The memories left of Colonial and Revolutionary Ephrata come from a time when the free practice of individual ideas and beliefs were the paramount concern to people who journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean to begin a new life. 

What does one do who is individualistic in independent thought and desire for the freedom to be who one is, when the very laws of the land dictate what may be publicly expressed and what even may be freely practiced privately in accordance with one's own personal views?  What does such a one do, when joining together with others of like mind and heart, in a great interchange of ancient wisdom of the greatest minds of the past?  When William Penn in his 20s in college, decided that, yes, no one man is above another in accordance with God's universal scheme of things, where all human beings are created equally, he refused to take off his hat in the presence of the King himself.  However, he soon learned as others did, that while all people were created as equally as another, the opportunities available to improve the quality of one's life were restricted to a relative few in society's scheme of things.  Opportunities for a certain freedom that comes of respectable equality under the laws of the land would continue be unavailable for most people outside the mainstream, unless the conditions in which one lived were changed, or unless one sought to make a new world for oneself somewhere else.  That is what Penn did in a big way in the land of the Pennsylvania colony, and it is what thousands of others did in the 17th and 18th Centuries in going to America.

To all those risk taking people who left the Old World to face a wilderness frontier of an unknown future, all things of life were secondary to being able to live, think and act freely.  Long decades and centuries of political factions ruling over the will of the people historically had been spent by countless independent thinkers, managing lives filled with danger from the laws of heresy.  Such individuals were forced by conditions to seek quiet, private activities of the mind, sometimes in secret with others mutually, that would internally fulfill their heart's desire to be able to think for themselves and to choose freely what to study, believe, and practice in accordance with their own conscience.

People who came to America for the purposes of religious freedom idealized life, that is, they had the vision, of a better purpose for life, and had the will to accomplish needful, difficult changes in a unique way in order to satisfy their high ideals.  That distinguished them from many of the ruling social aristocrats they left behind.  They were decidedly different, too, from most aristocrats who also came to America specifically to serve loyally their country's colonial objectives. 

When we consider that the greater majority of colonialists were of an individualistic mind and willful emotional make-up, so as to brave the unknown in a quest for all that could possibly be made to be manifest in their lives, perhaps we can imagine for a moment that when they might all join together with the force of their collective hearts' desire, even rising out of a variegated fabric of religious beliefs and personal opinions, there could be but one outcome.  They could not fail to succeed in the need for a universal rule of law that—in order to satisfy in some natural way the expression of their diversity—must be made on the basis of principle, by high-minded, thinking individuals.  Such a universal rule must be independent of any religious consideration, under an institutionalized separation of "church and state."  The very composite nature of a world that could even possibly transcend all religious dogmas and personal opinions must involve a mutually accepted premise that philosophically, all may adhere to in a representative government, and that all could continue to uphold in good conscience.  High-minded thinkers are philosophers, who recognize and honor the inclusivity of the balance of all Nature, that is universal to all life—life that functions under a greater, more pervasive, Law of the universe, than may be established alone by any men and women on Earth. Philosophers in government can make anything happen by the force of commitment to universal law, and by being able to rise above obstacles that would obstruct a necessary achievement.

The Rosicrucian influence at the Ephrata Cloister is all but lost and forgotten on a public tour, except for an original document that was preserved under glass at the museum, photographed and presented here from my visit in 1983.  Scholars research the Cloister archives for history about the Rosicrucian influence, but most focus upon Conrad Beissel's German Seventh Day Baptist congregation.  It must be understood that Rosicrucianism is something very different in scope and nature than the religious opinions and dogma of any church.  However, many points of universal wisdom runs through all religions, no matter how different their points of dogma may be.  Rosicrucians are interested in direct knowledge about how the universal laws function in earthly matters, and why it is important in the course of daily life to make the most of our personal time on Earth for further experience, education, understanding, and the ongoing general development of consciousness, our attitudes toward life, and all that life encompasses. 

