Francis Bacon Research Trust

Pilgrimage in London – The first of many celebrations for Sir Francis Bacon in 2026
2026-01-20 10:00 - 16:30 (Europe/London)
A pilgrimage to places connected with Sir Francis Bacon – Viscount St Alban.
A 2026 Bacon400 Celebration led by Peter Dawkins and Jonathan Tod.
Please come and join us for this special pilgrimage celebrating Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban. 2026 is the Quatercentenary of the death and burial of Francis Bacon, and this pilgrimage is the inner or more private beginning of the public celebrations which will unfold over the course of the year.
This 2026 London pilgrimage will start at St Martin-in-the-Fields, where Francis Bacon was baptised on 25 January 1561, then proceed to the site of York House, Bacon’s London home when growing up and then later when he was Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor. After this we will walk to the site of Essex House, where the Shakespeare Circle used to meet. Essex House (previously Leicester House) was built on the site of the Outer Temple of the Knights Templar.
We will then pilgrimage to the Middle Temple Inn of Court containing Middle Temple Hall where some Shakespeare plays were performed. After this we will progress to the Temple Bar Memorial, which marks the division between the Liberty of the City of London and the Liberty of Westminster.
Our final visit will be to the Inner Temple Inn of Court, where we will have a celebratory lunch in the Luncheon Room which has been reserved for our private use. After lunch we will visit Temple Church, the round church of the Knights Templar.
The Inner Temple Inn of Court twins Gray’s Inn of Court, where Francis Bacon had his chambers and was Treasurer. Twinship is the key to everything.
There is already a pilgrimage route which starts in London and ends at St Alban’s Cathedral, in which is the shrine of the Romano-British St Alban. We are working on a second pilgrimage route which will start in London (this pilgrimage marks the first steps on the route) and will end at St Michael’s Church, St Albans, where Francis Bacon’s body was buried in the chancel vault, with a sculpted memorial monument placed in the chancel above.
There will be a pre-pilgrimage talk on Zoom by Peter Dawkins at 5pm (GMT) on Sunday 18 January.
For further information and booking, please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
Priority will be given to FBRT Friends and FBS members if booked by 15 December 2025.
Photo: Tilman2007. Wikimedia Commons: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Freemasonic Twinship and the Two Alban Saints
2026-01-25 17:00 - 18:30
A talk on Zoom by Peter Dawkins about the universal law of twinship, or friendship, and how it manifested in the foundational legends of Freemasonry concerning the two saints called Alban and the two types of Freemasonry, Craft and Speculative.
We shall also look at the meaning of the place or places associated with the St Alban legends, the shrines or monuments erected in their memory and how they connect with each other, and the Freemasonic and Rosicrucian wisdom knowledge underlying all this.

To book, please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
If booking accepted, on receipt of payment, the Zoom link will be sent to you.
Payment can be made online via the PayPal donate button.
Donate online with PayPal

A recording of the talk (but not of the sharing afterwards) can be made available for attendees if requested, as also for those who pay for the talk but do not attend it live on Zoom. Please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
The displayed picture is a coloured version of the AA-Gemini headpiece printed in the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio.

The New Atlantis Bensalem and Rosicrucian College of the Six Days Work
2026-03-22 17:00 - 18:30
A talk on Zoom by Peter Dawkins about the New Atlantis of Francis Bacon’s utopian novel, and what it really means and the places it cryptically points to in the world.
We shall also look at what all this means today, and how New Atlantis is not only an account of what took place 400+ years ago but also a prophecy for the times we live in now.
New Atlantis has a mystical relationship with the Old Atlantis, as referred to by Plato, and as described in myths and legends. The two stories contain the idea of death and resurrection, and the means by which this can happen.
To book, please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
If booking accepted, on receipt of payment, the Zoom link will be sent to you.
Payment can be made online via the PayPal donate button.
Donate online with PayPal

A recording of the talk (but not of the sharing afterwards) can be made available for attendees if requested, as also for those who pay for the talk but do not attend it live on Zoom. Please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
The displayed picture is a coloured version of the Gemini-Bacony-Bride headpiece printed in the 1609 Shake-speares Sonnets.

