The Invisible College: The Royal Society, Freemasonry and the Birth of Modern Science

by RobertLomas (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $5.37

  In 1660, within a few months of the restoration of Charles II, a group of 12 men, including Robert Boyle and Christopher Wren, met in London to set up a society to study the mechanisms of nature. At a time when superstition and magic governed reason, the repressive dogma of Christian belief silenced many, and where post-war loyalties ruined careers, these men forbade the discussion of religion and politics at their meetings. The Royal Society was born and with it modern, experimental science. This book is a study of the turbulent political, economic and religious background to the formation of the Royal Society - an era of war against the Dutch, the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. It aims to make readers reassess many of the key events of this period, showing how Freemasonry, supported by Charles II, was the guiding force behind the birth of modern science, under the cover of the Royal Society.

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $4.49

  In 1660 a small group of men, led by Sir Robert Moray, met in London with a secret plan to reshape the world. They were members of the 'Invisible College', better known today as the Freemasons Emerging from the horrors of the Civil War, Britain was a society torn apart by political difference, religious ferment and was still immersed in medieval superstition. It was a country which burnt alive at least one hundred elderly women a year on suspicion of witchcraft. Yet this group, who had recently been sworn enemies, managed to bridge their social and cultural differences to found a new organization dedicated to the scientific study of nature, the Royal Society. Robert Lomas reveals in compelling detail how the secret tenets and traditions of the Freemasons laid the groundwork for a new revolution, that gave the world modern, experimental science and founded what is still, 350 years later, the pre-eminent scientific institution in the world.