Inside the mystery of America's first mystics

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By Mark Stavish, author of The Path of Alchemy and Kabbalah for Health & Wellness

This is the novel I wish I had written.

Starting with Lydia, a young woman who inherits a relic allegedly owned by Johannes Kelpius, The Woman in the Wilderness takes the reader on a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of the Hermits of the Wissahickon and their charismatic leader. Filled with factual accounts of magic, mystical visions, apocalyptic prophesies, and the search for the Philosopher's Stone, The Woman in the Wilderness is a must read for anyone interested in 17th and 18th Century Rosicrucianism and its impact during the early Colonial Period in Pennsylvania. While it is hard to believe that a book based on what many consider to be dry material can be exiting without taking extensive creative liberties, author Jonathan Scott managed to create what is really a page turner of a mystical novel using the real lives of historical people and their struggle to create the New Jerusalem in the New World. While some areas are clearly fictional, Scott is scrupulous in providing a brief description of where his fiction meets fact at the end of the book. As such, the reader is treated to an absorbing read without fear of wondering what is historical and what is not.

Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, across from the Schuylkill River near the site of Kelpius's tabernacle in the 'wilderness,' Scott grew up with stories of Kelpius and his mystical pursuits. Five years of research went into writing Woman, and it shows in the author's attention to detail – right down to the illustrations used at each chapter heading.

As a child I was also treated to stories of Kelpius and Conrad Beissel who later established the Ephrata Commune (now a Pennsylvania State Historic Site) and am deeply appreciative of Scott's work as a writer, a Pennsylvanian, and mystic. This is really a must read book for those who seek to understand the important role spirituality played in the early decades of the United States of America, and religious intolerance many groups were seeking to escape from. Those seeking to better understand Amish and Mennonite culture will also find Scott's book useful in that their roots are in the same often violent historical framework and mystical piety which gave rise to their dedication to Christian pacifism.