could represent the fleur-de-lis (flower of the lily) and the two hearts surmounted by a circle. Like the classic heart symbol,
the apple
is the ancient symbol of love, generally associated with the Greek God Dionysus who offered apples to win the Goddess Aphrodite’s love. The apple is typically connected to emotions of the heart, including love, lust, sensuality and affection. As I said before, the painting’s alternative title is
The Grapes of the Promised Land, which may connect us with comments the C’s made about Kore (Princess Meritaten) where the C’s said “[The]
Leaves are of the Tree of Apples, from whence we get the proverbial "grapes of wrath", the Blue Apples incarnate!”. Although the fleur-de-lis incorporated in the symbol for the letter “N” in the water-mark alphabet is normally taken to represent the lineage of the House of David
*, the C’s evidently had a different bloodline in mind here by their reference to “
Blue Apples incarnate” and this would appear to have been that of the Perseid bloodline running through Kore/Princess Meritaten, who at one stage was the last living member of the Perseid bloodline that had run through her father, Pharaoh Akhenaten. The fleur-de-lis was also present on the French flag from at least the 13th century, if not earlier, until it was replaced after the French Revolution by the French Republican tricolour; but it was also a device commonly employed by the Knights Templar as well, which given their links to modern Freemasonry, a secret society that has its own particular symbols and codes, the Templar connection may be the one more relevant here. Indeed, some researchers, like
Dr Joseph Farrell, believe that the Templars gave rise to the later 17th century Rosicrucians who adopted the Templars’ red cross symbol (the
Croix Patte). However, I think it is more likely to have been the other way around and that the inner core of the Templars may have been Rosicrucians. This proposition may be echoed in what the C’s said here:
A: No, it is from the Rose arose the Cross.
In another session, the C’s said that the Templars were a set-up, a smokescreen, like the fictitious Priory of Sion established by Pierre Plantard in the mid-20th century, which, with its celebrated Grand Masters such as Jean Cocteau (who Patrice Chaplin witnessed performing a Rosicrucian ritual in the old Tower of Girona wearing a high priest’s special headdress), may in reality have been a disguised front for the Rosicrucians:
A: Templars are a setup, insofar as persecution is concerned. Remember your "historical records" can be distorted, in order to throw off future inquiries, such as your own.
Could the Templars have therefore been a creation of the Rosicrucians (the Rosteem) to carry out certain specific functions, particularly the finding of the hidden Ark of the Covenant and the Grail as well as lost Cabalistic knowledge, which they then bought back to Europe? By 1307 AD, with the loss of the Holy Land to Christian control, had they outlived their purpose and were deliberately collapsed?
*The three petals of the fleur-de-lis are believed to signify the divine Holy Trinity, and this belief is further supported by the fact that the lily flower was used as an emblem of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph who was of the House of David and is frequently depicted in religious art holding a lily flower. Fleur-de-lis predominantly means perfection, purity, and courage and the symbol itself signifies life, enlightenment, and excellence. However, its use may long pre-date that in Christian iconography since the fleur-de-lis symbol has also been found in Indian, Babylonian, Roman, as well as Egyptian architecture. Moreover, it was also found on the gold helmet of a Scythian king, which may be significant here given that the C’s said that Sargon the Great (a Semite) was a Scythian, as were the Danann’s who in turn may be linked to the Tuatha de Danann of Irish folklore. The triple petals are also reminiscent of a trident and could also be representative of a plasma discharge too – the mythical lightning bolts of Zeus. Indeed, certain semiotics have claimed that it denotes a half thunderbolt drawn in a highly stylized manner. For more see: Fleur De Lis Symbol, Its Meaning, History and Origins - Mythologian.
The painting
L ’Autumne was completed by Poussin as part of a series of four on the seasons of the year sometime between 1660 and 1664, thus long after the death of Francis Bacon (if he really did die!). The two figures carrying the grapes could be two of the princes of Israel who were sent into the land of Canaan by the Israelite leader Joshua to act as spies, which ironically creates a parallel with the two young Bacon brothers who were sent to France to act as diplomats (spies) for Queen Elizabeth I. I am not suggesting that Poussin deliberately intended the two young men to represent the Bacon brothers but then, who knows. However, I do think there is a deliberate parallel drawn in the painting with the peculiar water-mark figure of “N”, which, if intended, suggests that Poussin was a Rosicrucian who was aware of the hidden secrets contained in the paper-marks or water-marks alphabet used by Bacon and his fellow Rosicrucians. I do not think this is coincidental either. The fact that Mt. Peche Cardou seems to appear in the background to the painting, also suggests that he wished to make a link to his earlier work,
The Shepherds of Arcadia, where the mountain also appears. But what of the symbolism of the grape, what does it represent?
