Recommendation // UNCOVERING LOCAL HISTORY
image by Joanna Nowak
The Society of the Women of the Wilderness
The legacy of a doomsday cult in the Wissahickon
By Lauren Earline Leonard
EXCERPT //
Johannes Kelpius arrived in William Penn’s Holy Experiment in 1694 as the leader of the German Pietistic sect, the Chapter of Perfection, whose adherents believed that the end times would come by way of astronomical phenomenon as foretold in Revelations Chapter 12.
The nation’s first doomsday cult, Kelpius and 39 other celibate monks, known as “The Society of the Woman in the Wilderness,” or the “Monks of the Ridge,” prepared for the end of days on a tract of land now called the Hermit’s Glen in the Wissahickon Valley (on the west side of the Wissahickon Creek, a mile upstream from the Schuylkill River). Similar to their Quaker neighbors, the Monks believed god existed not just on paper, but in the flesh, a source of light emanating from the heart and solar plexus. Guided by this light, they cleared land to grow vegetables and medicinal herbs and built log structures to serve as a tabernacle, a kitchen, sleeping quarters, and an astronomical observatory complete with a telescope. It is believed that Kelpius lived, prayed, and meditated alone in a nearby cave. While monitoring the skies, the Monks practiced alchemy, botany, and mathematics, and shared their knowledge of the law and music with their Germantown neighbors and the native Lenape. //
For full text and images, consider reading RQ in print, on a Sunday afternoon, sun streaming through your window, coffee in hand, and nary a phone alert within sight or in earshot… just fine words, fine design, and the opportunity to make a stitch in time. // Subscribe or buy a single issue today. // Print is dead. Long live print. //