Francis Bacon Research Trust

The Left Right Shoulder

(Title-page to William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, 1623.)

In this picture, the right shoulder of Shakespeare's doublet is drawn as the back of a left shoulder. In this way the left-handedness or cryptic nature of the picture is emphasised. But also, read together with the right shoulder, a cipher message unfolds.

Look carefully. Notice the dead straightness of the embroidered join in the doublet. Read with the curved shape of the left shoulder, two letters should spring to mind, giving a message.

This message is confirmed and augmented by a further clue left by Bacon, using his own Elizabethan version of the Latin Cabala, the Simple Cipher (see FBRT web page ‘Cipher’):-

St. John, an Apostle of our saviour, and the Beloved Disciple, lived ninety-three years. He was rightly denoted under the emblem of the eagle, for his piercing sight into the Divinity; and was a Seraph among the Apostles in respect of his burning Love.

Francis Bacon–History of Life and Death.

In other words, ‘93’ is Francis Bacon’s cipher for St. John the Beloved, the great Seer, whose emblem is the Eagle.

The Confession of the Rosicrucians warns that only those who have received strength borrowed from the Eagle may behold the Rosicrucian fraternity and their House of the Holy Spirit.