The Secret Science of Riverbank
The history of scientific discoveries is filled with many mysteries that remain unanswered even today. However, the most fog and uncertainty are found where these mysteries are connected to the secrets of the Rosicrucians and Bacon as Shakespeare…
One hundred years ago, in September 1923, the well-known magazine Scientific American published a large and informative, yet overall quite enigmatic article titled "A Small Private Laboratory." [o1]
The title of the article was deliberately placed in quotation marks by the magazine to ensure that readers immediately grasped the irony of the word 'small.' This was because the article described the Riverbank Laboratories of Colonel Fabyan, beginning with the lines about "FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY acres of rolling country overlooking the picturesque Fox River and dotted with various kinds and sizes of buildings ; over one hundred contented men working with the zeal of the true scientist ...; a vast array of all manner of scientific equipment in the hands of skilled technicians..."
The author of the review article, Austin C. Lescarboura, who was the deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine and had come from New York to the Chicago suburb where the Riverbank estate was located at the invitation of Fabyan, spent almost an entire day inspecting the laboratories and their scientific and technical works. In the end, he concluded that he had practically seen everything here... [next, we'll quote the article]:
We expressed that opinion to the Colonel, which brought forth a hearty and even boisterous laugh. For the Colonel assured us that it would require at least a week to dig down into every little corner of Riverbank and obtain a real general impression of the scope of this institution.
And to make good his statement, the Colonel, after supper in his beautiful home across the way from a group of laboratory buildings, took us to a bungalow which we had not yet seen in the course of our travels about the five hundred and fifty acres of Riverbank.
There was much mystery connected with this laboratory. The staff in charge moved about like so many Egyptian priests of old guarding the darkest secrets. To deepen the mystery still further, a pretty girl was brought in. We were ushered into a small booth with dull black curtains for walls.
It reminded us strongly of our psychic experiments back in New York, when we exposed one of the leading mediums after three sittings. At the command of the Colonel, the demonstration got under way. In a few minutes we were astounded at what we were witnessing. It seemed unbelievable, yet it was there, in plain black and white. We had been brought face to face with certain facts regarding the human mechanism which we would hardly dared to have surmised in the absence of such a convincing demonstration. We were shown how — well, at this point we can go no further.
Colonel Fabyan made us promise that nothing would be said about the nature of this investigation until some later date, when the experiments have progressed further.
You see, science is a slowly moving thing. Publicity is something to be shunned until the desired results are obtained. It may take weeks or months or years. Meanwhile, the public must wait until the scientists reach a point somewhat nearer to their objective.
So, big, startling things are being done at Riverbank, under the cloak of secrecy.
It is such work as this, conducted by such an institution, which will unfold to us new wonders within the next few years. We shall learn more about the human body than ever before; we shall wrest certain secrets from nature which have never even been suspected; a new epoch will most likely open up.
At such an intriguing point, it's time to pause the quotation of the Scientific American article, for it is now appropriate to clarify what has become known in the subsequent years about these old and very little-known secret experiments at Fabyan’s Riverbank Laboratories.
Clarifying this moment turns out to be quite simple for the reason that the entire topic has since been enveloped in an even thicker veil of silence and secrecy. So that even today, a whole century later, essentially nothing is known on this matter...
Moreover, it's curious that even scientists who clearly have no knowledge of what was discussed in Austin Lescarboura’s article actively participate in the concealment of this mystery. For example, in the late 1990s, one of the current acoustics researchers at Riverbank Laboratories, who wrote an entire monograph [o2] on the colorful history of this establishment, made a rather clumsy attempt to explain this episode in his book as follows:
Is your curiosity aroused? What Lescarboura actually saw was a girl standing behind an X-ray screen and the images it created.
In offering this "explanation," the author could provide absolutely no facts or documents to support his claim — only his own supposition. However, the reliable facts are as follows.