Mrs Henry Pott points out that the symbols of candlesticks, the fleur-de-lis, tree foil and what she sees as pearls (as in pearls of wisdom) rather than apples are all symbols of the Holy Ghost (or Spirit), whose seven-fold gifts include the gift of wisdom. She also points out that when Bacon uses the symbol of grapes, the grapes are invariably piled in a pyramid or diamond shape and are sometimes accompanied by the letters RC or CR (N.B. clear references to the
Rosy Cross or Christian Rosencreutz). This reference to a diamond shape creates to my way of thinking a possible link to the philosopher’s stone of alchemical fame, Francis Bacon being an active alchemist who was well versed in alchemical lore, given what the C’s said here:
A: Idea centre.
Q: (L) How can this idea centre be accessed?
A: Many ways: meditation is the best.
Q: (L) Is there any visual image of the philosopher's stone that one could use to access it in meditation?
A: Yes. Diamond or prism.
The bunch of grapes, alone or in combination with other figures, was the second great mark in Bacon’s books. He explained their symbolism thus:
“As wines that flow from the first treading of the grape are sweeter than those that are squeezed out by the winepress, because these last have some taste of the stones and skin of the grape; so those doctrines are very sweet and healthy that flow from a gentle pressure of the Scripture, and are not wrested to controversies or commonplaces.”
He would also say that “I find the wisdom of the ancients to be like grapes ill trodden; something is squeezed out, but the best parts are left behind”. He likened the laws (recalling here that he was a talented lawyer) to “the grapes being too much pressed, yield an hard but unwholesome wine”.
As to his own approach, he commented:
“I may say, then, of myself […] it cannot be that we should think alike, when one drinks water and the other wine … Now, other men have, in the matter of sciences, drunk a crude liquor like water, either flowing spontaneously from the understanding, or drawn up by logic, as by the wheels from a well. Whereas I pledge mankind in a liquor pressed from countless grapes – from grapes ripe and full seasoned, collected in clusters, and gathered, and then squeezed in the press, and then, finally, purified and clarified in the vat.”
And there in his books are the
grapes in clusters, or “
collections” ready for the “
first vintage”.
This image of collecting grapes in clusters thus reminds me of the two men bearing a huge cluster of blue grapes in Poussin’s painting. Although the woman on the ladder is collecting apples from an apple tree rather than grapes, this imagery puts me somewhat in mind of Bacon’s seven stepped ladder of learning. If Bacon was the true author of the Rosicrucain manifestos, then the Rosicrucian writings will naturally have been infused with his ideas and concepts. If, in turn, Poussin was a secret member of the brethren of the Rosy Cross, it makes sense to me that he would have worked Rosicrucian teachings, principles and symbolism into his works of art, as in his painting L’Autumne. This obviously is conjecture or speculation on my part, as Poussin left nothing in writing concerning the nature of his work, but one obvious proof of this theory can be seen in his painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia, where the kneeling, bearded shepherd is pointing to the RC (Rho Chi) of the Rosicrucians on the tomb’s face. It would be stretching credulity to think that this is mere coincidence on the artist’s part, as Poussin was known for the exactness of his artwork and for carefully working out every facet of his paintings.
It only remains to ask whether Poussin may have known the true significance of the “Blue Apples incarnate” and the special bloodline involved, which was not the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene as promoted in modern times by the likes of Dan Brown, Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. The key here would appear to be the identity of the pregnant shepherdess, who, as noted above, seems to be the main focal point or nexus of the painting from which Poussin’s incredible pentagonal projection emanates. If Poussin was a Rosicrucian, then he was only expressing through his art what his fellow Rosicrucians such as John Dee through his hieroglyphical symbolism (e.g., the ‘Monas Hieroglyphica’) and Sir Francis Bacon through his alchemical writings and the plays of William Shakespeare were doing in the fields of science and literature, respectively, during the late Renaissance. This was to distribute to the cognoscenti the hidden stream of knowledge and enlightenment through key symbols which they could identify when beholding them in works of art, whether these were paintings, poems, plays or music. So, when Poussin painted a bunch of giant blue grapes being carried by two men in L’ Autumne, he was evidently suggesting here something more than a passing reference to an event described in the Bible.
