The Francis Bacon Society and The Imperator
Peter Welsford
The Francis Bacon Society and The Imperator.
By Peter Welsford
The creator, founder members to begin with were Mrs Constance Potts, her family and a few friends, who formed up:The Francis Bacon Society on
Interestingly, it was W.H.Smith who was President at the outset (he who had in 1857, produced the first English book, highlighting the Shakespeare authorship controversy). After two years there were some eighty members and, according to a comment in 1984 by Neil Fermor an energetic Editor, we are the oldest English national literary society.
There followed the result of extensive research in her remarkable book: Francis Bacon and His Secret Society published 1891, in
Doubts connected with Bacon’s personal history, actual works and aims.
Deficiencies of learning in the times of Elizabeth I and James I.
The Rosicrucians, their rules aims and methods.
The Vital Spirit of Nature.
Masonry, ~ and then lastly, paper marks as symbols, ~ linking together a variety of the works attributable to Bacon.
This list, according to Mrs Potts in her book, was: “in an attempt to collect and unite the lost links of a long and strong chain”.
Many references by her, in her book may be said to be currently very relevant, today:
“Who can read the scientific works of Bacon, or try really to understand his philosophy, without perceiving that, whatever he may have discovered, revived, instilled, or openly taught, his main object was to teach men to teach themselves? To get at general principles, to find out first causes, and to invent the art of inventing arts, and of handing down as well as of advancing the knowledge acquired ~ these were his aims”.
Bacon advocated ~ Study The Laws of Nature (to use his own words) ~ and so,
“He gives the keys and expects others to decipher the problems by means of those keys. And that axioms to be true must be “drawn from the very centre of the sciences.”
Mrs Potts believed that Bacon was behind the creation of the secret Rosy Cross brethren. She develops this idea in her book and bases some of her theories about them” by transcribing some of the portions”:
“Men of the most opposite worldly creeds, of diverse habits, and even of apparently remote ideas, have ever joined together, consciously or unconsciously, to glorify the good, and despise although with pity, the evil that might be reconciled to the good. But in the centuries of unrest which accompanied the evolution of any kind of civilisation, either ancient or modern, how was this laudable principle to be maintained? This was done by a body of the learned, existing in all ages under peculiar restrictions, and at one time known as the Rosicrucian Fraternity. She goes on to outline the three-fold objects of that fraternity, as published by the Society:
- To purify religion and to stimulate reform in the church.
- To promote and advance learning and science.
- To mitigate the miseries of humanity and to restore man to the original state of purity and happiness from which by sin, he has fallen.
To look a little further into the rules of the Rosicross brethren, Bacon’s “Sons of Science,” and of whom we believe him to have been “The Imperator” or supreme head:
Of Bacon’s life, says Mrs Potts , “I am persuaded that no man will ever form a correct idea, unless he bears in mind that from very early youth his heart was divided by these three objects, distinct, but not discordant.”
Eighteen years later the Society was incorporated as a limited Company, on
Details of the extensive activities of the Society its chronicles, history and books from there on until the turn of the century are available: for those still interested, as they were collated, and fully recorded in a separate edition of Baconiana, the periodic Journal of The Society, titled: A Subject and Author INDEX 1886-1999 (by A.M.Challinor assisted by Dr J. Alabaster), distributed to all members, at the turn of the century.
By the year 2000, The Chairman of the Society was Thomas Bokenham, a (retired) Bank of England official, who ran the Society with a small group of council members, virtually single handed for a number of years. Later with the continuing help of Gerald Salway.
‘Bokie’ (sadly deceased) was a dedicated enthusiast with a particular interest in cryptography, having decoded not only the monument of Shakespeare in poet’s corner, Westminster Abbey (see: the cloud-cupped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemnTEMPLES, the great Globe itself, Yea all will it inherit, shall dissolve..) but also, ~ no less than 30 of Shakespeare’s sonnets revealing the name of Bacon. A lot of his work was separately corroborated by Penn Leary an American attorney. All this became the subject of Radio (channel 4) and BBC Television programmes, thanks to Gwyn Richards (decd), a Senior Producer at BBC Pebble Mill. Filming also took place in
By this time there had been a re-shuffle of the Council when Prof John Spiers and Dr J. Alabaster were recruited and Peter Welsford took over as editor of Baconiana from Clifford Hall, a lawyer, who resigned to take up an appointment overseas.
Shortly afterwards following the death of Bob Cowley, (Chairman of The Research Into Lost Knowledge Organisation (RILKO)) also on the council, he was later replaced by James North, an Oxford graduate, interested in Bacon and his ideas who developed the Society’s website together with his wife Dr Sally North, later appointed librarian.
Also appointed was Nick Young an author and playwright who had been trained under Sir Peter Hall, had worked at The Globe Theatre and directs ‘Shakespeare’s’ plays.
Whilst for many years the venue for the Society’s quarterly meetings was Nevern Square, Earls Court, the home of the Bramelds (Mary Brameld is currently the Society’s Vice President), thanks to the efforts of Prof John Spiers, the Society started to hold Talks in the University of London Library, Senate House, where there is housed the extensive collection of Bacon’s books in The Durning-Lawrence Library. As the latter is undergoing refurbishment, the Society presently holds its meetings in
In attempting to fulfil its aims and objects including investigating the authorship question, the Society’s interests extend to a possible Oak Island Treasure, where one of our members: Mark Finnan in Canada is closely involved and he has promised to give us Talks about progress, in the future. Peter Amundsen a Norwegian has nearly finished a major documentary he is making in
Sad to say, the membership of the Society in spite of the temporary focus of the media through the BBC Radio and Television programmes, has barely increased since its inception over 100 year’s ago. Why is this we have to ask ourselves?
We remain a very discreet Society, ~ dedicated to pursuing our objectives and principally, the custodian of an enormous amount of information directly or indirectly, appertaining to Francis Bacon, his life and his works, ~ that is: for those interested to pursue this subject or any in-depth study in the Rosy Cross, for whatever reason.
Currently, the international (global) atmosphere is hardly conducive to honest, academic research into these honourable aims ~ other than it seems, by the few 144,000, ‘critical mass’ of dedicated people ~ whom we are always hopeful to recruit. Therefore, we can but remain alert and temporarily satisfied so far as we can be, to carry out this task.
That is until such time of course as, perhaps the final search for Bacon’s whereabouts, his missing papers and consequently, some sufficiently ‘cast-iron’ evidence of international importance, as to the authorship problem ~ really comes to Light?
It may be that at some future point ‘the spotlight of consciousness’ (being a spotlight by itself) ~ will creep unbeknown upon Us?