To begin with, it should be noted that the unusual images obtained by irradiating the human body with new "X-rays" began to be produced by researchers about thirty years before the events described, in the mid-1890s. In 1901, Wilhelm Röntgen was awarded the very first Nobel Prize in Physics for this invention, and at that time, this useful technology began to be actively implemented in medicine. In other words, by 1923, X-ray imaging of the body was no longer the latest "miracle of science," but a well-known technology with widely used equipment.
If we carefully read Lescarboura’s lines describing the "secret experiment," it's quite clear and distinct that they refer to such astonishing features of the human body that not only lack an explanation but are also completely unknown to science. Moreover, their full discovery and mastery, according to the reviewer, would signify the beginning of a new era for humanity...
The mention by the author in the context of the intriguing experiment of the "recently exposed psychic experiments with mediums" also seems far from accidental. Alongside Austin Lescarboura, another deputy editor of Scientific American at that time was Malcolm Bird. Not only was he a scientist and mathematician, and the author of a monograph on Einstein's theories of relativity and gravitation [o3], but he was also an active member of the American Society for Psychical Research.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, it's worth noting, the scientific study of mediumship, as well as other parapsychological and occult phenomena, had not yet become strictly secretive, and many serious scientists, accordingly, did not consider their research in this field to be something shameful or inappropriate. [o4][i1]. As for Malcolm Bird specifically, in addition to his personal participation in such research as a "representative of science," he also oversaw regular publications in the magazine on this topic as an editor-reviewer.
Another important feature of the remarkable Scientific American article about Riverbank is that in this particular issue, there was a promise made three times to continue the story about the fascinating scientific research at Fabyan’s Laboratories in future issues of the magazine. This promise was made in the editorial introduction reviewing the contents of the issue, in a special editorial insert that opens Lescarboura’s article, and finally, in the text of the article itself about Fabyan's "small" research institute.
In the following months, however, instead of articles with new details about the extraordinary work at Riverbank Laboratories, significant changes began to occur in the magazine’s editorial board. To provide a clear comparison: in September 1923, when the article was published, the editorial board was led by three people: J. Bernard Walker as editor-in-chief, and Austin C. Lescarboura and Malcolm Bird as his two deputies.
By the summer of 1925, however, the leadership of the editorial board had fundamentally changed. Orson D. Munn, the company’s president, had taken on the additional roles of editor-in-chief and publisher; the former editor-in-chief, J. B. Walker, was now referred to as "editor emeritus," and the two recent deputies, A. Lescarboura and M. Bird, had simply disappeared from the Editorial Staff altogether.
For the sake of accuracy, it should be clarified that even in this radically renewed editorial team, the magazine’s staff did eventually publish the long-promised material about the Riverbank Laboratories two years later, in 1927. However, in that article [o5], there was absolutely nothing about the "big and startling," as it was entirely devoted to quite ordinary matters — specifically, the finely tuned tuning forks manufactured by the local Acoustics Laboratory.
One last time — now for the final point — returning to the particularly interesting Scientific American publication from September 1923, it's important to highlight a very noteworthy detail. In Austin Lescarboura’s comprehensive review, which covered a wide range of activities at the Riverbank Laboratories, there is not a single mention of Fabyan’s own Cipher Department, his extensive work concerning deciphering Bacon's biliteral cipher, or of Francis Bacon as the author of Shakespeare’s works.
This complete omission of significant facts about Riverbank seems especially strange given that during that very period — from 1921 to 1923 — a series of high-profile articles by General François Cartier [o6][i2] was published in France on the topic of the "Bacon-Shakespeare Mysteries" as a "Problem of Cryptography and History." François Cartier, who headed France's cryptographic service during World War I, emphasized repeatedly that all of his sensational post-war cryptographic and historical research was based on documents and materials received from Colonel Fabyan and his Cipher Department at Riverbank.
