The problem with the "problems" with this theory is that it is obviously a palimpsest. Look at all the portions that
don't look like vehicles. They are a total mess, like the mass of incomprehensible figures to the left and right, or the groups of three vertical lines superimposed over the three connected chevrons.
Added: another good depiction (with colored hieroglyphs) that unscrambles the mess:
One of those groups of three vertical lines (see the figure in the centre on the bottom row of figures) intrigues me since it look very like the star sign symbol for
Virgo the Maiden, save that the small tail shown coming off the central line or column is normally shown coming off the right hand vertical line or column of the present symbol for Virgo.
Perhaps this is just a mere coincidence and it could be the product of a palimpsest as you suggest. Strangely, the link between the two symbols looks more apparent though in the dark shaded version you also provided. My understanding of the central spiral figure shown there is that it stood for light.
However, the Virgo symbol is in turn very similar to the medieval alchemy symbol of the Ormus shown below, which was used as a kind of sub-title from 1188 onwards by the
Ordre de Sion (established by the Augustinian Canons of the Abbey de Notre Dame du Mont Sion in Jerusalem), which supposedly became later on the so-called 'Priory of Sion' - in itself perhaps a front for the Rosicrucians:
The sub-title "Ormus" was adopted by the Order after the famous '
cutting of the Elm' incident at Gisors, in Normandy in 1188 when the Order or Priory of Sion tempestuously split with the Knights Templar with whom they had until that time shared a common Grand Master. The subtitle Ormus was apparently used up until 1306, the year before the arrest and fall of the Knights Templar. Curiously, the word "
orme" in French means "elm" and the word "or" means gold.
The device for Ormus (see above) was a kind of an acrostic or anagram combining a number of key words and symbols. "Ours" means "bear" in French, which is "Ursus" in Latin. As we saw above, the "M" represents the sign of Virgo, which in the language of mediaeval iconography connotes "Notre Dame" or "Our Lady" in English, which is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism as well as being part of the name of the mother abbey of the Order.
In the late 18th Century, a masonic organisation or brotherhood emerged called the
Oriental Rite of Memphis, which used the name Ormus. According to their doctrine, Ormus was an Egyptian sage who around AD 46 merged pagan and Christian mysteries to found the
Rose-Croix. He may have been a member of the
Therapeutae (“Healers,” or “Attendants”), who were a Jewish sect of ascetics closely resembling the Essenes, believed to have settled on the shores of Lake Mareotis in the vicinity of Alexandria, Egypt, during the 1st century AD.
However, the word Ormus, also called
ORME's, has another meaning today being the initials for
Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements including mono-atomic gold. The alchemical secret of monoatomic gold was one the Ancient Egyptian priesthood and pharaohs clearly held, including those of the 19th Dynasty such as Ramses I and Seti who reconfigured the stone inscriptions at Abydos. Moses himself seemed to know the secret of monatomic gold when he had the Golden Calf (probably Canaanite calf statuettes representing Baal) smelted down, the offending Israelites being forced to ingest the remaining substance - a fine white powder.
The connections with the word "Ormus" do not stop there, as it has recently come to my attention that there was an English crusader knight who was also a Knight Templar who went by the name
Ormus le Guidon.
Ormus (c 1075 – 1141) who was Richard the Forester’s son (or possibly son-in-law) was given the title “
Le Guidon” or standard bearer, being standard bearer for King William II (William Rufus) during the First Crusade (this part of the story is evidently a myth, as William Rufus was assassinated and never took part in the crusades). Ormus Le Guidon acquired further lands to his already extensive inheritance and became a powerful nobleman. He took the title Lord of Darlaston and married Emma de Beauchamp in about 1119. They had seven children. His first son, Richard succeeded him at Darlaston. His second son, Edward (c 1127 – 1180) took the name
Biddulph (de Bidulfe) from his inheritance of the Middle Biddulph region in Staffordshire. He died in 1130, in Staffordshire, England and was buried in
Ormelle, Treviso, Veneto, Italy [
MJF: a curious choice of name for a burial location when your father's name was Ormus or Orme].
The nineteenth-century local Staffordshire historian
John Sleigh in his 1863 work
A History of The Ancient Parish of Leek wrote that Ormus le Guidon built St. Chad's church in south Staffordshire; whereby an inscription reads
Orm Vocatur Qui Me Condidit - or "
he who built me is called Orm" [
MJF: a most curious dedication for a Christian church you might think].
