Sir Francis Bacon & Freemasonry

Perhaps none more so than his utopia New Atlantis (Land of the Rosicrucians) which at its centre is its description of Solomon’s House governed by his Rosicrucian Brothers who pursue research in all the arts and sciences for the future benefit in perpetuity of humankind.

Their great invisible college Solomon’s House, or Solomon’s Temple, being the central legend on which the Freemasonry Brotherhood is founded which underpins the three degrees of the Entered Apprentice, Fellow of the Craft and Master Mason.

Described by his friend the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson as, ‘One of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration’ [1], the philosopher, lawyer, scientist and concealed poet Francis Bacon was one of the last and greatest Renaissance men. Jonson went on to say, ‘Thou stand’st as if some mystery thou didst !’ [2] hinting that there was much that was hidden about Francis Bacon and his life.

We are only just beginning to fully realise the legacy that Bacon has left us and that just how peculiarly modern he is in in every sense of the word. He was a visionary that had a vast and deep understanding of human nature and the uses and abuses of power generally but specifically with regard to law and science.

He recognised ‘knowledge is power’ and was one of the first to seriously grapple with the inherent dangers of certain knowledge and a need for checks and balances in order to protect the vulnerable.

His grand vision began when he was only 12 years old while he was at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became frustrated with the state of learning and its lack of practical application to people’s lives and began to consider how knowledge could be used for people’s betterment as a part of a Universal Reformation of the Whole World.

At 15 Bacon was sent to France on Her Majesty’s Secret Service and worked at the French embassy as a cryptographer and intelligencer. Here he invented ciphers and his famous binary code that was to form the basis for modern computer technology.

On his return he proceeded to Gray’s Inn to study Law. He is their most celebrated alumni and is remembered for organizing the many masques performed in Hall and as a keen horticulturist for his development of the Walks that can be seen to this day.

In Elizabeth I’s reign he became the first QC and in the reign of James I he rose to the highest legal officer in the kingdom as Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon felt the law needed revolutionising and wrote extensively and passionately on law reform.

In one speech to the House of Commons he said that, “Laws are made to guard the rights of the people, not to feed the lawyers.” [3]

A radical thinker, supreme writer, scientist and philosopher Bacon was also a member of Parliament, social reformer, a guiding spirit behind the union with Scotland and the leading light behind the London Virginia Company and the establishment of the first permanent English settlement in Jamestown in 1607.

His profound utopia New Atlantis published shortly after his death in 1626 foretold of submarines, aeroplanes, telephone cables and computers and formed the philosophical and scientific blueprint for the future of humanity.

His contributions to science were far reaching and the Oxford Francis Bacon edited by Professor Graham Rees said, ‘Francis Bacon was a genuine midwife of modernity. He was one of the first thinkers to visualise a future which would be guided by a cooperative science-based vision of bettering human welfare.’ [4]

So much so, Bacon was the leading inspiration for the formation of The Royal Society, with the Baconian vision of a Fellowship of the world’s most eminent scientists dedicated to promoting excellence in science for the benefit of humanity. In 1667 Thomas Sprat the first official historian of The Royal Society left no room for doubt that its prime mover and great moving spirit was Lord Bacon from whom it all originated:

“I shall onely mention one great Man, who had the true Imagination of the whole extent of this Enterprize, as it is now set on foot; and that is, the Lord Bacon.” [5]

Referring to his benevolent and magnificent plans for the future direction of humanity Bacon stated that, ‘my Ends are only, to make the world my Heir’. [6]

Ordinarily, this would be a statement of such incomparable magnitude as to be unbelievable, unachievable even, but through his Rosicrucian/Freemasonry Brotherhood it was a desire he would secretly achieve.

Freemason and voluminous Baconian writer Alfred Dodd was responsible for important and groundbreaking works, most notably his biography Francis Bacon’s Personal Life Story, The Immortal Master and Shakespeare Creator of Freemasonry.

Recently, A Phoenix issued a four-hundred-page work entitled The 1623 Shakespeare First Folio: A Baconian-Rosicrucian-Freemasonic Illusion (2023), further illustrating that the First Folio is saturated with the teachings of the Freemasonry Brotherhood.

Moreover, in November 2023 The Francis Bacon Society issued a special edition of its journal Baconiana to commemorate the four hundred year anniversary of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio.

The quotations below capture and incorporate the essence of the life and writings of Lord Bacon and his still little-known connections to the Freemasonry Brotherhood:

Speculative Freemasonry was born in the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare took an active part in its genesis. The story is told in the Great Shakespeare Folio of 1623 the greatest Masonic Book in the world.

Alfred Dodd, Shakespeare Creator of Freemasonry
(London: Rider & Co, 1937), pp. 9-10

…the Shakespeare plays and poems bear abundant evidence of Masonic knowledge of Masonic customs, terms and teachings that could only have been known to a Mason of high degree.

Indeed, the whole canon of Shakespeare plays and poems embodies both the philosophy and the degrees of initiation of Freemasonry, expressed in various allegories that are akin to and hint at the Masonic allegories.

Peter Dawkins, ‘Shakespeare and Freemasonry’,
(The Francis Bacon Research Trust, 1997), p. 1

A point was reached where there was no avoiding the conclusion that the teachings and purpose of Shakespeare and Freemasonry are identical;

that their origin was coincident, or nearly so, the Order being designed to prepare a special body of men to exemplify in actual life the principles embodied in the plays;

and reciprocally, the plays being intended to supply, with concrete illustrations, correct rules of conduct an life;

and that both are parts of the grand and comprehensive philosophical scheme of Francis Bacon to regenerate the world and unite mankind into a universal brotherhood.

William N. McDaniel ‘Shakespeare and Freemasonry’ in Masonic Symbolism in Shakespeare,
(Lamp of Trismegistus, 2020), pp. 27-28

The Order of Freemasonry truly parallels the life and writings of Bacon in that it is filled to saturation with mysteries and hidden significances. His was not only a life of mystery but also one of potent significance.

Freemasonry-Bacon’s legacy to his living fellow men and to unborn generations – has immeasurably furthered and enriched the advancement of learning throughout the world wherever the desire to know has led men to search.

Now, after three hundred and fifty years, Bacon’s part in this great human service is being brought slowly to light.

George V. Tudhope, Bacon’s Masonry…With Evidence Showing Francis Bacon to be the Original Designer of Speculative Freemasonry
(Howell-North Press, 1954), p. 2

The Francis Bacon Society was founded in 1886 by Constance Mary Pott and is one of the oldest literary societies in the UK.

Baconians have all been extraordinarily learned in their different fields and the Society has contained amongst its ranks high-ranking Freemasons, members of French and British Intelligence, cryptographers, professors, academics, lawyers, politicians, the clergy, internationally renowned writers, leading Shakespeare actors, and recognised journalists at home and abroad.

More information about Francis Bacon, his Freemasonic/Rosicrucian connections and how to become a member of the Society please visit: www.francisbaconsociety.co.uk or contact us at francis.bacon.society@gmail.com