There is no doubt that Austin Lescarboura, who had not only close family ties with France but also held the Order of Academic Palms (l'Ordre des Palmes académiques) — a distinguished French award for contributions to education and science — was certainly aware of this entire story. However, he indicated his awareness in the Riverbank article with only a rather intricate remark at the very end of the piece:
It would not be right to close this account of Riverbank Laboratories without a little sketch of Colonel George Fabyan, although we were told that the Laboratories were the thing to describe and that he was not to be mentioned.
[ ... ] Confidentially, we may add in closing that the Colonel has a quaint hobby — cryptography, or the ciphering and deciphering of codes.
He has gathered together and studied everything available on the subject. He has compiled codes of his own and torn apart the codes of others to learn their import. He has deciphered many old-time cryptic works, such as some of the writings of the illustrious Roger Bacon of long ago.
Indeed, Col. Fabyan is considered one of the foremost cryptologists in the world today. During the World War he served as a Colonel in our Army, and maintained a school at Riverbank for the training of Signal Corps officers in cryptography.
The Officer grade of the Legion of Honor, the Order of the Rising Sun and other decorations, as well as rare testimonials from our own Government, bear witness to the Colonel's attainments in this quaint hobby.
And so we come to the conclusion of the story of a remarkable man and a remarkable idea which has materialized into a remarkable institution.
To those truly knowledgeable in the history of cryptography, it's well-documented and certain that "Colonel" Fabyan never actually served in the army (his honorary military rank was granted as a sign of appreciation by the governor of Illinois). It's equally well-known that Fabyan, while indeed a very talented manager, did not personally engage in codebreaking or the training of cryptographers, instead preferring to find and hire genuinely capable individuals for these tasks.
In other words, the unnamed source in the article who misinformed Lescarboura by describing Colonel Fabyan as "one of the world’s leading cryptographers" was undoubtedly providing the journalist with false information. Why this was done is something we are unlikely to learn today. However, it's important to note that a year and a half later, in an entirely different magazine, another journalist not only repeated the same falsehood almost verbatim but also elaborated on Colonel Fabyan’s supposed cryptographic achievements in much greater detail.
In the January 1925 issue of The American Magazine, which had a reputation for serious journalistic investigations, an article entirely dedicated to Fabyan was published, titled "He Solves the Secrets of Cipher Writing."
The author of the article, John Kidder Rhodes, candidly admits that he knows nothing about cryptography, but based on the words of an unnamed knowledgeable source, he presents his protagonist to the readers as follows:
Colonel George Fabyan was born in Boston fifty-seven years ago. When he became a cotton manufacturer and was seeking a code for use in his business, Fabyan began his studies in cryptography. In the whole world there are not more than twenty experts in this line.
To fight spies and treachery, the Government had to find out the contents of secret messages. Colonel Fabyan was the only man in the country who could give the quality of help needed. Hence most of the men who did the actual work of ferreting out hostile messages were trained to it under his direction.
Colonel George Fabyan, in whose laboratories at Geneva, Illinois, the work was done, knows more about ciphers than anybody else in the United States. There are not more than twenty great cipher experts — cryptanalysts, they are called — in the world! Colonel Fabyan is one of the foremost among them.
The Riverbank Laboratories at Geneva are extraordinarily interesting, being devoted purely to scientific research, chiefly along the line of physics and medicine. Scientific discoveries of far-reaching importance have been made here in recent years. Cryptography is only one phase of Colonel Fabyan’s interests.
At this point, it's advisable to pause the recounting of the story about "the most foremost of the great cipher experts" to emphasize an important nuance. After reading the entire text, it remains completely unclear who provided the journalist with all this (dis)information about Fabyan’s cryptographic talents. This is because the only person with whom John Rhodes discusses ciphers and their deciphering in the article is Colonel Fabyan himself.
As the journalist begins to quote the Colonel’s statements, the confident tone and solidity, which are supposed to further bolster the initial portrayal of this "great expert" (but actually reveal the essence of a person trying to appear as something he is not), begin to raise strong suspicions. Suspicions that the primary source of all the information regarding Fabyan's cryptographic talents might have been solely Fabyan himself...
