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and craftsmen who erected the huge cathedrals, castles, abbeys and churches during the Middle
Ages. Because they ‘lodged’ or lived together during the construction, this is where the term
‘masonic lodge’ was originated.
The First Grand Lodge of England met at York in 926, where they adopted handsigns and
passwords to identify themselves. Their workplace, or Lodges, was where their initiations, rites,
rituals and ceremonies took place. Within their inner circles, witchcraft was practiced.
In the 13th century, they formed an association, headquartered at Cologne, with Lodges at
Strasbourg, Vienna, and Zurich. They called themselves Free Masons, and had ceremonies for
initiation. Near the end of the 16th century, people who weren’t builders, were admitted into the
fraternity, and were called ‘Accepted’ Masons. They were usually distinguished members of the
community, or in short, a source of funding. Becoming more symbolic, the working masons and
builders eventually quit, as did the Accepted Masons, who had become disappointed at what the
organization really was.
The Bruton Vault
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), an English Lord, the son of Elizabeth I, was recognized as
the “founder of Free Masonry ... the guiding light of the Rosicrucian Order, the members of
which kept the torch of the true universal knowledge, the Secret Doctrine of the Ages, alive
during the dark night of the Middle Ages.” Fluent in many languages, it has been believed by
some that he was one of the editors of the King James Version of the Bible, as well as the true
author of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. He had been initiated by a secret society
of intellectuals dedicated to civil and religious freedom. In his book Instauratio Magna, he wrote
of a movement to “reorganize the sciences and restore man to the mastery over nature that he
was conceived to have lost by the fall of Adam.”
Bacon’s novel, New Atlantis, published in 1627, a year after his death, by his secretary
William Rawley, represented his vision for a new “Golden Age.” It was about a crew of
shipwrecked sailors who arrived on the shores a mysterious, unknown land, whose people had a
much higher developed culture and possessed a technology unlike anything they had ever seen.
He talked about buildings a half a mile high, flying machines, underwater vehicles, and a
government of philosopher-scientists working in behalf of an enlightened group of people who
were committed to learning, and a higher level of achievement.
Manly Palmer Hall (1901-1990), founder of the Philosophical Research Society in 1934, and
one of the foremost experts in the realm of the metaphysical and the occult, authored over 200
books, and in six decades delivered more than 8,000 lectures. In his 1944 book The Secret
Destiny of America, he revealed that even though the New Atlantis had been completed, the
entire version was never published. He wrote: “The final (unpublished) chapters revealed the
entire pattern secret societies had been working on for thousands of years to achieve the ideal
commonwealth in the political world.” It included details for nurturing the “New Order of the
Ages,” how this long range “Great Plan” would restore mankind to the original state that was
intended to reflect the inner philosophical tradition of Freemasonry, and proposed timetables.
In The Secret Destiny of America Hall also wrote: “There exists in the world today, and has
existed for thousands of years, a body of enlightened humans united in what might be termed, an
Order of the Quest. It is composed of those whose intellectual and spiritual perceptions have
revealed to them that civilization has a secret destiny ... The outcome of this ‘secret destiny’ is a