The Ephrata document under glass was written by Jacob Martin, Cloister Alchemist in 1740, which would indicate that he was a member of the Zionitic Brotherhood during Beissel's cloister leadership.  It was written in German and is unreadable in this digitized photographic image, however, the museum display indicates that it discusses Rosicrucian philosophic concepts. 

The leadership behind the scenes at the Cloister, the Zionitic Brotherhood of Rosicrucian perfecti, must not be overlooked in writing a history of the influence of Rosicrucians in the American Colonies.  In order to understand it, we must consider many things:  We must remember where the Zionitic and also the Kelpius brethren came from before going to America, and we must remember their extensive education, their scientific, and initiatic background in metaphysics and mysticism, concerning an understanding of the mysteries of life and the wisdom of the ages.  We must also contemplate the possible intended significance of naming a non-Jewish group of Rosicrucians by a name that alludes to an Essenne Order based in Jerusalem at a time when a new Master Teacher by the name of Jesus was born to a Jewish couple who were also Essenes.  If we understand the differences in doctrine that the Jewish-born Jesus discussed with the rabbis in the temple and taught to the multitudes, then we must wonder more about the Essene Order and it's doctrines.  We must also ask why representatives of only a certain sect of the Essenes left Israel to live in the lands that became Europe.  We must wonder why many of the mystery students in Egypt of the Greek teacher there, called Hermes, migrated to those lands, too, and carried on in a Rosicrucian tradition known as Hermeticism.  Finally, why were Mary and Joseph instructed in a dream, to take the newborn Jesus and go to Egypt in particular, for safety?  These few points, of many centuries of written history, are fundamental to finding and understanding better, the nature of the work of 18th Century Rosicrucians in America.

Peter Miller [1710-1796], who succeeded Conrad Beissel in 1768 and led the Cloister through the embattlement of revolutionary times, was a graduate of Heidelberg University.  Johannes Kelpius and many others we have discussed of the American transplanted Rosicrucian perfecti amongst the brethren who left the Old World to help establish a New World, were also educated there, at near-by universities, and had some personal esoteric activity in that part of Germany.  As referenced earlier in Section II, Heidelberg was a center of Rosicrucian focus for many centuries.  Rosicrucians of the 16th Century Reformation following the Middle Ages [476 C. E. with the fall of the Roman Empire to 1450 C.E., aka Dark Ages] and in the following 17th Century Renaissance or Age of Enlightenment, were among the literate class, in times when only the privileged were able to have a formal education.  Less fortunate individuals as a rule could not read or write, and in fact, many were not permitted by law to be taught. This limited the scope of knowledge for the mass population of the world.  Not only were people restricted to what was preached verbally in church, they were restricted from knowing what ancient philosophers had taught.  They could read, and especially, they could not read Greek and Latin, the language of scholarly manuscripts, whether original or translated from other lands such as Egypt and Israel.

As early as with the establishment of the Lutheran Church during the Reformation, clerics (or ministers of God) wrote and spoke out protesting what in their perceptions were inappropriate, incorrect church dogma that was inconsistent with universal principles demonstrated by Nature.  But even the protestants of the 17th Century, who knew of the universal rights of human beings born on Earth under God, were still politically encumbered even within their own churches, from the free expression of what they came to know.  Rosicrucian clerics in particular, like Zimmerman and Kelpius, understood the great vision of a land of philosophic freedom amongst other men and women who were born equally on Earth.  One of the first steps to a free society involved the education of all people who wanted to learn more about life and the world, which the early Rosicrucian American clerics set about to accomplish in the colonies.

In America the Rev. Peter Miller also had already been a member of Benjamin Franklin's American Philosophical Society (1743), formerly the Leather Apron Club (1727), long before he became a member at the Ephrata Cloister during its infancy in 1735.  Before then, too, he spent time at the Hermit's ridge on the banks of the Wissahickon River, and joined in the work of other remaining perfecti under the leadership of Johannes Kelpius's [1673-1708] successor, Conrad Mathaii [1678-1748].  Miller was also considered to be a good personal friend of General George Washington.  Finally, Benjamin Franklin called upon the aid of Peter Miller for a number of talents that he had, including the ability to translate the Declaration of Independence into several languages.  Today Miller continues to be remembered for this in tribute on a wall of the hallways at the Pennsylvania State Legislature in Philadelphia. 

