Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

The Ramapo SalamanderbyDavid AdamsThe creators of the world wanted to protect human beings from evilspirits of greed and lust, so they imprisoned them beneath a steep mountaincalled High Tor. Much later the youngest of the three wise men, Amasis,heard the story of their imprisonment and decided to test his faith in theinfant Christ by finding the mountain and changing these spirits from evilto good.In a dream he saw the location of High Tor in New York and undertookthe long journey there overland across Asia, Alaska, and North America.When he arrived at High Tor, he built an altar on the mountain top. Becausehe refused to take the sun-worshipping faith of the Native American tribethere, they attacked him. He would have been killed in the attack except asudden earthquake tore the ground at his feet, and everyone fell into thecrevice except Amasis.To him was revealed in a magic vision the earth spirits in cavesbelow the mountain, heaping up jewels and offering to give them to himif he would speak a word that would bind his soul to the earth forces for athousand years. He refused, but he also was not able to change the spiritsfrom evil to good.Later, in 1740, a band of ironworkers led by Hugo came from theHarz Mountains in Germany to settle at High Tor in order to mine the richiron ore near there. When the Native American tribes saw their houses ofstone and their skill at forging knives and other wonderful metal tools fromthe ore they took out of the rocks by fire, they went away from the area,thinking the ironworkers to be divine beings.When Hugo, who was a Rosicrucian, heard of the Magus Amasis’searlier efforts with the spirits under the mountain, he had his men build a9