By Manly P. Hall
Instauratio Magna illustration, 1620, Sir Francis Bacon
The history books tell us that the colonists made the long and dangerous journey in small ships in order to find a place where they could worship God, each according to the dictates of his own conscience. There is however much more to the story than our historians have dared to suggest. Among the colonizers were some who belonged to the Order of the Quest, but it was not long before religious strife broke out in the colonies, for men do not change their natures merely by changing their place of habitation. Much of the intolerance of the old world came over to plague the beginnings of the new civilization. It was not easy to preserve high principles in pioneering a country. A lot had to be done before the philosophic empire could emerge out of the simple struggle for existence. And much has yet to be accomplished; we are still pioneering in the sphere of right thinking and right living.
Bacon’s Secret Society
Bacon’s secret society was set up in America before the middle of the 17th Century. Bacon himself had given up all hope of bringing his dream to fruition in his own country, and he concentrated his attention upon rooting it in the new world. He made sure that the American colonists were thoroughly indoctrinated with the principles of religious tolerance, political democracy, and social equality. Through carefully appointed representatives, the machinery of democracy was set up at least a hundred years before the period of the Revolutionary War.
The above cover to Sir Francis Bacon’s Instauratio Magna depicts a ship sailing through two classical columns into an open sea; it symbolizes moving beyond the limits of classical (i.e., ancient Greek) scholarship into a realm of potential unlimited natural knowledge. Francis Bacon challenged contemporary understanding of science as the contemplation of eternal truths long since discovered. In its place he proposed a conception of science as the active investigation of the unknown. At the heart of Bacon’s reasoning is the Instauratio magna (‘Great Renewing’). Its famous frontispiece, shown here, depicts a ship travelling between the metaphorical Pillars of Hercules which were thought to lie at the Strait of Gibraltar and which marked the limit of the known world for classical Greek civilization. It is therefore an allegory for the new world of knowledge beyond the traditional philosophy taught in universities. A Latin phrase below the Pillars is from the Book of Daniel and may be translated as “Many will pass through and knowledge will be increased”.
Bacon’s secret society membership was not limited to England; it was most powerful in Germany, in France, and in the Netherlands, and most of the leaders of European thought were involved in the vast pattern of his purpose. The mystic empire of the wise had no national boundaries and its citizenry was made up of men of good purpose in every land. The Alchemists, Cabalists, Mystics, and Rosicrucians were the incisive instruments of Bacon’s plan. Representatives of these groups migrated to the colonies at an early date and set up their organization in suitable places.
“Francis Bacon modelled his life’s work, The Great Instauration, on the Bible. The 6 Parts of the Instauration are structured exactly on the pattern of the 6 Days of Creation described in the Book of Genesis. This 6-fold norm is central to other parts of Bacon’s philosophy.” — J. North, 2009
One example will indicate the trend. About 1690, the German Pietist theologian, Magistar Johannes Kelpius, sailed for America with a group of followers, all of whom practiced mystical and esoteric rites. The Pietists settled in Pennsylvania and their descendents still flourish in Lancaster county. Kelpius for some years lived as an Anchorite in a cave located in what is now Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. The Pietists brought with them the writings of the German mystic, Jacob Boehme, books on magic, astrology, alchemy, and the cabala. They had curious manuscripts illuminated with strange designs, and their principal text was called “An ABC Book for Young Students Studying in the College of the Holy Ghost.“ The Pietists brought the order of the Mustard Seed, and the Order of the Woman in the Wilderness to the new world.
Kelpius was a man of feeble health and after a few years died from the hardships and exposures of his religious austerity. The inner circle of his order was composed entirely of celibates, and as these died there were none to take their places; and so far as the public knows, his secret society did not survive. Actually it did continue; but with the changing of the times it returned again to its secret foundations, disappearing entirely from the public view.
The early years of the 18th Century brought with them many changes in the social and political life of the American colonies. By this time most of the Atlantic seaboard was dominated by the English. Cities had sprung up, important trade flourished with the mother country, and the colonial atmosphere was in small counterpart that of the English countryside.
A Collection of Apothegmes New and Old, Francis Bacon,
title page woodblock emblem, 1661
The first modern Freemasons’ Lodge was held at Twickenham Park and Gray’s Inn, London England. It consisted of Three Degrees and the Royal Arch. It’s first members were drawn from the Rosicrosse Literary Society: A Rosicrosse-Mason was a Brother who was privy to the Secrets of the Craft and the Rose.
Francis Bacon created the Higher Christian Degrees gradually through the years, the majority being tried out at Twickenham Lodge. In 1620 all the Degrees had been created with their traditional histories, feigned tales and rituals; and the Brotherhood was well established in Lodges, Chapters and Presbyteries dotted all over the Kingdom England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Continent. It had even spread through military and naval officers and gentlemen to the New World.
By this time most of the important secret societies of Europe were well represented in this country. The brotherhoods met in their rooms over inns and similar public buildings, practicing their ancient rituals exactly according to the fashion in Europe and England. These American organizations were branches under European sovereignty, with the members in the two hemispheres bound together with the strongest bonds of sympathy and understanding. The program that Bacon had outlined was working out according to schedule. Quietly and industriously, America was being conditioned for its destiny–leadership in a free world.
When the novel Freedom just begins, the author stresses how the neighbors view the Berglund family. It is a family where everything seems nice on the surface, but there are serious troubles brewing inside. The initial pages are just presenting a picture of the family how the neighbors perceive them, it’s when Patty (the female protagonist) decides to write her autobiography through the spectacles of her depression that we come to know the true state of her mind. Anger and depression is something which is common to almost all the characters of Jonathan Franzen’s book. All of them trace the reasons of their anger due to their parents when they were kids.