Beissel's Mysticism, Theosophy on a Slender Thread

Note: In Frames, Click Here for Full Screen at 2000 C.E. at The Four Corners
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.BACON'S "SECRET SOCIETY": THE EPHRATA CONNECTION

SECTION II — SLIDES AND RESEARCH ON EPHRATA
by Linda S. Schrigner, et al

Note: "In the wilderness of Pennsylvania, during the mid-eighteenth century, Beissel invented his own idiosyncratic version of alchemy from those pieces of Boehmean theosophy he absorbed as a young man in Germany. . . . Eventually, certain of the brothers formed a more exclusive mystical society, Zion [Zionitic Brotherhood, Slide 24], and constructed a building within which they could live, study esoteric knowledge, and practice arcane rites. The independently functioning Brotherhood and Sisterhood now became estranged for various reasons as the leaders of the Brotherhood directed the community's labors towards economic growth," according to Jan Stryz of Michigan State University. [Ref.: Additional Reading below Bibliography]

Conrad Beissel [1690-1768] did not have the benefit of the training that would bring him to a personal synthesis of broad Rosicrucian and Christian mystical principles concerning the underlying universal laws of spirituality.

Sachse also explains, referring to a chapter written by Corliss Fitz Randolph on Seventh Day Baptists:

". . . the theosophy of Conrad Beissel really hung upon a slender thread."

He felt that indeed the "chief textbook and basis for Beissel’s speculations," as he put it, was a book by an obscure theologian about married and unmarried life. He concluded that "the groundwork for Beissel’s mysticism" was a combination of these beliefs about celibacy, renunciation of self and absorption into God, and the concept of the Ego and Non-Ego to which he was introduced by the Rosicrucians in Heidelberg.

We know that Beissel’s strong, charismatic leadership determined the policies and practices at Ephrata, and so it becomes clear that with so few initiated Rosicrucians there, the Rosicrucian influences while evident, were really only coexistent with the religious activities.

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