Evidence of Templar activity in the midlands and northwest of England is found in a Templar hospital at Newark, Nottinghamshire in 1185 and, more locally, the existence of a Templar Preceptory at Keele. However, there is another site which today is known as
Spring Wood Priory that may provide a direct link to Ormus le Guidon. Indeed, there is reason to believe that he established the first Templar preceptory in England there, if not the first preceptory outside of Jerusalem. All that is left of it today is the former chapel, which is now used as a storage facility or workshop on a farm. The priory was the only ecclesiastical building known to have existed in the area in the mid-12th Century.
Edith Murrows a local historian, who is a retired university lecturer in medieval history, has done extensive research into Ormus le Guidon and was able to discover that he was one of the first Templars and was in Jerusalem in 1119 when the order was founded. In 1129 when the Templars became affiliated to the Cistercian monastic order, Ormus gave a strip of his land to build what became the Cistercian Abbey of Hulton. The Biddulph family, Ormus' descendants, would later gift Spring Wood Priory, which had by that time become a part of Biddulph Manor, to the Cistercians of Hulton Abbey.
If Ormus le Guidon, a wealthy English nobleman, was one of the first Templars, he may well have been involved in the excavations the Templars undertook under Temple Mount. It is alleged that they found ancient documentation (parchments) and artefacts, which they brought back to Europe with them. Could Ormus have been one of those who did so and, if he did, did he conceal the documents/artefacts at Spring Wood Priory in a vault under the chapel (most medieval chapels have crypts or vaults)? Unfortunately, the chapel floor today has been concreted over but that doesn't mean to say that others may not have stumbled across the vault with its hidden cache of secrets at some stage in the past. If they did, could such secret knowledge have found its way into the hands of the 17th Century Rosicrucians of England?
If Ormus le Guidon did obtain secret occult knowledge in Jerusalem and concealed it in a vault under Spring Wood Priory, could the Order of Sion have known about this, which then became the subject of the dispute between Henry II (or his son Richard the Lionheart in other versions of the tale) and King Phillip of France at Gisors in Normandy which led to the famous 'cutting of the elm' incident? Could the cutting down of the elm have been a sarcastic gesture aimed at the Templars, one that was based on Ormus le Guidon's name? If the knowledge Ormus brought back with him to England contained the secrets of alchemy, one can see why the Order of Sion and the French King might have been so angry at the Templars and the English King (their protector), for such alchemical knowledge would have brought with it dreams of untold riches.
Let us recall here what the C's said about the Templars' secrets:
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.
Q: Okay, next question, is this
Ophiuchus, the serpent holder, the same as what you have called
'the holder of Trent?'
A: Close.
Curiously, the county of Staffordshire is where the River Trent in England rises - it eventually flows into the Humber Estuary in Yorkshire. Could there be a connection to the Rosicrucians involved here?
Q: Supposedly, Christian Rosencruetz was initiated by the '
philosophers of Dancar.' I want to know where this blasted place is! [
MJF: The answer is Doncaster in Yorkshire not far from the ancient ridge called "the Chevin"] 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.
This should be linked with the follow-up statement shown below:
Q: In reading the Celtic legends, I discovered that Cassiopaea was equated with Danu, or Don, as in Tuatha de Danaan, or the court of the goddess Danu. So, in other words, the supreme goddess of the Aryans was Cassiopaea. And, Cassiopaea is found in the zodiacal area of Aries, the 'lamb,' where Cephus the 'rock' and 'king' is also found, as well as Perseus, 'he who breaks' and serpentarius. {Just noticed that the previous question about the supernova in Serpentarius could be a reference to the supernova in Cassiopeia by this grouping method.} The image is of Perseus overcoming the serpent, and the ancient Celtic engravings of the horned god show him gripping two serpents by the throat. I would like to understand the symbology here...
A: You are on the right track
It was the supernova in Cassiopeia that caught the attention of the Rosicrucians (men like Dr John Dee and Sir Francis Bacon), which they took as the sign for the start of a new age of scientific discovery and enlightenment. Dee wrote about the new star or supernova, considering it to be a sign that profound worldy changes would soon occur in religious, scientific and mystical affairs.
This point links with the following additional statement made by the C's:
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.
