For this presentation, it is important to know that Manly Hall was not a member of the early 20th Century Rosicrucians, who were organized under a trademarked name, "Rosicrucian Order, AMORC".   He did become a Mason; however, not without placing traditional Rosicrucians and Masons of centuries past, into an independent perspective aside from consideration of any organization today with which he might have been associated personally under the western esoteric tradition.   We know this, because of what he wrote and lectured prior to 1929, published that year under his own name in Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, including "Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins".   (Bibliography). 

It was fairly common knowledge amongst 20th Century esotericists, that Manly P. Hall, who beginning in his 20s researched original documents and other esoteric history in Europe, referred in his writings to the secret 16th-17th Century Rosicrucian history.   Many past Rosicrucians were giants in science, philosophy, theology and literature, who were described as deists within the context of Reformation and Renaissance Europe.   Hall's early historical writings in particular, reveal a foundational understanding of the nature and purpose of the secret orders that for centuries have promoted a more universal, spiritual awakening amongst humanity.   In the 1920s and -30s,  Hall wrote lectures and articles on his thesis concerning what he referred to as "Bacon's secret society."  In 1944, he published The Secret Destiny of America further detailing this thesis about it and the subsequent Early American Rosicrucian colonization. 

Hall's writings took into consideration the challenge that the secret nature of the Rosicrucian past made detection of their work in remaining documents, a most difficult trail to follow, and he carefully studied original documentation in order to see the connections among networked individuals and organizations of "the Order."   In  past centuries, the "Rosicrucians" rose again and again under different group or fraternal names due to  political conditions requiring it, in order to carry on their ongoing spiritual, and in those times political, humanitarian work. 

Based upon the relative objectivity of Manly P. Hall on this topic, therefore, in Sections 1 and III, I have gone outside the box and followed some of the trail that Hall, as well as others on the same theme, have pointed out in their writings.  This has provided  some of the more objective factors essential in answers to our own quest into the past:  Bacon's "Secret Society": The Ephrata Connection.

                                          Linda S. Santucci, F.R.C.

However, he ends his argument by conceding that Kelpius probably did carry the oldest original document of the Rosicrucians from Europe to America.  In the 16th and 17th Centuries, "the Order" was known primarily as being "unknown" and "invisible," and members took great care to protect the identity of themselves and their brethren.  "The Rosicrucians" was a secret spiritual movement of fraternal individuals throughout continental Europe and Great Britain.

In another book publishing collected writings, Hall agrees with Sachse that the Kelpius group were known as a Chapter of Perfection, and were “representatives of Bacon’s secret society.”  He also states that Bacon’s secret society was the Rosicrucian Order, referring to the 17th Century Rosicrucian movement.