Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626)—English statesman, jurist, and philosopher—created a blueprint for the spiritual and scientific rebirth of humanity. Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925)—Austrian philosopher and seer—had the same ideal but proposed a path of knowledge that could hardly be more different from Bacon’s. Bacon and Steiner were remarkable characters, but even more remarkable is the clash that took place between them across a gap of three centuries.
According to Steiner, Bacon was programmed by his spiritual handlers, from ancient times and through previous incarnations, to become the chief architect of an inhuman, diabolical technological society. Could this really be so, or was Steiner radically mistaken? Is it possible that Steiner was motivated as much by animus as by insight? Bacon, of course, didn’t say anything about Steiner, but he did provide a great deal of material that bears on the questions raised by the Austrian. In tackling these problems, Keith Francis deals with issues that seem never to have been confronted by Steiner’s followers. He gives historical contexts for both men, reports on their scientific philosophies, and to illuminate the whole situation, takes the reader on a journey from the pre-Socratic thinkers of ancient Greece to the post-Newtonians of modern Europe, visiting Arabian philosophers and European scholastics along the way.
Keith Francis holds a master’s degree in physical sciences from Cambridge University. He worked as an engineer in the Guided Weapons Department at Bristol Aircraft before joining the faculty of the Manhattan Rudolf Steiner School and settling in New York City. Among his publications are Death at the Nave, The Place of a Skull, The Education of a Waldorf Teacher, Screwing Upward and Rudolf Steiner and the Atom. He is married, with two sons and four granddaughters, and divides his time between New York City and the Southern Berkshires of Massachusetts. Front Cover Portraits: Francis Bacon, 1608, by an unknown artist. Rudolf Steiner, 1892, etching by Otto Fröhlich.