Could that foreknowledge have come from documents originally discovered by Ormus le Guidon and his fellow Templars that had subsequently been concealed perhaps under the chapel at Spring Wood Priory? It is even possible that the chapel was built over an ancient cave used as a sacred place by the Celtic inhabitants of the area, since there is also a stone circle (called the Bridestones after the goddess Brigid or Bride) and a sacred well or spring known as Gawton's Well (if that name sounds a bit like
Gawain, the Arthurian knight of the round table, that is because this area of Staffordshire is connected in British legends to that of Gawain and the Green Knight). The priory sits exactly half way between the stone circle and the sacred spring, which would be in keeping with Celtic concepts of geographical and geomantic alignments of sacred sites
Various Rosicrucian writers claimed that the continental Rosicrucian started after its founders had discovered a secret underground vault containing manuscripts revealing arcane secret Kabbalistic knowledge. They never revealed the location of this vault. However, one person who seemed to have known of its whereabout was
Heinrich Khunrath who in 1605 included a stylised drawing of a tunnel said to lead to a vault in his 1595 work
Amphitheater of Eternal Wisdom an alchemical classic, combining both Christianity and magic. In this work, Khunrath showed himself to be an adept of spiritual alchemy and illustrated the many-staged and intricate path to spiritual perfection.
"The First Stage of the Great Work," better-known as the "Alchemist's Laboratory." The drawing of the laboratory is credited to architectural painter
Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527–1604) and shows Khunrath in his laboratory.
For more see
Heinrich Khunrath - Wikipedia and
Khunrath’s Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae (1595)
Khunrath had met John Dee at Bremen on 27 May 1589, when Dee was on his way back to England from the court of
Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor in Prague, Bohemia. Khunrath would praise Dee in his later works. During his own stay at Rudolf II 's court, Khunrath met the alchemist Edward Kelley who had been John Dee's scryer or trance medium.
Many think John Dee passed on the Rosicrucian flame to his young protégé,
Sir Francis Bacon who may have become its Grand Master. There may be some proof for this in another famous engraving involving a vault, which appears to depict Dee and Bacon. This woodcut known as the
Lampado Trado by Dutch artist Jacob Cats was first published in 1655.
Lampado Trado
In the image above you can see a young nobleman with a rose on his shoe being passed a lamp (representing light and wisdom) by an old wizen figure, with an open vault or tomb between them. It would seem the young man is Francis Bacon and the older man John Dee and the vault represented a repository of hidden knowledge. People have speculated over the whereabouts of the vault believing that it might be in a hidden tunnel under the river Wye in England (such a tunnel with a vault has in fact been found but it proved to be empty) or underneath the colonial period Bruton Church in Virginia, USA (a former British colony that Bacon helped to found). Others even think it may be on Oak Island, where recent excavations have indeed led to the discovery of a medieval tunnel that may in turn lead to a vault (the fabled 'treasure vault') people have been searching for, for the past 200+ years
However, could it be that the woodcut was depicting a vault that had already been found in the late 16th or early 17th centuries. Was that vault under the old ruined chapel of Spring Wood Priory?
Indeed, could Sir Francis Bacon have been at the centre of a Rosicrucian web of intrigue that survives down to this present day.:
Q: ... Now, in trying to figure out who has on what color hat, if there is such a thing, I have come to a tentative conclusion that the spider, or spinner of webs, is the Rosicrucian encampment, and that the Scorpion represents the seeker of wisdom... because, in fact, the word for Scorpio comes from the same root as that which means to pierce or unveil. Therefore, the Scorpion is also Perseus, per Ziu, or 'for God.' And the Rosicrucians are the 'other,' so to speak. Can you elaborate on this for me? Or comment?
A: What a tangled web we spin, when we must not let you in.
Bacon, who as a young man had been a diplomat (a spy?) in France in the service of Queen Elizabeth I, may well have established links with the enclave of alchemists in the Pyrenees whilst on his travels through southern France. There are some who believe that Bacon even faked his death in 1626 and disappeared afterwards to continental Europe, possibly ending up in the enclave of alchemists. If so, he could still be alive, possibly existing at 4th density level or even as a bi-density being? This thought leads me to something else the C's once said:
Session 18 January 2002:
Q: Why is it that we have attracted so much interest from the "spy vs. spy" types? After all, if there is something out there they are after, why do they need us?
A: They cannot "see" or "draw the sword from the stone."
MJF: An indirect reference to the Holy Grail as per the King Arthur legend. The C's also described Baphomet as the 'seer of the passage' (see extract above). They also told us that Baphomet was a pure crystal skull and the 'holder of the Trent', a river which starts its life in, and flows through, the county of Staffordshire in England:
Q: Okay. I have several books on the subject. I will start tomorrow. Now, when the Templars were arrested, they were accused of worshipping a head, or skull, and also the god Baphomet. Were these spurious accusations designed to defame them?
