"The direct descent of the essential program of the Esoteric Schools was entrusted to groups already well-conditioned for the work. The guilds, trade unions, and similar protective and benevolent Societies had been internally strengthened by the introduction of a new learning. The advancement of the plan required the enlargement of the boundaries of the philosophic overstate. A World Fraternity was needed, sustained by a deep and broad program of education according to the 'method.' Such a Fraternity could not immediately include all men, but it could unite the activities of certain kinds of men, regardless of their racial or religious beliefs or the nations in which they dwelt. These were the men of 'towardness,' those sons of tomorrow, whose symbol was... a blazing sun rising over the mountains of the east.
While it is difficult to trace the elements of a pattern never intended to be obvious, the broad shape of the design is dimly apparent. The Invisible Empire, integrated and ensouled by Bacon and his so-called literary group, was the archetype of those democratic Societies which directly and indirectly precipitated the era of revolution."
-Manly P. Hall, "Masonic Orders of Fraternity" (p.5)