Manly P. Hall - "Francis Bacon's New Atlantis” | Lecture Analysis

From my podcast "The Wisdom Tradition"

Introduction:

In my latest podcast episode, I analyzed a classic Manly Hall lecture on the topic of Francis Bacon’s utopian novel “New Atlantis” (also on YouTube). This episode is intended to rehash and progress the content of my recent six-article series on this great historical figure. Below, I share the show notes that I compiled while breaking down that lecture.

Clip 1:

Introduction to the Society of the Rosy Cross:

• Introduced itself through two manifestoes: the “Fame” and “Confession”

• They pronounced a reformation of Europe and transformation in the life of mankind.

• Rooted in a trend toward philosophic humanism which originated during the Renaissance, with deeper connections to classical Greece.

Clip 2:

The themes discussed in the Rosicrucian Manifestoes also appear in various utopian novels published during the same era, implying a common source for both.

• The utopias portrayed a reformed and perfected society: an ideal for man to strive for.

• Hall discusses the utopian novel by More, Campanella, and Andrea, before finally coming to Bacon.

Clip 3:

After going one-by-one through several key utopian works, Hall focuses in on Francis Bacon’s utopian novel, “New Atlantis”.

• All the utopias were linked to the common ideal of a Universal Reformation.

• These together seeded this ideal into European consciousness, one that would inspire its embrace of colonial expansion into the “New World” of the Americas. Eventually, this ideal would become formalized in the establishment of the United States.

• This mission was the great secret project of the Rosicrucians: the ideals that inspired the American Revolution were its ideals, ones its seeded into European society in part through the publication of these utopian novels.

Clip 4:

Manly Hall describes Francis Bacon’s relationship to the Rosicrucian Order:

• The Rosicrucian Order and its “Empire of Poets”, lead by Francis Bacon, was the common author of the Shakespeare plays, the Rosicrucian Manifestoes, the utopian novels of the era, and other important works of this time period.

• The “New Atlantis” may have originally been intended by Bacon to be published anonymously as a Rosicrucian Work.

Clip 5:

Hall now zeroes in on the content of Bacon’s “New Atlantis”:

• Hall alludes that there is a marker on the front the utopian work that denotes there is a concealed meaning / ciphers within the text.

• In the story of the New Atlantis, Bacon tells of an enlightened organization of philosopher-scientists who benevolently govern a small utopian island community, exerting its power through education.

• In this novel, Bacon reveals the nature of the “Philosophic Empire” he and his Rosicrucians were seeking to establish in the America. It is to be ruled by an elite organization of philosopher-scientists, who interface with the outer population by being their primary teachers and guides.

• The Royal Society, the first formal scientific organization in the West, was founded upon this ideal that Bacon reveals in his novel: for the establishment benevolent philosophic-scientific fraternity dedicated to the betterment of mankind.

Clip 6:

Hall notes a curious reference to prehistoric Peru that Bacon makes in his novel. How could he have known about this?

• Mystery Schools have existed since remote antiquity in the Americas. Could Bacon have been in contact with the hierophants of these schools?

• Was the “College of the Six Days Work” portrayed in his New Atlantis, a depiction of a society that once existed during the Golden Age of the Incas?

Clip 7:

Bacon references Plato’s original “Atlantis” fable in his utopian novel “New Atlantis”:

• An analogy is made between a prehistoric war waged by an ancient Mexican civilization against the Peruvian nation of “Bensalem” and the fabled Atlantean war conquest against the prehistoric Greeks. In both cases, the result was the same: the war party was not able to consummate its conquest because its home civilization was destroyed by floods.

• Hall implies that the North Americas were so sparsely populated at the time of their colonization in part as a consequence of these floods. By implication, the North American Indians living here were survivors of this catastrophe and were direct descendants of the Atlanteans, just as the original Egyptians were.

Clip 8:

Bacon patterned his utopian novel after Plato’s original mythic fable.