A: Skull was of pure crystal.
Q: What is the definition of the god 'Baphomet,' if they did, indeed, worship such?
A: The holder of the Trent.]
Q: (A) It means they have some kind of knowledge, but they really can't make anything of it? Well, then there is the question. They are helping us, and they want to get something. Shall we continue and pretend that it doesn't bother us?
[…]
A: The situation looks bleak indeed. But remember the Achilles heel of STS: Wishful Thinking.
Q: In this case, how is wishful thinking going to help?
A: There will be a big miscalculation made. It will reveal the "Man behind the curtain."
Could a still living Sir Francis Bacon be that man behind the curtain? I say this because of another illustration that curiously just happens to depict a hand behind a curtain, which there is good reason to believe could have been intended as that of Sir Francis Bacon.
The illustration is from
Henry Peacham's Rosicrucian 1612 emblem book
"Minerva Britanna, or a garden of heroical devices, furnished and adorned with emblems and Impresas of sundry devices, newly devised, moralized and published." On the frontispiece is an oval wreathed with laurel, and a Latin motto which translated as: "
One lives in one's genius, other things depart in death," Within the oval is the proscenium of a theatre, the curtain supposed to conceal the figure of a man whose forearm only appears, the hand holding a pen which has just written "Mente Videbor": "
By the mind shall I be seen."
On page 33, there is a design
with a hand holding a spear as in the act of shaking it. Also of note, in Powell's
Attourney's Academy , 1623, in a dedicatory verse addressed to : "Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Albans......
"O give me leave to pull the Curtaine by
That clouds thy worth in such obscurite"
On page 34 is a dedication to
Sir Francis Bacon : "
To the most judicious and learned Sir Francis Bacon Knight."
As one description puts it,
Minerva* Britanna, written in the early seventeenth century by Henry Peacham, is an enigmatic magical book of poetry and images that mixes together Renaissance faery magic, Elizabethan codes, Hermetic wisdom, and echoes of kingly advice. It is a puzzle book of those magical Mysteries that have to do with the land, the monarch, the sacred duties of the nobleman, and the faery secrets of Britain. It also deals with ascent and inner rebirth, central parts of the early Rosicrucian pattern. It is a book of visionary constructs, gateways, and keys, hidden among flattery, mathematical puzzles, and historical reflection, all rooted within the sacred land of Britain and the sacred kingship.
*Minerva was the Roman goddess of handicrafts, the professions, the arts, and, later, war; she was commonly identified with the Greek goddess Athena. Athena Pallas, the "spear shaker", was adopted as a patroness by Sir Francis Bacon and the esoteric society that he formed called the 'Knights of the Helmet'.
The emblem of the hand reaching through the curtain holding a quill pen may represent the secret of Francis Bacon's life. At a very early age he had conceived the idea that he would imitate God, that he would hide his works in order that they might be found out -- that he would be seen only by his mind and that his image should be concealed. There was no haphazard work about it. It was not simply that having written poems or plays, and desiring not to be known as the author on publishing them, he put someone else's name on the title-page (William Shakespeare's). There was first the conception of the idea, and then the carefully-elaborated scheme for carrying it out. (ref. The Mystery of Francis Bacon pages 105-06)
There are many who think Bacon was the real pen of William Shakespeare's plays. My own view is that he was certainly involved in those works but may have acted more as an editor in chief, providing direct contributions yes but not necessarily writing the plays in full himself - indeed many think the real author was
Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who was a great friend of Bacon. There are also others who think Bacon was the author of the Rosicrucian Manifestos.
I appreciate that this is a highly speculative theory but there are those who think the French alchemist and esoteric author
Fulcanelli, who mysteriously disappeared in 1926 (N.B. exactly 300 years after Bacon's death) having left his magnum opus,
Le Mystère des Cathédrales, with his student,
Eugène Canseliet, may still be alive. If this can be true for Fulcanelli it could be equally true of Bacon and also the 14th Century French alchemist
Nicolas Flamel.
According to Canseliet, his last encounter with Fulcanelli happened in 1953 (years after his 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.
Did Sir Francis Bacon, an alchemist like Fulcanelli and Flamel, complete the work too and by doing so achieve a 4th density state of being, thus becoming a shining one? If so, could he still be in the background pulling strings and trying to create the
New Atlantis that he wrote of?