Francis Bacon (born January 22, 1561 - death April 9, 1626) - one of the most prominent English thinkers, writer and diplomat, the most important stage in the organizational and structural formation of the "Rosicrucian brotherhood" - Masonic lodges - is associated with his name. It is believed that it was he who expressed their ideology in encrypted form in his philosophical and political writings.
Origin
Bacon comes from a well-born family that has long belonged to the British political elite (his father, the Lord, was a seal keeper). 1575 - Francis graduates from the University of Cambridge, in 1583 becomes a member of parliament, and from 1618 to 1621. holds the office of Lord Chancellor of England. But, being a completely honest man and alien to court intrigues, he was eventually accused by ill-wishers of financial and political abuses, he was removed from office and put on trial, and only thanks to the personal intervention of King James I, who favored him, he was cleared of suspicion of “political crime.
The life and work of Francis Bacon
Freed Francis Bacon wisely decided not to return to public service, and the last years of his life he devoted to philosophical, natural science and literary works, publishing such works that glorified his name as the treatises "On the Great Restoration of Sciences" (which he wrote throughout almost his entire life), "On the Wisdom of the Ancients" (1609), as well as "New Atlantis" (which was published posthumously in 1627)
Although, as you know, Bacon never publicly declared that he belonged to any secret society, a mystical halo began to form around his name during his lifetime, which in the 19th and 20th centuries acquired a truly mythical status, especially after the publication of a number works dedicated to him, where, on the basis of information borrowed from various sources - testimonies of contemporaries, correspondence of Francis's brother, Anthony, who at one time headed the British foreign intelligence service, and, in the end, the writings of the Lord Chancellor himself, the fact of his involvement in the occult revival”in England of the XVII century. To this end, everything was taken into service - not only the content of his works, but also elements of their artistic design and even hidden patterns that were revealed by analyzing the typos contained in them.
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True, we must make a reservation that the researchers were sometimes led not so much by a purely occult interest as by the desire to find confirmation of the rumors that had taken hold of the minds of contemporaries that it was Bacon who was the author of the plays that he produced under the pseudonym William Shakespeare.
Such an unrestrained mixture of occultism, elements of cryptography and literary studies has led to the fact that the real personality of Bacon has almost completely dissolved in the "Bacon myth", where the wishful is passed off as reality.
Where does the myth begin?
But what really served as the initial nucleus around which this myth developed over time?
F. Bacon - 18 years
It is well known that Bacon throughout his life showed a keen interest in the so-called natural, or experimental, magic, to which he attributed such "royal" sciences as alchemy and astrology, while strongly opposing any quackery in this area. As Bacon believed, true science and mystical experience have nothing to do with substitution or deception. On the contrary, he stood up, in the words of A. F. Losev, for "an accurate empirical study of real things of our real experience", that is, for scientific and technical magic, achieving the so-called "miracles" in a scientific and technical way.
He outlined these principles and their forms in his works: "On the Great Restoration of Sciences" and "Moral and Political Experiments", where he declares science, especially applied, empirical science, the legitimate heir and successor of archaic magic, which, they say, by that time has already developed its inner resource and now must pass the baton to new forms of cognition of the hidden properties of Nature.
Having learned the secret laws of matter, Bacon believed, and, first of all, the great mystery of the interconversion and interpenetration of substances, a person is able to achieve the highest, truly divine power and begin to create new laws that will radically change his environment, bringing it into line with high demands "The king of nature."
Therefore, instead of praising the power and blessings of the Creator typical for mystical literature, we find in Bacon numerous and rather detailed "miracles" of technological progress, anticipating many inventions of the distant (if we start from the philosopher's lifetime) future: airplanes, X-rays, meteorology and much more.
That is why A. F. Losev finds it appropriate to speak in this connection about "technology of the XXI century", meaning by this some special kind of materialism, that is, magical and mystical materialism, aimed primarily at discovering, in the words of Bacon himself, "the signs of the Creator on His creatures imprinted and fixed in matter by means of true and subtlest means. " According to Francis Bacon, if it is possible to achieve such a discovery, then not through abstract scholastic theology, but through applied, experimental research, free from all prejudices and prejudices.
The need to create organized societies
Because it is unlikely that anyone can cope with such a grandiose plan alone, Bacon points out in this regard the need to create certain organized societies whose members could actively support each other in their endeavors. “Indeed,” he wrote, “just as Nature herself creates brotherhood in families, so in the process of cognition, brotherhood on the basis of knowledge and morality, dating back to that special fatherhood that is attributed to God, calling Him the Father of Enlightenment, cannot fail., or Light.
These statements leave no doubt about what kind of "brotherhood" the author was hinting at: a community of adherents of "natural magic", within which scientific and cultural "enlightenment" would be organically complemented by enlightenment by the divine spirit, that is, by esoteric Gnosis. According to Francis Bacon, such a community of "scientific magicians" would be the main support and driving force of spiritual and scientific progress, which has the ultimate goal of expanding the creative potential of man to the degree of similarity to God.
Bust of Francis Bacon
On the other hand, then Bacon never develops or concretizes this theme of the "brotherhood of the enlightened". Moreover, he even expressed (and more than once) critical remarks about some prominent representatives of Renaissance occultism, including Paracelsus himself. As you can see, this can be explained by only one thing: the need to disguise his views, because, occupying a high official position and constantly being in the center of envious attention from many rivals, he otherwise risked being branded as a "heretic", and most importantly - losing the location of Jacob I, who was terrified of everything supernatural and even composed an extensive guide to exposing witches.
