Themes

Time

14^th Century

15^th Century

16^th Century

17^th Century

18^th Century

19^th Century

20^th Century

Religious Motivations

Apocalypse

 Explorers (e.g. Columbus) and conversion

 Deciphering God’s message

 Perfecting humanity and society—reinventing Adam

Post-millenarianism

Organizational Structure of the Technological Elite

Monasteries
Franciscans

Rosicrucian Brotherhood

 “Invisible College” and the Royal Society

Freemasons, Ecole Polytechnique,

Labs, schools, etc.
Brotherhood of Scientists (Szilard), Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore Lab, NASA,

Code Discoveries

 Key to the future apocalypse-Revealed to Joachim of Firoe by St. John (book of Revelation)

The secrets of history past and present

Nature as God’s Clock a mechanism that can be deciphered

Evolution and the History of Life

DNA, the Atom, And the Mind, A-Life

 Goals

 Bringing about the Apocalypse and recovering humankinds lost perfection (The Fall)

 Exploration and Conversion

Attainment of the knowledge that will precede the Second Coming

Bringing about the Millennium

 Infinite Progress

Major Figures

Joachim of Firoe and Francis Bacon

Roger Bacon and Robert Boyle, Kepler, descartes

Newton, Leibniz

Maxwell, Babbage, Boole

Einstein, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Teller, Goddard, von Braun, Turing, Watson, Crick, Schrodinger

Major elites

Kings, Queens, Nobility, Church leadership (e.g. Pope)

Emerging nation-state

The state,  military, corporations, universities

Technological Problems

Economic Concerns