As discussed in Section III, The American Philosophical Society (18th Century) was a colonial version of London's Royal Society (17th Century), and was in succession with historian Yates' well researched Bohemian Brethren (16th Century, ref. the earlier Royal Society in the Palatinate of western Germany).  By the mid-17th Century, historians had also recognized corresponding elements of Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis in the Rosicrucian Manifestos that were in manuscript form as early as or sooner than the 15th Century, and were only publicized at a time during the religious Reformation, when conditions were ripe for a public expression of the greater universal humanitarian need for education in the written and spoken word, as well as in the spirit of one's own individually perceived, in-dwelling consciousness or conscience (i.e., con-science). 

In order to carry on the need for further education in con-science, or education in accordance with Nature and its laws as demonstrated by processes and effects, The Royal Society, was established in London by many Rosicrucians sometime after their many discussion meetings of 1648-1659.  They were people who were also formally members of the Bohemian Brethren.  In its new form, its basis was referred to as "Baconianism," that became a hallmark of the Age of Enlightenment, having much to do with writings that came from a scientific approach to knowledge by past Rosicrucian giants, such as Bacon's own Advancement of Learning, Decartes' Discourse on Method, Spinoza's Ethics...., Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, and, of course, many, many others including the findings in mathematics by fellow Rosicrucian Englishman, Dr. John Dee.  The Rosicrucians amongst themselves secretly, had already been applying the "Baconian modern scientific process," expressed in The New Atlantis, as a temple of science, and adopted by the London Royal Society.  As H. G. Wells put it:

"It's formation [the London Royal Society] marks a definite step from isolated inquiry towards co-operative work, from the secret and solitary investigations of the alchemist to the frank report and open discussion which is the life of the modern scientific process.  For the true scientific method is this:  to make no unnecessary hypothesis, to trust no statements without verification, to test all things as rigorously as possible, to keep no secrets, to attempt no monopolies, to give out one's best modestly and plainly, serving no other end but knowledge."

However, The Royal Society of London was also a form of organization that re-established an earlier Royal Society that largely was led and influenced by Dr. John Dee [1527-1608].  With a different focus on society's individuals who were interested in the higher scientific and theological queries into the functioning of Nature, the Royal Society of London could address the goal oriented needs of the current political environment in a different framework of time, and still continue working toward the same earlier Rosicrucian purposes:  a greater education for all people, a greater understanding of the divinity within humans, and the freedom rights of individual citizens under a civil government. 

Likewise, after his induction into The Royal Society, Benjamin Franklin [1706-1790] founded the American Philosophic Society to address the specific needs of the time in the American colonies.  He also carried on in the same Rosicrucian tradition under his personal leadership that would include by contact extension, countless other perfecti of different Rosicrucian groups, as earlier discussed in Sections II and III, whose work was to help perfect the process of human evolution on Earth.  Again, the perfecti understood much of the same knowledge of the ages—scientific, theological, and metaphysical, under a Divine Intelligence of the universe that they defined as "deist" or deistic, and who, even within their individual, various religious practices, considered themselves to be deists.  Deists believe in God by any name, universally always present, all-knowing, in all things—pervading all the universe,  and in all matters upon Earth.  This principle of universal divinity became a foundation of American Constitutional law protecting religious freedom in America, as well as other human rights that came to be established under the laws of the land.

