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.

Rosicrucian Mysteries

Masonry is an art equally useful and extensive. In the centuries that have gone by since the Rosicrucian Order was first formed they have worked quietly and secretly, aiming to mould the thought of Western Europe through the works of Paracelsus, Boehme, Bacon, Shakespeare, Fludd and others. Each night at midnight when the physical activities of the day are at their lowest ebb, and the spiritual impulse at its highest flood tide, they have sent out from their temple soul-stirring vibrations to counteract materialism and to further the development of soul powers. To their activities, we owe the gradual spiritualization of our once so materialistic science. When we take a number of balls of even size and group them around one, it will take just twelve balls to hide a thirteenth within. Thus the twelve visible and the one hidden are numbers revealing a cosmic relationship and as all Mystery Orders are based upon cosmic lines, they are composed of twelve members gathered around a thirteenth who is the invisible head. There are seven colours in the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. But between the violet and the red there are still another five colours which are invisible to the physical eye but reveal themselves to the spiritual sight. In every Mystery Order there are also seven brothers who at times go out into the world and there perform whatever work may be necessary to advance the people among whom they serve, but five are never seen outside the temple.

It is well to keep in view the important facts to which we have alluded: that Spedding, Bacon’s indefatigable biographer, could not connect him with the authorship of any important published work for fifteen years after his return from the French Court; that the Advancement of Learning, published at the age of forty-four, was his first published work of importance, and Rawley’s statement that he wrote the majority of his philosophical works during the five closing years of his life. It must have been in the earlier period of his career, then, that many of the anonymous plays, afterwards published under the pen name Shakespeare, were written. This alludes to no connection whatsoever to Shaksper, the actor of Stratford. Bacon must have done more literary work during the best years of his life than write bright letters or a few masques for the entertainment of the Court, and as playwriting would have ruined his official prospects, to say nothing of sensitiveness to public clamour, he of set purpose concealed his authorship as others often have done. This was made easier by his adoption of the Rosicrucian doctrine of Silence. (Baxter). 1 The order and discipline, the rules and prescripts, which were instituted for the use of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, was:

