All in all there is, in our view, no doubt that Bacon's carefully chosen words of 1605 are resonant of Rosicrucian and Masonic influences, suggesting, at the very least, the presence of a proto-Freemasonic movement within the elite inner circle of the Stuart court.
A Rosicrucian Christmas card in the National Records of Scotland
At about the time that Francis Bacon was putting the finishing touches to The Advancement of Learning, the German alchemist Michael Maier (1568 – 1622), a renowned Rosicrucian thinker, was living in Prague and working as the private physician to Emperor Rudolph II. When Rudolph died in 1612 – the year before the marriage of Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart – Maier came to England. There he met Sir William Paddy, the private physician of James I. It cannot be confirmed that Maier met the king, but he certainly felt comfortable enough to send him a personal Christmas card – one that, on face value, very much appears to associate James I with the Rosicrucian movement.
Maier's Christmas card to the king is kept today in the archives of the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. It depicts a large rose around which are written the words: Greetings to James, for a long time King of Great Britain. By your true protection may the rose be joyful.16
This weird card has lead many researchers to suppose that there might have existed in England some early form of the ‘Rosicrucian movement’ and that James I was seen as its protector by German Rosicrucians like Michael Maier.17 It's very probable, while he was in England, that Maier would have met the Hermetic philosopher and Cabalist, Robert Fludd (1574 – 1637), who was then in his late thirties. Although Fludd had not yet published his own work on the Rosicrucian brotherhood, A Compendium Apology for the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross (1616), he nonetheless was a keen ‘Rosicrucian in spirit.’18
It is certain that the German Rosicrucians must have noted Fludd's defence of their fraternity in England because later, in 1618, at the height of Rosicrucian furore, two more of Fludd's books, History of the Macrocosm and History of the Microcosm were published in the town of Oppenheim by the firm of Johann Theodor de Bry – who apparently paid handsomely for the privilege.19 De Bry was also the publisher of one of Michael Maier's works, Atalanta Fugiens, likewise brought out in 1618,20 and it seems probable that Maier was the link between Fludd and the Palatinate publisher.
Maier remained in England until 1616 and it would have been extraordinary if he had not met Bacon during this period since they moved within the same circle. What is known with certainty is that Bacon sat down to write a utopian book soon after Maier's visit which bears the unmistakable imprint of Rosicrucian thinking.
The New Atlantis
In 1627, a year after Bacon died, a manuscript he had been working on turned up amongst his personal papers. Its title was New Atlantis. And like Plato's original story of Atlantis (found in his dialogues, the Timaeus and the Critias) it had been left unfinished. It was also undated but scholars assume Bacon must have written it soon after the two Rosicrucian Manifestos and the Chemical Wedding had appeared in Germany – i.e. after 1616 – for it contains allegories and ideas that are distinctly reminiscent of those documents.
32 The genie of Paris (or Liverty) on top of the Bastille Pillar. Compare to Picot's ‘genie’ in plate 2.
33. Pyramid project proposed by the revolutionary architect Étienne-Louis Boullée, in 1785: Cénotaphe dans Ie genre égyptienne.
35. The glass pyramid at the Louvre.
34. The baroque ‘pyramid’ proposed for the Louvre for the centennial celebrations of the French Revolution of 1789. It is unlikely that I. M. Pei was unaware of this previous scheme when he designed the glass pyramid for the bicentennial in 1989. The link between the French Revolution and the ‘pyramid’ is, of course, the symbol of the Etre Suprême, or ‘Supreme Being’, which appeared on the frontispiece of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789 as the ‘eye in the pyramid’, an obvious Masonic symbol.
36. Aerial view of Paris and the Historical Axis from the the Grande Arche. Compare the axis and the scheme to the aerial view of ancient Luxor, Egypt .
37. Aerial view of the city of Luxor in Upper Egypt. Compare the axis and general scheme to Paris .
38. Aerialview of the Louvre and the Seine. Compare to aerial view of the Luxor temple and the Nile . Note ‘corresponding’ position of obelisks in Paris and at Luxor.
39. Aerial view of Luxor temple at Thebes. Compare to aerial view of the Louvre Palace .
40. A typical Cabalistic ‘Tree of Life’ or Sephiroth.
41. Plan proposed by Sir Christopher Wren for the city of London, 11 September 1666.
42. John Evelyn's plan for the city of London, 13 September 1666. Note similarity to Sephirothic Tree.
43. The east-west alignment between Temple Church (left) and St Paul's (right).
44. The obelisk of Thutmosis III on the Victoria Embankment, London, better known as ‘Cleopatra's Needle’.
45. H. H. Gorringe, lecturing at a Masonic ceremony at the dedication of the New York Obelisk in 1881.
46. The alignment between St. Paul's Cathedral and Temple Church. It is clearly a deliberate scheme by Christopher Wren to ‘connect’, as it were, the ‘new temple of Solomon’ with the Knights Templar precinct in London. The hidden message is that it ghosted ‘New Jerusalem’ in England.
