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American Aurora : environment and Apocalypse in the life of Johannes Kelpius / Timothy Grieve-Carlson.

Oxford Scholarship Online: Religion Available online

View online
Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Grieve-Carlson, Timothy, author.
Series:
Oxford studies in Western esotericism.
Oxford scholarship online.
Oxford studies in Western esotericism
Oxford scholarship online
Language:
English
German
Latin
Subjects (All):
Kelpius, John, 1667?-1708.
Kelpius, John.
Kelpius, John, 1667?-1708--Influence.
Protestants--Pennsylvania--Biography.
Protestants.
Pennsylvania--Church history--17th century.
Pennsylvania.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (329 pages)
Edition:
1st ed.
Place of Publication:
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2024]
Language Note:
Text in English with some parts translated from the German or Latin.
Summary:
'American Aurora' explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Focusing on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensively misunderstood theologian who settled outside of Philadelphia from 1604 to 1707, Timothy Grieve-Carlson explores the Hermetic and alchemical dimensions of Kelpius's Christianity before turning to his legacy in American religion and literature. This engaging analysis showcases Kelpius's forgotten theological intricacies, spiritual revelations, and cosmic observations, illuminating the complexity and foresight of an important colonial mystic.
Contents:
Cover
American Aurora
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: "Strange Things Happening Every Day"
"Phoenomena, Meteors, Stars and Various Colours of the Skei"
The Crisis of Piety
Environment and Apocalypse
Global Crisis
1. "No Wisdom in Nature": Esotericism, Enthusiasm, and Ecology in Early Modern Europe
Extraordinary Heavenly Phenomena
The Crises of Early Modernity
Enthusiasm, Esotericism, and Ecology
Hermeticism and Alchemy
Hermetic Protestant Environmental Knowledge
"Nature Is the Interpreter of Scripture"
"No Wisdom in Nature"
Metamorphosis of the Metaphysics
Vita I. "Strange Things of the Invisible Worlds": Kelpius in Europe, 1667-​1693
2. "Gone into the Ancient Forest": Hermetic Protestantism and Environmental Knowledge in Early Pennsylvania
Pastor Schuhmacher's Apocalypse
Early American Hermetic Protestantism
"All of It Is Only Forest"
Holy Experiments
"Every Plant Praises and Extols God"
"Moves Nature in a Jumping Fit /​ According to His Pleasure"
"The Genius of the Americans Is Bound Another Way"
Vita II. "I Cannot Pass beyond My Homeland": Kelpius in Rotterdam, London, and the Atlantic, 1693-​1694
"The Poor People Call'd Pietests"
"I Cannot Pass beyond My Country"
3. "The Woman in the Wilderness": Kelpius and Company on the Ridge of the Wissahickon, 1694-​1707
The Woman in the Wilderness
"For Wilderness Signifies Hidden"
The Wissahickon Hermits
The Keithian Schism
"Everything Too Spiritual and Too Heavenly"
"The Rooms in My Father's House"
"Contemplation of the Stars"
The Lamenting Voice of the Hidden Love
"An Antient Hermit Who Lives in a Lone House"
4. The Threefold Wilderness State: Ascetic Alchemy and the Technology of Self-​Negation
The Threefold Wilderness State.
The Sources of the Threefold Wilderness State
The Technology of Self-​Negation
Vita III. "Delay Not Longer the Blessed Day": Kelpius in Germantown, 1694-​1703-​4-​5-​6-​7
5. The Long Shadow of the Enlightenment: Memories of Kelpius in Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland (1798)
The Long Shadow Falls
An American Tale
Effects without Cause
"Hermes Never Taught Thee"
The Great Derangement
Long Shadow Fallen
6. "Weird as a Wizard": History and Literature in the Emergence of the American Kelpius Legend
Mühlenberg's Report
The Philosopher of the Forest
Chronicon Ephratense
The Spiritual Travel of Conrad Matthai
The Method of Prayer
The History of Human Folly
"Weird as a Wizard"
"Rosicrucian Vestiges"
All Folk Songs Are True
Conclusion: An Unmute Gospel
Notes
References
Index.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on March 16, 2024).
ISBN:
0-19-776560-2
0-19-776558-0
OCLC:
1427198693

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