Bacon's DictionaryAppendices

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The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.

These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.

Baconian Tarot

 William Postel was, like Paracelsus, a forerunner and anticipator of the Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century. He preached the same promise of the restoration and reformation of things of the world, with prophecies of an Elias about to appear. The Rosicrucians borrowed their origin from the Templars and particularly Constantine’s motto, In hoc signo vinces, and Cygnæus tells us so directly. The word Tarot is composed of the sacred letters of the monogram of Constantino, A Greek P, crossed by a T, between the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. The Taro really means “Rota” or “Wheel of Destiny”; is an elaborate system of divination in one of its aspects, and a process of mental and spiritual evolution in another. Our common cards are but imperfect or degenerated sets derived from the original Taro. Likewise fortune-telling by cards, is a relic of the original system which the Gypsy tribes, particularly of Bohemia, 1 possessed and handed over by tradition. Diamonds were symbolized by the Rose: “In our age William Postel, a Frenchman lived to an hundred and well-nigh twenty years. The top of his beard on the upper lip, being black and not grey at all. A great traveller, mathematician, and somewhat stained with heresy.” (Bacon). 2

The Tarot pack is composed of seventy-eight cards or plates; twenty-two of them bear symbolical names, and they should be separated from the fifty-six others, which are divided into four great series: Scepters, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. The twenty-two symbolical cards are the Major Arcana (Greater Secrets), the Minor Arcana (or Lesser Secrets) are formed of fifty-six cards. (Papus). 3 Adonis was slain by a boar. The famous family of Eberstein, who lived near Baden, and who were Marquises and Counts of Brandenburg combined the boar and the rose on their Coat of Arms. Bacon adopted and introduced, during his lifetime, the emblem of a Boar into his Coat of Arms, with what object it is impossible to say, unless as a device associated with the name of Bacon. His father, Nicholas, adopted the emblem of a Board in his Book Plate in 1574 to be placed in the books presented by Sir Nicholas to the University of Cambridge. [Also see Appendix Bacon’s Head-piece; Part III: Book plates].

1 It is worthy to note Bohemia is introduced in that profound play The Winter’s Tale