47. The George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, . Virginia.
48. A model of the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos).
49. The entrance to the elevator in the Washington Monument designed as that of an ancient Egyptian temple. Note the star inside the solar disk.
50. Statue of George Washington in full Masonic regalia at the Washington Masonic Memorial.
51. The Masonic fo un dation -laying ceremony for the 1880 during which the Grand Master linked Freemasonry to ancient Egypt.
52. Sun setting along the axis of Pennsylvania Avenue on 12 August, also the day of the heliacal rising of Sirius. In the reverse direction, looking east, the star would also align with the axis.
53. The interior of the Egyptian room in the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
54. George Washington in his Masonic outfit laying the cornerstone of the US Capitol.
55. The Freemasons of Washington, DC, parade towards the George
In brief, New Atlantis presents Bacon's utopian vision of a scientific and yet spiritually-oriented society that exists in secret on a far away island called ‘Bensalem’ which lies ‘in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world’. This society is governed by an elite fraternity of scientist-priests who gather within a great college or lodge called Salomon's House. Members include accomplished astronomers and geometers, and – surprising in a 17th century document – the builders of aeroplanes and submarines (‘we have some degrees of flying in the air; we have ships and boats for going under water’). They are also accomplished navigators and seafarers, but secretive and unwilling to reveal their existence: ‘we know well most parts of the inhabitable world, and are ourselves unknown.’
Their quest, Bacon tells us, is for ‘the knowledge of the causes, and secret motions of things’ and it is their mission to ‘nourish God's first creature, which was Light.’ This mission they continuously spread abroad by means of: … twelve that sail into foreign countries under the names of other nations, (for our own we conceal) … These we call Merchants of Light.21
The travels of Bensalem's 12 invisible missionaries ‘nourish the Light’ by promoting the advancement of learning all around the world – very much the Rosicrucian method – and like the original eight Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons, they take an ‘oath of secrecy’ and proceed with discretion in all things.22 They travel incognito, doing good deeds gratis like the Rosicrucians. They remain unnoticed and invisible because they wear the clothing and speak the languages of the countries they visit – for like the Rosicrucians they communicate easily in every language. At home in Bensalem they are distinguished by
wearing a white turban emblazoned with a red cross – the eponymous symbol of the Rosicrucians – and their great ‘seal’ features a representation of ‘cherubim's wings, not spread but hanging down’. The same emblem, Frances Yates has shown, was used in the Rosicrucian Manifestos.23
We digress for a moment to note that the image of ‘cherubim's wings’ also evokes the Judaic Ark of the Covenant, surmounted by the winged figures of two golden cherubim, which the Old Testament tells us once stood in the Holy of Holies of the fabled Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Bacon gives us a ‘House of Salomon’ located in a place called Bensalem – essentially the same idea. Ben in Hebrew and Arabic means ‘son’ or ‘son of’ – implying in this case, perhaps, a ‘New Salem’ or New Jerusalem.
Though the terms ‘Rose Cross’ or ‘Rosicrucian’ are not to be found anywhere in New Atlantis, Frances Yates believed it to be ‘abundantly clear that [Bacon] knew the Rose Cross fiction and was adapting it to his own parable’: New Atlantis was governed by R. C. [Rosicrucian] Brothers, invisibly travelling as ‘merchants of light’ to the outside world from their invisible college or centre, now called Salomon's House, and following the rules of the R. C. Fraternity, to heal the sick free of charge, to wear no special dress. Moreover the ‘cherubim's wings’ seal the scroll brought from New Atlantis, as they seal the Fama. The island has something angelic about it, and its official wore a red cross in his turban.24
Yates quite correctly pointed out that modern students of Bacon, unfamiliar with the Rosicrucian literature, would not readily recognise the similarity between New Atlantis and the Rosicrucian Manifestos. But this handicap would not have been applicable to the literati of the 17th century to whom the Rosicrucian literature was widely known. A case in point is an adaptation of Bacon's New Atlantis, entitled Holy Guide, published by the author John Heydon in 1662. On the island of ‘Bensalem’ they had a ‘House of Strangers’, a sort of quarantine or immigration point where new visitors were temporarily kept. In his adaptation, Heydon has Bacon's official of the House of Strangers speak as follows: ‘I am by Office, Governor of this House of Strangers … and of the Order of the Rosie Cross.’ Heydon also refers to Bacon's ‘wise men of the House of Salomon’ as being ‘wise men of the Society of the Rosicrucians’, and speaks of this ‘House of Salomon’ as being one and the same as the ‘Temple of the Rosie Cross.’25
A brief excursion to consider Freemasonry
The case for a link between the Rosicrucians and Bacon's fraternity of scientist-priests seems unassailable, yet we've seen that what Bacon tells us frequently supports a link with Freemasonry as well. Might it not be possible then that the elite brotherhood he had in mind was all along not the Rosicrucian brotherhood per se, but rather the up-and-coming ‘speculative’ Masonic brotherhood which was beginning at exactly this time to insinuate itself into England?
