Secret societies and subversive movementsWebster, Nesta Helen
History
Secret societies and subversive movements
Webster, Nesta Helen
Secret societies
Bacon further relates that this tradition was preserved in its pure form
by certain of the Jews, who, whilst accepting the Cabala, rejected its
anti-Christian tendencies. Thus in this island of Bensalem there are
Jews "of a far differing disposition from the Jews in other parts. For
whereas they hate the name of Christ, and have a secret inbred rancour
against the people amongst whom they live; these contrariwise give unto
our Saviour many high attributes," but at the same time they believe
"that Moses by a secret Cabala ordained the laws of Bensalem which they
now use, and that when the Messiah should come and sit on His throne at
Jerusalem, the King of Bensalem should sit at His feet, whereas other
kings should keep at a great distance." This passage is of particular
interest as showing that Bacon recognized the divergence between the
ancient secret tradition descending from Moses and the perverted Jewish
Cabala of the Rabbis, and that he was perfectly aware of the tendency
even among the best of Jews to turn the former to the advantage of the
Messianic dreams.
Mrs. Pott, who in her _Francis Bacon and his Secret Society_ sets out to
prove that Bacon was the founder of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry,
ignores all the previous history of the secret tradition. Bacon was not
the originator but the inheritor of the ideas on which both these
societies were founded. And the further contention that Bacon was at the
same time the author of the greatest dramas in the English language and
of _The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosengreutz_ is manifestly
absurd. Nevertheless, Bacon's influence amongst the Rosicrucians is
apparent; Heydon's _Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians_ is in fact a
mere plagiarism of Bacon's _New Atlantis_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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