Episcopal Press and News

Scientists Discredit Claims of New Age Mystic

Episcopal News Service. October 29, 1992 [92220I]

A team of archaeologists who excavated an historic church graveyard in Williamsburg, Virginia, have concluded that a vault containing manuscripts by Francis Bacon does not exist. Marie Bauer Hall, a self-described Christian mystic, and the New Age group Veritat contended that the vault is buried on the grounds of the 320-year-old Bruton Parish Church, the burial site of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Church officials authorized a professional excavation to dissuade sneaky amateurs from looking for the vault themselves, a practice that resulted in the desecration of graves. Hall's predictions, based on what she says is an analysis of cryptograms and headstones at the site, were partially supported in 1986 by a radar test that revealed what appeared to be a large square object underground. Those findings unleashed a rash of clandestine, nighttime digs by people who claimed that the vault contained proof that Bacon was the son of Elizabeth I of England, a book by Bacon on Utopia and the original copy of the U.S. Constitution. The team of archaeologists, however, found no evidence of a vault, and the results of the 1986 test are now attributed to variations in the soil. Officials at Bruton Parish Church hope that Hall's predictions have finally been laid to rest.