Johann Conrad Beissel (March 1, 1691 – July 6, 1768) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

-born

religious Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...

leader who in 1732 founded the Ephrata Community in the

Province of Pennsylvania The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn, who received the land through a grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania was derived from ...

.For the correct date of his birth see Alderfer, Everett Gordon: ''The Ephrata Commune'', Pittsburgh, 1985, p. 14, 219.

Background

Beissel was born in Eberbach then part of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

, and emigrated to

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in 1720. Beissel had intended to join a commune of hermits founded there by

Johannes Kelpius Johannes Kelpius (; 1667 – 1708) was a German Pietist, mystic, musician, and writer. He was also interested in the occult, botany, and astronomy. He came to believe with his followers – called the "Society of the Woman in the Wilderness" � ...

, but Kelpius had died in 1708. Beissel met with Conrad Matthaei, an associate who became his principal spiritual confidant. The group around Kelpius had arrived in 1694. They settled on a ridge above the

Wissahickon Creek Wissahickon Creek is a tributary of the Schuylkill River in Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, Pennsylvania. Wissahickon Creek rises in Montgomery County, runs approximately passing through and dividing Northwest Philadelphia before emp ...

. There they prayed, meditated, and watched the stars looking for signs of the coming kingdom of Christ. They also taught children of the community. Some were celibate until death; others married. In 1732 Beissel established a semi-monastic Baptist community called the Camp of the Solitary, with a convent (the Sister House) and a monastery (the Brother House) at Ephrata, in what is now

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Lancaster County (; ), sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 United States ...

. Celibacy was considered a virtue, but not obligatory. Each member adopted a new name, and Beissel was called Friedsam, to which the community afterward added the title of Gottrecht. Believing families settled near the community, accepted Beissel as their spiritual leader, and worshipped with the community on the

Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, Ten Commandments, commanded by God to be kept as a Holid ...

. They were influenced by

Schwarzenau Brethren The Schwarzenau Brethren, the German Baptist Brethren, Dunkers, Dunkard Brethren, Tunkers, or sometimes simply called the German Baptists, are an Anabaptist group that dissented from Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed European state churches ...

thought.

Beissel served as the community's composer as well as its spiritual leader. He devised his own system of musical composition intended to simplify the process by relying on pre-determined sequences of "master notes" and "servant notes" to create harmony. This was mentioned in

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

's '' Doctor Faustus'' as a precursor to

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

. Beissel's colony was noted for its printing facilities. After Beissel's death and the disruption of the war years of the

American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...

, the utopian community declined in population. Failing to attract sufficient members, its people assimilated into the general Baptist community.

Veganism

Beissel was one of the first

vegetarians Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. A person who pra ...

in North America who was motivated by Christian religious belief. The entire Ephrata community reportedly abstained from meat eating, which Beissel considered spiritually undesirable.Iacobbo, Karen; Iacobbo, Michael. (2004). ''Vegetarian America: A History''. Praeger Publishing. p. 3. Beissel invented a

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a ve ...

diet for the Ephrata community that excluded all

meat Meat is animal Tissue (biology), tissue, often muscle, that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted and farmed other animals for meat since prehistory. The Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of vertebrates, including chickens, sheep, ...

dairy A dairy is a place where milk is stored and where butter, cheese, and other dairy products are made, or a place where those products are sold. It may be a room, a building, or a larger establishment. In the United States, the word may also des ...

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

s and

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...

. His diet consisted of

buckwheat Buckwheat (''Fagopyrum esculentum'') or common buckwheat is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. Buckwheat originated around the 6th millennium BCE in the region of what ...

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of '' Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.& ...

, fruit, green vegetables,

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es and

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

Works

ed. Peter C. Erb, ''Johann Conrad Beissel and the Ephrata Community. Mystical and Historical Texts'', Lewiston, NY: 1985 (contains selected works)

References

External links

"Beisel, Johann Konrad (1690–1768)"
''Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online'' * Bach, Jeff: ''Voices of the turtledoves : the sacred world of Ephrata'', Göttingen 2003

An examination of parallels between the music and worldviews of Beissel and

Sun Ra Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific ou ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beissel, Conrad 1691 births 1768 deaths People from Eberbach (Baden) 18th-century Christian mystics American members of the Church of the Brethren American veganism activists Radical Pietism Seventh Day Baptists Emigrants from the Holy Roman Empire to the Thirteen Colonies Founders of utopian communities Clergy of Brethren denominations Protestant mystics People from Ephrata, Pennsylvania Ephrata Cloister People from colonial Pennsylvania American founders

Background

Veganism

Works

References

Further reading

External links