At One with the Mystics

Climbing into a hole in Fairmount Park to see if a bunch of 17th-century monks left their mojo.

by Will Dean

SPIRITUAL SPELUNKING: "When I was 23 I went down to the cave, which is kind of like going down to the valley of our consciousness," says Ringgold. Will Dean (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

I'd heard about the cave. The one in the park, off Hermit Lane. This place, Kelpius' Cave, where, some 300 years ago, a bunch of mystics (some have called them a doomsday cult) used a squat opening in the side of a hill in what is now Fairmount Park as a meditation spot to commune with nature and attain personal enlightenment (and, apparently, await the second coming).

Though I'm not a particularly spiritual guy, I was curious. I decided I needed to find the cave. Who couldn't use a little enlightenment, especially when all it'd cost is a walk in the park? I hoped that, like radioactive fallout at Chernobyl, some of the monks' special enlightenment energy was still active enough to make a visit special.

In 1694, a group of mystics led by Johannes Kelpius — a Pietist who believed the world would be ending that year — fled religious oppression in Germany and settled in Pennsylvania. Though Kelpius died in 1708 without his predicted doomsday arriving and his group followed in the late 18th century, the larger group he was a part of, known as the Rosicrucians, still exist in Philly and around the world. The Rosicrucian AMORC (Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis) places itself in a long tradition of mystical groups and secret spiritual schools, dating back to the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaton. (One member told me they actually trace their lineage back to Atlantis, but documentation of this outside of the order's archives is understandably hard to come by.)

Drawing from mystical groups like the Pythagoreans in Ancient Greece, the Christian Gnostics, Buddhist teachings and Hermetic traditions, the Rosicrucians cover a dizzying array of older religious groups but, surprisingly, lack any form of concrete dogma.

"We don't really have beliefs, we're more of a school teaching people how to take control of your life," says Joseph Musil, member of the local Rosicrucian group, the Benjamin Franklin Pronaos. "We don't get the answers for you, but rather teach you to find the answers within yourself."

Rosicrucians believe that there is a divine part to all people, and through study, introspection, prayer and meditation, one can bring that part into harmony with the cosmic energy that makes up reality. They exercise those skills with a meditation for peace at the Free Library every month.

I met members of the Benjamin Franklin Pronaos at their Learning Center in Northeast Philadelphia (benjaminfranklin.rosicrucian.org). There, Don Ringgold, a lanky, middle-aged African-American man who holds the title of Master, told me he had a personal experience with Kelpius and the cave.

Will Dean (CLICK IMAGES FOR LARGER VERSIONS)

"When I was 23 I went down to the cave, which is kind of like going down to the valley of our consciousness where we can attune ourselves through meditation to the cosmic and we can get answers," Ringgold explains. "I was looking for some purpose in my life so I meditated in the cave and though I didn't really know about Kelpius, I was there with him cosmically."

Ringgold left the cave and got the answer he wanted. "I felt this warmth throughout my body. I looked up and the clouds were moving away from the sun and beams of light came down right on me," Ringgold says. "I went home and it was just as though my hands started to write on their own."

Ringgold ended up composing an epic poem titled "The Judge Cometh" and realized that he wanted to devote his life to stopping disease. He credits Kelpius with helping him find this answer.

I decided I wanted an experience like Ringgold's. I'm the right age — 23 — and despite my agnosticism, I'm looking for some kind of answer, some kind of spiritual experience. The closest thing to a vision or an awakening I've ever had was the time I took a lot of mushrooms and had a long conversation with a tree. At the very least, some kind of inspired automatic writing experience would make my job a lot easier.

So I packed up a sandwich, some water and a copy of Gravity's Rainbow to impress anyone I met, and with my fake 1920s explorer/journalist hat on, I headed for the cave.

At the intersection of three paths in the Wissahickon area of Fairmount Park, I found it. A lot of the surrounding wilderness — which surely lent the cave some of its secluded power back in the day — is now gone, replaced by East Falls and Manayunk. It's a little ways off Hermit Lane. Heading east on the lane, you take the first entrance on the right into Fairmount Park, go left around a baseball diamond, walk through an oddly placed but pretty cool mountain bike park (where I saw one guy get at least 10 feet off a trick) and then follow the path at the southeast end of the bike park.

A sizable marker informs me that this is where Johannes Kelpius "Contented of The God-Loving Soul" used to meditate. Unfortunately, the marker is also covered in graffiti. I'm all for graffiti and the reclamation of spaces through art, but I feel kind of bad that this odd little sacred space is now also home to "Hail Satan 666." The one positive is that the crudely drawn swastika, which some dumb kid always paints, is crossed out and "Satan > Nazis" is written under it. Good to know the local satanist kids are anti-Nazi.

I get ready to go down the one step into the cave when I realize I forgot a flashlight. This is, after all, a cave. I venture in using the pale blue light of my six-year-old brick of a cell phone to guide me. The cave is only 20 feet deep and about 12 feet wide. Painted white crosses adorn the three walls and the ceiling. The air smells of dirt and the walls are lined by old rocks mortared together.

Settling into a central spot, I try to meditate, focus on my problems and then let them go. Bye-bye, ex-girlfriends who left me. So long, asshole capitalist plutocrats who run the world. Fuck off, kids who made fun of me in middle school.

As is usually the case when I try to meditate, I feel calmer, a bit removed and a little high. It's hard to stay focused, though. Thoughts keep creeping in: What if those satanist kids come by and jump me? I lack discipline, or maybe it's just the postmodern world encroaching on this old mystical spot. I can still hear the hollow thrum of cars on nearby Lincoln Drive. And there's a bunch of trash in the cave: The burnt remnants of a white T-shirt, an empty condom wrapper, a tube of healing ointment and a silvery emergency blanket festoon the dirt floor.

Aside from feeling relaxed, though, nothing unusual enters my mind. The Rosicrucian Order is a secretive group, so some parts of their tradition are for members only, including what happens at some ceremonies and the specifics of higher levels of study. This, according to members, is to protect people who are not prepared for the truth. Maybe I'm missing something important.

Will Dean (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

There's only so much time left to learn, too. Another oddity about the order is that it goes through 108-year cycles of activity and inactivity. The present period of activity began in 1915, and in 2023 they'll decide whether to go into a period of rest and retirement from the public world.

My own plan of rest and meditation has let the sun go down, darkening the bright entrance of the cave. Sitting in complete darkness should make it easier to meditate, but it just makes me a little more jumpy. I think my left foot is falling asleep.

I hear a scritch-scritch sound. Slowly turning to the left, I shine my phone's weak light on the ground. Just some rocks. Ordinary, safe cave rocks. One rock, about the size of baby's head, starts moving. I limp as fast as I can (I was right about my foot) out of the cave. After I calm down and distance myself from the cave, I consider my attempt at forcing enlightenment. I wasn't really expecting anything to happen, so maybe that's why nothing did. Maybe I'm just not a spiritual person, as I've long suspected.

As I scurry along the trail under an almost full moon, I'm certain of at least one thing: I don't want to know what kind of weird creatures hang out in mystical caves after dark. Journalists looking for answers are bad enough.

(w_dean@citypaper.net)

Meditation for Peace, Sun., Oct. 7, free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St. Open House, second and fourth Saturday of every month, Benjamin Franklin Pronaos and Learning Center, 8458 Frankford Ave., free, benjaminfranklin.rosicrucian.org.