Rosicrucian Beacon Magazine - 2013-03 - AMORC

Germantown just north of Philadelphia
grew to an embracing curiosity about the whole moral and
physical world.” 1
But no single thread of narrative can give a true
account of the differences then generally prevailing in the
several departments of life between New England and the
Proprietary Settlement of Pennsylvania. These differences
ran the full gamut: religious, civic and social, even racial.
It is inadequate to say that the practical and useful
character of life in Philadelphia was more agreeable to the
young Franklin than the more inhibited one of Boston.
But the differences themselves were great enough to be
the subject of a small story. The need here is to deal mainly
with the philosophic, religious and fraternal background
of the country into which Franklin came, in order to show
how inevitable it was that he should have been influenced
almost immediately by the Rosicrucians, and subsequently
by the Masons whom he would have contacted in Boston
only much later, if at all.
A little over a hundred years before, the Rosicrucians
had gained public attention and some acclaim on the
Continent, especially in Germany. The Universal
Reformation of the Whole Wide World and The Fama
Fraternitatis played their part in extending Protestantism,
in gathering together non-sectarian philosophers, and
in encouraging generally the idea that a New Age was
at hand.
Religionists took heart and renewed their efforts to
bring the true spirit of Christian living into daily life; but
the situation, religiously and politically, had deteriorated
too far. The Evangelical Union of the Protestants of 1608,
matched by the Catholic League of 1609, the Counter
Reformation of 1612, and the Protestants’ violent refusal
to accept the Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand in 1618…,
culminated in the Thirty Years War, dimmed millennial
hopes, and presented convincing evidence to many that
the ‘last days’ were at hand.
The Quakers in England under Penn were successfully
waging a war for their rights, and Francis Bacon’s New
Atlantis had become another name for the New World.
Penn had visited Holland and Germany, being well
received there by various sects who could not agree with
one another. Inspired by the idea of a refuge in the New
World where they could either await the end or begin
life anew, little groups of dissenters made ready to start
for the New World.
The followers of Menno Simons founded
Germantown just north of Philadelphia in 1683. German
Pietists and Rosicrucians came in 1693 to establish the
colony of “The Woman in the Wilderness” in the valley
of the Wissahickon. The Lutherans had already been
established in Delaware country since 1637. Ten years
after Franklin’s first Philadelphia visit, religious refugees,
Schwenkfelders and the Bohemian Brethren most notably,
found refuge in the Proprietary Colony.
Rosicrucians in Europe had previously worked
secretly, outwardly losing themselves in whatever
organisation best served their liberal and humanitarian
purposes. Those who came to Pennsylvania were
university men, bent not so much on spreading their
knowledge of mysticism as on finding a place where
they could individually ready themselves by study and
meditation for the new era which according to their
calculations was at hand.
Their settlement, considering their desires and
habits of thought fresh from their warring and bickering
homeland, was of a retiring nature. In spite of their
withdrawal, their impact on the community was a
dignified and compelling one. Their leader, Johannes
Kelpius, became widely known and revered. After
Kelpius’ death, the community dwindled, becoming
almost nonexistent before Johann Conrad Beissel, a
young brother, came from Germany to found a second
community at Ephrata on the Cocalico. Rosicrucian
philosophy and practice thus had been a thing known
and respected in the Pennsylvania colony from 1693 or
shortly thereafter.
Valley of the Wissahickon
The Rosicrucian Beacon -- March 2013
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