Whether this is the case or not is unlikely to be verified today. But that's not the most important issue here. What is far more crucial are the two important insights that can be gleaned from Fabyan’s subsequent statements. First, the value of the decrypted historical documents collected at Riverbank a hundred years ago. And second, why these documents remain unknown to science and humanity to this day...
So, let us reproduce here fragments of what Colonel Fabyan said in his conversations with journalist Rhodes [adding in brackets appropriate editor’s notes (E.N.) regarding the substance of what was said, and highlighting particularly important points in bold]:
“... But I have yet to find one [cipher] that couldn’t be broken if enough work was put on it. What one mind has locked up another can unlock!“ [E.N.: Actually, that's not the case. The Vernam cipher had already been invented, and Fabyan was certainly aware of its existence. However, either he didn't understand it or he didn't believe in its principle of being theoretically unbreakable when used correctly.]
“One of my assistants, Miss Cora Jensen, has an immense working knowledge of ciphers and of the ways to attack them.“ [E.N.: Fabyan deliberately doesn't mention a word about his former specialists, Friedman and Powell [i3], who started with Bacon's cipher, then went on to have highly successful careers in military cryptography. After the war, they returned to Riverbank but, for various reasons, didn't stay there for long.]
“Bacon had good reasons for not revealing his private method of using the cipher. So, for three hundred years and more, there lay hidden in books known to have been written by him, and in many others not thought to have been written by him, secret revelations of an astonishing character.
“Of course, Bacon didn’t do it all himself. He had amanuenses and secretaries.“ [E.N.: Fabyan's use of the specific old term 'Amanuenses,' which in the medieval period referred to people who recorded the words of visionaries in a trance-like state, seems far from accidental here. It appears to be connected to the activities of the secret society of the Rosicrucians, as will be discussed further.]
“Talk about patience!” he went on. “The work of using the cipher in the first place was certainly no greater than the work of deciphering it after all these years. We have spent thirty years at it, I guess, and we have ream after ream of Bacon’s secret writings here to-day! The credit for that must go where it belongs, to Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup.” [E.N.: The crucial nuance here is that not all of the decrypted materials by Gallup were published. Specifically, it is known for certain that Fabyan was involved in reproducing the "Rosicrucian" experiments described in the encrypted messages. However, all these descriptions were kept secret and disappeared after Fabyan's death.]
“Don’t bring me into any discussion of who wrote Shakespeare’s plays!” Colonel Fabyan warned me emphatically. “I don’t know whether Bacon wrote them or not, and I don’t care. But as a cryptanalyst I AM interested in cipher writing, wherever I find it.“ [E.N.: In the early 1920s, a new "Oxfordian" theory emerged, proposing Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, as the true author of Shakespeare's works. This new alternative to Bacon quickly gained significant publicity and attracted a large following among prominent figures. However, Fabyan was firmly — and quite rightly — convinced that cryptographic evidence was far stronger than any speculation. At the same time, his words suggest doubts about whether Bacon was the sole author.]
...
“We've proved the accuracy of various passages in Bacon's secret writings in any number of ways. For instance, he told in one passage about a panel in a wall which could be moved when a secret spring was touched, revealing a compartment behind it in which certain articles would be found. We sent the instructions he gave over to England. They found that the building was still in existence; and the wall, panel, and secret spring were all where he said they'd be!” [E.N.: To be precise, it should be clarified that the instructions for finding the niche were not encrypted by Bacon himself, but by his secretary, William Rawley. The niche was discovered by Gallup herself, who traveled from the United States to London. However, this does not change the essence of the fact in any way.]