The Mystery of the Two Johns, Baptist and Beloved
2026-06-21 17:00 - 18:30
A talk on Zoom by Peter Dawkins about the mystery of John the Baptist and John the Beloved, the different roles they played whilst sharing the same name, and the eternal wisdom and divine law of which they are manifestations – a law that involves all of us.
This mystery involves the Double Truth of polarity, twinship, and initiation, with its lesser and greater mysteries, and how their roles were adopted by the Bacon brothers, Francis and Anthony.
The mystery also involves Time, with its daily, annual, and larger cycles of time, such as a Great Age, and the poles of time and process of life – a process in which we are all engaged, all of the time.
To book, please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
If booking accepted, on receipt of payment, the Zoom link will be sent to you.
Payment can be made online via the PayPal donate button.
Donate online with PayPal

A recording of the talk (but not of the sharing afterwards) can be made available for attendees if requested, as also for those who pay for the talk but do not attend it live on Zoom. Please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
The displayed picture is a coloured version of the AA headpiece printed in the 1593 Shakespeare poem Venus and Adonis.

The Hidden Foundation of Democracy in North America
2026-09-20 17:00 - 18:30
A talk on Zoom by Peter Dawkins about the role of Sir Francis Bacon and the Virginia and Newfoundland Companies in the colonisation of Newfoundland, Virginia, Nova Scotia and Oak Island, and in the foundation of democracy in North America.
Such a role involved the Freemasons and Rosicrucians – especially the latter, who practised the Hermetic-Magian science of “As above so below, as below so above, for the doing of the Great Work.”
Powerful signs in the starry heavens of the sky, which took place from 1572 to 1604, confirmed to the magi of the English Society of the Golden and Rosy Cross what should be done on earth, both in England and in the world, so as to suitably echo the heavenly signs.
The Shakespeare poetic works, Bacon’s philosophical works, and Bacon’s New Atlantis, are involved in all of this.

To book, please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
If booking accepted, on receipt of payment, the Zoom link will be sent to you.
Payment can be made online via the PayPal donate button.
Donate online with PayPal

A recording of the talk (but not of the sharing afterwards) can be made available for attendees if requested, as also for those who pay for the talk but do not attend it live on Zoom. Please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
The displayed picture is a coloured version of the AA-Gemini-Bride headpiece printed in the 1594 Shakespeare poem Venus and Adonis.

The Mystery of the Christmas Saturnalia and Knights of the Helmet
2026-12-20 17:00 - 18:30
A talk on Zoom by Peter Dawkins about midwinter’s Saturnalia and Twelve Days of Christmas, including that of 1594/5 when Gray’s Inn hosted a grand entertainment during which the Shakespeare play, Comedy of Errors, was enacted, followed by the masque, The Order of the Knights of the Helmet.
This “Gesta Grayorum”, as it was called in Latin, announced and made public many things previously kept secret, including the hint that the Knights of the Helmet are the true Spearshakers, or Shakespeares, who, like St George, shake their spears of inspiration at the dragons of ignorance, so that the dragons might come to know the truth.

For those who attend the talk, there will be time for questions, answers and insights after the talk. This post-talk sharing is usually full of extra information.
To book, please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
If booking accepted, on receipt of payment, the Zoom link will be sent to you.
Payment can be made online via the PayPal donate button.
Donate online with PayPal

A recording of the talk (but not of the sharing afterwards) can be made available for attendees if requested, as also for those who pay for the talk but do not attend it live on Zoom. Please contact the Organiser (FBRT).
The displayed picture is a coloured version of the AA-Gemini-Spearshakers headpiece printed in Francis Bacon’s 1623 De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum and in the tributes to Francis Bacon, Manes Verulamiani, published in 1626.