By virtue of the principle of noblesse oblige (Latin "origin obliges"), the Lord Chancellor tried to give his reasoning about the "restoration of sciences", perhaps to a greater extent, a traditional and innocent look, and he succeeded in such a way that it was not only King James who was confused but also modern researchers.
Be that as it may, the philosopher was able to achieve his goal: he managed, without arousing suspicion and criticism, provided himself with a "cover" for the implementation of his favorite ideas and far-reaching plans. There is no doubt that the idea of Francis Bacon as a great conspirator and cryptographer had its origins in precisely this kind of duality and came from a circle of people who knew well about the behind-the-scenes sides of a politician's life.
New Atlantis
And, perhaps, we would never have learned about anything if the heirs of the philosopher, sorting through his archive after his death, did not find a manuscript with the text of "New Atlantis", a kind of modern version of the legendary Plato's myth. Actually, following his favorite idea of nature as a miraculous book written by the Creator in "living" letters, Bacon all the time had a deep interest in the symbolic language and interpretation of ancient myths and legends, in which, as he believed, not without reason, the secret was contained in an allegorical form. wisdom of millennia.
So, in a small, but quite interesting from this point of view, treatise "On the Wisdom of the Ancients", he gave an original interpretation of 28 key images of ancient mythology, identifying each of them with some kind of metaphysical principle, or archetype. For example, Orpheus is the archetype of “universal philosophy”. Proteus is the archetype of matter. Pan is the archetype of the natural world. Promethene personifies the synthesis of science and magic, etc.
As for the "New Atlantis", the philosopher, in addition to everything else, "crossed" the Platonic allegory with Kabbalah and more than transparent Rosicrucian symbolism. At the center of the story is a community of magicians and sages who took over their wisdom from the biblical king Solomon, in memory of which the main center of this community is called Bensal, which is a symbol of secret wisdom hidden from the eyes of mere mortals (a symbol of secret wisdom, hidden from the eyes of mere mortals). "House of Solomon".
This community simultaneously combines in itself both the past, because its adepts are experienced in all forms of ancient magic, and the future, because it is based on purely technocratic principles. And the way of life, which is led by adherents of the Order of Bensalem, who know about everything that happens in the outside world, but not known to anyone outside the island, seems to have been copied from the charter of some ancient mystical sect like the Pythagorean.
Bacon statue in Trinity College chapel
So, they are prescribed to observe the highest chastity, and carnal communication is allowed only for the purpose of procreation. (Here, without a doubt, Bacon's rational hatred of carnal reproduction was expressed, under the influence of which, it should be noted, he became a convinced homosexual.)
Such descriptions of the appearance and decoration of the ritual premises in Solomon's house are also based on hidden associations with the Rosicrucian legend and ingenious symbolic moves, while the main attributes of the decoration - astral signs and tools such as a square, a compass, etc. - later became the main symbols of Masonic lodges. Obviously, the described society is nothing more than a realized Rosicrucian utopia: its members carried out a "great restoration of the sciences" and, as a result, returned to the state of Adam before the Fall - after all, this is how Francis Bacon and the authors of the "Rosicrucian manifestos" envisioned the ultimate goal of spiritual evolution humanity.
Finishing this short essay on the outstanding "Rosicrucian" of his time, one cannot but say that "New Atlantis" became the basis not only for all technocratic utopias of the modern era, but also for the theory of the notorious "Jewish-Masonic conspiracy", this peculiar form of militant materialism. According to one of the characters of "Atlantis" (guide to Bensalem), a wise Jew named Yaabin (this name is made up of the names of two sacred columns at the biblical temple of Solomon - Jacin and Boaz), the inhabitants of the island descend from the "tribe of Abraham", and "The current laws of Bensalem come from the secret laws inscribed by Moses in the Kabbalah." These words can serve as vivid proof that Francis Bacon was in fact one of the most astute and erudite people of his time!
Selected quotes by Francis Bacon
• Most of all we flatter ourselves.
• Envy never knows a holiday.
• A healthy body is a living room for the soul; the sick is a prison.
• Friendship doubles joys and halves sorrows.
• Libraries are shrines where the remains of great saints are kept.
• Wealth cannot be a worthy goal of human existence.
• In every person, nature springs up either with cereals or weeds.
• Anger is unconditional weakness; it is known that weak creatures are most susceptible to it: children, women, old people, sick, etc.
• It is impossible to be wise in love.
• Three things make a nation great and prosperous: fertile soil, vibrant industry, and easy movement of people and goods.
• Books are ships of thought, wandering along the waves of time and carefully carrying their precious cargo from generation to generation.
• The ability to steal creates a thief.
• Rudeness gives rise to hatred.
• A person is best recognized in three situations: in solitude - since here he takes off everything ostentatious; in a fit of passion - for then he forgets all his rules; and in new circumstances - because here the force of habit leaves him.
• Flattery is a product of a person's character rather than evil will.
• Flattery is a slave style.
• Lies denounces a weak soul, a helpless mind, a vicious character.
• Enjoying happiness is the greatest blessing, and having the ability to give it to others is even greater.
V. Sparov