Having finished directly quoting Colonel Fabyan, to complete the picture, it remains to present the very last paragraph from Rhodes' article, where the national importance of this remarkable man's work is emphasized with the following final touches:
Colonel Fabyan’s office at the laboratory has very peculiar windows, about the size and shape of portholes. These date from the period of the recent war, when he was doing work there which was of vital importance to the Government, and when there was danger of some alien sympathizer taking a pot shot at him. His peace-time clients are mainly government departments — the Navy, the Army, and the Department of Justice.
For those who have carefully read the two cited articles from a century ago, there are enough indicators to suggest that Colonel Fabyan not only liked to emphasize the high scientific significance of his work but also constantly surrounded it with veils of mystery and secrecy.
And this very secrecy, which is hard to overlook, ultimately became the main reason for the complete obscurity that now surrounds almost all of his truly extraordinary scientific endeavors.
It's difficult to say how much the radical changes in the editorial staff of Scientific American and the accompanying sharp decline in interest in the remarkable activities at Riverbank from the popular magazine contributed to this obscurity. However, it can be asserted with certainty that neither in the Scientific American article nor in the related American Magazine article — both close in time and topic — there is no mention whatsoever of the Rosicrucians and their scientific-magical experiments.
Today, however, in the recollections of veteran Riverbank staff, there are enough documented testimonies [i4] to suggest that it was precisely the secret reproduction of these experiments that Fabyan’s scientists were engaged in within his laboratories. In particular, Cora Jensen, the aforementioned cryptographic assistant to Fabyan, who later became the secretary of the Riverbank Laboratories, left the following recollections [o2]:
Although the colonel first believed that Shakespeare’s plays were the product of Francis Bacon, by the application of Bacon’s bi-lateral cipher to the books of Elizabethan authors such as Shakespeare, Bacon, Marlowe and Spenser, he became convinced the writings of that period were the work of the Rosicrucian Society. ... This society controlled all the printing of that period. The colonel believed that everything printed under their auspices had an underlying meaning known only to those who could decipher the code.
Today, when historians recall Fabyan's Riverbank Laboratories, they most often refer to them as the first private research institute in the history of the United States. However, little is mentioned about the fact that it was the very first of such private institutes where not only the interests of state intelligence agencies and the occult-mystical secrets of secret societies were closely intertwined, but also the phenomenon of "secret science" was essentially born — science developing separately and in secrecy from official science. This aspect of Riverbank is almost never discussed.
To begin a deeper investigation into this fascinating topic, it's convenient to start by quoting a very old work…
Two hundred years ago, in January 1824, the well-known (and still existing) London Magazine published a large and informative article titled "Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin of the Rosicrucians and the Free-Masons."
The author of this work was Thomas De Quincey, a famous writer, essayist, and journalist of his time, who is most renowned in literary history as an active promoter of drug-induced hallucinations and journeys. De Quincey’s other notable works allow him to be labeled as a fervent imperialist, racist, sexist, and other such negative labels.
However, despite these flaws, De Quincey possessed extensive erudition, wrote very fluently and coherently, and skillfully used logic and facts, which regularly resulted in well-crafted essays on a wide variety of topics. The work on the history of the nearly simultaneous emergence of the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, which is particularly interesting to us, is noteworthy because it's probably the first serious investigation of this topic in the English language.
There will, of course, be no attempt here to critically analyze this essay or compare its arguments with documents and facts known today. The perspectives and scope of knowledge of contemporary science naturally differ greatly from the arguments and information available to De Quincey two centuries ago.
However, one very important quote from the essay, which articulates De Quincey's understanding of the differences between the specific approaches to science by the exoteric Rosicrucians and the esoteric Freemasons (and is therefore still often remembered today), will certainly be useful to present here:
Universally the eldest Freemasonry was indifferent with respect to all profane sciences and all exoteric knowledge of nature. Its business was with a secret wisdom in which learned and unlearned were alike capable of initiation. And in fact the exoterici, at whose head Bacon stood, and who afterwards composed the Royal Society of London, were the antagonist party of the Theosophists, Cabbalists, and Alchemists, at the head of whom stood Fludd, and from whom Freemasonry took its rise.