A government protecting individual freedom, to be founded at all, must be founded in America by high-minded people recognizing and honoring the natural, integrated divinity of all life.  It necessitated having a land free of tyrannical rule, where the fertile foundations of the human landscape of life would continue to be nurtured continuously and repeatedly with each new or newly defined issue needing redress.  This would provide for the ongoing, even more widespread free, natural development of human evolution upon Earth.  The same understanding of life that had been attained by individuals over many previous centuries, who secretly studied, experimented and practiced what they had learned from the wisdom of the ages, would be able to become available to all people for the simple desire to understand.  Literacy would become the expectation and not the exception of any citizen.  People would naturally open their minds and hearts to seek real answers to questions never before contemplated by the majority.

Thus it was, that the year 1694 was the time when the spirit of the Rosicrucians was carried to the New World, in preparation for the oncoming needful changes for an open philosophical landscape in the form of a government of the people.  William Penn, another Rosicrucian perfecti initiate, made the law of his land of Pennsylvania, respecting all believers in God, and amidst many differing religions the Rosicrucians lived and worked.  Whether they were hermits in a cave, philosophers on the street, preachers in church, choir masters, or whether they were judges, regional rulers, soldiers, nurses, writers, teachers, politicians, bankers or investors—whatever occupation in which they were involved and best at doing, all contributed in their own way to the growing, so-called "spirit of America," and brought about the conditions necessary to establish a form of government.  The meetings and activities were centered in the "City of Brotherhood" as Philadelphia came to be known.  The government would be one that would provide for both compromise with and protection of the integration of a great American diversity of individual interests.

Philosopher statesmen, scientists and theologians, who were high-minded men joined men like-minded men like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, many men and women behind the scenes who were unnamed, unknown to the world and uncounted, many who members of other organizations and Orders in addition to those who were the members of The American Philosophical Society.  Such leaders were able to set their hearts selflessly on an equal scale to balance others at all levels of society who understood with them—the necessity of a government for all people universally, and not merely a government of the few able to have the most personal influence and power.  But they knew, too, that personal influence and power is also a natural ingredient of any human endeavor, and the laws of the land must protect individual rights for those of influence and personal power, equally as well as the rights of less fortunate citizens of the land. 

The key for this was in the underlying principle of an institutionalized great humanitarian compromise that, filled with the inevitable imperfections of manmade law, would at least equally balance the human imperfections that would be brought to bear in any possible given circumstances that a lawful governmental process could ever be required to resolve.  In the final analysis, that is what a Democratic Republic was established to accomplish, as a "living, breathing process" in the lives of the people.  The chosen form of government was designed as a process of redress of issues as needed, and not as an absolute end in and of itself.  To "redress" a law or a condition, is to make a necessary adjustment, to make corrections of faults, or to resolve a problem,  In other words, it has to do with compensation, a balancing that results in a certain satisfaction of accomplishment for all concerned.  Absolutism must be avoided, as a lesson that all knew of tyrannical nations where leadership could change hands by overthrowing an unfounded, non-universal basis of those who were in power, where there was no possible course of redress.  In America, Constitutional Law would reign supreme over any man or woman, and because of the ongoing process of compromise that redress usually requires amidst diversity and varied opinions, the democratic process would be able continually to seek balance and general acceptance.  Under a separation of the Federal executive, legislative, and judicial powers, Constitutional Law would continue to hold sway over the potential ultimate effects from numerous factions, including the separated powers of the States of the Union, under applicable Federal laws, as well. 

Of all the different possible religious or personal beliefs about God and life, the Republic mechanism requiring compromise amongst different possible power and influence factions would allow for the Democratic process of achievement:   That it could even be possible to manifest or provide for potential equal opportunities and protection for all.  Various new opportunities may be possible to manifest in the present, or at any future time.  The vehicle for the process to function would be in place at all times.  Where issues of equal opportunity would be possible after the applicable coordinate factions in effect have converged naturally upon any given issue, and are then held to the will of all people concerned, the very same Constitutional law would continue to apply, as was established to allow the ongoing expression of and response to perceived need.  One person, one vote in a Democratic Republic makes a living, breathing entity of the U.S. Constitutional Law of the People, because of a separation of representative powers that are brought to bear in a process of arriving at essential compromised solutions.  As a nation of people evolves and matures naturally for a multitude of humans joined together, so, too, does the representational law of compromise evolve and respond accordingly in the process for further necessary adjustments, or redress, along the way.  As needs become apparent, and the actions of others that are contrary to universal principles affecting all concerned become self-evident in a Democratic Republic, those needs are thus brought into focus and the process of redress set into motion.  Nature continuously seeks out balance, and continually makes necessary adjustments as new conditions develop that tend to make imbalance.  So it is, that such understanding was integrated into the American form of Democratic Republic, from the wisdom of the ages understood by the Founding Fathers.