• Plato’s fable emphasizes the fall of man from a previous golden age to a state of “material obscuration”. This represents the descent of the human being into the material world, where it forgets its true estate.

• The lost Atlantis is the lost Golden Age. The New Atlantis is the promise of a new, resurrected Golden Age.

• Plato’s myth describes an archetype of the Fall: Atlantis’s collapse represents the fall of civilization everywhere into a state of shallow materialism.

Clip 9:

Here, Hall breaks down the symbolism of Atlantis:

• Ultimately, Atlantis represents not just a previous state of civilization, but also a previous state of human psychology.

• Mankind’s earlier psychology was driven by a clear purpose or Reason, but this has become buried under the waters of a materialistic mode of life.

• The golden age of Atlantis represents man living according to the Reason for his own existence. Then, departing from this Reason, Atlantis is drowned by a deluge. Now, under the waters of material existence, it must rediscover it Reason and purpose and in the process extricate itself from its tomb.

The mythic fall of Atlantis corresponds with the historical rise and fall of empires throughout this modern era of human history.

• In short, Atlantis established the “archetype of empire”. The New Atlantis is to extricate man out of this pattern by building the one empire that will rule them all: the Philosophic Empire.

Clip 10:

Bacon’s mission was to give us the tools to re-establish a Golden Age on Earth.

• In particular, his “Great Instauration” teaches us the method we are to use to bring about the new Golden Age.

Clip 11:

Picking back up with the plot of “New Atlantis”, the sea-bound travelers, blown off course from their destination, drive at an island named Bensalem containing a thriving Christian society. At the center of this society is an elite fraternity named “Salomon’s House”.

• The lost mariners meet one of the masters of Salomon’s House, who tells them:

• “The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, the secret motion of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible.”

• This statement aligns with Bacon’s “Great Instauration”, whose six stages are reflected in Salomon House’s second name, “the College of the Six Days Work.”

Bacon states that scientific endeavor must seek the knowledge of causes by continually asking “why?” This brings science toward the domain traditionally occupied by religion.

• In order to obey God’s will, we must learn how to obey God’s law. This is science’s purpose and is ideally demonstrated by “Salomon’s House”.

Clip 12:

The search for “Cause” brings science into the realm of psychology and the practice of mysticism.

• The scientists of Salomon’s House were therefore also mystics.

• Having discovered “First Cause”, all other forms of knowledge can be put in their proper place.

Clip 13:

Here we go into details concerning the scientific and technological accomplishments of Salomon’s House:

• Always, inventions are geared toward charitable purposes and dedicated to the betterment of mankind.

The school sends its emissaries to an unsuspecting world, who gather intelligence and knowledge and bring it back to their home island.

• This house of wisdom is a “secret house raised in the world”.

Clip 14:

Here, Hall discusses the idea that both the fictional Salomon’s House and the real world Rosicrucian Order were patterned after an archetypal institution that is popular known as the Mystery School.

• This institution is founded in a metaphysical temple, which is populated by those “twice born”.

• All terrestrial Mystery Schools, ancient and modern, are patterned after (and in communication with) this celestial archetype.

Clip 15:

The symbolism of the shipwreck:

• It is only when mankind turns away from material illusions does he seek source. This is why experience is necessary to catalyze man’s search for growth.

• We learn from our own suffering - i.e. we learn by addressing and overcoming our own karma.

• We discover this Invisible College once we begin our quest to extricate the Spirit from its material tomb. It’s there to teach and guide us through the process.

• This quest is a mystical process, one where the great journey is within.

Clip 16:

Francis Bacon’s vision for the ideal of science:

• Science move extricate itself from its materialistic paradigm and return itself to the study of causes: a process which emphasizes its connection to philosophy and metaphysics.

• Ultimately, religion, philosophy, and science must be integrated.

Clip 17:

Hall describes the state Nature is bringing mankind toward through evolution:

• We are to become a “completely enlightened creature”, “self-sustaining in Space.”

• Bacon’s method teaches us how to discover in Nature the plan we must follow so we can accomplish this ideal.