International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation Volume 9, Issue 2 2026 44
Francis Bacon (1909–1992)
Francis Bacon could be described as the archetypal
tortured artist, and much of his struggle related to the
fact that he was a gay man at a time when homosexuality
was illegal in Britain. But his paintings capture
something more than this: an inexplicable sense of
violence and turmoil, as well as disturbing religious
scenes that, as an atheist, he could not explain. All he
could say of them was: ‘I’m just trying to make images
as accurately off my nervous system as I can. I don’t
even know what half of them mean’ (Sylvester, 2000, p.
186). He likened the shambolic state of his studio to his
confusing state of mind (Cappock, 2005) but claimed
that he was lucky as a painter because ‘images just drop
in as if they were handed down to me’ (Sylvester, 2000,
p. 8). He also believed that artists had the advantage
of staying close to their sensations from childhood
(Peppiatt, 1996). All these statements suggest the
presence of an underlying trauma where flashbacks,
inexplicable sensations, and deep confusion are its
indelible characteristics (Healey, 1993).
Born to members of the English Protestant gentry
in Roman Catholic Ireland and from a generational
military family, Bacon’s childhood was spent in the
Curragh in County Kildare (Davies, 1978, p. 2). The area
has a long association with both military and religious
practices, dating back to the ancient Druids. It has also
had a long involvement with secret societies, and from
the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the Masonic
Order has had a strong presence there (Costello, 1996).
His father, Edward Anthony Mortimer Bacon, a retired
captain, applied a tough military ethos to rearing his
son and treated him as a weakling. The artist also
spoke of sexual abuse by his uncle and early sexual
encounters with his father’s stable hands (Davies, 1978
Harrison, 2005 Sinclair, 1993 Sylvester, 1998). While
the family papers were lost during the Irish Civil War,
historian David Fitzpatrick suggested that the men in
Bacon’s family were likely members of Freemasonry,
as British military officers in the region were often
Masons (personal communication, October 10, 2005).
This connection may help to explain the more obscure
elements in his paintings.
Bacon produced many images containing curtains and
a rectangular structure in the centre of a windowless
space he said he always loved rooms with extensive
curtains, citing those in his grandmother’s house
(Davies, 1978, p. 80 Harrison, 2005, p. 113). These
paintings, though, do not convey a domestic interior
but frame screaming figures, ghoulish popes, and
painfully contorted bodies, suggesting a more
frightening scenario.
In Freemasonry, the Holy Royal Arch rite involves
curtains and is based on the Old Testament story of the
second pilgrimage of the children of Israel. A society of
Royal Arch Masons is called a Chapter, and the ritual
space is set up to represent the tent-like tabernacle
where the Ark of the Covenant was kept, near the
ruins of Solomon’s temple. In the Irish version, it uses
four coloured curtains or veils (blue, purple, scarlet,
and white) that are suspended from a framework and
stretched across the Chapter room, creating a series
of cubicles (Duncan, 1866, p. 218). In the ritual, the
candidate must pass through each of these curtains
to undergo the ceremony known as the Passing of the
Veils, an intense experience described as representing
a mystical state, ‘a glimpse of what lies beyond death’
(Manasseh, n.d., p. 1, par. 3).2In
1
Ireland, this ceremony
is described as elaborate and full of symbolism, ‘to make
a lasting impression on the candidate’ (Aspeslet, n.d., p.
2). In this ritual, there are three Principals, or presiding
officers, who wear gowns and various headdresses the
Principal representing Joshua or the High Priest wears
a mitre, similar in style to a bishop or the pope (Cryer,
2002 Wells, 1984).
Bacon created a series of paintings depicting popes
in the 1950s and 1960s, initially based on Portrait of
Pope Innocent X by Diego Velázquez. They are set in
curtained spaces inside a rectangular framework,
using vertical stripes of paint such as purple in Pope
1 (1951) and scarlet in Untitled (Pope) (1950). This
curtained arrangement accompanies many of his
works, suggesting that it might represent a Royal Arch
initiatory space when set up for the Passing of the Veils.
What they contain, though, suggests a spurious version
of the ritual. Bacon’s popes seem to be screaming,
although the artist did not necessarily agree with this
interpretation and said that their open mouths could
indicate yawning, laughing or sneezing (Davies, 1978,
2 In Masonic rituals the term ‘candidate’ is used for a man who is being
admitted into a degree through an initiation process. He can be blindfolded
or wear particular clothing signifying his status. Once admitted, he will
receive regalia signifying his elevated status, such as a particular apron,
embroidered collar and symbolic jewels (Duncan, 1866).