For an imperfect humanity, the Democratic Republic is an equally imperfect government, but for an imperfect collective of humans anywhere, it is the closest possible perfect form of government yet found on Earth.  America in its early days in world history was the land on Earth at that point in time, that would be able to allow for those conditions necessary then, where such a universal law as written down by world class philosophers the 18th Century, could continue to sustain itself—regardless of those who would later attempt to thwart it or otherwise attempt to distort or destroy it for their own individual,  selfish, human interests. 

Bacon's New Atlantis and Plato's Republic both, while being referred to as being "utopian" in nature, did indeed come to pass in the land that would become the United States of America.  The Great Law of the Republic of the Democratic Will of the People, continues to prevail because it allows for necessary breathing and exhaling in its own natural process of compromise that is based upon a continually developing evolution of the consciousness of people, amidst an ever present diversity of changing understanding and changing opinions, for the ongoing greater unified interest of all concerned.  It is thus that America is continually in the process of "making a more perfect Union."

Bacon's "Secret Society" was not really Bacon's society, in his own lifetime or even later when the London Royal Society was established.  It was a society that was the result of a convergence of humanity's needs growing out of the human oppression of different centuries.  "Life" is intended to express itself in accordance with the Natural laws of cause and effect.  Through the study and work of different unknown individuals, men and women of various backgrounds, talents, and occupations, a common interest emerged that needed expression conserning the necessary freedom for the continuing process of evolution, or a broader understanding within humanity's realization of life.  While it included statesmen, scientists and theologians, it included people generally of independent thought who had studied the history of human events occurring specifically under the laws of Nature. 

The Rosicrucian movement as it was known in the 16th and 17th Century, was a general movement in behalf of humankind, a humanitarian movement of philosophers from all points of the compass in the final analysis.  It was a movement not of one "Rosicrucian Order," but a Rosicrucian movement of many committed individuals and many different organizations and Orders who joined together as One.  For personal protection they were secretly networked amongst the high and low, the formally educated and self-educated, the religious and deist; they were in the hills and valleys of life; they were in political asylums and at the front of warring battles with religious and political factions who held sway over the lives of others.  They were the people's people, who set out to educate others less capable, who had protected the rights of individuals wherever possible under the rule of demigods, who planned for a new destiny that would be inevitable in the course of the ongoing evolutionary development of human consciousness, who made happen the establishment of a free land, to live freely under one's own conscience to choose.

It was a "secret society" that came to be known as "Rosicrucian" in nature, that included men and women of all philosophical and spiritual persuasions, who in effect joined the four corners of a cross on Earth and were one with them under God, the universal divinity in all people—however differently God may be defined—in order to establish as perfect a union as possible out of imperfect human beings.  Each individual and group involved in the American colonies formed a necessary part of the whole, in a process that would move toward an inevitable manifestation of a universal law of the land in America, that would respect and protect the rights of individuals and amidst a sea of varied beliefs and opinions. 

The "Ephrata connection" was that the Rosicrucian perfecti and other members of the Cloister who were Seventh Day Baptists, each made up but one of many groups that joined as one in America to make a free New World.  The role of the Rosicrucians was a role working toward objectives of the western esoteric tradition in perfecting the conditions necessary for a more direct, natural process of the evolution of the human consciousness on Earth.  The integration of universal principles underlying the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the very process of the Democratic Republic form of government, established a relatively free exchange of ideas that has continually accelerated the development of the human understanding attitude toward other people, indeed the development of a more expanded consciousness of the universality of the purposes of all life to be what is in its nature to be.

