For some time now, we have been gathering information in our particular areas of interest.  Our personal interest as Rosicrucians has been in the life of the Ephrata Cloister and the dedicated personalities who contributed to its unique historical significance in Colonial and Revolutionary America.

As a result of a visit I made there in 1983, I was faced with many new questions, which made it impossible to understand the significance Ephrata without also researching its connections with the Rosicrucian movement during the Reformation and Renaissance periods in Europe.  Now in 2002, I want to prepare you not to expect a flowery, nostalgic study, in a search for the truth of Rosicrucian connections.  The Seventh Day Baptist congregation of Conrad Beissel, for example, had many beliefs and practices that I found inconsistent with the Rosicrucians, and at first, it confused and disappointed me.  In order to clarify this, it was necessary to be able to identify certain aspects of it under Beissel at the Cloister, and to discuss more about the relatively few, coexisting Rosicrucian perfecti of the Zionitic Brotherhood than focused by previous historians, and bring out more of it's significance as a leading force at the Cloister.  First, the name "Zionitic" does not imply a Jewish connection, and is a possible allusion to the Essenes, to be discussed later.  These perfecti were still under the leadership of the successor of Kelpius, Conrad Mathaii, and later under Peter Miller.   It is essential to understand Ephrata in that broader context in the course of the Rosicrucian influence in Early America. 

We want to guide you through a discussion and demonstration of the lives and influences of the people of Ephrata and the part they played in the manifestation of the “dream” foretold by Sir Francis Bacon in his allegory, The New Atlantis.  The manifestation of this dream continues even into the present.

To fully appreciate America's Rosicrucian spiritual ancestors, we must try to put ourselves into the times in which they lived.  This we will try to create for you.  We hope that you will be able to sense their import on America as an emerging nation in the 17th and 18th Centuries and what it means to Rosicrucians today. 

In 2002, there is much more information to present in Sections II and III.  Because much is presented in a progressive manner throughout the slide program, in applicable order of topics, it is necessary to read the entire presentation in order to understand specifically most of what is outlined in summation in Conclusion 2002.   Please withhold any final conclusions about the information until after it is all presented.  A Table of Contents is available that will help later to review previously presented topics.