45
Lynn Brunet |Ripping back the veil on Masonic abuse
p. 106–107). He may have been recording flashbacks
of a traumatic event imprinted on the visual memory,
but without a narrative context to explain them. Papal
mockery dates to the Restoration period, where effigies
of popes were burnt at the stake and has continued
since in Twelfth of July celebrations, even to this day
(Gray, 1972 Irish Republican News, 2025). Amongst
the Protestant English in Bacon’s time, the bizarrely
enacted popish figures in the veiled cubicles might
have doubled as both papal mockery and as a means of
shocking a young initiate.
Bacon was fascinated by ancient Egyptian art and visited
Cairo briefly in 1950, but the only reference he made to
it in his paintings was in his depiction of sphinxes in
curtained spaces (Bacon, 1998). In Sphinx III (1954),
this object is surrounded by a haphazard arrangement
of block-like forms. In the Royal Arch ritual, one side
of the hall is set up with a lot of obstacles, such as
blocks of wood or old furniture, to create what is called
the Rugged Road. Here, the Principal Sojourner states:
‘Stoop low, brethren. He that humbleth himself shall
be exalted’ (Duncan, 1866, p. 228, 234). This is where
the blindfolded candidate must negotiate an obstacle
path after having passed through the members forming
a Living Arch, where they knuckle and knead him
hard, even to the floor. This is supposed to symbolise
the many trials on the road to mystical enlightenment.
In Dublin, the Grand Royal Arch room in its Grand
Lodge is furnished in an Egyptian theme and on the
dais are two sphinxes (Curl, 1991 Grand Lodge of
Ireland, n.d.). Bacon’s Sphinx III could be depicting
a flashback to a similar abusive practice in a Masonic
context.
Many more elements in Bacon’s paintings, suggesting
Masonic themes and initiatory ordeals, are covered in
a longer version of this study (Brunet, 2009a). These
suggestions include references to blood-curdling
Masonic oaths and pledges, beef carcasses split in two
set in a ritualistic tableau, such as in Painting 1946 and
Figure with Meat (1954), and crucifixion scenes with
blindfolded figures. Orange Order themes also appear
in Bacon’s paintings, such as figures with bowler
hats and umbrellas. In Ireland, the Orange Order
is a Protestant fraternity representing a resistance
to the presence of Catholicism in the country. It has
modelled its own rituals on Freemasonry, but its focus
is on political matters rather than the more spiritual
and philosophical aspects of the Masonic Order.
Orangemen are colloquially known as the Men of No
Popery. The artist’s favourite colour was orange, and
he used it in many backgrounds, although he could
not explain why he liked it so much (Bacon, 1993, p.
170). Orangemen could have been present in spurious
rituals that Bacon may have been depicting in some of
his works.
Bacon’s many self-portraits suggest an internal sense
of fractured subjectivity, and his notes for paintings
occasionally refer to ‘the scene of the crime’ and ‘bed of
crime’, which have been interpreted as referring to his
homosexuality (Cappock, 2005, p. 187). However, on
one occasion in a short, scribbled note for one of his
paintings, he describes ‘a bed of crime... man pulling
screaming child in centre of circle... man’s figure
against tent’, and then it says how to turn it into a ‘ritual
image’ (Gale, 1999, p. 78–79, emphasis in original).
This note suggests that he might have been starting to
make connections between his childhood, his feelings
of trauma and some form of ritual crime. However,
at that time, there was no knowledge of the existence
of ritual abuse. But by staying true to the imprints on
his nervous system, Francis Bacon may have supplied
us with a detailed visual account of these practices in
Ireland in the early twentieth century.
Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
This author’s study of Bacon’s art was coupled with
the work of the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett in
response to a brief comment by Gilles Deleuze (2002, p.
40) that the bleak, ritualistic spaces they created were,
in some way, very similar. The argument proposed that
these spaces are those of the Holy Royal Arch rite and
suggested that Beckett might have also been exposed to
an abusive version of this ritual (Brunet, 2009a). Beckett
was from a well-to-do family in Dublin. His father
and grandfather were highly regarded businessmen,
and both were Freemasons (Bair, 1990 Cronin, 1997
Knowlson, 1996).
Beckett claimed that he had an uneventful childhood
but had no aptitude for happiness (Bair, 1990, p. 13).
By his young adulthood, he was suffering from deep
depression, extreme levels of anxiety and night terrors,
which kept him in bed curled up in a foetal position
for long periods (Gordon, 1996). These conditions led