Unquestionably, the term ‘House of Salomon’ in relation to an elite and ‘wise’ brotherhood is very suggestive of this, whether Bacon intended it to be or not. ‘Salomon’ is, in fact, the transliterated French form of ‘Solomon’, the well-known biblical ‘wise king’ whose famous ‘temple’ (or rather its reconstruction) is the epicentre of Freemasonic initiation and rituals. Indeed, as Masonic historians very well know, there is nothing more important and more symbolic to the ideal of Freemasonry that the Temple of Solomon and its ‘rebuilding’ in a supposedly spiritual manner. The Temple of Solomon is so intricately bound to Freemasonry that the entrances of many Masonic lodges are flanked by two columns representing the legendary original pillars of Solomon's Temple called Boaz and Jachin – meaning ‘wisdom’ and ‘power’.26 In the same way the architectural design of Freemasons’ Hall in London, the headquarters of English Freemasonry, is almost certainly to be seen as an allegory of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. For example, the ceiling of the so-called Grand Temple is decorated with scenes and symbols of Solomon's Temple and reliefs on the main entrance door: … are conventionally pictorial, depicting historical events. The three lower panels on each door show scenes connected with the building of King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, and the top left and right-hand panels together show the procession for the Dedication of the Temple. The inscription at the foot is God's promise to King Solomon as recorded in I Kings, 6:12.27
Here is the passage from I Kings 6: Then the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying: ‘As for this house which you are building, if you are obedient to my ordinances and conform to my precepts and loyally observe all my commands, then I will fulfil my promise to you, the promise I gave your father David, and I will dwell among the Israelites and never forsake my people Israel.’ So Solomon built the Lord's house and finished it.28
Last but by no means least is the well-known fact that Scottish Rite Freemasonry sees itself as a revival in some form of the notorious medieval crusading order of the Knights Templar (so named because it established its headquarters in the 12th century on the site of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem). The Templars were contemporaries of the Cathars and like the Cathars they were ultimately persecuted for heresy, imprisoned, tortured and burnt at the stake. We will return to their mystery in the next chapter.
Isis in Virginia
When Frances Bacon placed his invisible island of Bensalem ‘in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world’ he was clearly signalling a location far away from his native England and Europe. Could he perhaps have been inspired by the idea of the Americas, still largely unexplored in the early 17th century? There, after all, lay a real ‘new world’, unburdened as yet by the deep-rooted religious and social traditions of the old world, where a great experiment modelled on Masonic or Rosicrucian ideals might have its best hope of successful implementation.
We note with interest that Bacon was a passionate exponent of Britain's colonisation and development of its recently acquired North American territory of Virginia. In 1606 the so-called Virginia Company was granted a royal charter by James I which allowed it virtually unlimited power of government in the colony. Bacon had been instrumental in the creation of the charter. Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that in New Atlantis, Bacon refers to Bensalem as the ‘Virgin of the World’,29 the latter a well-known allegory for Elizabeth I, the ‘Virgin Queen’, and by extension, her new domain of Virginia. But we saw in previous chapters that there also exists an important Hermetic text which is called the Kore Kosmou – literally the ‘Virgin of the World’ – in reference to the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis. In Chapter Eight we quoted a passage from the Kore Kosmou in which Isis makes the following astro-geographical statement: The earth lies in the middle of the universe, stretched on her back as a human might lie facing towards heaven … Her head lies toward the south … her right shoulder toward the east, and her left shoulder towards the west; her feet lie beneath the Great Bear [north] … But the right holy land of our ancestors [i.e. Egypt] lies in the middle of the earth; and the middle of the human body is the sanctuary of the heart, and the heart is the headquarters of the soul; and that, my son, is the reason why men of this land … are more intelligent [wise]. It could not be otherwise, seeing they are born and bred upon Earth's heart.30
Frances Yates makes the point that Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, was associated by her contemporaries with the constellation of Virgo, the latter identified by the Greeks as Astraea, a word meaning ‘star’. This name Astraea appears to be connected to a number of ancient ‘star’ goddesses of the Middle East such as Astarte and Ashtoreth, all probably directly or indirectly stemming from Ast, the ancient Egyptian name for Isis, whose star was Sirius, the Dog Star.31 Could this be a hint that, for some, the image of Elizabeth as the ‘Virgin Queen’ had contained a coded reference to the ‘virgin’ goddess Isis?
Such a possibility may not be as far-fetched as it at first appears. For, curiously enough, both ‘Solomon's Temple’ and the ‘Temple of Isis’ make appearances in the work of Sir Edmund Spenser, a contemporary of Francis Bacon. A close associate of the enigmatic Dr. John Dee,3
2 Spenser was the author of the Faerie Queen, written between 1580 and 1590, a panegyric to Queen Elizabeth I and her imperial reform of the world. In it the celebrated poet refers to ‘House of Alma’, imagined as being an architectural allegory, in microcosm, of the macrocosmic world. The idea is strongly reminiscent of a statement made a generation later in the Fama (published in 1614) where we read that in the closing years of his life Christian Rosenkreutz ‘constructed a microcosm corresponding in all motions to the macrocosm.’33
The Master Game: Unmasking the Secret Rulers of the World Page 43