1. The society was to consist of sixty-three members, of various grades of initiation, apprentices, brethren, and an “imperator”. The possibility of Bacon’s having produced the enormous quantity of books which will surely, in the future ages, be claimed for him, and which can be proved, by all that has hitherto passed as conclusive evidence with regard to other works, to be the work of one author.
2. These were all sworn to secresy for a period of one hundred years. This suffices to answer the oft-repeated query: Why did not Bacon acknowledge his own works? Or why did not his friends vindicate his claim to them? He, as well as his friends, had sworn solemnly to keep the secrets of the society for a period of one hundred years.
3. They were to have secret names, but to pass in public by their own names. This enables us to reconcile many difficulties as to the authorship of certain works. For instance, in the anthology entitled England’s Helicon, there are poems which have, at different times, borne two, three or even four different signatures. If the Rosicrucian publications were not, as a rule, to bear the name of the author, and if the feigned names of the brethren were to be frequently changed, confusion and mystification as to the true author would inevitably be produced. It would be impossible to draw any irrefutable conclusions as to the date and sometimes as to the aim of the works in question, and this, doubtless, was precisely what the secret society desired. [Also see England’s Helicon.]
4. To wear the dress of the country in which they resided.
5. To profess ignorance, if interrogated, on all subjects connected with the society, except the Art of Healing. This shows that the incognito maintained by the brethren was to extend, not merely to their names and authorships, but also to their knowledge and mental acquirements. The very fact of their belonging to a secret society was to be concealed; they were to pass through the world as ordinary members of society, wearing the dress of the country in which they lived and doing nothing to draw upon them the special notice of others. They were even to conceal any special or superior knowledge which they might have acquired, actually professing ignorance when interrogated, the only science of which they were allowed to show any knowledge being “the science of healing.” Perhaps this is to be taken partly in its literal sense, and the rule may have been made with the benevolent intention of encouraging the study of medicine and surgery, which Bacon found to be terribly deficient; also, this permission would enable the experts in these subjects to come to the rescue on emergency, and to help to alleviate the bodily sufferings of their fellow-creatures. Still, a comparison of the Rosicrucian works obliges us to see that it was to remedy the deformities of the age, to heal the sores and cankers [cancers] of miserable souls, to minister to the mind diseased, that the Rosy Cross brethren were really labouring and this fifth rule gives a good hint as to the reason why Bacon did not “profess to be a poet,” and why Burton “should not profess to be a theologian,” or Montaigne “profess to be a philosopher.”
6. To cure the sick gratis (sickness and healing seem to have been terms used, metaphorically, for ignorance, and instruction or knowledge).
7. In all ways and places to oppose the aggressions and unmask the impositions of the Romish church the Papacy.
8. To aid in the dissemination of truth and knowledge throughout all countries. Especially when taken together with the preceding, throw great light on the publication of such works as Montaigne’s Essays in France, of its supposed translation, in 1603, from French into pure Baconian English, by the Italian Florio, tutor to the English royal family, and of the large additions and alterations, such as none but the author could have presumed to make, in the later edition published by Cotton in 1685-86. This seems also to explain the fact of many of Bacon’s most intimate friends having passed so much of their time abroad, in days when to travel was a distinction, but not an every day occurrence, and when, indeed, it required the royal sanction to leave the country. So Anthony Bacon lived for many years in Italy and the south of France, very little being absolutely known about his proceedings. Mr. Doyly, Bacon’s first recorded correspondent, was at Paris when he received a mysterious letter explaining something in an ambiguous manner. Bacon’s answer is equally misty: “he studiously avoids particulars, and means to be intelligible only to the person he is addressing.” 2 This Mr. Doyly had travelled with Anthony Bacon, and after residing in Paris, went to Flanders, where “he was of long time dependent on Mr. Norris.” What his business was is unknown; he returned to England in 1583. The letter from Mr. Doyly to Francis Bacon shows great intimacy: it begins, “To my very dear friend, Mr. Doylie.” Then there was Anthony Bacon’s very intimate friend Nicholas Faunt, at one time Walsingham’s secretary, a gentleman attached to the Puritan party. From 1580 to 1582 we find him travelling, with no ostensible object, through France and Germany, spending seven months between Geneva and the north of Italy, back to Paris, and home to London in 1582. He is described as an “able intelligencer,” and is just such a man as we should expect to find Bacon making good use of.
9. Writings, if carried about, were to be written in ambiguous language, or in “secret writing.”
10. Rosicrucian works were, as a rule, not to be published under the real name of their author. Pseudonyms, mottoes, or initials (not the author’s own) were to be adopted. This suffices to answer the oft-repeated query: Why did not Bacon acknowledge his own works? Or why did not his friends vindicate his claim to them? He, as well as his friends, had sworn solemnly to keep the secrets of the society for a period of one hundred years. This enables us to reconcile many difficulties as to the authorship of certain works.
11. These feigned names and signatures were to be frequently changed. The “imperator” to change his name not less frequently than once in ten years. This suffices to answer the oft-repeated query: Why did not Bacon acknowledge his own works?
12. The places of publication for the “secret writings” to be also periodically changed. This suffices to answer the oft-repeated query: Why did not Bacon acknowledge his own works? Or why did not his friends vindicate his claim to them?
13. Each Member was to have at least one “apprentice” to succeed him and to take over his work. (By which means the secret writings could be passed down from one hand to another until the time was ripe for their disclosure.) The possibility of Bacon’s having produced the enormous quantity of books which will surely, in the future ages, be claimed for him, and which can be proved, by all that has hitherto passed as conclusive evidence with regard to other works, to be the work of one author.
14. The Brethren must suffer any punishment, even to death itself, sooner than disclose the secrets specially confided to them. This suffices to answer the oft-repeated query: Why did not Bacon acknowledge his own works? Or why did not his friends vindicate his claim to them?
15. They must apply themselves to making friends with the powerful and the learned of all countries. The possibility of Bacon’s having produced the enormous quantity of books which will surely, in the future ages, be claimed for him, and which can be proved, by all that has hitherto passed as conclusive evidence with regard to other works, to be the work of one author.
16. They must strive to become rich, not for the sake of money itself, for they must spend it broadcast for the good of others, but for the sake of the advantages afforded by wealth and position for pushing forward the beneficent objects of the society. The working of this rule is observable throughout the whole of Bacon’s life and writings. It accounts for the diametrically opposite accusations which have been levelled against him and which his enemies have delighted to magnify, of meanness and lavishness. “Riches,” he says, “are for spending, and spending.”
17. They were to promote the building of “fair houses” for the advancement of learning, and for the relief of sickness, distress, age, or poverty. This would account for the extraordinary impetus given in Bacon’s time to the building and endowing of libraries, schools, Colleges, hospitals, almshouses, theatres, etc. The names of many such “fair houses,” munificently endowed, will rise to the minds of all who are well acquainted with London and the two great Universities. Let the reader inquire into the history of Gresham College, Sion College, and the splendid library attached to it; Dulwich College, with its school, almshouses, and library, originally intended to benefit poor actors; the Bancroft Hospital and many other similar establishments; the library and other buildings at Trinity College, Cambridge; the additions to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the library at Lambeth Palace, and the great printing-houses established at both Universities he will find that he can never get away from Bacon and his friends. Either we find Bacon suggesting the need or encouraging the performers, or inspecting and approving the work, but himself, as a rule, unrecognised in public documents; so with the societies. His portrait alone hangs in the great library of the Royal Society. His friends are all closely associated with the founding of the Arundel Society, the Society of Antiquaries, the Camden Society, the Ray Society, and, we think, with the Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians; but, as usual, although the names appear, in connection with these and other institutions, of his intimate friends. Bacon, the great instigator and promoter of them all, remains in the background.
18. When a Rosicrucian died he was to be quietly and unostentatiously buried. His grave was either to be left without a tombstone, or, if his friends chose to erect a monument in his honour, the inscription upon it was to be ambiguous.