The fact that the United States was originally founded under the strong influence of Freemasonry is likely known to anyone with even a minimal interest in the topic. It's also well-established that from the early years of the nation until the 1970s, fourteen U.S. presidents were openly members of Freemasonry, and an uncountable number of people from the country’s highest political elite continue to belong to secret occult societies like Masonic lodges or "Skull and Bones." [i5]
Numerous analytical books have already been published about how such secret societies naturally provide the foundation for the structures of the Deep State, which is accountable to no one. However, there are almost no serious studies on the Deep State’s long-standing and active involvement in secret occult-scientific research, which combines the traditions of Freemasons and Rosicrucians, simply due to the heavy secrecy surrounding the topic.
Indirect signs of this activity, however, occasionally leak into the press in the form of logos for secret government projects. A relatively recent example is DARPA’s "Total Information Awareness" project [i6], whose logo expressively combined the typically Masonic symbols of the pyramid and the "all-seeing eye" with Bacon’s motto "Knowledge is Power" (Scientia Est Potentia).
For us, however, the particular interest lies not in the modern intelligence and information technology ventures of the security services, but in the history of the revival of secret scientific-occult research. The beginning of this was marked by Fabyan’s Riverbank Laboratories, where he managed to transform Bacon’s and the Rosicrucians' magical science into what is essentially its complete opposite.
Bacon envisioned an "invisible college" of scholars who would illuminate humanity with the light of the knowledge they acquired, revealing the deepest secrets of nature. Instead, this vision — under Fabyan’s direct influence — morphed into an "invisible secret science," accumulating valuable knowledge with unknown purposes and for unknown beneficiaries. But certainly not for the benefit of all humanity... [i7]
Additional Reading
[i1] The Path of Clifford (April 2020, rus); Ostrogradsky – Voevodsky (July 2020, rus)
[i2] 4in1: Mask of Shakespeare, Mysteries of Bacon, Book by Cartier, Secrets of the NSA, chapter "The Secret Autobiography of Francis Bacon"
[i3] NSA Hints for the Mysteries of Shakespearean Studies
[i4] 4in1: Mask of Shakespeare, Mysteries of Bacon, Book by Cartier, Secrets of the NSA, chapter "Bacon, Rosicrucians and Levitation"
[i5] Crossroads and Parallels in History, section "Skull and Bones" (June 2003, rus)
[i6] DARPA: Surprises and the Unpronounceable (May 2017, rus)
[i7] The Crime of Reason, or Our Man in Stanford (January 2016, rus)
Main Sources
[o1] "A Small Private Laboratory". By Austin C. Lescarboura. Scientific American, September 1923, pp. 154, 155, 201, 203, 204
[o2] John W. Kopec, The Sabines at Riverbank: Their Role in the Science of Architectural Acoustics (1997) Woodbury, N.Y.: Acoustical Society of America
[o3] Malcolm Bird. Einstein’s Theories of Relativity and Gravitation (1922) New York: Scientific American Pub. Co.
[o4] Richard Noakes. Physics and Psychics: the Occult and the Sciences in Modern Britain (2019) Cambridge University Press
[o5] Yardsticks of Sound. By Austin C. Lescarboura. Scientific American, May 1927, pp 324-326
[o6] Cartier, François (Général), “Un problème de Cryptographie et d’histoire,” Mercure de France: (1921) No. 563, No. 568; “Le mystère Bacon-Shakespeare un document nouveau,” Mercure de France (1922) No. 581, No. 582, (1923) No. 591
[o7] He Solves the Secrets of Cipher Writing, by John Kidder Rhodes. The American Magazine, 99 (January, 1925), pp. 37-39, 60, 62.
[o8] Thomas De Quincey. Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin of the Rosicrucians and the Free-Masons. London Magazine, January 1824