People are imperfect, many errors of commission and omission have occured since the time when American founding fathers put the words on the official parchment that became the Declaration of Independence; the U.S. Constitution separating church and state, and separating the three primary powers of government; the Bill of Rights, with further Amendments adding at various times in the process of redress.  Over time many of the universal principles have been, by some American leaders and citizens, overlooked, ignored or lost to an ongoing realization in new generations.  Many imperfections of the American people as a collective consciousness, have continued to be reflected in the absence at times, of the continued application of universal values and judgments in decision making.  There are still some laws on the books in federal, state and local governments, that are not in accordance with universal matters, and continually others that are not are being brought in piece by piece, erroding the original universal intent of the U.S. Constitution.  This is the meaning of the admonition:  The price of liberty is eternal vigilance!  However, as we live and breathe each day, the ongoing evolution of the American, and indeed, the world consciousness continues, whether it is realized that the greater truths of the divinity of all life that deserves respect, deserves recognition, and deserves positive, effective response and application in the work of the government.  All the nations of the world are realizing more and more about this, and are responding to new insight in working within their own nations and with other nations.

To continue the process of succeeding in the betterment of human conditions, we humans everywhere must first get passed the point where the influential few will not 
allow the principle of selfishness or the single-minded pressure of lobbying groups, to drive an entire Nation solely according to such ends.  Why?  Because then, the principles outlined in the foundations of the American Democratic Republic will not become more and more alive in the continuing process "to make a more perfect Union," and the threat becomes possible, that the Union could indeed conceivably "perish from the Earth" at the hands of a few—again—due to following the lead of an imperfect understanding of the wisdom and experience of humanity throughout the ages.  A government representative of the people must be able to see blindly passed the expectations of any constituency, and include the greater universal applications of the divine intelligence within us all in the process of all decision making. Decisions should be made with the intention of the greater possible good of all concerned, with a vision that excludes no one unnecessarily.

Many Orders today of the western esoteric tradition, by many different names, continue to work as individuals toward the common betterment of the evolution of the human consciousness individualy, at all levels.  The true and invisible Order is known only by those whom it's pristine tradition has found, and it functions through all Orders established that work in keeping with universal principles, for the betterment of humanity.  Each individual, however, comes to his or her own personal understanding through personal experience, and not by the simple words of another person or even, any organization.

In 1915, Dr. H. Spencer Lewis founded "The Rosicrucian Order, AMORC" as a fraternal organization of men and women in America, and eventually internationally, with a very different focus than Rosicrucians in 18th Century America.  The time had arrived where because of the establishment of civil freedom rights of individuals in matters of independent thought and action, it was no longer necessary for "Rosicrucianism" as a movement to be embroiled in the political and warring issues about religion and science, or about being able to think and act freely in an open society. 

The "Rosicrucian Order" as established by Lewis is derived from the same initiatic lineage of earlier Rosicrucians of the western esoteric tradition concerning metaphysics, mysticism and related topics of inquiry into Nature and the universe.  The focus in the cycle of Rosicrucian activity of the Lewis lineage in America, therefore, was in making available to a greater number of modern individuals, certain aspects of metaphysics and pragmatic mysticism, that help people to understand many of the universal principles functioning in their own lives.  (Meta = that study that came after, and physics = study of universal laws affecting physical reality).  From their own direct, indepedent study, they are able to build happier and healthier lives for themselves and their families. 

The monograph work of Dr. Lewis and the objectives carried on by his son Ralph M. Lewis and succeeding Imperator Gary L. Stewart, has continued to be available under the Order of the Confraternity of the Rose Cross.  Imperator Stewart also carries in the work today, his own additional lineage of the western esoteric tradition.  The western esoteric tradition includes many different Orders in addition to the Rosicrucians.