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.
As radical Protestants during Kelpius's lifetime struggled to understand their changing climate and a seemingly eschatological cosmos, esoteric texts became crucial sources of meaning. Grieve-Carlson presents original translations of Kelpius's university writings, which have never been published in English, along with analyses and translations of other important sources from the period in German and Latin. Ultimately, American Aurora points toward a time and place when climate change caused an eruption of esoteric thought and practice-and how this moment has been largely forgotten.
"Introduction: ""Strange Things Happening Every Day"" Chapter One: ""No Wisdom in Nature"": Esotericism, Enthusiasm, and Ecology in Early Modern Europe Vita I: ""Strange things of the Invisible worlds"": Kelpius in Europe, 1667-1693 Chapter Two: ""Gone into the Ancient Forest"": Hermetic Protestantism and Environmental Knowledge in Early Pennsylvania Vita II: ""I cannot pass beyond to my homeland"": Kelpius in Rotterdam, London, and the Atlantic, 1693-1694 Chapter Three: ""The Woman in the Wilderness"": Kelpius and Company on the Ridge of the Wissahickon, 1694-1707 Chapter Four: The Threefold Wilderness State: Ascetic Alchemy and the Technology of Self-Negation Vita III: ""Delay not longer the blessed day"": Kelpius in Germantown, 1694-1703-4-5-6-7 Chapter Five: The Long Shadow of the Enlightenment: Memories of Kelpius in Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland (1798) Chapter Six: ""Weird as a Wizard"": History and Literature in the Emergence of the American Kelpius Legend Conclusion: An Unmute Gospel"
Timothy Grieve-Carlson is Assistant Professor of Religion at Westminster College.
